Indian Nationalist Art History and the Writing and Exhibiting of Mughal Art, 1910–48

Art is usually the handmaiden of campaigns and ideologies. Think about all the songs, paintings, architecture, sculpture, poems by various great artists.

I just read this poem by Tyrtaeus of Sparta who after the First Messian War, encouraged his fellow male citizens to go forth and do battle.

Frontiers
You should reach the limits of virtue
before you cross the border of death.

Courage
For no man ever proves himself a good man in war
unless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter,
go close against the enemy and fight with his hands.

Here is courage, mankind's finest possession, here is
the noblest prize that a young man can endeavor to win,
and it is a good thing his city and all the people share with him
when a man plants his feet and stands in the foremost spears
relentlessly, all thought of foul flight completely forgotten,
and has well trained his heart to be steadfast and to endure,
and with words encourages the man who is stationed beside him.

Here is a man who proves himself to be valiant in war.
With a sudden rush he turns to flight the rugged battalions
of the enemy, and sustains the beating waves of assault.
And he who so falls among the champions and loses his sweet life,
so blessing with honor his city, his father, and all his people,
with wounds in his chest, where the spear that he was facing has transfixed
that massive guard of his shield, and gone through his breastplate as well,
why, such a man is lamented alike by the young and the elders,
and all his city goes into mourning and grieves for his loss.
His tomb is pointed to with pride, and so are his children,
and his children's children, and afterward all the race that is his.

His shining glory is never forgotten, his name is remembered,
and he becomes an immortal, though he lies under the ground,
when one who was a brave man has been killed by the furious War God
standing his ground and fighting hard for his children and land.

But if he escapes the doom of death, the destroyer of bodies,
and wins his battle, and bright renown for the work of his spear,
all men give place to him like, the youth and the elders,
and much joy comes his way before he goes down to the dead.

Aging, he has reputation among his citizens. No one
tries to interfere with his honors or all he deserves;
all men withdraw before his presence, and yield their seats to him,
the youth, and the men his age, and even those older than he.

Thus a man should endeavor to reach this high place of courage
with all his heart, and, so trying, never be backward in war.

To the Soldiers; after a defeat
Now, since you are the seed of Heracles the invincible,
courage! Zeus has not yet turned away from us. Do not
fear the multitude of their men, nor run away from them.
Each man should bear his shield straight at the foremost ranks
and make his heart a thing full of hate, and hold the black flying
spirits of death as dear as he holds the flash of the sun.

You know what havoc is the work of the painful War God,
you have learned well how things go in exhausting war,
for you have been with those who ran and with the pursuers,
O young men, you have had as much of both as you want.

Those who, standing their ground and closing their ranks together,
endure the onset at close quarters and fight in the front,
they lose fewer men. They also protect the army behind them.
Once they flinch, the spirit of the whole army falls apart.
And no man could count over and tell all the number of evils,
all that can come to a man, once he gives way to disgrace.
For once a man reverses and runs in the terror of battle,
he offers his back, a tempting mark to spear from behind,
and it is a shameful sight when a dead man lies in the dust there,
driven through from behind by the stroke of an enemy spear.

No, no, let him take a wide stance and stand up strongly against them,
digging both heels in the ground, biting his lip with his teeth,
covering thighs and legs beneath, his chest and his shoulders
under the hollowed-out protection of his broad shield,
while in his right hand he brandishes the powerful war-spear,
and shakes terribly the crest high above his helm.
Our man should be disciplined in the work of the heavy fighter,
and not stand out from the missiles when he carries a shield,
but go right up and fight at close quarters and, with his long spear
or short sword, thrust home and strike his enemy down.
Let him fight toe to toe and shield against shield hard driven,
crest against crest and helmet on helmet, chest against chest;
let him close hard and fight it out with his opposite foeman,
holding tight to the hilt of his sword, or to his long spear.
And you, O light-armed fighters, from shield to shield of your fellows,
dodge for protection and keep steadily throwing great stones,
and keep on pelting the enemy with your javelins, only
remember always to stand near your own heavy-armed men.

Spartan Soldier
It is beautiful when a brave man of the front ranks,
falls and dies, battling for his homeland,
and ghastly when a man flees planted fields and city
and wanders begging with his dear mother,
aging father, little children and true wife.
He will be scorned in every new village,
reduced to want and loathsome poverty; and shame
will brand his family line, his noble
figure. Derision and disaster will hound him.
A turncoat gets no respect or pity;
so let us battle for our country and freely give
our lives to save our darling children.

Young men, fight shield to shield and never succumb
to panic or miserable flight,
but steel the heart in your chests with magnificence
and courage. Forget your own life
when you grapple with the enemy. Never run
and let an old soldier collapse
whose legs have lost their power. It is shocking when
an old man lies on the front line
before a youth: an old warrior whose head is white
and beard gray, exhaling his strong soul
into the dust, clutching his bloody genitals
into his hands: an abominable vision,
foul to see: his flesh naked. But in a young man
all is beautiful when he still
possesses the shining flower of lovely youth.
Alive he is adored by men,
desired by women, and finest to look upon
when he falls dead in the forward clash.

Let each man spread his legs, rooting them in the ground,
bite his teeth into his lips, and hold.

When you hear this in the Greek as you can feel the rhythm pounding into your feet and speeding up your blood before a battle.

When you come to India, it becomes heavily complicated. What do you do about Mughal Art when you are trying to remove colonialism? Is that Indian? Weren't the Mughals Imperial? they came from outside didn't they? but then they became Indian as the next man. Let me quote the initial paragraphs of the article to explain what happened early part of the last century when Indian Nationhood was being developed.

Writings on Indian modern art and art history have mainly concentrated on the developments that took place in Bengal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when art and nationalist politics came together under a new conception of Indian culture and civilization, mainly steeped in a refashioning of India's Hindu past.1 From the opening years of the twentieth century, Indian nationalist art history promoted a historical understanding of Indian art in defiance of colonial distortions.2 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy and Ernest Binfield Havell, the dominant voices of the new nationalist art history, sought to elevate Indian art by emphasizing its spiritual aspect, especially that of its Hindu legacy. Confronted with the dismissal of the symbolism and historical development of Indian art when judged against Western classical benchmarks, nationalist historians of Indian art aimed at inverting this pattern. But this often happened to the detriment of Mughal art and architecture that had been deemed worthy of praise by colonial officers and scholars, precisely because they perceived it as stemming from outside India.3 In doing so, Coomaraswamy's work drew connections with South East Asia and what was then known as ‘Greater India’, while Havell's effusive prose stressed the Hindu character of all aspects of Indian art.4

By contrast, accounting for the ‘Indianness’ of foreign-born Mughal art and architecture presented a major challenge for nationalist art historians. Mughal art had been incorporated into collections and exhibitions of Islamic art, but its position within Indian art history proved problematic. As Coomaraswamy explained:

Over against the metaphysical bases of Hindu art, the Mughals brought in a cult of personality and historical interests; Mughal painting is like Renaissance in curiosity about the individual, and in its historical preoccupations. … It is just these qualities which have made an appreciation of Mughal art, painting and architecture alike, easy for the modern European. This appreciation, however well justified in itself, nevertheless cannot be regarded as taking the student deep into the heart of Indian life or thought, from which the Mughal court life, except under Akbar, remained essentially aloof.5

The widespread exclusion of the Mughal legacy from major surveys of Indian art such as Coomaraswamy's History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927) and from the work of foreign scholars such as that of Heinrich Zimmer attested to the influence of religious and philologist interpretations and ideologies. By relying on Sanskrit texts, rather than oral traditions of living Indian artisans or concerns with historical patronage, Coomaraswamy, but also Zimmer and later Stella Kramrisch, all participated in the construction of a Sanskrit canon that formed the basis of a newly conceived Hindu civilization.6 As several historians have commented, one of the achievements of Hindu cultural revivalism is that it succeeded in presenting ‘a civilisation incessantly talked about in terms of the spiritual and the metaphysical, … to be factual and realistic’.7 Crucial in this process were the ‘translations and interpretations of Western oriental scholars [that] were appropriated and fed into India's reconstructed past’.8 This imposed an interpretative framework for Indian art defined partly in exclusion of India's Islamic heritage, and often turned the latter into the very cause of the perceived decadence and corruption of Hindu civilization.9

It was fascinating to read this angle on Indian history and how the current events, like the riots in Muzzafarnagar as well as the nomination of that fellow from Gujarat plays out with reference to the struggle between secular India and the Hindutva India. The article also talks about how the nation moved away from excluding Mughal Art as the other and brought it into the syncretism loaded secular idea of India.

