A COLUMN ON TOLERANCE AND ITS ROLE IN A FUNDAMENTAL SYSTEM OF ETHICS

A COLUMN ON TOLERANCE AND ITS ROLE IN A FUNDAMENTAL SYSTEM OF ETHICS

This is more than a casual remark on Tolerance. We ask ourselves whether there is a minimum subset of ethics which are universal in nature and which transcend the limitations of geography and ethnic identification. Suppose we found ourselves amongst a civilization about which we knew nothing. Is there a universal set of ethics that could be used to establish rapport with an otherwise alien population? And finally is Tolerance a universal ethic or virtue? I will explain why this is an important ethic in the current era.

Most values which we like to think of as universal are transmitted to us thanks to our parents at a very early age. These values originate in very familiar familial admonitions e.g., be courteous to your guests , treat people with respect and dignity, be kind and helpful to seniors, heed the admonitions from elders in the family , do not indulge in gratuitous violence, do not be derisive of those of who are less fortunate than you are, tell the truth, etc. etc.. If one follows these simple rules, the question of intolerance does not arise., because if a person follows these universal principles , there is very little incentive or opportunity for him or her to be intolerant. Generally the teachings we imbibe in the home before we get into our teenage years are universal values and the exceptions that do occur in these behaviors are not of relevance to young children. It is our contention that tolerance is not a part of the set of ethics that are taught at a very early age as a universal ethic. There is good reason for this , because immediately questions arise . Should we tolerate evil and if so what constitutes evil.

We maintain that neither an individual nor society should tolerate evil in general and intolerance in particular.

And yet in our zeal to be liberal (being liberal makes us feel good without sacrificing whole lot)) and our natural tendency to think well of people from other ethnic or religious backgrounds , we choose to overlook the blatant intolerance that sometimes pervades the world. We tend to argue that because we observe a universal set of ethics that others do so also. Herein, lays the problem. Not every individual or society will profess to have the same set of values as we may have . In particular, not every society will have the same reverence for life as we may have. It is certainly the case that when it comes to tolerance towards other faiths there are significant differences between religions and societies. Whenever the Occidental stepped out into a new world his first endeavor was to convert the people in the new world to his own faith . And once they were converted to the new faith , they could exercise considerable control over the mind and body of the newly converted person. The main reason for such conversion was that they had very little tolerance for the native faiths.

Similarly there are significant differences in the reverence for life that are observed by different societies and faiths . So the question arises , should we tolerate faiths that are inherently intolerant. I mean by inherently intolerant if the faith calls for extermination of those who do not belong to the faith. But one might argue that most members of a faith do not take such injunctions (to kill the infidel) seriously. That may very well be true but even if the percentage who believed in the injunctions of their holy book are only 1% that could still be a very large number, enough to do harm to you or your family should the occasion arise.
So what to so ? I say , that it is legitimate to ask that such injunctions (to Kill) in a holy book are not acceptable in the modern age and should not be tolerated in any civilized society .

There is one more problem with tolerance . And that is , it is not particularly proper to talk about tolerating other faiths or civilizations , because that raises the question of putting oeself on a pedestal and judging who or what we should tolerate and the question here is what right do we have to arrogate unto ourselves the right to tolerate others with all the attendant condescension . If one embraces diversity , then one should say so and act accordingly rather than grudgingly tolerate diversity.

To summarize
1 Tolerance can never be a universal ethic
2. It must always be qualified (what are we asked to tolerate)
3. Even when it is qualified , should we put ourselves on a moral pedestal and tolerate others or should we be genuinely understanding of other faiths andvalues
4. In any event, no society or individual should be placed in the position of having to tolerate evil or intolerant behavior .

Kargil day remembrance

A SALUTE TO




OF KARGIL WAR

KARGIL'S FIRST HERO

Lt. Saurabh Kalia



His UNIFORM as a MEMORY







Capt.Vikram Batra
Param Vir Chakra(Posthumous)




Grenedier. Yogendra Singh
Param Vir Chakra



RFN .Sanjay Kumar
(Param Vir Chakra)



Major Padmapani Acharya,
Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous)
Of the 2nd Battalion of The RAJPUTANA RIFLES






Lieutenant Balwan Singh,
Maha Vir Chakra
Of the 18th Battalion of GRENADIERS Regiment



Major M Saravanan,
VirChakra,
1 Bihar



Lieutenant Kanad Bhattacharya,
Sena Medal (Posthumous)(22 YEARS)


Captain Saju Cherian,
Sena Medal
307 Medium Regiment



Lieutenant Keishing Clifford Nangrum,
Maha Vir Chakra (Posthumous)
Of the 12th Battalion of JAMMU AND KASHMIR Light Infantry





Captain R Jerry Prem Raj,
Vir Chakra (Posthumous),
158 Medium Regiment



Major Sonam Wangchuk,
Maha Vir Chakra
Of the LADAKH Scouts





v

Officers & Jawans from the 2nd Rajputana Rifles pray before going into battle, to get back Tololing Top. Behind the jawan in the foreground (with a 5.56mm INSAS rifle) is Captain Vijayant Thapar . His face is partly hidden and is seen sporting a beard. Lieutenant Thapar laid down his life, in the capture of Tololing Top and was awarded the Vir Chakra posthumously for his valour.






Major Padmapani Acharya, 2nd Rajputana Rifles, leads his men into battle after the successful capture of Tololing Top. The 2 Raj. Rifles' next assignment was to capture the Knoll mountain feature in the Black Rock area, which is in the Drass sub-sector. It was here, that Major Acharya laid down his life in the highest traditions of the Indian Army on 29 June 1999. He was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, posthumously .



Making the way through narrow valley







The Leh-Batalik road is as notorious as the Srinagar-Kargil road. At its beginning lie staging areas, at its end fierce fighting and often, death. Jawans patrol the rugged slopes near Batalik.. For them, there is little time for rest and little time to think, always poised on the edge of action.


Capt.Vijayant Thapar (Robin)
He Laid down for OUR BETTER TOMORROW
At the age of only 22



His Last Letter to his parents


Moments before the final assault Capt. Vijyant Thapar (Robin) left this letter at the war front base, to be handed over to his family.









AND AFTER THAT

HE CAME BACK HOME WITH TRI COLOR DRAPED






Jawans from the 2nd Rajputana Rifles, remember their 23 comrades who fell in the decisive battle for the Tololing Top. The battalion earned four Maha Vir Chakras, one of India 's highest medals for gallantry, three of them being awarded posthumously.





Captain (Dr.) Rajshree Gupta, Army Medical Corps (AMC), salutes the tricolour-draped coffin of her husband, Major Vivek Gupta of the 2nd Rajputana Rifles, who died fighting the enemies.





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Rise of BJP fall of Hindu right

http://rhopi.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/rise-of-bjp-fall-of-hindu-right/


I have been following BJP at least since 1986 when RJB was unlocked by an court order. Those days were really hostile for
someone to advocate Hindu cause. Not only you were outnumbered by secularists but also there was no one willing to listen
to a Hindu argument. To a lot of people the decline of BJP has come as a shock and is cause of heartburn. Those who have
seen the BJP from very close knew it all along that it was bound to fail. It was predicted by scholars as early as in 1996
when the first Vajpayee govt was installed. No other party has angered its core constituents as much as BJP. Sitaram Goel is
known to have commented that one can save Hindus from secularist but how will one save hindus from BJP. I guess the voter who
are closer to action realized it and voted out BJP. GOOD RIDDANCE !!

To borrow from Joseph Schumpter, I will equate demise of BJP as creative destruction. But, this destruction is like death of
someone terminally ill. Who needs a lot of attention just to remain alive. The death finally frees both the person and people
attending from the pain of looking after someone who has been perennially sick. I feel very relieved with the results because
it was something even I have been expecting and I believe is good for Hindus. The relief is same as that you feel after a bad
news, which you have been anticipating for a long time, finally comes true. No doubt it makes you sad. But, it also relieves
you of the pain of thinking of that unknown with no end at sight. Akin to to the pain that a convict condemned to death
sentence has to go through each day waiting for that final moment. The uncertainty surrounding Hindu movement and its
relation with BJP has been cleared up. A large number of BJP supporters begin to realize as early as in mid 90's that there
is a huge gap between what BJP claims and what it can do.

It has been clearly established the BJP is not the platform of choice to further cause of Hindu interest. BJP lacked of
clarity of purpose and played by rule set by its opponent. Its duplicity on Hindu matters neither impressed its
constituents nor amused its opponent. You might recall that rules of game are as important part of strategy as the game itself.
unfortunately. BJP's half hearted attempt towards Hindu right only made the matter worse for itself.

Time and again BJP raises an issue only to dump it half way.

1. BJP NEVER CHALLENGED SECULARISM. Contrary to what many Hindus believed, BJP never challenged secularism.
BJP has always claimed to be secularist. By calming to promote Hindu interest within secularist framework of constitution of
India, BJP created a dilemma for itself. BJP was never able to overcome this dichotomy in its creed. It ended up keeping
no-one happy. The core supporters saw BJP not doing anything to promote Hindu interest. However, to non-hindus and
non-supporters, BJP looked like a communal party, and main stream media correctly projected BJP as such. BJP choose to
highlight more symbolic and visual to prove its commitment to Hindutvaa than by taking anything substantial or silent.

One good example is article 25 of Constitution of India which gives freedom to minorities to establish schools of their
choice and take admissions without having to allocate any seat for reserved categories like SC/ST/OBC etc. BJP did nothing for
it although secularists would not have objected to such amendment to extend
same benefits to Hindus. Instead BJP
remained in news for wrong reasons like 2002 riots in Gujrat, 2008 riots in Orissa, or beating of pub going women in
Mangalore by Ram Sene cadre.

If only BJP had tried to amended the constitution by extending same rights to hindus and allowing them to run educational
institutions without interference from state, it would have helped hindu cause in long run without creating any opposition.

Never in its 6 year rule at center, BJP even tried to bring up a bill in parliament to do something substantial but non-violent
in nature. Somethings BJP could have done is like bringing bills to implement UCC, scrap article 370 etc. These were quite
matters with little symbolism but more value.

The life of average Hindu did not undergo any noticeable change under BJP regime. BJP ended up being a congress without
Gandhi.

2 BJP lacked courage of conviction From the day Babri Mosque was demolished, the BJP leaders claimed demolition of mosque
was shame. If BJP leaders sincerely believed it was shame, then what was need of doing kar sewa and pulling down the disputed
structure. And if they were convinced pulling down mosque was right thing to do, they should have challenged the opponents
blaming them of crime. Instead, BJP leaders were always apologetic about it and felt feeble (as opposed to defiant) to defend
the charge of pulling down the mosque.

The problem is that BJP did everything that it criticized everyone else of doing. It criticized Mufti Mohammad Sayed of
releasing terrorist to seek release of her daughter in 1989. Then itself bowed to terrorists and released dreaded terrorists
in Kandahar. It opposed Hajj Quotas, but then when it was in power, it increased the same. Photo of BDR soldiers carrying a
dead Indian soldier was flashed to the whole world. BJP govt did nothing to restore some hurt pride and went on to protect
Shaikh Hasina, then PM of Bangladesh. The list is just too long. Convicts of Purulia arm drops were released. Indian forces
were deployed on border for months without any real action.

3. BJP's Half hearted efforts I guess what caused the credibility crises among the constituents of BJP is the half-heartedness
in BJP's action. A strong and committed action requires that once a goal is taken up, it is followed through its logical end,
come what may. However, BJP time and again gave up on slightest resistance by its opponents. Not only did it back down, but
it went so far as to be apologetic about it. This can be seen in all the targets it set for itself. RJB, UCC, 370 etc.
BJP proved it incapable of fighting for an issue. The most it did was to raise awareness. For it people rewarded handsomely
by increasing BJPs seat in parliament from just two in 1980 to 180 in 1998. After that BJP has been in downfall. Once it came
closer to power, it starting choosing path of least resistance. This caused serious division within BJP and its down fall
started.

4 BJP killed itself to show it is moderate I recall KL Sharma, a very senior BJP leader telling in 1995 that it was nice
that Shiv Sena was there because BJP appears moderate as compared to them. In order to prove its was moderate and secular
credential, it went overboard and distanced itself from the leaders who once formed backbone Hindutvaa movement.

The early BJP supporters had begin to realize the BJPs weakness by 1996/1997. But, BJP had so much momentum then that leaders
were unwilling to listen to anyone. The critics were also shouted down. How could the prove that BJP was wrong unless
something wrong does happen to BJP. Finally, the wrong did happen in 2004 followed by 2009. The critics were proven correct.
But, in the process precious decade or so has been lost in Hindu empowerment project.

