tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post1340059075991909526..comments2024-03-21T00:42:18.535-07:00Comments on Koenraad Elst: The lost honour of India studiesKoenraad Elsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02503713923882807510noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-80465070260437635952013-05-23T03:30:55.004-07:002013-05-23T03:30:55.004-07:00Sir,
Good to hear about people like balu holding k...Sir,<br />Good to hear about people like balu holding key positions which can reverse the trend of flawed western scholarship vis-a-vis india studies. But i beg to differ a bit regarding Said type orientalists. A person may be a product of his/her times, but he/she can always think ahead of time. This is how renaissance was born, during which period scientific temper permeated all fields fueling enormous growth through inventions and discoveries. The colonial west kept bragging that it was their scientific genius which made them superior to all other nations and hence only they are fit to rule the entire world. It is this penchant for critical analysis that exposed Christianity and brought it down. Then what prevented them from extending it to analyse all religions in detail to get a good understanding about religion itself ? why did the academic establishment tolerate such sloppy work by these orientalists ? This is in fact betrayal of science. So, these orientalists were never constrained by the thinking of their societies. Indeed they simply worked as colonial agents for their own personal gains. Geniuses are not limited by time either. Even if Einstein had been born as contemporary of Aquinas, he would still have laid the foundation for relativity theory , like Galileo laying the foundation for motion theory which was later picked up and completed by newton. Indian scholars aping Said type characters is probably because they were over-awed by the rapid growth of science in the west. So, anything said by the west on any topic should be very scientific and logical. Further compounded by the india’s left leaning establishment kick started by Nehru which has seriously damaged the meaning of secularism. Scholars like balu should close ranks to expose this treachery. <br />Karthikrajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18171891264654103091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-78794566815870680492013-05-19T00:22:14.920-07:002013-05-19T00:22:14.920-07:00@desicontrarian
Thanks DC! I see your point about...@desicontrarian<br /><br />Thanks DC! I see your point about holding Indians accountable. To be clear, I am not letting Indians/Hindus(I use these terms interchangeably-in this context ,its appropriate) off the hook.<br />I just wanted to emphasize that the net contribution of British to India was negative.<br />I say this due to an increasingly revisionist attitude amongst Indians and other that the British rule was a net good.<br />Tragically this trend is in full swing among Americans of all political stripes.Americans of that era were staunchly against British rule and imperialism in India and their pressure on Churchill and later the Attle administration was a strong motive for the British to pack it up.<br />I suspect their new projects in Iraq and Afghanistan may have something to do with a fondness for past imperialism.<br /><br />Anyway back to India. Yes I think there is something in the soil LOL that infected the Muslims,but it may not neccesarily be Maya but simply defeat and despair at the hands of Marathas,Jats and Sikhs.<br />The nawabs,Mughals and Nizams were bon vivants who lived the good life and were uninterested in the hardy ,warlike lifestyle of their ancestors who bequeathed them their prosperity.<br />It is no coincidence our most celebrated cuisine comes from the kitchens of those rulers, they spent centuries doing little else but eating!<br /><br />" To paraphrase ysv_rao, you may be not interested in Maaya, but Maaya is interested in you ;-)"<br /><br />Haha! I like that quote but its not mine truth be told. I think it was Tolstoy who said it about the Russians and war-"Russians may not be interested in war but war is interested in them" a statement that is at once hilarious,insightful and terrifying!<br /><br />Wow I didnt expect the decadent Rajneesh to such strong views on maya!<br /><br />His inclusion of Huns is especially indicative.<br />We really lost much our culture due to the Huns<br />Theologically inclined Hindus may see them as the fulfillment of mleccha havoc in Kaliyuga<br /><br />Much also has to do with the Buddhist Hindu dynamics of that era.<br />There was no Buddhism Hindu dichotomy back then as such.<br />The most brilliant Brahmins and Kshatriyas of that era were Buddhist<br />In other words,Buddhists had come to encompass the best of Hinduism.<br />And when it was destroyed by political minded Hindus with the help of Huns,we lost the best of Hinduism<br />All the leftover riff raff of beliefs is the nonsense and chaos for what passes for Hinduism today.<br /><br />So VS Naipaul is right we were wounded civilization even before Islamic invasions.<br /><br />In a way we have never really escaped our former conquerors.<br />THe descendents of Huns dominate the cultural,economic and political levers of power. Marwari industrialists,Gandhis,Nehrus,BJP and RSS head honchos all the Punjabi and Gujarati business magnates,our nepotism prone film personalities, top generals in the the military are for the most part descendents of Gujjar tribesmen.<br /> <br />The descendents of Turks and Mughals are also prominent in sports,entertainment and politics(by secularism and block voting)<br /><br />The British influence pervades in the Anglicized elite from schools such as Doons,St Stephens and the invisible corridor which leads to Oxford and Cambridge.<br /><br />It is our Maya that forbids from seeing all this<br />And our current tamasic nature that prevents us from doing anything about it.<br /><br />A far cry from the time we gave the world Arthashastra.<br />Its another matter that it pales in comparision to the Art of War which is far more elegant and sophisticated.<br />To be fair the point of Arthashastra is about war but the art of governance of which war is but an extension which anticipated Clausewitz 2000 years later.<br />ysv_raohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06078517736366792665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-56031023454903801092013-05-18T05:53:03.847-07:002013-05-18T05:53:03.847-07:00@ysv_rao,