Voices of sanity in wilderness

Kannu

Here's a heartfelt letter of thanks from a Muslim man who thanks Hindus for helping his discriminated community. 

You can see the discrimination all over the world. But you personally should fight this. Have a gf. Or friend. So what if she he is a Muslim. Are they good? That's all you need to know and you don't need no stinking book or political party to tell you so. This is why I hate the Bjp. It's primarily filled by bigots. Hardly any of them exhibit any intelligence and their followers are usually idiotic as well. And the funny thing is that for a Hindu party, most don't know Sanskrit or have ever read any Hindu books. So they have no frikking idea what Hinduism is either. 

But as I said you don't need to read a religious book be a good person. 

Love

Baba

Voices of sanity in wilderness | TwoCircles.net
http://twocircles.net/2013apr14/voices_sanity_wilderness.html

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Even as communalism grows in India, some of the fiercest voices raised in defence of Muslims happen to be those of Hindus

By Aijaz Zaka Syed,

Every time I despair of the land of the myriad hues and contradictions that is India, every time it’s many heroes give me fresh hope. And every time I stick out my neck to share the insecurities and concerns of my tribe and other dispossessed, I receive loads of fan mail most of which cannot be reproduced in these columns. Clearly, the Net is full of all sorts of fish. The comforting anonymity of cyberspace removes all inhibitions revealing our true colours.

But there are also those out there who never cease to amaze you with their generosity of spirit and ability to feel others’ pain. One such blessed soul is my friend Shashank Sharma, who heads a multinational IT giant. (I hope he will forgive this impudence to name him).

Protest against the Shiv Sena #flashreads

The fact that the Shiv Sena is comprised of a bunch of uglyass muppets is not in question. Its truly filled with dunderheads who are lead by leaders who appeal to the baser instincts of their followers. Like sheep, they follow their leaders into violence and intimidation. Plus these morons managed to make Mumbai University complicit in their stupidity. Shame on you!

Do you remember these images? (and yes, I know about Godwin’s law). This is what is brewing in these people’s hearts and minds in Mumbai.

 

From Rohinton Mistry’s Such A Long Journey, removed from the Mumbai University syllabus after Shiv Sena members protested against and burned copies of the book:

Dinshawji: “What to do with such low-class people? No manners, no sense, no nothing. And you know who is responsible for this attitude—that bastard Shiv Sena leader who worships Hitler and Mussolini. He and his ‘Maharashtra for Maharashtrians’ nonsense. They won’t stop till they have complete Maratha Raj.”

Dinshawji’s narration had brought them to the main intersection of Flora Fountain, where the great traffic circle radiated five roads like pulsating giant tentacles. Cars were pulling out from inside the traffic island and recklessly leaping into the flow. … With the dead fountain at its still centre, the traffic circle lay like a great motionless wheel, while around it whirled the business of the city on its buzzing, humming, honking, complaining, screeching, rattling, banging, screaming, throbbing, rumbling, grumbling, sighing, never-ending journey through the metropolis.”

From Rohinton Mistry’s open letter about the targeting of Such A Long Journey:

In this sorry spectacle of book-burning and book-banning, the Shiv Sena has followed its depressingly familiar, tediously predictable scripts of threat and intimidation that Mumbai has endured since the organization’s founding in 1966. … A political party demanded an immediate change in the syllabus, and Mumbai University provided deluxe service via express delivery, making the book disappear the very next day.

As for the grandson of the Shiv Sena leader,  the young man who takes credit for the whole pathetic business, who admits to not having read the book, just the few lines that offend him and his bibliophobic brethren, he has now been inducted into the family enterprise of parochial politics, anointed leader of its newly minted “youth wing.”

What can -- what should -- one feel about him? Pity, disappointment, compassion? Twenty years old, in the final year of a B.A. in history, at my own Alma Mater, the beneficiary of a good education, he is about to embark down the Sena’s well-trodden path, to appeal, like those before him, to all that is worst in human nature.
Does he have to? No. He is clearly equipped to choose for himself. He could lead, instead of following, the old regime. He could say something radical -- that burning and banning books will not feed one hungry soul, will not house one homeless person nor will it provide gainful employment to anyone (unless one counts those hired to light bonfires), not in Mumbai, not in Maharashtra, not anywhere, not ever.
He can think independently, and he can choose. And since he is drawn to books, he might want to read, carefully this time, from cover to cover, a couple that would help him make a choice. Come to think of it, the Vice-Chancellor, too, may find them beneficial. First, Conrad’sHeart of Darkness, in order to consider the options: step back from the abyss, or go over the edge. Next the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. And I would like to urge particular to attention to this verse:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
...Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

300 Ramayanas #flashreads

Some muppets are desperate to turn Hinduism into a medieval obscurantist version of the Abrahamic religions. One way of doing that is to force wonderfully diverse sets of mythological literature like the Ramayana into one edition. Here is an overview of the issue. Protest against the Hindu fundo’s taking our lovely wonderful rich religion away from us, and turning it into a pallid, unidimensional crappy little version fit for their own tiny neuronically damaged brains. Bah!

So protest against this. Read the full version of the essay here. Here is an extract.

From AK Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Ramayanas, withdrawn from Delhi University’s syllabus after protests from Hindu rightwing groups:

How many Ramayanas ? Three hundred? Three thousand? At the end of some Ramayanas , a question is sometimes asked: How many Ramayanas have there been? And there are stories that answer the question. Here is one.

One day when Rama was sitting on his throne, his ring fell off. When it touched the earth, it made a hole in the ground and disappeared into it. It was gone. His trusty henchman, Hanuman, was at his feet. Rama said to Hanuman, "Look, my ring is lost. Find it for me."

Now Hanuman can enter any hole, no matter how tiny. He had the power to become the smallest of the small and larger than the largest thing. So he took on a tiny form and went down the hole.

He went and went and went and suddenly fell into the netherworld. There were women down there. "Look, a tiny monkey! It's fallen from above? Then they caught him and placed him on a platter (thali ). The King of Spirits (bhut ), who lives in the netherworld, likes to eat animals. So Hanuman was sent to him as part of his dinner, along with his vegetables. Hanuman sat on the platter, wondering what to do.

While this was going on in the netherworld, Rama sat on his throne on the earth above. The sage Vasistha and the god Brahma came to see him. They said to Rama, "We want to talk privately with you. We don't want anyone to hear what we say or interrupt it. Do we agree?"

"All right," said Rama, "we'll talk."

Then they said, "Lay down a rule. If anyone comes in as we are talking, his head should be cut off."

"It will be done," said Rama.

Who would be the most trustworthy person to guard the door? Hanuman had gone down to fetch the ring. Rama trusted no one more than Laksmana, so he asked Laksmana to stand by the door. "Don't allow anyone to enter," he ordered.

Laksmana was standing at the door when the sage Visvamitra appeared and said, "I need to see Rama at once. It's urgent. Tell me, where is Rama?"

Laksmana said, "Don't go in now. He is talking to some people. It's important."