Year 2000 was about time when BJP stopped growing. It is the time when the mismatch between number of new people going for BJP
and number of people leaving BJP started to grow. When 2004 elections happened, not everyone who had voted BJP earlier voted
again. By, 2009 the number further went down. After reaching its peak in 2000, BJP did not grow enough both in depth and width.

A lot of people who held leaders like Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti started deserting BJP. If BJP cannot take care of its heroes
who spend the decade of 80's building the party, how could it the constituents take care of BJP.

The irony is that BJP used identity politics to grow but it is today struggling in search of its own identity? To die hard
Hindus it is no different than a Congress but without Gandhis. For its critics, it is a communal party with divisive agenda.

After 2009 elections, there is a huge debate among hindus as to what should it do. Should it return to its Hindu root with
spirit of sacrifice? Or, should it another umbrella organization like Congress?

It is hard to answer this question. BJP has crushed the extreme Hindu right just to look nice to secularist. Today it is
paying for its sin. The BJP's biggest challenge will be to convince the die-hard Hindus that it indeed is a party that is
capable and committed to deliver on the promises it made to Hindus in 1980's. Just as difficult it will it be to convince
the secularists that it is not a communal party.
______________________________________________________

BJP’S FAILURE: An Unbiased Observation

BJP’S FAILURE: An Unbiased Observation

Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari
rbrahmachari1946@yahoo.co.in

While BJP was in Power:
Before analyzing the defeat of BJP in the present Lok Sabha election, it is necessary to have a look how the Party came to power in 1999 with 183 MPs. One may recall that in the Lok Sabha elections held in 1998 the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) obtained a simple majority. This time, the BJP had allied with the AIADMK and the Biju Janata Dal besides its existing allies, the Samata Party, the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiv Sena. Outside support was provided by the Telugu Desam Party.

The NDA had a slim majority, and Vajpayee returned as Prime Minister. But the coalition ruptured in May 1999 when the leader of AIADMK, Jayalalitha, withdrew her support, and fresh elections were again called in October, 1999. Within this brief period, BJP did two remarkable jobs that made it popular across the country. Firstly, it conducted the testing of the nuclear device at Pokhran and secondly, it fought the Kargil war with Pakistan in May-July, 1999.

These two achievements were hailed by the entire population who discovered a courageous fighter in BJP, capable of protecting the sovereignty and freedom of the nation and thrashing the rogue enemy state Pakistan . The people of this country gave BJP a hero’s welcome and, as a consequence, in the Lok Sabha election held on October 13,1999, the BJP-led NDA won 303 seats. The BJP won an all-time high of 183 seats. Vajpayee became Prime Minister for the third time in his life, and Advani became the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister.

But the said image of BJP was considerably shattered when the NDA government shamefully submitted to the unjust demands of the Pakistani terrorists after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane, Flight no. 814 on December 24, 1999, and released three dreaded terrorists, most undemocratic way, from the Kashmir jail and one cabinet minister went to Kandahar, by a special plane, with those three terrorists and rupees 900 crores and a planeload of high explosive (to be used against India),.as ransom But after the hijacking drama, it would have been proper for the NDA government to order our army to cross the border of Afghanistan and our air force to bomb Kabul and Kandahar. And thus force the terrorists to release 174 passangers and 15 crew members of the hijacked plane. In this context, one may recall how the Russian government dealt with the Chechen terrorists who seized a school in Beslan in 2004.

On December 13, 2001, five terrorists attacked the Parliament House (Sansad Bhawan) in Delhi . It was due to the prompt and brave action of our security forces, six of whom sacrificed their lives, the lives of a few hundred of our MPs were saved.

After this incident many of our commentators described it as a rape of our Parliament, or rather a rape of our democracy. Our military top brass advised the government to take immediate military action against Pakistan and hence to teach a good lesson to that rogue state. Some of our top army personnel commented that we had enough of talks, and time had arrived to act. So an army mobilization was ordered and our troops, with their modern sophisticated weapons were dispatched to the Indo-Pak border and were waiting for final signal from our leaders to cross the border.Our troops were waiting for months after months, but the NDA government failed to gather sufficient courage to give that final signal.

Ultimately troops were withdrawn wasting nearly three thousand crores of rupees, as the cost of mobilization and wear and tear of the sophisticated weapons. It is important to note that, had the NDA government conducted the military operation against Pakistan and taught that rogue state a good lesson, the people of this country would have given a hero’s welcome to BJP for the second time and they would have voted BJP to victory in the 2004 Lok Sabha election.

On April 21, 2001, Bangladesh Rifles abducted 15 Border Security Force (BSF) personnel into Bangladesh . They subsequently butchered all the 15 BSF men and carried their mutilated bodies like carcass of animals to return the dead bodies in an extremely humiliating manner. As a cover up of that criminal act by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the government of Bangladesh said that our BSF men illegally crossed the Bangladeshi border and hence BDR captured and killed them. It is to be noted here that, even if it is admitted that the BSF men had entered Bangladesh illegally, it was proper for BDR arrest them and produce them in the court of law. In any case, they could not have killed them.

The most justified reply of the NDA government to this heinous crime was to give order to our army to cross the border of Bangladesh and march towards Dhaka . But our leaders, for the lack sufficient courage or for the sake of its newly adopted policy of Muslim appeasement, failed to take military action against even a small and weak nation like Bangladesh . On the contrary, they supported the claim of the government of Bangladesh that our forces had done a wrong and by entering Bangladesh without any provocation. Our PM sent his personal secretary Brojesh Misra to Dhaka to beg pardon on behalf of the Indian Government for the so called offence committed by our BSF personnel.

It is needless to say that all the above mentioned cowardice acts have completely shattered the image BJP had built up by fighting the Kargil War and testing nuclear device at Pokhran. And there is no doubt that this loss of image had played a major role in its defeat in 2004 Lok Sabha election.


The Hindu Nationalist Party Turned Secular:

We should now have a look on the other activities of the NDA government during its tenure that lasted for 6 years. As a matter of fact, the BJP is a direct successor of The Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), founded in 1951 by Dr Syama Prasad Mookherjee and it was considered the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). After the murder of Dr Mookherjee in custody in 1953, the BJS lasted for 24 more years, but never seriously challenged the power of Indian National Congress It is well known that in 1980, a group of top leaders of BJS, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, formed the new party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS duly recognized this new party as its political organ. So, it is not difficult to understand that “Hindutva” was the fundamental basis of BJP and its ultimate goal was to make India a “Hindu Rastra”.

So, before the Lok Sabha elections in 1998 and 1999, the BJP declared the followings as its professed goals. :
1. No special treatment for any religious group or BJP would never resort to appease the Muslims for securing their votes.
2. The Repeal of Article 370 of the Constitution, which prevents non-Kashmiris, including Hindus who have fled the area due to increasing terrorism, from owning property in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
3. The Promulgation of a Uniform Common Civil Code, which create only one personal and civil law code for Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
4. A Ban on Cow Slaughter, to honor the Hindu tradition of not consuming the flesh of cow, and prohibiting the consumption of beef.
5. A Complete Ban on Religious Conversions
6. The Construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya,.
7. To achieve the full territorial and political integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India. Presently over 40% of the territory is under the control of Pakistan and China.
8. Identification of Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators and send them back to Bangladesh and at the same time taking proper steps to stop infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims to West Bengal..
9. Rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pundits, who have been evicted from their home land Kashmir and living as refugees in the refugee camps in Delhi .
But after assuming power, the NDA government did not take any initiative to implement any of the above promises. On the contrary, during his visit to Jammu and Kashmir , the Prime Minister Sri Vajpayee assured the Kashmiri Muslims that, so long he is the Prime Minister, the Article 370 would continue. During election campaign BJP promised that it would never indulge in appeasement of the Muslims. But after assuming power, NDA government increased Hajj subsidy for the Muslims and hiked the salary of the imams. Previously the Muslims pilgrims intending to go to Mecca to perform Hajj, had to travel to Mumbai and from Mumbai they used to fly to Jeddah at subsidized rate.

But the NDA government arranged flights from all the major cities of India to Mecca and built rest houses, specially for the Hajj pilgrims, in all the major cities of the country.

While it was expected that the NDA government, after assuming power, would strive hard to implement the above mentioned national agenda and hence to consolidate Hindu votes, but on the contrary, it displayed a strong inclination to acquire Muslim votes by appeasement of the Muslims. They floated the idea that all Muslims are not anti-nationals and there also exists a large group of good as well as nationalist Muslims, who are to be brought under the banner of BJP. Which was as ridiculous and bogus as saying, “All cobras are not bad and there are good cobras as well.” On the basis of this newly invented ridiculous, baseless and bogus ideology, they started to appease the Muslims in a big way, especially in 2000-2001, when Bangaru Laxman became the president of the Party. It is needless to say that from this time onwards, the Hindus started not only to reject, but to hate BJP and its leaders.

As mentioned above, prior to the 1999 election, BJP promised to identify every Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrator and send them back to Bangladesh . But after assuming power, the NDA government, according to their newly adopted policy of Muslim appeasement, took no step in this direction. On the contrary, it adopted a serious anti Hindu step in this context. Previously, the Hindus who, being persecuted by the Muslims, were coming to India from Bangladesh were treated as refugees. But NDA government deprived the Hindus from this facility (which is the standing policy of the UN) and started to treat the Hindus as infiltrators, like the Muslims. In one incident, a Hindu housewife, to save her life from the Muslim goons of Bangladesh , was crossing the border by swimming a canal and the Indian security forces gunned her down. Due to this step-motherly attitude of the NDA government towards the Bangladeshi Hindus, lakhs of Bangladeshi Hindus are still not getting refugee status and hence any assistance from either the state or the Central government.

Another important promise made by BJP was implementation of the uniform civil code for all the citizens on India , irrespective of religion or other differences. In this context, it is important to note that, a verdict of the Supreme Court in mid-2003 upheld the necessity of enforcing ‘common civil code’ in India , which could liberate India 's Muslim women from the shameful gender discrimination like polygamy and oral divorce. But the NDA government, in tune with its new policy of Muslim appeasement, did not take any initiative in this direction, because such a step would have displeased the orthodox Muslim clerics.

Most importantly, the NDA government remained not only silent regarding the construction of temple at Ayodhya, but opposed any attempt or any movement for temple construction. During its tenure Vishwa Hindu Parishad gave a call for a demonstration of the activists at Ayodhya. But to frustrate the effort, NDA government promulgated an ordinance so that police can arrest anyone found to purchase a railway ticket for Ayodhya anywhere in the country. In Kolkata, many VHP workers were arrested and put into police custody, while they were found to purchase railway ticket for Ayodhya at Howrah and Sealdah railway stations. It is really surprising that the NDA government took such step against the people who voted it to power.

When the author of this article asked a BJP leader about this affair, he said that most of the allies of the NDA are secular minded and hence if the government wanted to move forward any issue concerning the Hindus, they would withdraw their support leading to a fall of the NDA government. The question naturally arises – Did the Hindus voted BJP to rule for a full term at the sacrifice of the Hindutva issues? The leaders of BJP failed to understand that,had the government fallen due to an initiative of the BJP to fulfill its pre-election promises, the Hindus would have voted BJP again, perhaps more profusely, and help form the government. But our leaders preferred to remain in power at the sacrifice of its pre-poll promises and thus earned distrust of the Hindus. Many Hindus began to call BJP as “Biswasghatak Janata Party”.

Thus, without caring for the sentiment of the electorate, who voted it to power, BJP or the NDA government dumped all its nationalist agenda into the cold storage and at the fag end of its tenure started to build roads, as if the voters had voted it to power for making roads. Prime Minister Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee was, perhaps, confident that the said road building and the economic reforms he had undertaken, would return him to power again. But the poll results 2004 election reflected that he was wrong. He learned the bitter lesson that the Hindu voters did not make him the Prime Minister of India for making roads and bringing economic reforms.

During the 5 year period from 2004 to 2009, BJP has left no stone unturned to expose itself a truly secular party through complete renunciation of its Hindu identity. Its leaders failed to grasp that it drew strength and status from Hindu society alone and it was the Hindus who voted it to power. They failed to learn a lesson from the debacle of 2004 election. So, in stead of Hindutva agenda, they depended on good governance and development to win the 2009 election and kept silence about the most cherished Hindu issues like temple building in Ayodhya, scrapping of Article 370, enforcement of common civil code and so on.