Very well put. But why did we allow the...@ysv_rao,<br /><br />Very well put. But why did we allow them to do it?<br /><br />We were a wounded civilization, and that was due to the earlier Dhimmitude of a 1000 years. Basic flaw being lack of interest in the material world. Therefore lack of attention to statecraft, war and outsiders.<br /><br />This infected even the Muslim rulers, like Muhammed Shah during Nadir Shah's invasion, the Nawab of Oudh during the Company period, and Bahaddur Shah Zafar, who was unfit to be a ruler. It must have been something in the Hindu soil :-).<br /><br />It was interesting to read a mysticism-oriented writer trace it back to the <a href="http://www.quantumyoga.org/hindu_decline.htm" rel="nofollow">Maayavad</a> and the <a href="http://puraniccosmologyupdated.blogspot.in/2010/03/puranic-cosmology-updated-5.html" rel="nofollow"> Love of Ahimsa</a>! Shankara, Ramanuja and Maharshi RamaNa had the same divine indifference to this world! They may have been right about illusions, but we face consequences. To paraphrase ysv_rao, you may be not interested in Maaya, but Maaya is interested in you ;-)<br /><br />I find this quote from Rajneesh quite insightful.<br /><br />"We would not have been so impotent if our country had understood Krishna rightly. But we have covered our ugliness with beautiful words. Our cowardice is hiding behind our talk of non-violence; our fear of death is disguised by our opposition to war. But war is not going to end because we refuse to go to war. Our refusal becomes an invitation to others to wage war on us. War will not disappear because we refuse to fight; our refusal will only result in our slavery. And this is what has actually happened.<br /><br />It is so ironic that, despite our opposition to war, we have been dragged into war again and again. First we refused to fight, then some external power attacked and occupied our country and made us into slaves, and then we were made to join our masters’ armies and fight in our masters’ wars. Wars were continuously waged, and we were continuously dragged into them. Sometimes we fought as soldiers of the Huns, then as soldiers to the Turks and Moghals and finally as soldiers for the British. Instead of fighting for for our own life and liberty we fought for the sake of our alien rulers and oppressors. We really fought for the sake of our slavery; we fought to prolong our enslavement. We spilled our blood and gave our lives only to defend our bondage, to continue to live in servitude. This has been the painful consequence of all our opposition to violence and war."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6138082354348831474.post-86560569632996466662013-05-18T03:11:26.186-07:002013-05-18T03:11:26.186-07:00Im not a fan of Edward Said, the main reason being...Im not a fan of Edward Said, the main reason being that he was a super dhimmi.He didnt wish for his Christian brethren in Europe and America criticize Arab Muslims for their harsh treatment of Christians because he considered it colonial thinking.<br /><br />Having said that, I agree that some of his arguments are not without merit.<br />Specifically that Europeans due to their innate feelings of superiority and position of power(at the time) were unable to present a objective and fair assessment of Oriental cultures.And that trend to a small level persists today even among-st liberal academics.<br /><br />However Hinduism has suffered more due to "Orientalism" than Arabs as Hinduism was far more bewildering to Western people than Islam.<br />And seeing Hindus in a defeated state and 19th century Hinduism as a collection of retrograde superstitions led to assume that Hindus were always conquered and rule and Hinduism despite some math and medicine was eternally cruel,caste ridden and chaotic.<br /><br />The main damage done to India was not material(looted treasuries, destroyed industries and closed economies) or even human(14 million dead in semi engineered famines and 100s of k more in cannon fodder for wars in which Indians had no stake). We can always become rich again or breed new people.<br />No the main damage was psychological and spiritual.<br />Being called non martial, losers,weak,poor,illiterate,backward,superstitious,dirty and slavish does take its toll.<br />The British disarmed initially South Indians and Bengalis and later the great bulk of Indians thereby rendering them defenceless and called them non martial.<br />They took over political and cultural levers of power in Bharat and forbade Indians from retrieving or even participating in exercise of authority. And they called Indians weak.<br />They destroyed industries and forbade exports and forced imports onto the Indian masses.All the while stealing treasuries of various kings which created a cycle of poverty. They then accused us of being poor.<br />They destroyed our traditional schools and called us illiterate<br />They uprooted a sophisticated drainage infrastructure and called us dirty<br />They reinterpreted Vedas , Puranas and the Epics as fantastic stories about Aryan invaders at best and theological circus at worst and called us superstitious barbarians.<br /><br />Again we can reacquire to Lakshmi and to Kama.<br />But what of other damage?<br />Its never even acknowledged.<br />I look at the average Indian youth today and his(or her) eyes are like that of goat. Vaccuous and culturally void.<br />This is not good for Hinduism/India whether he becomes the CEO of Deutsche Bank , Pepsi or acquire another luxury British car company.ysv_raohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06078517736366792665noreply@blogger.com