"What is there that Rama would hide from me?" said Visvamitra. "I must go in, right now."

Laksmana said, "I'11 have to ask his permission before I can let you in."

"Go in and ask then."

"I can't go in till Rama comes out. You'll have to wait."

"If you don't go in and announce my presence, I'll burn the entire kingdom of Ayodhya with a curse," said Visvamitra.

Laksmana thought, "If I go in now, I'll die. But if I don't go, this hotheaded man will burn down the kingdom. All the subjects, all things living in it, will die. It's better that I alone should die."

So he went right in.

Rama asked him, "What's the matter?"

"Visvamitra is here."

"Send him in."

So Visvamitra went in. The private talk had already come to an end. Brahma and Vasistha had come to see Rama and say to him, "Your work in the world of human beings is over. Your incarnation as Rama must now he given up. Leave this body, come up, and rejoin the gods." That's all they wanted to say.

Laksmana said to Rama, "Brother, you should cut off my head."

Rama said, "Why? We had nothing more to say. Nothing was left. So why should I cut off your head?"

Laksmana said, "You can't do that. You can't let me off because I'm your brother. There'll be a blot on Rama's name. You didn't spare your wife. You sent her to the jungle. I must be punished. I will leave."

Laksmana was an avatar of Sesa, the serpent on whom Visnu sleeps. His time was up too. He went directly to the river Sarayu and disappeared in the flowing waters.

When Laksmana relinquished his body, Rama summoned all his followers, Vibhisana, Sugriva, and others, and arranged for the coronation of his twin sons, Lava and Kusa. Then Rama too entered the river Sarayu.

All this while, Hanuman was in the netherworld. When he was finally taken to the King of Spirits, he kept repeating the name of Rama. "Rama Rama Rama . . ."

Then the King of Spirits asked, "Who are you?"

"Hanuman."

"Hanuman? Why have you come here?"

"Rama's ring fell into a hole. I've come to fetch it."

The king looked around and showed him a platter. On it were thousands of rings. They were all Rama's rings. The king brought the platter to Hanuman, set it down, and said, "Pick out your Rama's ring and take it."

They were all exactly the same. "I don't know which one it is," said Hanuman, shaking his head.

The King of Spirits said, "There have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter. When you return to earth, you will not find Rama. This incarnation of Rama is now over. Whenever an incarnation of Rama is about to be over, his ring falls down. I collect them and keep them. Now you can go."

So Hanuman left.

This story is usually told to suggest that for every such Rama there is a Ramayana .^[1] (end of excerpt)

Indians are incapable of History

While reading this research paper, I was constantly struck by the impact that colonialism has had on the historical development in the world. Whether we are talking about European Colonialism or Islamic Colonialism or American Colonialism or what have you, how you view history is dependent upon what colonisation you were faced with.

Some nations take up the colonisers ideology whole heartedly (look at the countries who have become Christian or Muslim due to the spread of that religion, or the Norman colonisation of UK, or the European colonisation of USA and and and) while some fight back.

Some sentences in the research paper made me think. I quote:

Ever since G.W.F. Hegel, Orientalist scholars had considered Indians to be incapable of history. India’s lack of historical consciousness,they reasoned, was a direct consequence of spiritual excesses. Indeed, the absence of historical consciousness could be directly attributed to the priestly caste’s need to control and to impose their religion on their naïve followers. As Theodore Goldstücker wrote in 1864, “When, by priestcraft and ignorance, a nation has lost itself so far as to look upon writings like these as divinely inspired, there is but one conclusion to be drawn: it has arrived at the turning-point of its destinies. Hinduism stands at this point…” (73). But all was not lost. “The causes of the gradual degeneracy of Hinduism,” Goldstücker reasoned, were no “different from those to which other religions are subject, when allowed to grow in the dark” (74). “In Europe, religious depravity received its check when the art of printing allowed the light of publicity to enter into the book whence her nations derive their faith” (74). So, too, “no other means” was capable of imposing a “check” on it “in India than the admission of the masses to that original book which is always on their lips, but which now is the monopoly of the infinitesimal fraction of the Brahminical caste able to understand its sense” (74).

As I said, perhaps its this excess of spirituality made India resist the colonisation of external parties, whether the religious kinds (Islam, Christianity) or the temporal kinds (British, French, Turkic)?

Besides this, the links between the silly Aryan Invasion theory and National Socialism hasn't really been explored in the public arena for the common man (Is this the reason behind the fascination Indians have for Mein Kampf?). There are some fascinating links between what Subash Chandra Bose did with the Nazi’s (he was a bit of a fascist himself), the linguistic arguments (Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit etc. are considered to be part of the Indo European Linguistic family)

Other than that, the article was discussing the German Indological academic framework and history. Might be a bit esoteric for most, but then academic debates are like that. I end with a quote:

“ACADEMIC politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” This observation is routinely attributed to former Harvard professor Henry Kissinger. Well before Kissinger got credit for that thought in the mid-1970s, however, Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt told a reporter, “Academic politics is much more vicious than real politics. We think it’s because the stakes are so small.” Others believe this quip originated with political scientist Wallace Sayre, Neustadt’s onetime colleague at Columbia University. A 1973 book gave as “Sayre’s Law,” “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue—that is why academic politics are so bitter.” Sayre’s colleague and coauthor Herbert Kaufman said his usual wording was “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low.” In his 1979 book Peter’s People, Laurence Peter wrote, “Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small.” He called this “Peter’s Theory of Entrepreneurial Aggressiveness in Higher Education.” Variations on that thought have also been attributed to scientist-author C. P. Snow, professor-politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and politician Jesse Unruh (among others). According to the onetime editor of Woodrow Wilson’s papers, however, long before any of them strode the academic-political scene, Wilson observed often that the intensity of academic squabbles he witnessed while president of Princeton University was a function of the “triviality” of the issues being considered.

Mera Bharat Mahan

One of the things that I am currently doing is to finish reading the Dharma Shastras. Its a monumental work, and will take the rest of my life to finish. But here’s a small thing which I found very nice in an electronic copy of the Ramayana. See the screen print.

The book is published by RamNarayan Lal but printed by Ramzan Ali Shah. Now there’s your inter faith work right there. One of the holiest books of Hinduism, printed by a Muslim. This is why, despite the assorted morons in both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalist and idiotic groups, India will succeed. You are welcome. Mera Bharat Mahan.

Protests against Valentines Day

This is what passes for religion. These morons talk about removing all red items and heart shaped gifts during Valentine’s Day. Hey, I have seen morons like this as well, at this time, the Hindu morons come out to play as well, trashing card and florist shops. I personally dislike this entire concept of Valentine’s day – you are supposed to show your love only on one day? but if somebody wants to get flowers and pap, by all means, go for it.

But the idea that somebody can come and tell you to stop being loving or give your wife/daughter/sister/etc. etc. a loving gift is stupid. And the irony? These Hindu militants hate the fundamentalist Islamists, little understanding that they are both morons, they are the same. But then, they dont have any brains, do they? Literally morons. They are barbarians, bereft of any kind of intelligence and principles and morals and logic and comprehension and and and. Look what happens, they sell red roses under the counter?

Just what impression does that give to the world about the birthplace of Islam and the most holy sites? Why am I dragging Islam into this? Well, these muppets are speaking on behalf of Islam, no? and they take their justification, authority and actions from their reading of it. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, just dont wear red. Black is good. Stick to black. bah! I quote:

“I was so furious last year when I was having a romantic dinner at a restaurant in Jeddah. Haia men marched in and grabbed my husband by his arms and cornered him, while I was surrounded by a number of them asking both of us stupid questions,” said Sara Naseem, a 27-year-old college lecturer.

“I was horrified by how they ambushed us and treated us like we were doing something immoral and inappropriate in public.”