Projecting L K Advani as the Prime Ministerial Candidate:

In this election, the leaders of BJP, without giving much thought, projected elderly Sri L K Advani as its Prime Ministerial candidate, whom a section of the Hindus have identified as a traitor quite a long ago. Sri Advani is the man who, after the demolition of the old temple at Ayodhya on 6th December, 1992, said that it was the most tragic day in his life. Not only that, “Mr. Advani took the demolition of the contentious structure as a personal slight (he had promised the Supreme Court nothing would happen), and without any discussion with senior party colleagues present there, especially then party president Murli Manohar Joshi, resigned his post as Leader of the Opposition by faxing his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and releasing the information to the press. The party was faced with an uncomfortable fait accompli”, writes Mrs Sandhya Jain in her recent article L K Advani: From History to Oblivion.

On 4th June, 2007, when Advani was visiting the mausoleum of M A Jinnah in Karachi , Pakistan , said that Jinnah was a great man and he was secular leader. When I asked a BJP leader of West Bengal , about that contentious comment of Advani, to my utmost astonishment, he supported Advani and said, “Advaniji was right. In fact, Jinnah was a staunch secular leader at the beginning of his political career. But later on Gandhi and Nehru spoiled him.” If this was the BJP-way of looking at things, who would rescue it from its imminent downfall?

Nearly 7-8 years ago, when NDA was in power, Advani said that the day of idealism is over, now the day is of new ideas. Or indirectly, he made it clear that BJP would no longer follow the Hindutva ideology as propagated by its parent organization RSS. Or the ideology which had been identified by Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurovindo, Dr Hedgewar and Guruji Gowalkar as the sole path for the revival of this Hindu nation. All such utterances of Advani makes one to convince that Sri Advani and his coterie have dragged BJP, originally a political party of distinction with the aim for achieving a noble and lofty goal, down to an ordinary political party of petty and conspiratorial politics.

As a result, Hindus lost faith in BJP and its staunch supporters, on their poll-day, remained indoor and enjoyed a holiday. Only 25 per cent of the Hindu electorates turned up at the polling booths to exercise their democratic right and BJP suffered the obvious setback. Only God knows how many years it will take to recover this setback and get back the confidence of the Hindus again.

The South Asia File

Now available in softcover edition

The South Asia File,A Colonial Paradigm of Indian History

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The South Asia File
A Colonial Paradigm of Indian History Altering the Mindset of the Indic People
Kosla Vepa
Bibliography : xiv, 210pp., 19 Col. Plates, 4 B&W Plates, Demy 8vo.
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About the Book:

It is a tribute to the persistence and tenacity of the colonial overlords, hailing from a nondescript island of the northwest coast of the vast Eurasian landmass, that the prevailing paradigm on the origins and chronology of the Indic civilization is largely constructed by them. This is all the more astonishing, when we ponder on the fact that their domination of the subcontinent, which had a tradition going back several millennia lasted less than two centuries. Such a paradigm which we shall define as the Colonial paradigm, while substantially erroneous, is posited on certain assumptions.

The key assumption is that the Indic civilization that remains extant has been brought into the area by migrating races such as the Aryans, and in fact some would argue, that such a statement holds also for the so called Dravidians of India. The second assumption implicit in all the assertions made by Occidentals about India is that no date for any significant scientific advance should be attributed to the Indics prior to the Golden age of Greece beginning in 600 BCE.


About the Author:

Kosla Vepa is a member of the Global Indic Diaspora, originally a native of Andhra Pradesh state in India and has had the good fortune to have been brought up and have had his education in various parts of India including Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka. He matriculated from Andhra University in 1955. Among the schools which he has attended are St. Xaviers College, Bombay, Karnataka University, Karnataka, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His highest degree is a PhD in the area of Engineering Mechanics. His professional and technical interests include successful research and development engineering experiences in the information technology, aero-engine and energy industries across the globe and an abiding interest in the history of the Mathematical sciences in antiquity.

Currently, Dr. Vepa has significant interests in a wide variety of subjects including ontological principles in science and philosophy, Ancient Indian history, Vedas and Vedanta, Mathematical Sciences in India during antiquity, the growth and evolution of civilizations to name a few. His major activity is to further the aims and objectives of the Indic Studies Foundation, and to further the progress towards an accurate rendering of the narrative of the Story of the Civilization of the Indic peoples.

When he finds time he pursues his hobbies of photography and astronomy, Dr. Vepa resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Max Mueller "What India can teach us" , p.63

Prof. "Max Muller" in his book "'India; what can it teach us" P. 63 writes thus:—
"During the last twenty years however, I have had some excellent opportunities of watching a number of native scholars under circumstances where it is not difficult to detect a man‘s character, I mean in literary work, and, more particularly, in literary controversy. I have watched them carrying on such controversies both among themselves and withcertain European scholars, and I feel bound to say that, with hardly one exception they have displayed a far greater respect for truth, and a far more manly and generous spirit than we are accustomed to even in Europe and America. They have shown strength, but no rudeness; nay, I know that nothing has surprised them as much as the coarse invective to which certain Sanskrit scholars have condescended, rudeness of speech being, according to their view of human nature, a safe sign not only of bad breeding but of want of knowledge. When they were wrong they have readily admitted their mistake; when they were right they have never sneered at their European adversaries. There has been, with few exceptions, no quibbling, no special pleading, no untruthfulness on their part, and certainly none of that low cunning of the scholar who writes down and publishes what he knows perfectly well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth and self respect more highly than victory or applause at any price,"
"Let me add that I have been repeatedly told by English merchants that commercial honour stands higher in India than in any other country, and that a dishonoured bill is hardly known there."

Criminals and Wealth are equally abundant in the new 2009 Lok Sabha

From the Hindu
MPs with criminal charges aplenty in new House
Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: A total of 8,070 candidates representing 369 parties contested the recent elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. Only 36 parties were successful in sending one or more members to the Lok Sabha. As many as 333 parties did not win even a single seat. Looking at the affidavits of 533 declared winners, National Election Watch (NEW) has found that there are 150 new MPs with criminal cases pending against them. Out of these, 73 MPs face serious charges.
Compared to 2004, the number of MPs with criminal records has gone up. There were 128 MPs with criminal cases in the 2004 Lok Sabha — 55 had serious criminal records. There is an increase of about 17.2 per cent in the number of MPs with criminal records and 30.9 per cent increase in the number of MPs with serious criminal records.
The maximum criminal charges are against Congress MP Vitthalbhai Hansrajbhai Radadiya from Gujarat. He has a total of 16 cases, out of which five are of a serious nature. The maximum number of serious Indian Penal Code charges are against Jagdis Sharma of the JD(U) from Jahanabad, Bihar, NEW said in its analysis.
It said the BJP had the maximum number of MPs with criminal cases — 42 MPs have criminal cases against them; 17 face serious criminal cases. The Congress closely follows with 41 MPs having criminal cases; 12 facing serious charges. The Samajwadi Party has eight MPs with criminal cases, seven of them battling serious charges.
Amongst the States, U.P. has the maximum number of MPs with criminal cases — 31, out of which 22 have serious charges against them. Maharashtra comes next with 23 MPs having criminal cases, out of which nine face serious ones, followed by Bihar (17), Andhra Pradesh (11) and Gujarat (11).
Crorepati MPs
On the financial background of candidates, NEW, which based its analysis on the affidavits of candidates and nomination papers, said there are 300 crorepati MPs — a huge increase from 154 MPs in the last Lok Sabha. The wealthiest is Namma Nageswara Rao of the TDP from Khammam, with a declared asset of Rs. 173 crore. He is followed by Navin Jindal (Congress) from Kurushetra, Haryana, with declared assets of Rs. 131 crore.
Andhra MPs richest bloc; Haryana tops on average wealth

New Delhi (PTI) Andhra Pradesh may not account for even 10 per cent of the total Lok Sabha seats, but the 42 MPs from the state have together emerged as the richest bloc in the lower house of Parliament with a wealth of over Rs 600 crore.

However, in terms of average wealth, Haryana is on the top with the 10 MPs from the state owning assets worth an average over Rs 18 crore.

Nearly 15 per cent of the people in both Andhra Pradesh and Haryana are estimated to be living in abject poverty.
In terms of combined assets of Lok Sabha representatives, AP is on the top with assets worth Rs 606 crore, followed by Maharashtra (close to Rs 500 crore), Tamil Nadu (about Rs 450 crore), Uttar Pradesh (about Rs 400 crore) and Haryana (Rs 181 crore) in the top five.

Karnataka and Punjab are the only two other states where MPs' combined assets top Rs 100 crore -- about Rs 160 crore in the southern state and Rs 150 crore in the agriculture- dominated northern state.

Besides, the total asset size of MPs exceed Rs 10 crore in 15 other states -- including Rajasthan, MP, Bihar, Orissa, Delhi, Gujarat, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, J&K and Arunachal Pradesh.

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UPA tally goes up to 261, NDA finishes with 159
NEW DELHI: The Congress has won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha elections and its allies 55 in the results for the 542 seats officially declared on Sunday.
The Trinamool Congress has emerged as the largest ally of the Congress, bagging 19 seats, followed by the DMK (18), the NCP (9), the National Conference (3), the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Muslim League (two each) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and Kerala Congress(M) (one each).
The UPA now has 261 seats and needs the support of 11 more members to get a majority of 272.
The BJP has won 116 seats and its NDA allies have notched up 43. The result for Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh is yet to be declared. The JD(U) has secured 20, followed by the Shiv Sena (11), the RLD (5), the Akali Dal (4), the TRS (2) and the AGP (1). The NDA has a total of 159.
The Third Front ended with 78 seats. The BSP has emerged as the largest party with 21 seats. The CPI(M) has bagged 16 seats, the BJD (14), the AIADMK (9), the TDP (6), the CPI (4), the JD(S) (3), the RSP (2), the Forward Bloc (2) and the MDMK (1).
The Fourth Front, comprising the SP, the RJD and the LJP, scrapped together 27 seats. The SP has got 23 seats. While the RJD has won four, the LJP has drawn a blank.
Of the remaining 18 seats, nine were won by Independents.
The All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi, the Sikkim Democratic Front, the Nagaland Peoples’ Front, the Swabhimani Paksha, the Bodoland People’s Front, the Assam United Democratic Front and the Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) bagged one each. — PTI
Andhra MPs richest bloc; Haryana tops on average wealth
New Delhi (PTI) Andhra Pradesh may not account for even 10 per cent of thebtotal Lok Sabha seats, but the 42 MPs from the state have together emerged as the richest bloc in the lower house of Parliament with a wealth of over Rs 600 crore.
However, in terms of average wealth, Haryana is on the top with the 10 MPs from the state owning assets worth an average over Rs 18 crore.
Nearly 15 per cent of the people in both Andhra Pradesh and Haryana are estimated to be living in abject poverty.
________________________________________
In terms of combined assets of Lok Sabha representatives, AP is on the top with assets worth Rs 606 crore, followed by Maharashtra (close to Rs 500 crore), Tamil Nadu (about Rs 450 crore), Uttar Pradesh (about Rs 400 crore) and Haryana (Rs 181 crore) in the top five.
Karnataka and Punjab are the only two other states where MPs' combined assets top Rs 100 crore -- about Rs 160 crore in the southern state and Rs 150 crore in the agriculture- dominated northern state.
Besides, the total asset size of MPs exceed Rs 10 crore in 15 other states -- including Rajasthan, MP, Bihar, Orissa, Delhi, Gujarat, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, J&K and Arunachal Pradesh.
UPA tally goes up to 261, NDA finishes with 159

NEW DELHI: The Congress has won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha elections and its allies 55 in the results for the 542 seats officially declared on Sunday.

The Trinamool Congress has emerged as the largest ally of the Congress, bagging 19 seats, followed by the DMK (18), the NCP (9), the National Conference (3), the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Muslim League (two each) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and Kerala Congress(M) (one each).

The UPA now has 261 seats and needs the support of 11 more members to get a majority of 272.

The BJP has won 116 seats and its NDA allies have notched up 43. The result for Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh is yet to be declared. The JD(U) has secured 20, followed by the Shiv Sena (11), the RLD (5), the Akali Dal (4), the TRS (2) and the AGP (1). The NDA has a total of 159.

The Third Front ended with 78 seats. The BSP has emerged as the largest party with 21 seats. The CPI(M) has bagged 16 seats, the BJD (14), the AIADMK (9), the TDP (6), the CPI (4), the JD(S) (3), the RSP (2), the Forward Bloc (2) and the MDMK (1).

The Fourth Front, comprising the SP, the RJD and the LJP, scrapped together 27 seats. The SP has got 23 seats. While the RJD has won four, the LJP has drawn a blank.

Of the remaining 18 seats, nine were won by Independents.

The All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi, the Sikkim Democratic Front, the Nagaland Peoples’ Front, the Swabhimani Paksha, the Bodoland People’s Front, the Assam United Democratic Front and the Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) bagged one each. — PTI

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The Power of Money in Indian Politics

Interestingly, the total asset size of the new MPs makes their congregation more valuable than a vast majority of the public companies in the country. There are close to 4,700 listed companies in India, out of which just about 150 companies have a market valuation of more than Rs 3,000 crore.

There are an estimated 300 MPs with assets worth Rs one crore or more in the new Lok Sabha, which is nearly double from the 154 in the 14th Lok Sabha. Telugu Desam Party's Namma Nageswara Rao, who has won the election from Khammam in Andhra Pradesh, leads the tally of MPs with assets worth about Rs 174 crore, followed by Congress leader and industrialist Naveen Jindal (Rs 131.07 crore). Jindal has won the election from Kurukshetra in Haryana for the second time.

A total of four MPs have assets worth more than Rs 100 crore and include Congress' L Rajagopal in Andhra Pradesh and NCP's Padamsinha Bajirao Patil from Maharashtra. These are followed by NCP's Praful Patel (Rs 89.9 crore), Congress' G Vivekanand (Rs 72.9 crore), Congress' Y S Jaganmohan Reddy (Rs 72.8 crore), Congress' Rajkumar Ratna Singh (Rs 67.8 crore), Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur (Rs 60.3 crore) and National Congress Party's Supriya Sule (Rs 50.4 crore).

Besides, there are Bahujan Samaj Party's Surendra Singh Nagar (Rs 49.2 crore), BJP's Shivakumar Udasi (Rs 48.2 crore), Congress' Preneet Kaur (Rs 42.3 crore), Congress' Annu Tandon (Rs 42.1 crore), Congress' Rajamohan Reddy (Rs 36.3 crore), Congress' Priya Dutt [Images] (Rs 34.9 crore) and Congress' Kapil Sibal (Rs 31.9 crore).

In terms of parties, Congress has as many as 138 crorepati MPs, followed by Bharatiya Janata Party's [Images] 58, Samajwadi Party's 14 and Bahujan Samaj Party's 13. Besides, there are 11 from Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, nine from Shiv Sena [Images], eight from the Janata Dal - United, seven from NCP and six each from Biju Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress [Images].
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Jeann Dreze is outraged that Indians should even mention t hat "India was shining"

There was outrage and ridicule amongst the responses of some "eminent" scholars to the view on pre-British India presented in the preamble to the BJP Manifesto, which appeared in the Times of India and The Hindu, along with our response to them. Needless to say that our response is yet to appear in the esteemed newspapers which published the views of these eminent scholars.

In certain quarters in India it remains a sacrilege to say anything good about ancient India



PREAMBLE TO BJP MANIFESTO 2009

http://www.bjp.org/images/pdf/election_manifesto_english.pdf


TO BUILD A PROSPEROUS,

POWERFUL NATION,

RECALL INDIA’S PAST



Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom. But India has also experienced continued foreign attacks and alien rule for centuries and this has resulted in a loss of pride in India and its remarkable achievements. Indians, particularly educated under the system of education imposed by the Britishers, have lost sight of not only the cultural and civilisational greatness of India, but also of its technological achievements and abounding natural resources.


History tells us that India was a land of abundance. The country has been blessed with great natural fertility, abundant water and unlimited sunshine. According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early- 19th Century speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjaur (900-1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramnathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per hectare production of paddy. Now, even after the first green revolution, according to Government statistics, Ludhiana in the late-20th Century recorded a production of 5.5 tonnes of paddy per hectare. It is, therefore, imperative that India rediscovers an agricultural technology which incorporates all the inputs from our own wisdom and agricultural skills that made us a land of abundance in food.


Indian economy was as flourishing as its agriculture. Foreigners from Magasthenes to Fa-Hian and Hiuen-Tsiang have described and praised Indian material prosperity. Indian villages around 1780 in Bihar have been cited as an example of cleanliness and hospitality. The streets were swept and watered and the people had a remarkable sense of hospitality and attention to accommodate the needs of the travellers.


Old British documents established that India was far advanced in the technical and educational fields than Britain of 18th and early-19th Century. Its agriculture technically and productively was far superior; it produced a much higher grade of iron and steel. The Iron Pillar at Mehrauli in Delhi has withstood the ravages of time for 1,500 years or more without any sign of rusting or decay. Metallurgists of the world have marvelled at this high degree of sophistication in technology. Textiles formed the great industrial enterprise of pre-British India. Up to the late-18th Century, India was the leading producer and exporter of textiles; China was then a close second.


Indian advancements in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, physics and biological sciences have been documented and recognised all over the world. Contributions in the field of medicine and surgery are also well known. Ayurveda and Yoga are the best gifts from India to the world in creating a healthy civilisation. India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basis of modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr Edward Jenner.


Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health care system existed in India. According to him, the nobles and householders of this country had founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased may repair. “They receive every kind of requisite help. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicines or decoctions, everything in fact that contributes to their ease. When cured they depart at their ease.”


It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the 18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support provided from private and public sources. Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls. Mahatma Gandhi was absolutely right in saying that India was more illiterate in 1931 compared to its state of literacy 50-60 years ago, i.e. in 1870. India had also an expertise in ship building, as also in extensive manufacturing and uses of dyes, and also in manufacturing paper.


India had a share of about 22.5 per cent of world GDP in 1600 AD which during British domination suffered a steep decline to 12.25 per cent in 1870, while the British share in the same period rose sharply from 1.8 per cent to 9.1 per cent. When Britishers left India, the economy was completely shattered and India’s share in world manufacture, trade and GDP declined further. Even after 62 years of Independence, India’s share in world market remains less than one per cent.


India’s prosperity, its talents and the state of its high moral society can be best understood by what Thomas Babington Macaulay stated in his speech of February 02, 1835, in the British Parliament. “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such high caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very back bone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” This policy was implemented very meticulously by Britishers and the education system was created to make Indian’s ignorant about themselves.


No nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strength and failings. It becomes all the more important for any nation to know its roots which sustain its people in a highly mobile and globalised world. Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and others who spearheaded the freedom movement had built the struggle around a clear vision of India’s civilisational consciousness. Indian ways of thought and action were in the centre of their political action. These leaders had a vision to reconstruct the political and economic institutions of India as a continuum of the civilisational consciousness which made India one country, one people and one nation. It is unfortunate that the leaders of independent India quickly discarded this vision and continued to work with the institutional structures created by the British which had nothing to do with India’s world view and its vitality which were responsible for its survival despite continued outside attacks and alien rule.


During the six decades of our independence, governance of our country, except for a short period, was with the Congress and its associates. It was most unfortunate that they never thought of creating a socio-economic and political paradigm of governance drawing from the civilisational consciousness of India. They, instead, tried to emulate whatever was being practised in this or that Western country. The disastrous results are before us.


What was required after independence was to reorient India’s polity to bring it in consonance with the seekings and sensibilities of the Indian people. Failure to do so has resulted in a fractured society, vast economic disparities, terrorism and communal conflict, insecurity, moral, psychological and spiritual degradation, and a state apparatus unable to handle any of these problems. Attempts are sometimes made to apply palliatives to manage the affairs but nothing succeeds. What is needed is to arrive at a consensus about the ‘Idea’ of India and also about the seekings and preferences of the people and how they find expression in various socio-economic, political organisations and cultural, aesthetic and ethical sensibilities of the people of India.


The civilisational consciousness of India has been well defined by the sages and philosophers and has its roots in Bharatiya or Hindu world view. This world view is holistic and spiritual. It accepts that diversity is inherent in the scheme of creation; it is the manifestation of the same cosmic entity in different forms. Hence it not only accepts diversity but respects it and even more celebrates it. Hindu or Bharatiya view of life seeks unity in diversity. It is an inclusive approach and one can say that Hinduism is the most ennobling experience in spiritual co-existence. The Bharatiya mind has contemplated beyond national boundaries and the Vedic Rishi declared in the hoary past ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbukam’ – that the world is a family. The horizons of India’s worldview are known to have extended from Bamiyan / Kandahar to Borobudur / Indonesia on the one hand, and Sri Lanka to Japan on the other. Imprints of Indian culture are found in some other parts of the world as well. In ancient times India was isolated in geography but not in cultural relationship, trade and commerce.


The belief in essential unity of mankind is a unique feature of Hindu thought. The Vedic Rishi had also declared that ‘Ekam Sad Viprah Bahudha Vadanti’ (truth or reality is one but wise men describe it in different ways). This is essentially a secular thought in the real sense of the term because it accepts that one can follow his own path to reach the ultimate. Hindus are well known for their belief in harmony of religions. And because of this world view almost all religions practised in different parts of the world have existed peacefully in India and will continue to do so.


But it appears that even after six decades of independence India has not been able to discover its innate vitality and its sense of time and consequently has lost its direction and will to act. The drift is acute and has encompassed all aspects of national life. The situation needs a change and a new paradigm is called for, for creating a prosperous, progressive and powerful India whose voice is heard in international fora.


India can achieve this goal provided the people seriously set to this task. We are endowed with vast human and material resources. Indian youth have demonstrated their capabilities in various walks of life and proved their competence. In science and technology, space and atomic energy, despite handicaps and lack of world class facilities, they have done remarkably well. In industry, business and management and information communication technology, they have successfully taken challenging risks. With this energetic and vibrant youth power and by prudently harnessing natural resources, Indians can perform miracles provided they work with self-confidence and pride in India. We have to assure a prominent role and full opportunities to our youth in the decision-making process. They are the future and the propellers of our prosperity.


India need not blindly copy this or that model of development; it should evolve a model suited to its genius and resources. The Integral Humanism suggested by Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay provides such a model. India should be original, India should innovate, and India should move upwards on the ladder of global leadership. The global scenario demands a solution, a radical solution to save the world from the impending disaster of the Great Economic Recession and terrorism looming large all over the world. India is destined to play its historic role at this crucial juncture and for this the BJP is committed to work for creating a modern, powerful, prosperous, progressive and secure India.


Dr Murli Manohar Joshi

Chairman

Manifesto Committee

April 3, 2009.









JEAN DREZE IN THE TIMES OF INDIA


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/TOP-ARTICLE--Interpretation-Of-Dreams/articleshow/4455896.cms
TOP ARTICLE | Interpretation Of Dreams

28 Apr 2009, 0000 hrs IST, JEAN DREZE


"No nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strengths and failings." Jawaharlal Nehru could not have put it better. The author of this noble statement, however, is none other than Murli Manohar Joshi, in his preamble to the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party, signed by him as chairman of the manifesto committee.


Ironically, this statement is at odds with the preamble itself, which peddles a series of myths (of the "India Shining" variety) about Indian history and civilisation. According to this preamble, India used to be "a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom". It was not only the most fertile land but also far ahead of other countries "in the technical and educational fields", with "a well organised health-care system" as early as 400 AD. Even "plastic surgery" has been "practised for centuries" in India according to Joshi. These achievements had their roots in the "Bharatiya or Hindu world view" of ancient sages and Vedic rishis.



Interestingly, the evidence given for these feats does not consist of Indian historical records. Instead, Joshi invokes scattered testimonies of foreign travellers

, including some rather unreliable ones such as Megasthenes, whose account of India was embellished with stories of dog-headed giants and other fantastic creatures. The testimonies are highly selective, and, in some cases, grossly distorted. A few illustrations may help.


Joshi describes pre-colonial India as a "land of abundance", with an "economy as flourishing as its agriculture". Hunger and famines, in his perception, were obviously unknown in that period. But the fact is that famines have a long history in India. They are mentioned in the Jatakas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Arthashastra and Manu's Dharmashastra, among other ancient texts. As historian Romila Thapar notes: "Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors."


In a similar vein, Joshi states that Gandhi was "absolutely right in saying that India was more illiterate in 1931 [than] in 1870". The fact, however, is that Gandhi was wrong on this. We know that from census data. Perhaps Joshi considers Gandhi as a more authoritative source than the census. But Gandhi, for all his wisdom, was not infallible, and this is not the only occasion when he was carried away. Elsewhere, he touchingly described "the Indian shepherd" as "a finely built man of Herculean constitution", at a time when the vast majority of the Indian population was wasted and stunted, with a life expectancy of less than 30 years. His hasty comment on literacy belongs to the same genre wishful thinking.