The ban on selling red flowers on Valentine’s Day could have a negative effect on profits, according to florist Alex.

“Our annual plan for Valentine’s Day to keep our profit stable is to sell red flowers and gifts from under the counter or behind closed doors,” he said.

“We don’t sell them to everyone, we only make secret deals with trustworthy people or tell open-minded people to keep ourselves safe. We raise the price from SR10 for a red rose to SR30 because it’s the high season for them.”

While those brilliant defenders of Hinduism, these paragons of Hindu Culture, example of Sri Ram Sene, are doing this this year.

Delhi, Feb 11: Yes, the Sri Ram Sene has reared its ugly head once again. What an apt time but the Valentine's Week to do so. The right-wing sensationalist group who went about doing its own moral policing earlier headed by Pramod Muthalik went on a rampage in Mangalore targetting pubs and youth who were into public display of affection (PDA) over Valentine's Day.

The Sri Ram Sene is also targetting youth but have mellowed down considerably still has frowning eyebrows over PDAs and Valentine's Day in general.

The Sene intends to educate youth and organize a three-day awareness campaign at the north campus of Delhi University and will carry their rhetoric to other colleges in Delhi. They will drill down the fact through their supporters in Delhi that Valentine's Day was against the Indian culture and youth need to shun such celebrations. They have also given an alternative ocassion to celebrate and suggested that they rejoice the festival Basant Panchami instead.
Even if the Sene has shunned violence they have issued a warning to couples who wants to celebrate Valentine's Day come what may. The Sene has stated that the couples who are out to celebrate will be videotaped and the videos telecast through YouTube. The idea behind it being that they would be shamed in front of the entire world. Sene members have armed themselves with many cameras and spycams to capture the 'culprits in action'.
Young, 23 year old Sunil Tyagi, who is also the national spokesperson of Sri Ram Sene and also the Delhi unit president said, "We are not against love. What we are protesting against is the vulgar display of love. We won't allow our culture to be hijacked by foreign multinationals who have introduced concepts like Valentine's Day just to sell cards. When we upload such videos on YouTube, the couples will learn their mistake."

Eight to ten teams will scan the city for violating the Sene values and will spread the message of 'love in a decent manner'. Tyagi added, "Make love, not war is also our slogan. Just do it in the privacy of your rooms and not in public."

None of your business, you dunderhead morons, just bugger off. Better still, go to Saudi Arabia where they seem to like this sort of thing. Quarantine all the religious crazies inside that place, lock the door and throw away the key. Hopefully they can foam and foul each other and leave civilised people alone.

btw, remember the Pink Chaddi Campaign? This was in reaction to these morons.

And over here in the UK, the National Trust is urging people to kiss more and plant mistletoe, how sweet and how green. Kiss and help the planet at the same time? Wonderful idea. See this, you muppets in Saudi and India? Learn.

Then again, a New York Zoo is offering the chance to name a cockroach after their loved ones. These are giant Madagascar Hissing Roaches. Here is a nice video of these little critters.

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach Facts -- powered by eHow.com

Maybe we can let loose some valentine day named madagascar hissing cockroaches to the muttawa and the sri ram sene.

Shabnam Hashmi resigns from National Integration Council

Saw this note on a mailing list. I quote:

Social activist Shabnam Hashmi has resigned from the National Integration Council, India’s apex body to formulate policies against social divisions, to protest the inclusion of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on the panel.

In a letter emailed to the home minister today, Hashmi said she was “shocked” at Thackeray’s inclusion. “Mr Uddhav Thackeray’s whole political life is based on divisive and hate politics. His entry into (the) NIC is a cruel oxymoron,” Hashmi wrote.

“His brand of communal politics is against the secular and plural value system that the council upholds,” she said, arguing that Thackeray’s entry would “further derogate the high credentials and stature of the body forever”.

Thackeray and the Sena have frequently been accused of inciting violence against minority communities and non-Maharashtrian residents of Mumbai.

This is what I wrote back:

Interesting news, never heard of this. 150 odd members in this council and some of the members are very odd indeed. People who are extremely corrupt (most of the lot actually), people who have been found guilty of murder (Shibu Soren), people are clearly on the caste band wagon (Mayawati), people who have campaigned against freedom of speech (Syed Shahabuddin) and so on and so forth. And then there is Narendra Modi in there already. Looks like Thackeray was included on the basis that smaller political parties were not included which sort of begs the question, why resign now and not for the membership of the other very odd worthies?

heh, some reasons for resignation are obviously higher than others, I find it amusing that Shabnam Hashmi finds corruption, murder, casteism and being against freedom of speech less important than religious/regionalism.

The Rage boys rage again

This just makes me sad. I quote,

To:
Ms. Susan Peterson Kennedy
President , Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson St, New York, NY 10014, USA
Mr. Mike Bryan,
CEO & President, Penguin Books Pvt Ltd.
11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017
India
Dear Ms. Peterson Kennedy, Mr. Mike Bryan,
The following is a petition from concerned signatories to the Penguin Group asking for an apology for the publication of the factually incorrect and offensive book “The Hindus-An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger. We expect Penguin Group to withdraw the book immediately.
“The Hindus: An Alternative History” is rife with numerous errors in its historical facts and Sanskrit translations. These errors and misrepresentations are bound and perhaps intended to mislead students of Indian and Hindu history.
Throughout the book, Doniger analyzes revered Hindu Gods and Goddess using her widely discredited psychosexual Freudian theories that modern, humanistic psychology has deemed limiting. These interpretations are presented as hard facts and not as speculations. Doniger makes various faulty assumptions about the tradition in order to arrive at her particular spin. In the process, the beliefs, traditions and interpretations of practicing Hindus are simply ignored or bypassed without the unsuspecting reader knowing this to be the case. This kind of Western scholarship has been criticized as Orientalism and Eurocentrism. The non Judeo-Christian faith gets used to dish out voyeurism and the tradition gets eroticized.

….

Again, the above is simply a sampling of the scandalous and offensive statements in the book. By her own admission in the book, Doniger has no credentials as a historian and the title of the book is misleading as the book is not on the “History nor an Alternative History” of India. This shows that the author is not an authority on the subject as she is not able to understand the deep meaning of Sanskrit verses or Indian Concepts. These cast serious doubts about the author’s integrity as a researcher and ability to interpret accurately. Additional examples of the author’s shoddy scholarship will be made available upon request.
We emphasize that this defamatory book misinforms readers about the history of Hindu civilization, its cultures and traditions. The book promotes prejudices and biases against Hindus. Can Penguin’s editors really be incompetent enough to have allowed this to pass to publication? If this is not deliberate malice, Penguin must act now in good faith.
As concerned readers, we ask PENGUIN GROUP to:
1. WITHDRAW all the copies of this book immediately from the worldwide bookshops/markets/Universities/Libraries and refrain from printing any other edition.
2. APOLOGIZE for having published this book “The Hindus: An Alternative History”. This book seriously and grossly misrepresents the Hindu reality as known to the vast numbers of Hindus and to scholars of Hindu tradition. PENGUIN must apologize for failure to observe proper pre-publication scrutiny and scholarly review.

Sincerely,

Basically the people who signed this petition are

1. Do not know how academic publications work (too long to explain)

2. Do not know how errors are fixed in academic work (every academic work invariably ends up with mistakes, a significant proportion are caught before publication but still some creep through. For post publication errors, book reviews and communications with the author help in pushing for the errors to be corrected in the next version, edition, reprint or as an errata) What they dont do is to withdraw it wholesale based upon some mistakes or because some people’s oh! so sensitive feelings are bruised.