The most insidious part of the BJP manifesto's preamble is a fake quote attributed to Thomas Babington Macaulay. According to Joshi: "India's prosperity, its talents and the state of its high moral society can be best understood by what Thomas Babington Macaulay stated in his speech of February 2, 1835, in the British Parliament. 'I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such high calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage..."

This "quote" (abridged here) is a wonderful prop for Joshi's arguments. But there is a catch Macaulay never said this. The quote is a well-known fabrication, which has been the subject of many comments and articles. This does not prevent it from being publicised on numerous Hindutva websites. On a dissenting note, one of these websites advises against using this quote, as it "has a bad reputation amongst scholars of Indology who generally ridicule it". Joshi is evidently not among these "scholars of Indology", despite his emphasis on the need for the nation to "understand itself". Incidentally, Macaulay was in India on February 2, 1835, making it rather unlikely that he would have addressed the British Parliament that day.


Hopefully, these examples suffice to show that the BJP manifesto's preamble is an exercise in obfuscation. As it happens, large portions of this preamble were posted the same day on Wikipedia, in the entry on "Indian culture". Perhaps a well-wisher thought that inserting this gem in Wikipedia would add credibility to Joshi's propaganda. Be that as it may, this entire portion of the "Indian culture" entry was removed from the Wikipedia website a few days later.


Behind this fairy tale are useful insights into the psychology of Hindutva leaders and the political strategy of the BJP. The dominant theme of Joshi's preamble is the hurt pride of the higher castes (or "of India" as he calls it). Humiliated by foreign dominance in so many fields today, their coping strategy is to claim that "we were actually ahead all along". Their agenda is to restore India's lost glory as they perceive it. This lost glory is nothing but the traditional, exploitative social order dominated by them. Over the centuries, this domination has been achieved partly through force, and partly through deception. The BJP manifesto's preamble continues this tradition of "deceive and rule".


The writer is with the department of economics, Allahabad University.







RESPONSE TO JEAN DREZE


The BJP manifesto’s preamble: A new Orientation not Obfuscation


Prof. Murli Manohar Joshi in his preamble to the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party lays down a clear new perspective for a reorientation of Indian polity away from its roots in the colonial British period and towards the long civilisational heritage of India and the genius, skills and seekings of her people. The manifesto succinctly summarises the context and purpose of this new perspective: “What was required after independence was to reorient India’s polity to bring it in consonance with the seeking and sensibilities of the Indian people. Failure to do so has resulted in a fractured society, vast economic disparities, terrorism and communal conflict, insecurity, moral, psychological and spiritual degradation, and a state apparatus unable to handle any of these problems. Attempts are sometimes made to apply palliatives to manage the affairs but nothing succeeds. What is needed is to arrive at a consensus about the ‘Idea’ of India and also about the seekings and preferences of the people and how they find expression in various socio-economic, political organisations and cultural, aesthetic and ethical sensibilities of the people of India.”


Jean Dréze in his analysis of the preamble of the manifesto published in the Times of India (April 28) seems to have completely missed the point of this exercise, and has indulged in the triviality of picking holes in the evidence that Prof. Joshi has indicated to show that the Indian civilisation, and the skills, seekings and preferences of the Indian people, offer a materially, socially and morally efficient basis for ordering our polity today as these have done during the millennia prior to the coming of the British here.


Or, perhaps Jean Dréze has not really missed the point; he is simply disturbed at the idea of anyone proposing that India can today think of moving away from its dependence on the western ways and can begin looking at her own people and resources as the basis of her future polity. He is certainly seriously disturbed by the BJP-manifesto describing pre-colonial India as a “land of abundance”. Western imperial scholars and their Indian disciples, who unfortunately dominate much of the academia and articulate public space of India today, have always resisted strongly any suggestion that India before the arrival of the British imperialists had anything at all to commend itself. The imperialists created the myth that they had come to India for the entirely benevolent purpose of helping India prosper materially and advance morally, socially and politically. According to them, it was through such benevolence that India began to break out of grinding poverty and hunger that had been her fate for millennia. It was this benevolence that taught Indians how to live harmoniously amongst themselves. And, most importantly, it was this imperial benevolence of the west which helped the ordinary people of India throw off the yoke of unbearable oppression of the higher-castes and begin to breathe easy for the first time in Indian history.


This was an obviously convenient myth. It transformed the western invaders, usurpers and oppressors into benevolent guardian angels, who arrived into India, not for any selfish imperial purposes, but for the greater good of India and the mankind. It provided an easy justification for invading and colonising a far-off and ancient land. It is no wonder that the myth has been lapped up by all western thinkers and scholars concerned with India, from Marx to our own modern saving angel, Jean Dréze.


The myth has been assiduously nurtured since the colonial times; all academic research has been forced to fit into this straightjacket, and all education, from the school level onwards, has been designed to teach this motivated untruth about India and the imperial colonisers. Any historical fact that seems to contradict the nightmarish story of an eternally impoverished India whose people were always at each others throat till the west came to rescue them from this hell is systematically suppressed. Any attempt to correct the picture, even partially, invites immediate howls of protest from western and westernised scholars like Jean Dréze and Romila Thapar. Romila Thapar, the historian Jean Dréze quotes approvingly, has gone to ridiculous lengths to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of sixth standard school children about the descriptions of a prosperous and harmonious India found in the accounts of Fa Hien and Huan Tsiang. Such descriptions are simply not palatable to the western and westernised scholars.


Unfortunately, this myth-making has been so successful that not only the westerners but most of the educated Indians have come to believe in it. The brainwashing of educated Indians in this respect is so complete that the celebrated Cambridge-educated economist who happens to be our current prime minister feels no shame in telling the British people that their rule was of great beneficence to India. This is the effect of what has been called Macaulayan education, which is designed to perpetuate the myth of a decadent and poor India saved by a prosperous and progressive west. It is not surprising that scholars like Jean Dréze, Romila Thapar and their ilk get so worked up at any effort to even slightly reform the Macaulayan system and syllabi.


But myths do not become reality by repetition; not even when the persons repeating happen to be a series of highly privileged and cartelised academics. Thus, notwithstanding Dréze’s, and Romila Thapar’s, assertions that “famines have a long history in India”, “famine was common”, and so on, the fact remains that India was an agriculturally, and otherwise, prosperous land before the British arrived here. There is vast epigraphic evidence of the extra-ordinary productivity of Indian lands. There is also much evidence provided by the western and other observers who travelled to different parts of India in different epochs. And, there are systematic late eighteenth century archival records from thousands of localities showing an abundance of production even in relatively less well-endowed lands of coastal Tamilnadu. This is the evidence that Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi relies upon in his brilliant preamble to the BJP manifesto.


Jean Dréze and Romila Thapar, claim to rely on ancient Indian texts for proving the persistence of famines in Indian history. How one wishes that they also showed similar faith in what these texts say about other aspects of Indian history and civilisation? The texts like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are epic texts. They describe all aspects of human experience; it is natural that there would be some references in these texts about conditions of famines in some specific places and eras. But, anyone who has read the Ramayana or the Mahabharata would know that the condition of India that these texts describe is certainly not that of a land ravaged with famines and epidemics. The images that recur repeatedly in these texts are those of plenty and abundance, not of scarcity and deprivation. The texts speak of healthy and happy people, of healthy and well-nourished animals, of lands irrigated by tanks, wells and other water-bodies that are diligently taken care of and are always full, of cultivators who are celebrated as the backbone of the nation, and of a country that is laden with grain and all kinds of wealth. The texts also lay down the duty of ensuring that no being, human or non-human, ever goes hungry, that no one ever suffers from hunger or disease, or lacks protection from sun, snow and winds. A Jean Dréze or a Romila Thapar can indeed find references to famine in these texts, but these texts are not about famines.


Someone looking for descriptions of famines and epidemics in the Indian texts has to diligently search for these; but one has to make no effort at all to see famines in the history of British-controlled India. John Dréze’s mentor, Amartya Sen, has in fact made his career in economics by analysing the abundant data that is available on the pervasive famines of the British period. And the effects of these famines and epidemics can be easily seen in the census data of the British period with which Jean Dréze seems very familiar. The series of famines and epidemics began immediately after the British got a foothold in India with the Bengal famine of 1770; the famine is known to have killed one-third the population of the effected area which included the territories of today’s Bangladesh and West Bengal, and parts of Assam, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand. And the long series of British-induced famines ended with the Great Bengal Famine of 1943. Both these famines are known to have been caused by the predatory British policies rather than any natural scarcity. Between these two great famines, there were several others that covered vast areas of India and destroyed large populations. Jean Dréze could not be unaware of these and of their cause in British malfeasance.


Jean Dréze also takes issue with Mahatma Gandhi’s assertion about the decline of education in India during the British period. In a speech at Chatham House, London in 1931, that Prof. Joshi quotes, Mahatma Gandhi said: “I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a 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.”


The issue has been studied by competent scholars right from the time Mahatma Gandhi made his assertion. Nobody has been able to disprove Mahatma Gandhi on the basis of census records. If Jean Dréze has come across such records, he should publish his findings in a scholarly forum rather than using a newspaper column for making his exaggerated claims. Mahatma Gandhi’s observation has been conclusively proved by the Gandhian historian, Dharampal, through a meticulous analysis of the various surveys of indigenous education system carried out by the British during the nineteenth century including the Survey of Indigenous Education in the Madras Presidency of 1822-26, W. Adam’s Survey of the State of Education in Bengal of 1835-38, and G. W. Leitener’s study of the History of Education in Punjab since Annexation and in 1882.

But Mr. Dréze seems to be disturbed by Mahatma Gandhi and his observations almost as much as he is by Prof. Joshi’s preamble to the BJP manifesto; perhaps for the same reason. Mahatma Gandhi simply refused to believe in the myth of an impoverished and degenerate pre-British India, and he insisted that Indian civilisation was much higher than the western civilisation; in fact, he wondered whether the western way could be termed a “civilisation” at all. Mr. Dréze in his article shows unnecessary contempt for the Mahatma. While dismissing Gandhiji’s assertions on the state of education in India, Mr. Dréze says, “Elsewhere, he touchingly described ‘the Indian shepherd’ as ‘a finely built man of Herculean constitution’, at a time when the vast majority of the Indian population was wasted and stunted, with a life expectancy of less than 30 years. His hasty comment on literacy belongs to the same genre ̶ wishful thinking.”


Mr. Dréze should know that while describing the ‘Indian shepherd’, Mahatma Gandhi had in mind the shepherds he had actually seen in his native Saurashtra, who do have a ‘Herculean constitution’. And, the reality of a wasted and stunted people with a life-expectancy of less than 30 years that Mr. Dréze puts forth as a counterpoint to the Mahatma’s description was the reality that the British created in India, not only through famines but also through devastating epidemics. Even Mr. Dréze must have read through some of the chilling descriptions of the devastation and destitution caused by the plague that ravaged India during the last four years of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth. He would also not be unaware of the great influenza epidemic that decimated Indian population during the second decade of the twentieth century. It was the scarcity and disease let loose by the British administration that led to the stunting of large parts of Indian population and reducing life-expectancy to tragically low levels. The people of India are still struggling to get over the impact of those years of devastation, even when our prime-ministers and sundry scholars go about praising the benevolence of British rule.


But Mr. Dréze is probably not concerned with academic rigour and truth. Like several of his western predecessors, he uses his academic credentials for political purposes. Mr. Dréze is no mere academician; he has been constantly dabbling in politics, including in Kashmir, even during the twenty odd years that he stayed in India before condescending to become an Indian citizen. He has been part of the extra-constitutional team that the UPA Chairman constituted to guide and oversee the functioning of the present government. It is no wonder that he has chosen to pick holes in the manifesto of a political party at the height of an election campaign. As a naturalised Indian citizen, he has the right to participate in the Indian electoral process. But, even the status of a naturalised citizen gives him no right to malign the Indian nation, and Indian civilisation.



Dr. J. K. Bajaj

Centre for Policy Studies

83 DDA Site 1, New Rajinder Nagar

New Delhi – 110 060


policy@vsnl.com, www.cpsindia.org

EMINENT HISTORIANS IN HINDU


http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/05/03/stories/2009050350100400.htm

Sunday, May 03, 2009

From ‘India Shining’ to ‘India was Shining’

Murli Manohar Joshi is the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee for the BJP Manifesto, released on April 3, 2009. As Chairperson, he has written the preamble of the Manifesto, supposedly based on historical “facts” about Indian civilisation and culture. Below are excerpts from the preamble (in bold) along with brief comments given to The Hindu by eminent historians.

Photo: V. Sudershan

Iron Pillar at Qutab: Has it withstood the ravages of time?

Indian civilisation is perhaps the most ancient and continuing civilisation of the world. India has a long history and has been recognised by others as a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom. But India has also experienced continued foreign attacks and alien rule for centuries and this has resulted in a loss of pride in India and its remarkable achievements. Indians, particularly educated under the system of education imposed by the Britishers, have lost sight of not only the cultural and civilisational greatness of India, but also of its technological achievements and abounding natural resources.

India is not the most ancient civilisation. Civilisation is generally defined as having city cultures and that would make Egypt, Mesopotamia and China older. Nor is it the only continuous culture since China has a continuous culture that is older.

Every part of the world has been subjected to attacks by aliens and alien rule. In India the aliens were frequently assimilated and incorporated into Indian culture and ceased to be alien.

India lost its pride when it became a British colony and not before that. Colonial domination was more deeply destructive than any other had been before it.

The technological achievements of India had been known to those Indians who were part of these professions. Such achievements never became public knowledge. They were not applied to changing the technologies of Indian society in a major way. This is something Indians learnt through colonial rule.

According to foreigners visiting this country, Indians were regarded as the best agriculturists in the world. Records of these travels from the 4th Century BC till early-19th Century speak volumes about our agricultural abundance which dazzled the world. The Thanjavur (900-1200 AD) inscriptions and Ramnathapuram (1325 AD) inscriptions record 15 to 20 tonnes per hectare production of paddy.

Agricultural abundance varied over time and space. There was no uniform abundance at all times. Joshi quotes inscriptions from Thanjavur but does not say which one. In AD 1054 (the period he speaks of as producing 20 tons per hectare of paddy) there is also a record that the area of Alangudi in Thanjavur Dt. suffered severe famine, so severe that even the state could not help the people and they finally went to the temple and sold their land to the temple treasury to get money to buy food from elsewhere. [M.E.A.R. 1899-1900, 20]

Famine was common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors. References are made to anavrishti and ativrishti and locusts as the cause. Famine is referred to in the Ramayana [1.8.12 ff] and the Mahabharata [12.139] and in the latter it led to people eating all kinds of unsavoury things. The frequency of references to the 12-year famine is found in many texts. Manu in his Dharma-shastra states that in times of famine social codes can be dispensed with. [102 ff] The Jatakas refer to famines. [1.75, etc;]

It has been established beyond doubt by the several reports on education at the end of the 18th Century and the writings of Indian scholars that not only did India have a functioning indigenous educational system but that it actually compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at the time in respect of the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population, the number of students in schools and colleges, the diligence as well as the intelligence of the students, the quality of the teachers and the financial support provided from private and public sources.

Contrary to the then prevailing opinion, those attending school and college included an impressive percentage of lower caste students, Muslims and girls.

Photo: K. Pichumani

In search of a glorious past: Murli Manohar Joshi.

There were no schools or colleges as we know them today in ancient India. Upper caste children were educated in mathas, agraharas and sometimes monasteries. Children following a profession were apprentices in that profession. Lower castes and women were not educated generally. In Sanskrit plays they are the ones who speak the vernacular language Prakrit whilst the upper caste, educated persons speak Sanskrit.

Old British documents established that India was far advanced in the technical and educational fields than Britain of 18th and early-19th Century. Its agriculture technically and productively was far superior; it produced a much higher grade of iron and steel. The Iron Pillar at Mehrauli in Delhi has withstood the ravages of time for 1,500 years or more without any sign of rusting or decay.

The iron-pillar at the Qutab has rusted but the rust cannot be seen as it is in the socket at the top.

Astronomy, mathematics and medicine were at a premium from the Seventh century onwards when there was close interaction between scholars from Alexandria, Baghdad, India and China.

India knew plastic surgery, practised it for centuries and, in fact, it has become the basis of modern plastic surgery. India also practised the system of inoculation against small pox centuries before the vaccination was discovered by Dr. Edward Jenner.

India had no practice of plastic surgery until modern times. Nor did India know about vaccines.

Fa-Hian, writing about Magadha in 400 AD, has mentioned that a well organised health care system existed in India. According to him, the nobles and householders of this country had founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased may repair.

“They receive every kind of requisite help. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicines or decoctions, everything in fact that contributes to their ease. When cured they depart at their ease.”

The Chinese pilgrims visiting India — Fa Hien and Hsuan Tsang — make a brief mention of sick persons being treated by having to fast for seven days and being given some medicine. This was probably the treatment given to sick monks in monasteries. There were no hospitals.

India’s worldview is known to have extended from Bamiyan/ Kandahar to Borobudur/ Indonesia on the one hand, and Sri Lanka to Japan on the other. Imprints of Indian culture are found in some other parts of the world as well.

India’s world view did not extend from Afganistan to Indonesia. Hindus in south India knew nothing about Bamiyan and those in north-western India knew nothing about Borobudur. Nor was there any knowledge of Japan. There was some knowledge of central Asia in the north-west of India, some knowledge of south-east Asia in eastern and southern India and the Cholas had contacts with Canton.

The belief in essential unity of mankind is a unique feature of Hindu thought. The Vedic Rishi had also declared that Ekam Sad Viprah Bahudha Vadanti (truth or reality is one but wise men describe it in different ways). This is essentially a secular thought in the real sense of the term because it accepts that one can follow his own path to reach the ultimate. Hindus are well known for their belief in harmony of religions.

The notion of the secular was not known to the Hindus, as the secular requires giving priority to the human being irrespective of his/her beliefs. Hindus were concerned with establishing caste and sect. Only the Buddhists expounded a view that might be called secular since they emphasised social ethics irrespective of other links. And Buddhists were ousted by Hindus.

A new paradigm is called for, but one that endorses the primacy of the human being, the citizen of India, rather than the Hindu.











RESPONSE TO EMINENT HISTORIANS



India was Shining notwithstanding the Eminent Historians





In the Sunday Supplement of the Hindu of May 3, some unnamed ‘eminent historians’ have joined issue with the descriptions of the relative affluence and functionality of Indian society in pre-British India given in the preamble to the BJP manifesto. The historians seem to claim that all that is suggested in the preamble about the agricultural abundance, technological sophistication and efficient schooling arrangements of the pre-British India is merely a figment of someone’s imagination and has no basis in historical evidence.


However, almost every sentence in the preamble is backed by impeccable evidence. The so-called eminent historians of India – who seem to get greatly agitated whenever they find any mention of a functioning pre-British India – may want to wish away all this evidence, but that cannot make the evidence disappear. Below, we give some of the easily accessible sources on some aspects of pre-British Indian society mentioned in the preamble. The evidence is of course much more extensive that what can be given within the space of a newspaper article. We are mentioning only those sources that an interested reader of your paper can access to make up his or her mind on whether the preamble to the manifesto has some truth.



Agricultural Productivity of India


An easily available source on the productivity of Indian agriculture in pre-British south India is the article by L. B. Alaev, The System of Agricultural Production: South India, in the widely available The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I, c.1200-c.1750, Cambridge 1982.


On the basis of epigraphic records, Alaev estimates productivity of 6.6 tons per hectare of paddy in the not so fertile region of Ramanad. This is almost certainly an underestimate, because Alaev assumes a much higher rate of taxation than what was considered the norm in India and assigns a much lower value for the volume measures of the period than what seems reasonable. For the later period of 1807, Alaev gives an estimate of 13 tons of paddy per hectare from two crops per year in Coimbatore.


Another fairly well-known source is Dr. Tennant’s, Indian Recreations, which mentions productivity of 7.5 tons of wheat per hectare in the region around Allahabad in 1803; the estimate was cited in the Edinburgh Review of July 1804. Similarly high productivity in several places in north India was repeatedly mentioned by several British administrators up to the middle of the nineteenth century.


The estimate of Dr. Tennant was quoted by Henry Elliot, the governor of NWP, in his memoirs of 1869. The detailed references are available in Tapan Raychaudhuri’s, “The mid-Eighteenth century Background”, in The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. II, c.1757-c.1970, Cambridge 1982. While analysing the information, Tapan Raychaudhuri observes “One striking fact about Indian agriculture in pre-colonial and early colonial days is the very high yield per acre – which cannot be explained away simply as errors of observation…” before he begins to caste doubts on the data in the manner of all ‘eminent historians’ of India, who seem determined to suppress and disparage all evidence that puts a positive light on the pre-British India.


We have ourselves estimated agricultural production of some 2,000 localities in the Chengalpattu region based on the records of an extensive survey undertaken by the British in 1764-68. Preliminary estimates are available in J. K. Bajaj and M. D. Srinivas, Restoring Abundance, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla, 2001 and in the various books published by the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai.





Public Health Care


The ‘eminent historians’ dismiss the observations of Fa-Hien and Huan Tsang as brief references to the treatment of monks. However, the statements of both observers are far from brief or ambiguous; these are very explicit and detailed. What Fa Hien actually says in this context is:


“The nobles and householders of this country have founded hospitals within the city, to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, cripples and the diseased may repair. They receive every kind of requisite help gratuitously. Physicians inspect their diseases, and according to their cases, order them food and drink, medicine or decoctions, everything in fact that may contribute to their ease. When cured they depart at ease.”


The quote is from Fa Hien: A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, English Translation by J. Legge, Oxford 1886, Delhi Reprint 1971, p.79. Your readers should be able to easily get this book in any good public library.


Eminent Indian historians, including Romila Thapar, seem to be very disturbed by the observations of the two Chinese travellers about the India of their times, and keep on finding convoluted ways of dismissing them. However, an even more eminent foreign scholar, Dominik Wujastyk, in his The Roots of Ayurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings (Penguin Classics, London 2003), concludes the following on the basis of Fa-Hien’s observations:


“This description by Fa Hsien is one of the earliest accounts of a civic hospital system anywhere in the world and, coupled with Caraka’s description of how a clinic should be equipped… suggests that India may have been the first part of the world to have evolved an organized metropolitan system of institutionally-based medical provision.”


Incidentally, there is a much later mention of an almost similar medical care system prevailing in the Chhatrams of Thanjavur. Following the annexation of Thanjavur by the British in 1799, the then Raja of Thanjavur, Sarfojee Mahraja, wrote to the British describing the services available in the Chhatrams and requested them to continue the services uninterrupted. Among the services available at the Chhatrams he mentions:


“In each Chetrum a teacher to each of the four vedums is appointed, and a Schoolmaster, and Doctors, skilful in the cure of diseases, swellings and the poison of reptiles; all the orphans of strangers, who may come to the Chetrum are placed under the care of the Schoolmaster – they are also fed three times a day, and once in four days, they are anointed with oil – they receive medicine when they require it. Clothes also are given to them and the utmost attention paid to them. They are instructed in the science to which they may express a preference, and after having obtained a competent knowledge of them the expenses of their marriage are defrayed.


“Travellers who fall sick at the Chetrum or before their arrival, receive medicines, and the diet proper for them, and are attended with respect and kindliness until their recovery. …


This letter of Sarfojee Maharaj is reproduced in full in Annam Bahu Kurvita: Recollecting the Indeian Discipline of Growing and Sharing Food in Plenty, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai 1996.




Plastic Surgery and Inoculation


The eminent historians dismiss the possibility of plastic surgery being practiced in pre-British India. But the operation is mentioned in great detail in the Susruta Samhita and the reference is well-known to those interested in the history of plastic surgery.


Such operations were being performed in India even in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century is widely reported. Below is an account of the operation from

J. C. Carpue, An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the forehead …to which are prefixed Historical and Physiological Remarks on the Nasal Operation including Descriptions of the Indian and Italian Methods (London, 1816):

“It was in this manner that the nasal operation had become forgotten or despised, in at least the west of Europe; when, at the close of the last century, it was once more heard of in England, from a quarter whence mankind will yet, perhaps, derive many lights, as well in science, as in learning and in arts. A periodical publication, for the year 1794, contains the following communication from a correspondent in India, which is accompanied by a portrait of the person mentioned, explanatory of the operation. ‘Cowasjee, a Mahratta, of the caste of husbandman, was a bullock-driver with the English army, in the war of 1792, and was made a prisoner by Tippoo, who cut off his nose, and one of his hands. In this state, he joined the Bombay army near Seringapatam, and is now a pensioner of the Honourable East India Company. For above twelve months, he was wholly without a nose; when he had a new one put on, by a Mahratta surgeon, a Kumar, near Pune. This operation is not uncommon in India, and has been practised from time immemorial. Two of the medical gentlemen, Mr. Thomas Cruse and Mr. James Findlay, of Bombay, have seen it performed as follows…


The above article has been reprinted in Classics of Medicine Library, Bethesda 1981.