3. Are far too sensitive. Dont read it. This is like “a bail, mujhe maar”. If you dont like dancing with the bulls, stay away from the paddock or the heat in the kitchen and and and. And saying that its from a head of the department in a US university gives far too much prominence to the ability of one book to rock Hinduism. When invasions, forced conversions, wars, economic servitude, a bewildering variety of alternative explanations, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Sikhism, etc. could not dislodge Hinduism, these pipsqueaks really think that a book can? and then they call themselves PROUD Hindus. Bah!.

4. Are basically against freedom of speech as they want to withdraw the book and not to publish any other edition. If that is not against freedom of speech, as in publishing, then I have no other idea what is.

5. Apologise for having publishing this book. I am surprised they did not go to the paper provider and ask them for apologies. I know this is an exaggeration, but come on.

 

Here’s a great article on this by Ashok Malik, somebody who is from the right himself. Anybody who is half way educated and liberal (in the classical sense of having strong individual rights, freedom of speech, property rights, etc.) would know that this kind of obscurantist thought is simply unacceptable. I quote:

If the Husain dénouement was tragic, the Doniger episode is turning out to be comic. If a book award judge received these letters, and knew nothing about the context of the controversy, he would probably fear for the author as the victim of a hate group attack. Far from being an unsympathetic student of Hinduism — which is obviously how Internet Hindus see her — Doniger would come out resembling Joan of Arc.

Why are these Internet Hindus worthy of notice at all? There are three reasons. First, a collective of the intellectually inadequate, the professionally frustrated and the plain bigoted, they represent the collapse of Hindu politico-intellectual space into a caricature of the very Talibanism it opposes.

Second, as Hindutva as an idea has contracted in real-world politics, it has become shrill and over-the-top in cyberspace. The Left has its universities, journals and institutional support system. It is a commentary on Internet Hindus that they only have multiple email accounts.

Third, there is a hard question for the BJP. How quickly can it delink itself from Internet Hindus and their offline equivalents? A party that seeks to build broad-spectrum opposition unity in Parliament on governance issues can do without such viral downloads.

I know of several people who signed the petition. Unfortunately, by the fact that they signed this petition, I am afraid I have now lost respect for them. Anybody who says this? Not to be respected. As for the authors, well, the word comic describes them well.

Here’s another interesting article on this issue from one of the chaps in the academy. I quote:

Quite right. I will admit that after a while, it became very tempting to cast my vote for Doniger in spite of preferring another book. I wanted to aim my water, so to speak, not at the blaze itself, but at those setting it. But that seemed too irritable. The protesters had a right to protest -- and the book critic, an obligation to ignore them.

As it turned out, the award for nonfiction went instead to Richard Holmes for The Age of Wonder. It seems from the Twitter, blog, and e-mail chatter that the protesters have congratulated themselves over this, taking it to be a repudiation of Doniger. That is absurd, if quite predictable. We do not discuss the deliberations that go into making the final decision on the awards. But suffice it to say that we stand by the nomination of The Hindus as one of the finalists for 2009. It is an excellent work that deserves a large audience.

And to add my own last two cents on the matter (whether or not anyone else agrees): The rancor a book generates is sometimes its own mark of distinction.

What these internet hindu rage boys have ended up is to prove themselves to be seriously lacking, in perhaps every aspect. Few things which I wrote on this:

One doesn’t request books to be withdrawn for factual errors. One requests the next edition or version to fix those errors. Almost every book almost always contains errors. If there is sufficient demand, then a second reprint or edition is created and errors fixed. If not and if the errors are too many and too bad, then the reputation of the scholar suffers. But people are at perfect liberty not to buy or read the book. In any case, the petition was framed so that it sounded like Hindus were hurt and they want the book to be withdrawn, which is a different matter from fixing errors. 

and

Asking a book to be withdrawn is pretty clear on what is signifies. If the petition writers would have said that these are errors, please fix it, nobody would have said a word.
In this particular case, it has had the immediately diametrically opposite effect of immediately turning the argument into a different sort of seeing the petition of demanding a scandalous book be withdrawn, echos of the long very sad history of banned books.

and

Asking for an apology? Asking for withdrawal? talking about hurt feelings? Oh! come on, mate, that's not academic, that's not professional, and protesting outside events is supposed to be good? As I mentioned, due diligence is done, but still errors creep into almost every book. I would presume that Dr. K, the author of the petition would know about this, specially when every paper of his has been torn up and down by everybody leading him to be a laughing stock.
You point out errors in a book review, the publisher collects it and if required then publishes a second edition and changes. The petition has been drafted diabolically, but knowing who did it, I am not surprised at all. They talked about withdrawing the book. What on earth for? That's highly unprofessional at best and more leaning towards a total display of ignorance of how academic publishing works.
But that's fine, this petition and its whole sorry abortion of a mess just is pathetic and just confirms my opinion about the bunch who run around in that neck of the woods. Whether its that silly meat eating petition or this (and there are counter petitions commenting on the errors in this petition), all it does it to further plonk mud on us. If you want to see the counter petition, click here.
http://www.petitiononline.com/THAAH123/
this now ascribes taliban like behaviour. Its like an Indian Godwin's law needs to be established.
Unbelievable, we seem to swing between one extreme to another, far too sensitive and unable to treat with the academy in an academic manner. And then we wonder why the academy gets upset with us.
Anyway, we have beaten this topic to death. I will agree to disagree on this point.

Seriously stupid of them all. If you want to to have any sanity left for the great religion Hinduism, stay away from these so called defenders. With illiberal obscurantist defenders like this, who needs real offenders?

People who are for book banning and against freedom of speech.

Every book almost always has some errors, its almost impossible to catch every error. Usually after collecting these errors, the publishers and authors normally release a second edition where errors are fixed. But when somebody actually demands that a book be withdrawn rather than just the errors be fixed, then it means that the person is against freedom of speech and for book banning. Why am I talking about this? Well, this came around in my in-box. I quote:

 

To:  Penguin Group USA Penguin Books India

SCANDALOUS cover jacket of the book - copy for ready reference at http://www.scribd.com/doc/26565460/Scan-0002
To:
Ms. Susan Peterson Kennedy
President , Penguin Group (USA)
375 Hudson St, New York, NY 10014, USA
Mr. Mike Bryan,
CEO & President, Penguin Books Pvt Ltd.
11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017
India
Dear Ms. Peterson Kennedy, Mr. Mike Bryan,
The following is a petition from concerned signatories to the Penguin Group asking for an apology for the publication of the factually incorrect and offensive book “The Hindus-An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger. We expect Penguin Group to withdraw the book immediately.
“The Hindus: An Alternative History” is rife with numerous errors in its historical facts and Sanskrit translations. These errors and misrepresentations are bound and perhaps intended to mislead students of Indian and Hindu history.
Throughout the book, Doniger analyzes revered Hindu Gods and Goddess using her widely discredited psychosexual Freudian theories that modern, humanistic psychology has deemed limiting. These interpretations are presented as hard facts and not as speculations. Doniger makes various faulty assumptions about the tradition in order to arrive at her particular spin. In the process, the beliefs, traditions and interpretations of practicing Hindus are simply ignored or bypassed without the unsuspecting reader knowing this to be the case. This kind of Western scholarship has been criticized as Orientalism and Eurocentrism. The non Judeo-Christian faith gets used to dish out voyeurism and the tradition gets eroticized.

Then follows a list of errors. Some are factual, some are debatable, some are opinions. Asking for an apology is frankly stupid and I am not even going to talk about it. But to ask for the withdrawal of the book is asking for book banning, censorship and a violation of the freedom of speech principle.

There are now a bunch of signatures on the petition. Now here’s the amusing bits, there are so many signatories who are professors, doctors and people from USA who are of Indian origin. The fact that professors and doctors signed a book banning petition which violates the freedom of speech principle means that all these doctors and professors are, lets say, at barely nodding acquaintance with the concept of freedom of speech. I mean, I can understand an uneducated rage boy shouting and screaming for book burning, but professors and doctors? Well, very disappointing that all that education on opening up their minds was sort of wasted.

But for the Indian Americans, did they realise that they signing this petition means that they have basically now proven to everybody that these people do not believe in the first amendment to the US constitution? And now there is permanent proof for their enemies to point to them and say, look at these people who dont believe in the US constitution’s first amendment. oh! well, if they indeed believed in the essential principles of freedom of speech, then I would have called them educated in the literal sense, proof that even getting PhD’s or MD’s does not mean that they are educated. After this serious stupid error, any petition or statement or any advocacy they come up with can immediately be rejected by people saying, ah!, but then they dont believe in freedom of speech and the US constitution. Pitiful. Talk about big foot in mouth and shooting off their own foot. At one stroke, they have damaged India, Hinduism and their own reputation by signing a frankly illiberal petition which calls for book banning, censorship and against freedom of speech. Poor chaps. Also, those who have not signed yet will hastily try to walk away from this. And those who have signed will now try to get their names off the list.

I think that as soon as the petition owners realise this, the wording of the petition will be changed or withdrawn.

Hindu Nationalism in UK and the VHP

This was a very curious paper that I read. It was even more curious, because just a day before I got this paper, I read this note which was published in Outlook. I have to admit that I am in some sympathy with the views of Roover, but how it is taught in the west is something that I find a bit strange. At the very least, I would have expected some reasonable facsimile and similarity in the ways it is taught compared to Judaism, Christianity, etc., but this is specially in the USA, much less in the UK. I have personally had several experiences of this. Anybody saying anything good about Hinduism or its philosophy or any thing like that is almost automatically considered to be a raving Hindutva casteist rage boy. I have seen this happen far too many times. I strongly suggest you read that article and here’s a quote:

In one sense, then, the picture for students of India is even grimmer than the one Tripathi sketches. In another sense, there is hope, because times of turbulence also hold the potential for intellectual change. As students of India, we will have to take seriously the growing discontent among Hindus about the ways in which their traditions have been depicted. Some of this is inspired by an attempt to sanitise the Hindu traditions according to the model of Islam and Christianity and the prudishness of middle-class morality. However, other strands express a deep sense of grievance towards the secularist hegemony and the academic allergy to Hinduism. As long as reasonable and well-educated minds do not address these grievances, Hindu nationalism will be able to tap into the growing anger among Hindus and manipulate this to its own benefit. To address such problems, one needs to work towards a climate of intellectual freedom that has too long been absent from the study of India.

So while I am quite interested to read about the scholarship that is done about Hinduism and India, I am not 100% sure about the academy. Do not get me wrong, I think the Hindutva chaps are a bunch of goons themselves and they come up with serious stinkers. In any case, they and their bunch of merry men are most certainly against academic freedom (witness the cases against the beef book, etc. etc., read my friend’s book on this issue. I can't say much more than this, as I think I am biased in favour of Salil’s book.

Usually my net scraper for the “Hinduism” keyword throws up very few scholarly alerts but this article piqued my interest. The author is assessing the role of Hindu nationalism in the development of Hindu identity in Britain. And to do that, he delves into the VHP UK organisation. After some 10-15 pages, I am not very sure where he ends up. This is the abstract:

This paper assesses the role of Hindu nationalism in the development of Hindu identity in Britain. Some accounts argue that the authoritarian network of Hindu nationalist organisations apparent in India is reproduced in Diaspora contexts, especially in the west. The paper argues that this degree of organisational intentionality is not always borne out by evidence in the UK. Although Hindu nationalist organisations have achieved some success in establishing their presence, in national arenas they frequently give way to umbrella organisations such as the Hindu Forum of Britain (HFB) and the Hindu Council UK (HCUK). The paper argues that Hindu nationalist organisations nevertheless operate vigorously in multilocal contexts, fuelling a 'Hindutva effect' which has a broader ideological influence. The paper examines some of the positions taken by the HFB and HCUK to demonstrate how this influence is played out in national arenas, before reflecting more broadly on the implications of these dynamics for the development of diaspora identities.

There was one event that the VHP organised 20 years ago, but since then, it has been remarkably quiescent. Their website is basic, its members aren't represented in the organisations which deal with civil society, etc. So he talks about all this and then says that the VHP is a serious organisation spreading a nebulous underground version of Hindutva. He called the VHP arranged sammelan as a tamasha. That was a cheap shot frankly, not worthy.

Then the chap starts talking about conversion. And I am seriously surprised that the author does not understand the importance of conversion to a Hindu. I mean, isn't this obvious? We are talking about a religious identity, and a factor which goes directly against this identity and reduces it will be considered to be a threat. So when the Hindu elders in the UK were raising their concerns about Muslim gangs converting Hindu (and Sikh) girls, the British Police considered that as a legitimate problem. But the author thinks that this objection to conversion is an expression of Hindu Nationalistic thought. Erm, no!

Then furthermore, he goes forward and says that this is a subterranean inflection towards Hindutva. I totally disagree. This is going to the core of a Hindu’s identity and it has no political leanings at all. So I am not sure where he is getting the subterranean bit from or where he is seeing Hindutva. It's like seeing a commie under every bed.

The next result that he finds is that to protect against the threat of conversion, one has to “wake up” Hindu Unity. This apparently demonstrates the presence of Hindu nationalist ideology. Again, this is a massive over reading into the word “wake up”. If I say that we need to do jagran, then it is the same. It is making visible, bringing up, to awaken, to rise up. Obviously he doesn't link this to Swami Vivekananda who said, “Arise, Awake! And stop not until the goal is reached”. Or how about his poem? I quote:

The Song of the Sannyasin

Wake up the note! the song that had its birth
Far off, where worldly taint could never reach
In mountain caves and glades of forest deep,
Whose calm no sigh for lust or wealth or fame
Could ever dare to break; where rolled the stream
Of knowledge, truth, and bliss that follows both.
Sing high that note, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Strike off thy fetters! Bonds that bind thee down,
Of shining gold or darker, baser ore;
Love, hate; good, bad; and all the dual throng,
Know, slave is slave, caressed or whipped, not free
For fetters, though of gold, are not less strong to bind;
Then off with them, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Let darkness go! the will-o’-the-wisp that leads
With blinking light to pile more gloom on gloom.
This thirst for life, for ever quench; it drags
From birth to death, and death to birth, the soul
He conquers all who conquers self. Know this
And never yield, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
‘Who sows must reap,’ they say, ‘and cause must bring
The sure effect; good, good; bad, bad; and none
Escape the law. But whoso wears a form
Must wear the chain.’ Too true; but far beyond
Both name and form is Atman, ever free.
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams
As father, mother, children, wife and friend.
The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child?
Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One?
The Self is all in all, none else exists;
And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
There is but One – The Free, The Knower – Self!
Without a name, without a form or stain.
In him is Maya, dreaming all this dream.
The Witness, He appears as nature, soul.
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world
Nor that can give. In books and temples vain
Thy search. Thine only is that hand that holds
The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament,
Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Say, ‘Peace to all: From me no danger be
To aught that lives. In those that dwell on high,
In those that lowly creep, I am the Self in all.
All life both here and there, do I renounce,
All heavens and earths and hells, all hopes and fears.’
Thus cut thy bonds, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Heed then no more how body lives or goes,
Its task is done. Let Karma float it down;
Let one put garlands on, another kick
This frame; say naught. No praise or blame can be
Where praiser praised, and blamer blamed are one.
Thus be thou calm, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Truth never comes where lust and fame and greed
Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman
As his wife can ever perfect be;
Nor he who owns the least of things, nor he
Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro’ Maya’s gates.
So give these up, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Have thou no home. What home can hold thee, friend?
The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed; and food
What chance may bring, well cooked or ill, judge not.
No food or drink can taint that noble Self
Which knows itself. Like rolling river free
Thou ever be, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Few only know the truth. The rest will hate
And laugh at thee, great one; but pay no heed.
Go thou, the free, from place to place, and help
Them out of darkness, Maya’s veil. Without
The fear of pain or search for pleasure, go
Beyond them both, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
Thus, day by day, till Karma’s powers spent,
Release the soul for ever. No more is birth,
Nor I, nor thou, nor God, nor man. The ‘I’
Has All become, the All is ‘I’ and Bliss.
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say –
    ‘Om tat sat, Om!’
— Swami Vivekananda

Composed at Thousand Island Park, New York, July 1895.