Inoculation against small-pox through injection of material derived from the cow – the so-called ‘vaccination’ – was indeed not practised in India; but inoculation with attenuated human small-pox material obtained from previous outbreaks was widespread and is well-documented. One fairly easily available account is that of J. Z. Holwell, FRS, published in 1767.



Metallurgy


The eminent historians dismiss the sophistication of pre-British Indian metallurgy with the ridiculous comment that “the iron-pillar at the Qutab has rusted but the rust cannot be seen as it is in the socket at the top”. If after more than a millennia the pillar has rusted only in some invisible corner, than there must be something interesting about Indian metallurgy! In any case, pre-British Indian metallurgy, and especially the Iron Pillar at Delhi, has been studied by knowledgeable and perhaps equally eminent metallurgists, who are fascinated with its early technological sophistication. An easily available reference is the book by Prof. R. Balasubramaniam of IIT Kanpur, Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights, Delhi 2001.




Public Education


The eminent historians are most dismissive of the suggestion that there were public arrangements for school education in India. Instead of giving any data, they merely assert, on the authority of their imputed ‘eminence’, that there were no schools or colleges in India and that education was limited to upper castes. However, there is just too much of evidence available about a widespread system of education in India in the various surveys that the British undertook during the eighteenth century. The evidence of these surveys cannot be dismissed by merely the shake of an eminent head. The details of the surveys have been painstakingly compiled and analysed in Dharampal: The Beautiful Tree, Biblia Impex, Delhi 1983.


Those who are convinced that India could not have been a functioning society before the arrival of the British in India cannot be easily disabused of their prejudice. But, the readers of the Hindu deserve to know the evidence on the other side also. It is with this intent that we have collated the above brief summary of evidence.




Dr. J. K. Bajaj and Dr. M. D. Srinivas

Centre for Policy Studies

6 Balaiah Avenue, Chennai – 600 004


policy@vsnl.com, www.cpsindia.org

The Mythic society A century of culture calling

CONGRATULATIONS Kalyanaraman Garu . Truly a well deserved and signal honor
3 May 2009, 2349 hrs IST, TNN



Bangalore: The beautiful colonial piece of architecture on Nrupatunga Road has donned a new look. The Mythic Society, the premier institute of Indology and path-breaking studies, has just completed 100 years. The three-day valedictory celebrations were inaugurated on Sunday.

Formed in 1909 to study the culture of Mysore state, it has now evolved into a national organization that nurtures anthropology, epigraphy, numismatics, folklore, linguistics, south Indian history, archaeology, ethnology, mythology and religion.

It's birth

The Mythic Society was founded by the then collector of Bangalore F J Richards, chief architect of Mysore government G H Krumbriel, professor at Central College S Krishnaswamy Iyengar and many others.

"British officers wanted to know more about Mysore state, our culture, language and architecture. Seventeen members of the founding group were Britishers while only two were Indians. Later their interest encompassed whole of India and its culture," explains managing committee member and centenary celebrations convener V Nagaraj, who has been with the society for over 30 years now.

Rare library

Mythic Society has one of the best libraries in the world with over 40,000 books. These include some of the rarest books on Indology that are over 100 years old. The library also has reports on Indian life and culture, written by eminent British officers and scholars.

Distinguished speakers

Many renowned personalities have been associated with the society. Scientist C V Raman used to be the president of the society; in 1919, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore delivered lectures on the influence of art on the Indian mind. In 1927 Mahatma Gandhi delivered a talk on `Harijan uddhara' or liberating lower castes.

Seminars a treat

The society is also known for its seminars and sessions, like the one in 1983 on the scientific heritage of India. Many international speakers from all over the world attended and debated the contribution of ancient India to modern science. Sessions on the Aryan problem, whether it is a myth or a reality, also opened up new areas of study.

A few years back, a seminar on the date of the Mahabharata war based on astronomical calculations generated a lot of interest. "The Mahabharata has more than 600 astronomical details. Scholar Dr Narahari Acharya brought a planetarium software developed by Nasa, using which sky configurations of 5000 years ago from Kurukshetra can be seen. All the configurations tallied. "It was one of the most interesting seminars that saw a response from all over the world," adds Nagaraj. Seminars on Indian heritage, right from the Harappa Mohenjodaro period, Indian culture and women and Indian culture and agriculture were held recently as part of the centenary celebrations. Currently a seminar on the socio-religious movements in India is being held.

The celebrations

On Sunday, the centenary honour was awarded to scholar Kalyanaraman, who is known for his work on tracing the mythical river Saraswati and the science behind Rama Setu. CM B S Yeddyurappa inaugurated the ceremony and honoured Kalyanaraman who narrated his journey as an officer for the Asian Development Bank to finding the reality of river Saraswati, that has been referred in the Vedas innumerable times. He also spoke about how he managed to get the right judgment on the Rama Setu issue after it was under the threat of being demolished.

The chief minister said, "Indian culture and religion have international interest and appeal. Scholars like Arya Bhatta have been born on this soil. The Mythic Society over the years has played a very important role in upholding our culture and preserving it for future generations." He announced a fund of Rs 1 crore for the maintenance of the building and the ongoing celebrations.

Chancellor of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana H R Nagendra; president of Mythic Society M K L N Sastry and home minister V S Acharya were also present.



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Bangalore/A-century-of-cultural-calling-/articleshow/4479874.cms


Mythic Society celebrates centenary

By Team Mangalorean Bangalore

Bangalore, May 3: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today sanctioned Rs One crore to Mythic Society for conducting centenary celebrations and repairs of the heritage structure devoted to study of Indology in the city.

He said the State Government would preserve cultural and traditional heritage of India by giving impetus to ancient Indian sciences like ayurveda, yoga and study of Indology. The Chief Minister was speaking after unveiling a three-day centenary celebrations of the Society.

Mr Yeddyurappa recalled the yeoman contribution made by the Society, started by Britishers ten decades ago and carried on by Indian researchers in Indology "by making the whole of western world knew about the rich Indian heritage''.

Founded in 1909, the Society has a pride of place among the classical institutions of India. Though at its inception, the Society was limited to Indian and Western classical studies, but later the interest veered around Indological studies, he added.

The Chief Minister bestowed the centenary honour to Dr Kalyanaraman for his research on Saraswati river.

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The Indus `non-script' is a non-issue

In what passes for scholarship in the hallowed halls of the Divinity school at Harvard University, authors such as Michael Witzel , views that are incompatible with their half baked ideas are automatically consigned to the nether world of Hades to burn in eternity. But wait a minute , Iravathan Mahadevan cannot be regarded by any stretch of the imagination as being evenly remotely in that category. Rest assured they will come up with another epithet

The Indus `non-script' is a non-issue

IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN

There is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian). To deny the very existence of the script is not the way towards further progress.

The Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than a syllabic script.


Photo Courtesy: ASI

A Riddle still: Indus seals with long inscriptions.

Is the Indus Script `writing'?

"There is zero chance that the Indus valley is literate. Zero," says Steve Farmer, an independent scholar in Palo Alto, California. "As they say, garbage in, garbage out," says Michael Witzel of the Harvard University. These quotations from an online news item (New Scientist, April 23, 2009) are representative of what passes for academic debate in sections of the Western media over a serious research paper by Indian scientists published recently in the USA (Science, April 24, 2009).

The Indian teams are from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library (both at Chennai), and backed by a team from the University of Washington at Seattle. They have proposed in their paper, resulting from more than two years of sustained research, that there is credible scientific evidence to show that the Indus script is a system of writing which encodes a language (as briefly reported in The Hindu, April 27, 2009).

This is a sober and understated conclusion presented in a refereed article published by an important scientific journal. The provocative comments by Farmer and Witzel will surprise only those not familiar with the consistently aggressive style adopted by them on this question, especially by Farmer. Their first paper, written jointly with Richard Sproat of Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, has the sensational title, "The collapse of the Indus script thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization" (Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 11: 2, 2004).

The "collapse of the Indus script thesis" has already drawn many responses, including the well-argued and measured rebuttal by the eminent Indus script expert, Asko Parpola, "Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system?" (Airavati 2008), and a hilarious and intentionally sarcastic rejoinder (mimicking the style of the "collapse" paper) by Massimo Vidale ("The collapse melts down", East and West 2007). Here is a sampling from the latter: "Should we be surprised by this announced `collapse'? From the first noun in the title of their paper, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel are eager to communicate to us that previous and current views on the Indus script are naïve and completely wrong, and that after 130 years of illusion, through their paper, we may finally see the truth behind the dark curtains of a dangerous scientific myth."

I am one of the co-authors of the Science paper. But my contribution is limited to making available to my colleagues the electronic database file compiled by me in collaboration with the computer scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and partly published in my book The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977). I have no background in computational linguistics. However, I have closely studied the Indus script for over four decades and I am quite familiar with its structure. The following comments are based on my personal research and may not necessarily reflect the views of the other co-authors of the Science paper.

In a nutshell, my view is that there is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian).
Archaeological evidence



Path-breaking work: Iravatham Mahadevan.

The strongest argument against the new-fangled theory that the Indus script is not writing is provided by the sheer size and sophistication of the Indus civilisation. Consider these facts:

• The Indus was by far the largest civilisation of the ancient world during the Bronze Age (roughly 3000 – 1500 BCE). It extended all the way from Shortugai in North Afghanistan to Daimabad in South India, and from Sutkagen Dor on the Pak-Iran border to Hulas in Uttar Pradesh — altogether more than a million sq km in area, very much larger than the contemporary West Asian and Egyptian civilisations put together.

• The Indus civilisation was mainly urban, with many large and well-built cities sustained by the surplus agricultural production of the surrounding countryside. The Indus cities were not only well-built but also very well administered with enviable arrangements for water supply and sanitation (lacking even now in many Indian towns).

• There was extensive and well-regulated trade employing precisely shaped and remarkably accurate weights. The beautifully carved seals were in use (as in all other literate societies) for personal identification, administrative purposes, and trading. Scores of burnt clay sealings with seal-impressions were found in the port city of Lothal in Gujarat attesting to the use of seals to mark the goods exported from there. Indus seals and clay-tag sealings have been found in North and West Asian sites, where they must have reached in the course of trading.

This archaeological evidence makes it inconceivable that such a large, well-administered, and sophisticated trading society could have functioned without effective long-distance communication, which could have been provided only by writing. And there is absolutely no reason to presume otherwise, considering that thousands of objects, including seals, sealings, copper tablets, and pottery bear inscriptions in the same script throughout the Indus region. The script may not have been deciphered; but that is no valid reason to deny its very existence, ignoring the archaeological evidence.

Another important pointer to the literacy of the Indus civilisation is that it was in close trading and cultural contacts with other contemporary literate societies like the Proto-Elamite to the North and the Sumerian-Akkadian city states (and probably the Egyptian kingdom) to the West. It is again inconceivable that a civilisation as urban and well-organised as the Indus could not have been alive to the importance of writing practised in the neighbouring literate cultures and was content with "non-linguistic" symbols of very limited utility like those employed by pre-historic hunter-gathering or tribal societies.
Linguistic evidence

While denying the status of a writing system to the Indus script, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel point to the extreme brevity of the texts (averaging less than five signs) and the presence of numerous "singletons" (signs with only one occurrence). Seal-texts tend to be short universally. Further, the Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than a syllabic script. Thus the proper comparison should be with the number of words in later Indian seals or cave inscriptions. The average number of words in these cases matches the average number of signs in an Indus text. There are, however, many seal-texts that are much longer than the average. (See illustrations of longer Indus texts). As for singletons, they appear to be mostly composite or modified signs derived from basic signs, apparently meant only for restricted or special usage. An apt parallel would be the difference in frequencies between basic and conjunct consonants in the Brahmi script.
The concordances

Photo Courtesy: UNESCO

A file photo of The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro.

Three major concordances of the Indus texts have been published: a manually compiled edition by Hunter (1934), and two computer-made editions, one by the Finnish team led by Asko Parpola (1973, 1982) and the other by the Indian scholar, Iravatham Mahadevan (1977). All the three concordances provide definitive editions of the texts, sign lists, and lists of sign variants. The Mahadevan Concordance also provides in addition various statistical tabulations for textual analysis as well as for relating the texts to their archaeological context (sites, types of inscribed objects, and pictorial motifs accompanying the inscriptions).