I mean, if just the term “waking up” got him so excited, I wonder what he will do with the song of the Sanyasin? Will he consider Swamiji as a raving Hindutva militant revolutionary? He also says that the 1993 Global Vision 2000 conference in Washington DC was “ostensibly” a centenary celebration of Vivekananda’s visit to the USA, but he thinks this was a key moment in the development of the US Hindu nationalist movement. But he does that without any follow-up explanation, and we are supposed to swallow it.

In other words, the author simply does not prove that Hindu identity is nationalism at all and even lesser are the links to the VHP. There might well be Hindutva effects, but he does not consider the other factor which in many ways is more powerful than the Hindu identity factor. This is the linguistic/cultural factor. Hindus in the UK are more defined by their Asian Gujerati or Punjabi background or their Indian background, rather than something that is a broad based tent. For example, there is a shed load of professional (doctors, accountants, nurses, technology professionals, etc.) Indians who have come over directly from India who do not belong to any of these groupings of Punjabi or Gujerati chaps.

So no, I am not impressed with the forced identification by the author. There is no such thing as an overarching British Hindu identity. The Hindu organisations in the UK are primarily religious and cultural, and very rarely do they step into the political area and for the author to try to attribute Hindutva to this society is simply not borne out by the facts that he quotes. The people on the left and in the academy must realise that they really cannot go about publishing pap like this. Like the climate science academic research imbroglio brewing, their reputation is suffering significantly.

Hinduism – the history and evolution

For some reason, people are frantic to box and classify Hinduism. Whether it be the Muslim Invaders to the country, or the British who came to rule the country, the missionaries, the academics, or even the current lot of Hindu political leaders. For a variety of purposes, none of which related to the actual adherents of the religion, this forcing of people into this box called as Hinduism continues.

The main reason for this, in my mind, is the nefarious impact of those desert originated religions, namely Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Each of them obviously dealt with a bunch of people who needed some pretty strong medicine, so they came up with a whole panoply of rules, regulations, myths, leaders and the like. And because they were all jostling for space and adherents between each other, they had to have “us and them” as a very strong component in their own theology. Driven by politics and priest/mullahs and what have you, this growth in their religions meant that while they gained a religion with rules, they lost the faith in humanity.

Not so in this wonderful land of South Asia. As it so happens, the original name of Hindu related to a geographical region. To with, the people who live in and to the east of the river Sindhu (Indus). And because at that time, the Persians were the closest large neighbour with a flourishing civilisation and links to the desert and to Europe, guess what everybody started calling them? There is evidence of this name from the inscriptions made in the name of Darius 1, way back in the 6th century AD.

But but but, there have been religious texts like the Vedas, Upanishads, Pruranas and and and for much longer than the 6th century AD. Sure has heck there have been. And you know what? the people who studied this and followed these religious books (collectively known as Dharmashastra) were not that keen on being labelled as such because no such common name exists. What they were more concerned about was to live in a way that Dharma is fulfilled. And because there were multiplicity of Gods and pathways to God and all meeting in the supreme godhead, besides some skirmishes in the temples, nobody really cared to label them or bring them into another fold.

Then comes the entry of trade and missionaries, all gung ho and happy to harvest souls for Jesus or what have you. And their tiny minds were simply unable to comprehend a vast corpus of literature, a different language and a multiplicity of Gods. Hence, they were basically named as Pagans. As one goes through a variety of missionary tracts and memoires, the overwhelming image that pops into my head is this Christian or Muslim desire to try to comprehend this vast philosophical edifice according to their rigid tiny frameworks and failing. Here’s a simple example, this idea of forcing a God framework with a creator (Brahma), preserver (Vishnu) and destroyer (Shiva) is a foreign construct, yes, the individual Gods do exist but to ascribe a framework to them, totally foreign and I suspect emanating from the idea of the trinity.

On the other hand, when the Muslim invaders did pop into this land beyond the Indus, it was the idol worshipping that primarily got their goat, and again, because they were usually driven by religious (and that fairly secular motive of greed) jihad, anybody who had anything to do with idols was summarily labelled as foreign or other. Lets also not forget that from an politico-economic perspective (the imposition of zakat and the religious requirements for treating non-Muslims differently) required the identification of the original inhabitants as a religious unit.

So we end up with two external forces, the Muslim invaders from the 12th century onwards and the European Christian (traders and missionary) entry from the 14th/15th century onwards. Both of which were driven due to different reasons but both very interested in defining and labelling the bunch of people who they found living in the lands to the east of Indus. Check out Al-Biruni’s work on this or the Asiatic Society’s work from the European traders perspective or the various missionary tracts published by the Italians, Spanish and others priests (see the link at the bottom for the article where a good overview is given).

The right way to describe this corpus of knowledge is “Sanatan Dharma” rather than Hinduism because that is how the followers (if that word can be used) describe it and it has theological backing to it. It is classically simple in its meaning. Unlike Christianity which describes itself as a follower of Christ, and like Islam (which stands for peace or surrender to God), Sanatan Dharma simply means, “the way of life” or “the way of truth/righteousness” Be good and live a good life.

And before you think I am taking off on these early Muslim and Christian documenters of my religion, let me also direct my ire at the Hindu leaders themselves. When these people try to claim a consistency and coherence in Hinduism (like claiming that Hinduism doesnt do meat, period), they are doing exactly what the Muslims and Christians did, try to convert Sanatan Dharma into a Christian or a Islamic representation of a religion with rules, regulations, good and bad and something that is totally foreign to Sanatan Dharma. Its pretty clear why they do this, they are doing it for political purposes and wanting to create a political force out of the religious identity of the Sanatani’s. These people are the danger to the religion, not the external forces. But I am confident in the Sanatan Dharma, it has overcome bigger challenges than these contemptible Hindu leaders

I read a fascinating article recently which gave a reasonably good overview of the historical evolution of how Hinduism evolved. It concludes with a great paragraph which I am quoting here:

“this Hinduism wasnt invented by anyone, European or Indian. Like Topsy, it just grow’ed”

Hindu American Foundation are wrong about meat eating Hindu’s

So Burger King used the image of a Hindu Goddess to put a play on the sacred.

 

Then we have this strange Hindu American Foundation getting all upset about this. Ok, this is what bewildered me.

Hindu depictions of divinity in the form of Gods and Goddesses are sacred to Hindus and the use or consumption of meat in a religious context is generally proscribed.  In fact, Hinduism has the highest proportion of vegetarians among the major religious traditions. 

Now obviously, the chaps have absolutely no idea about Hinduism and the fact that meat eating is perfectly fine in Hinduism, has been for thousands of years and a huge number of Hindu’s merrily eat meat. As it so happens, most of the coastal Hindu’s are very happy with eating fish meat or other forms of meat. Proscribed? goodness me, guys, learn about your own religion, please. What proscription are you talking about? Yes, some people are vegetarians, but not all and that is due to belief not proscription. Plus since when did Hinduism proscribe? Its almost like this conversation is being held by a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim whose holy books proscribe, ban, forbid stuff and you are supposed to follow them like a metronome. Bah. And then they compare it with Mexico complaining about usage of their flag. Bizarre. Clueless. And why is an American organisation getting excited about a Spanish Hindu? how weird.

They claim to promote Understanding, Tolerance and Pluralism. By not understanding the history of meat eating, by being intolerant and ignorant of non vegetarians in Hinduism and not being Pluralistic in understanding the concept of godhead and basically being frankly humourless, they should really think again. Silly buggers. God knows when they will get some common sense to realise that all that this makes is to make them look idiotic and silly. So Burger King, you dont need to apologise, just send them the usual pap of a letter and ignore them. Silly gits.

Libelling Hanuman

I fell about laughing at these chaps. Truly idiotic. Can you actually libel a God? Or an incarnation of a God? or what have you? I am thinking back to our vast pantheon of Gods and thinking, hmmm, I wonder where in the millions of Gods and their histories have I ever read about a God being Libelled.

As a Hindu, I find these guys as pseudo Hindu's, do not know their own religion or the vast corpus of work on it or the various interpretations of Ramayana or or or.

So there ARE 300 different versions of Ramayana, but because these pinheads only know of one, all others are wrong eh? Now where have we heard this before? I know, they are the Taliban or the Wahhabi’s. Hence these chaps aren't Hindu’s but Pseudo Hindu's out to malign Hinduism. Its the election which is drawing out all these stupid idiots.

And for some reason, the word intellectual seems to get them going like idiots. Perhaps their fury is directed towards people who think? See what I mean? Any time anybody does a Gita or a Purana pravachan, they are thinking and extrapolating. They are intellectuals. Sighs, clowns and lol, most amusing.

Technorati Tags: Hinduism

These Hindu Rage Boys are idiots

Now imagine you whining about putting up a big statue of the Star Wars Death Star in a film set because you are a Buddhist? What on earth are these morons complaining about? This is what they say:

 

The protesters were said to belong to the Hindu Jagarna Vedike (Hindu Enlightenment Group), a group linked to an attack on a Christian school in the same state last May. They demanded that Mr Hegde instead erect a statue of Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century Hindu missionary to the West.

They most certainly are not enlightened, actually, what they need is a through caning to get rid of the demons of stupidity which has gone into their heads. And for sure, Swami Vivekananda would feel the same that their energies are being dissipated in this manner.

Bloody morons. And not content with that, the head of the local political party, which has pretentions to rule India in the next general election, also chimes in.

The local head of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist and India’s main opposition party, said there was no place for Chaplin in the region. “If the locals are against such a statue, I am also against it,” he told The Times of India. “Why should one bother so much about Charlie Chaplin, who was not even an Indian?”

Weep, my country, weep, for they have idiots like these running around like morons saying incoherent and stupid things like this.

Technorati Tags: India,Christianity,Hindutva,Hinduism

And now Valentine’s day is worse than AIDS, Ebola and Cholera

I just find these religious nuts just fascinating. See this chap foaming away..He is saying, “

Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman called on Muslim youth to "confront [the] Valentine virus," saying that while "everything red will become more expensive" for the holiday, "one red thing will become cheaper: the blood of Muslims. All this is the result of the sins committed by Muslim youth."

He warned, "In a few days time, a very dangerous virus will attack the body of the nation. What virus? Is it AIDS? No, something more dangerous. Something more dangerous than Ebola, which dissolves the human body, more dangerous than cholera, which killed half of Europe a few centuries ago... I have come tonight to warn all boys and girls about an extremely dangerous virus, which is about to attack the hearts of the nation’s youth, and to destroy our relations with God. We must confront this Valentine virus!"

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. What next?

I will tell you what’s next, in response to all the Pink Chaddi Campaign, some spotty Hindu rage boys, typically being anonymous and hiding behind their mum’s sari’s, have launched a counter campaign, called as pinkcondomcampaign. I mean, how pathetic, they couldnt even come up with an original theme or colour and then to hide behind anonymity? How pathetic but sadly typical. All these religious nuts are the same, prefer to foam and splutter in anonymity or ignorance or more frequently, both. Just check out the comments on the pinkcondom site and see what I mean.

Technorati Tags: Hinduism,Christianity,Islam

The Pink Chaddi Campaign

I am going to be a proud supporter of this campaign. This is basically a campaign to stick two fingers up those so called Hindu guardians of morality who, every Valentine’s day, come crawling out under whichever rock they inhabit, and go after men and women who are basically celebrating love. You can also join the Facebook group. This promises to be fun.

 

And for all you so called Hindu Guardians of Morality, here’s my polite response to you.

 

The BJP as the saviour of free speech!!!

I was falling about laughing when I read that the BJP in India is posing as the saviour of Tasleema Nasreen in the interests of free speech. Between the wretched Muslim, Christian and Hindu Bodies in India, freedom of speech is under threat. So to read that these obscurantist's are trying to put up one on the other by standing up is very amusing.

Pathetic! Each of these guys have themselves shown themselves to be medieval, obscurantists and generally moronic, whether its the Salman Rushdie Affair, or MF Hussein affair or the Da Vinci Code Affair.

Disgusting!

Technorati Tags: Islam , Hinduism , Christianity , India , Freedom of Speech

Another rage boy idiot bits the dust, AGAIN!

I fulminated against a Hindutva Rage boy yesterday and today, Chinese media have gleefully splashed the news that another moron Hindutva Rage Boy has been found guilty of killing a Christian Missionary. When will they learn not to be violent? There is NO reason or excuse for being violent. I do not like proselytizing either. It is too dangerous. You have freedom of religion, but you do not have freedom of Proselytizing. It is simply too troubling. And I am sure God will realise that.

But in this case, let the murderer animal rot in jail. Throw away the key! And for the leaders who call for murders, there is a cell waiting for you.

Technorati Tags: India , Hindutva , Proselytizing , Crime

Another Hindutva Rage Boy shows his brains have dribbled out

Talk about being a moron and an idiot. And this chap was supposed to be a Member of Parliament and a leader of a Hindu group. Truly some village somewhere is missing an inhabitant. He not only knows next to nothing about his religion, but he is a barbarian to boot. And he is claiming authority to speak on behalf of Hindu's. Not only an idiot, moron, illiterate but also delusional!!!!!

Read and weep.

*AYODHYA/LUCKNOW, SEPTEMBER 21:* Senior VHP leader and former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti on Friday declared at a press conference that VHP saints of Ayodhya would weigh in gold anyone who beheaded Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and cut out his tongue.

Speaking out against the BJP's opposition to the Ram Sethu project, Karunanidhi had recently questioned the existence of Lord Ram and said that Valmiki described him as a drunkard.

"We will follow the commandments of our religion and nobody can stop us," said Vedanti. He said the VHP would file a complaint and a lawsuit against Karunanidhi in Ayodhya.

Vedanti's statement has got the endorsement of the BJP and VHP units of Uttar Pradesh. Said Hridaya Narain Dixit, the spokesperson of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit, "Karunanidhi has demeaned Lord Ram, and what Vedanti has said only reflects the sentiments of crores of people across the nation."

VHP organisational secretary Trilokiji said he had not heard exactly what Vedanti said, but the VHP would not oppose Vedanti on anything he said against Karunanidhi for the comments on Lord Ram. "This is because all Hindus of the country are one against Karunanidhi," said Trilokiji.

Meanwhile, VHP leader Vishnu Hari Dalmiya said at a seminar in Gorakhpur that the UPA government's insensitivity towards the religious feelings of the majority community had led to the Ram Sethu controversy. He said Ram Sethu was a unique structure and that studies had shown it was not man-made. Dalmiya criticised Karunanidhi and the BJP for trying to derive political mileage from the issue.

Update: 23 Sept 2007: All too typically, the other morons got into the act by attacking the BJP offices in Chennai, India. Brilliant behaviour on both sides.

Technorati Tags: Hindutva , India