The concordance is a basic and indispensable tool for research in the Indus script. It is a complete index of sign occurrences in the texts. It also sets out the full textual context of each sign occurrence. The frequency and positional distribution of each sign and sign combination can be readily ascertained from the concordance. A study of near-identical sequences leads to segmentation of texts into words and phrases. Doubtful signs can be read with a fair amount of confidence by a comparative study of identical sequences. Sign variants can be recognised to a large extent by studying the textual environment.

It is the concordance which conclusively established the direction of the Indus script to be from right to left on seal-impressions and direct writing (naturally reversed on the seals). The concordance also reveals the broad syntactical features of the texts, like the most frequent opening and terminal signs, as well as pairs and triplets of signs in the middle representing important names, titles etc. Numerals have been identified. As they precede the enumerated objects, we know that adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. This is an important result ruling out, for example, Sumerian or Akkadian as candidate languages. According to competent and objective scholars like Kamil Zvelebil and Gregory Possehl, the concordances are the most tangible outcome of the prolonged research on the Indus script.

The concordances have been criticised for employing "normalised" signs that are sometimes different from what are actually found in individual inscriptions. The differences are as between a handwritten manuscript and the printed book. All the three concordances employ normalised signs, as there is no other possible way of presenting hundreds of inscriptions and thousands of sign-occurrences in a compact and logical arrangement for analytical study. The concordances have also been faulted for differences in readings. The criticism overlooks the fact that the Indus script is still undeciphered and such differences are unavoidable, especially in reading badly preserved texts or in deciding which are independent signs and which are mere graphic variants.

The serious student of the Indus script will consult the concordances, but refer to the sources for confirmation. Statistically speaking, differences (or even errors in coding) in the concordances are marginal and have not affected the interpretation of the main features of the texts.

This was confirmed by an interesting study published recently by Mayank Vahia et al of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 37:1, 2008). They removed all the doubtfully read signs (marked by asterisks) and multiple lines (with indeterminate order) from the Mahadevan Concordance and analysed the rest, a little less than half of the total sign-occurrences. They found that the statistically established percentages of frequencies and distribution of signs and segmentations of texts remained constant, attesting to the essential correctness of compilation of the full concordance.
The Dravidian hypothesis

There is archaeological and linguistic evidence to support the view that the Indus civilisation is non-Aryan and pre-Aryan:

• The Indus civilisation was urban, while the Vedic was rural and pastoral.

• The Indus seals depict many animals, but not the horse. The chariot with the spoked wheels is also not depicted. The horse and chariot with the spoked wheels are the main features of Aryan-speaking societies. (For the best and most recent account, refer to David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton, 2007).

• The Indus religion as revealed in the pictorial depictions on the seals included worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother-goddesses, the pipal tree, the serpent, and probably the phallic symbol. Such modes of worship are alien to the religion of the Rigveda.

Ruling out Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not automatically make it Dravidian. However, there is substantial linguistic evidence favouring the Dravidian theory:

• The survival of Brahui, a Dravidian language in the Indus region.

• The presence of Dravidian loanwords in the Rigveda.

• The substratum influence of Dravidian on the Prakrit dialects.

• Computer analysis of the Indus texts revealing that the language had only suffixes (like Dravidian), and no prefixes (as in Indo-Aryan) or infixes (as in Munda).

It is significant that all the three concordance-makers (Hunter, Parpola, and Mahadevan) point to Dravidian as the most likely language of the Indus texts. The Dravidian hypothesis has also been supported by other scholars like the Russian team headed by Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov and by the American archaeologist, Walter Fairservis, all of whom have utilised the information available from the concordances. However, as the Dravidian models of decipherment have still little in common except the basic features summarised above, it is obvious that much more work remains to be done before a generally acceptable solution emerges.

I am hopeful that with an increasing number of Indus texts, and better and more sophisticated archaeological and linguistic methods, the riddle of the Indus script will be solved one day. What is required is perseverance, recognising the advances already made, and proceeding further. To deny the very existence of the Indus script is not the way towards further progress.

Iravatham Mahadevan is a well-known authority on the Indus and Brahmi scripts. He is the author of The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977) and Early Tamil Epigraphy (2003).

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/05/03/stories/2009050350010100.htm

Macaulay's Children - the quest to avoid becoming a brown sahib

It is ironical that calls for an independence in thinking are spearheaded by those who are most exposed to the propaganda from the Occident
A FLASH BACK!
FIFTY YEARS AGO

dated April 25, 1959: Nehru meets Dalai Lama

The principal events leading to the Tibetan crisis were revealed to Pressmen by Prime Minister Nehru after a four-hour talk he had with the Dalai Lama in Mussoorie on April 24. Mr. Nehru said that on the one side the Dalai Lama desired, from the beginning, to avoid a break with the Chinese and was hoping until the last moment, that something might happen to prevent a worsening of the situation. On the other, the Dalai Lama was pulled by Tibetan feelings. Mr. Nehru said that the Dalai Lama in answer to a question from him acknowledged having written letters to General Tan for two reasons. One was he was disturbed by the highly troubled time. Secondly, he did not want to break with the Chinese. The Dalai Lama was hoping until 4 p.m. on March 17 that something might happen to avoid a break with the Chinese. But the mortar shells which fell on the palace at 4 p.m. had a powerful effect on the minds of the people. The Tibetans thought that all efforts had failed and they decided to quit and six hours later, at 10 p.m. the Dalai Lama and party left Lhasa. (THE HINDU, APRIL 25, 2009 - http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/25/stories/2009042550280802.htm)

And Today -- "The challenge before India’s intellectuals is to rise above the partisanship of pseudo-progressives and to determine an independent line on every major international question."

Please read on:
http://www.thestatesman.net:80/page.arcview.php?clid=4&id=284531&usrsess=1

THE STATESMAN, May 1, 2009

Mental slaves

by: Sreeram Chaulia

Although Indian intellectuals take pride in fierce independence, some have from time to time allowed themselves to be mentally enslaved by foreign hegemons.

“Macaulay’s children”, like Janakinath Bose and Satyendranath Tagore, emerged from British-educated institutions in the late 19th century to buttress Western colonial rule. Without such articulate but pliant native collaborators, says historian Niall Ferguson, “British rule in India simply would not have worked.”

Thankfully, India’s fertile soil also produced their foils. Seers like Aurobindo Ghosh, who wrote the stirring New Lamps for Old in 1893, named British imperialism for what it was ~ oppressive alien rule. Even as the intellectual space was being smothered by the colonial educational apparatus and its assembly line of privileged “natives”, the counter-narrative of nationalism could not be eradicated.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, a new strand of sycophancy emerged in India as a satellite of the Soviet Russian state. Not all Indian communists condoned the excesses of Stalin’s Russia though. Mahendra Nath Roy decided as early as 1929 that he could no longer defend a totalitarian state in which “purge” and “Gulag” substituted for governance. Ideologically rigid Indian Marxists, however, accused Roy of deviation from the “Moscow line”.

Well until the collapse of the USSR, India had a gaggle of intellectuals that unquestioningly toed the dictates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They argued against objective factual reality that the Soviet invasions of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979) were beneficial to the victims for allegedly freeing them from Western imperialism.

Quick to condemn the atrocities of the USA in countries like Vietnam and the Congo, dogmatic Indian Marxists got tied up in moral knots when Moscow committed crimes against humanity.

In the 1960s, mirroring the Sino-Soviet split, a breakaway faction of Indian Marxists shifted allegiance to the “Beijing line”. Disguised as “internationalists”, they threw their lot behind Mao’s violent totalitarianism and supported China’s war against India in 1962. The choice was not difficult for this lot since their homeland was a “capitalist state”, while the dreamland to the north of the Himalayas was a “socialist state”.

Procrustean loyalty to China robbed Indian fellow travellers the freedom to analyse international questions with an open mind. As Mao’s military machine rolled into Tibet and committed nothing short of cultural genocide in the 1950s and 1960s, pro-Beijing Indians parroted official Chinese propaganda that the land of the lamas was being emancipated from “serfdom”.

Teleological Marxist visions of linear stage-by-stage ascent from one mode of production to the next was so ingrained in the minds of pro-China Indians that they could justify the destruction of Tibet’s age-old autonomy and non-materialistic civilisation as necessary for “progress”.

By regurgitating the occupying power’s doctored history of Tibet, India’s Maoist mavens revealed the hollowness of their anti-imperialism. Unspeakable horrors perpetrated on Tibetans in the name of modernisation were repackaged and presented by China’s Indian friends as “liberation”.
The saving grace was that covering up China’s crimes in Tibet was a minority position in India’s intellectual spectrum. Even socialist leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru could see through the smokescreen and felt deep sympathy for Tibetans under Chinese yoke. New Delhi’s decision to offer asylum to the Dalai Lama and hundreds of thousands of his persecuted people was an affirmation of Indian independence.

But China-worshipping Indian ideologues kept hammering away in their mouthpieces that the Dalai Lama was an agent of Western imperialism and that his Central Tibetan Administration based in India was a travesty.
World public opinion has been firmly behind Tibetan non-violence and spirituality as alternatives to consumerism and violence. But India’s Maoist intelligentsia harped on about pre-1949 Tibetan “serfdom”.

Mass murder and demographic re-engineering, radioactive nuclear testing, super-exploitation of minerals and other acts of impunity by the Chinese state in Tibet never tugged at the heartstrings of these zealots who only saw the bright side of communism.

Hitler was visible to them but not Pol Pot.

Some contemporary Indian media luminaries are continuing this tradition by visiting Tibet at the official invitation of Beijing to act as eyewitness to the alleged benefits that Tibetans had received from being forcibly incorporated into China. Like “embedded journalists” who went along with the occupying US army into Iraq after 2003, these figures are being shown the sanitised version of Tibet’s “liberation”.

Glowing tributes to China’s crushing of the Tibetan spirit emanate from their pens, reiterating the old Indian Maoist shibboleths of how Tibetans were saved from “feudal slavery” by Mao’s marauders.
Happily reliant on the pre-arranged itineraries of their hosts in Beijing, India’s China admirers cannot admit the simple truth that more than 300,000 PLA troops had invaded the bodies and homes of ordinary Tibetans and terrorised them.

When the vast majority of Tibetans living under Chinese colonialism decided to boycott Losar, the Tibetan New Year, to mourn the killing of hundreds of protesters by the PLA last year, some blinkered Indians announced to the delight of their Chinese hosts that they found Tibetans in a festive mood filled with excitement.

In recent tributes to the Chinese state’s celebration of “Serf Emancipation Day” (the day the PLA occupied Tibet and dissolved the Dalai Lama’s government in 1959), India’s pro-China lobby not only dished out the formulaic servile praise for Beijing but also critiqued “pseudo-scientific” history of the “so-called Tibetan government-in-exile.” It cited unabashedly from “documents in the possession of the Chinese government” as if they were paragons of objectivity.

Some of these lobbyists are using their bully pulpits to influence Indian readers in the English language just as the PLA “re-educates” recalcitrant Tibetans after rounding them up for dissent.
The current-day manifestation of meek dependency in sections of the Indian literati is not limited to moral bankruptcy on the question of Tibet. Some among them are embellishing authoritarian credentials by staunchly promoting the militaristic government of Sri Lanka, which is prosecuting a vicious war in contravention of humanitarian and human rights laws.

By advertising personal friendships with “ethnocratic” rulers of the Sri Lankan state who epitomise Sinhalese chauvinism and by reducing the war in Sri Lanka to their distaste for the terrorism of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, these Indian opinion makers are reifying the genuflecting tendency which has a long history.
Likewise, there is a constituency of elites in India which defends the egregious policy of Indian cooperation with the military junta in Myanmar on the grounds that this serves “pragmatic” national interest.

Paradoxically, despite living in a free and democratic environment in which they can express their views publicly, these Indians have no appreciation of the freedom that human beings around the world are struggling to obtain from repressive political structures. They define the parameters of “freedom” selectively in order to further personal prejudices or to act as public relations fronts of foreign interest groups.

The challenge before India’s intellectuals is to rise above the partisanship of pseudo-progressives and to determine an independent line on every major international question, be it Tibet, Sri Lanka or Myanmar. Should they fail to do so, India would be left burnishing “old lamps” of untruth and groping in the dark for a distinct place in world affairs.

(The writer is a researcher on international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse, New York)
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