Showing posts with label DFN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DFN. Show all posts

Part 2: John Dayal in Breaking India

This post captures ALL the references to John Dayal in Rajiv Malhotra's path breaking book Breaking India. All the below references are taken from chapter 13 of the book Breaking India. Part 1 of this 2 part blog can be read here.
http://breakingindia.com
Abbreviations not elaborated in the paragraphs
DFN - Dalit Freedom Network
PIFRAS - Policy Institute for Religion and State

Recent DFN Activities In 2005, DFN representatives, along with Kancha Ilaiah, provided testimony to a US government subcommittee on human rights, in which they advocated US interventionist policies against India. The hearing was titled, ‘Equality and Justice for 200 Million Victims of the Caste System’.64 The chairman of the US Commission on Global Human Rights supported DFN’s position, saying, ‘Converts to Christianity and Christian missionaries are particularly targeted, and violence against Christians often goes unpunished’. John Dayal, who has close ties with DFN, hailed this criticism of India as a ‘historic moment’.65

All India Christian Council (AICC) 

Although DFN is based in the US, it is affiliated with the All India Christian Council, which is described as ‘the largest alliance in India of Church bodies and Christian entities’ and a ‘nation-wide alliance of Christian denominations, mission agencies, institutions, federations and Christian lay leaders’.72 It has been affiliated with Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), which is led by Baroness Caroline Cox.73 (See Chapter Sixteen for more details on CSW and the baroness.) CSW has facilitated the globalization of the Christian-Dalit axis, such as at the 2001 Durban conference, where it championed a stand against the government of India.74 One of its heroes, John Dayal, has been delivering many testimonies on India’s atrocities and calling on various Western bodies to intervene.75

In 2002, PIFRAS held a South Asia conference, sponsored by United Methodist Board of Church and Society and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Other prominent think-tanks (mostly right-wing or evangelism-oriented) also joined in sponsoring, including: Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House, the Institute for Religion in Public Policy, and the Apostolic Commission for Ethics and Policy. In the conference, John Dayal contended that minorities could not count on the Indian state to protect them, or to prosecute crimes committed against them. Bruce Robertson urged faith-based nongovernmental organizations (i.e. foreign Christian-sponsored groups) to provide more of the community services that governments are not providing in India. K.P. Singh, who is on the faculty of the University of Washington in Seattle, went unchallenged on his outrageous claim that ‘since India’s independence, about three million Dalit women have been raped and one million Dalits have been killed’.113

A Tehelka investigative report of 2004 showed that massive foreign funding claimed to be for HIV/AIDS programs was being used by Christian groups for evangelism. According to the report, even the official government slogan for AIDS prevention was changed by Christian NGOs. The government policy, ABC for ‘Abstinence, Behavioral change and Condoms’, was modified to replace ‘Condoms’ with ‘Convert/Christ’.114 There are also direct foreign efforts to alter the Indian law. When the Indian government felt that the foreign funds of NGOs needed more transparency, John Dayal, who presides over the All India Christian Council and United Christian Forum for Human Rights, testified against the Indian government at PIFRAS-sponsored hearings and symposiums at Washington. The institute’s press release stated: Mr Dayal has been at the forefront in addressing government allegations that the money received from foreign sources is being used for religious conversions. . . .115

Freedom House 

Freedom House is another powerful institution which relies almost exclusively on the testimonies from Christian-sponsored Dalit activists. These testimonies are highly exaggerated, sensationalized and distorted accounts of Indian political developments. Freedom House has a liberal-sounding entity called ‘Center for Religious Freedom’. However, its report on The Rise of Hindu Extremism (2003) relied heavily on ‘generous contributions’ made by Rev Cedric Prakash as well as ‘significant work’ done by Timothy Shah, Vinay Samuel, and the Director of PIFRAS, John Prabudoss. These persons, as the reader shall see, continue to appear across most of these think-tanks and the commissions and symposiums they conduct. Also involved were John Dayal and Joseph D’souza of the All India Christian Council, and representatives of the Dalit Freedom Network, the Indian Social Institute Human Rights Documentation Center, the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, the All India Federation of Organizations for Democratic Rights, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, and the National Alliance of Women.116 There was no equivalent representation from opposing views, nor any context provided to explain the geopolitical agendas in which these individuals and groups operate. In other words, their heavy conflict of interest was simply buried, and the report’s mostly American readers did not bother to demand transparency.

At first the Indian Catholic Church publicly distanced itself from giving testimony to the commission, with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) describing as ‘unwarranted’ the proposed hearing on religious freedom in India being held in Washington. Father D’souza stated that anti-Christian violence at the hands of Hindu extremists has not crossed the ‘gross human rights violations situation that calls for interference in internal affairs of the nation’.17 But to play both sides strategically, the Indian Church allowed John Dayal, the national vice-president of All India Catholic Union, to attend the hearing in the US and present his compilation of allegations of anti-Christian bias against the Indian government. While Father D’souza defended Indian sovereignty, he supported Dayal’s testimony in his ‘individual capacity and not as a representative of the Church’.18 Such ‘Good Cop / Bad Cop’ gamesmanship is a common strategy that Indian Christians have learned from the West. As we shall see later in this section, this Good Cop posture was temporary, and they acquiesced to the Bad Cops subsequently.

2003 

The 2003 report takes a stand against India’s Foreigners Act because it regulates the free flow of US evangelists. An investigative report by an Indian journal Tehelka said: ‘The 2003 US report is a no-nonsense document that conveys the official US policy supporting evangelization. It openly admits that “US officials have continued to engage state officials on the implementation and reversal of anti-conversion laws”’. This US posture echoes John Dayal’s testimony before the Commission that, ‘It is almost impossible for a foreign Christian church worker, preacher or evangelist to come to India unless it is as a tourist’.25 Suddenly, the Catholic Church, which had until then stayed out of such report writing (while allowing its individual activists to participate in their personal capacities), now abruptly changed its stand. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India explicitly expressed unhappiness with the USA’s refusal to designate India as one of the ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ with regard to religious freedom. It openly called for the US to prosecute India for ‘a spate of violence against minority communities’. The Church ‘did not share the US administration’s decision’ that had listed alleged anti-Christian activities but not recommended sanctions against India. The Church wrote to the American Secretary of State, asking that India be placed in the category of ‘egregious religious freedom violators’ along with five others – Burma, China, Iran, North Korea, and Sudan. Such countries would attract punitive action under the US International Religious Freedom Act.26 The good cops in the Indian Catholic Church had given way to the hardliners. The Commission urged US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to take up the matter with India during his negotiations on Islamic terrorism in the south Asian region. In its report, the Commission said that it had met Armitage to discuss placing India on the list of Countries of Particular Concern. Given the delicate situation in the USA’s fight against the Taliban in Pakistan, Armitage told them that USCIRF should not go against India at this time. Expressing unhappiness, All India Christian Council president John Dayal said, ‘We are greatly disappointed’.27 Bishop Sargunam, who was head of the Tamil Nadu Minorities Commission, issued a statement as a press release by the Federation on Indian American Christian Organizations of North America: The US government, which stands for justice and freedom around the world, has been complacent in addressing human rights violations continuing to take place in India. Bishop Ezra Sargunam made this point forcefully in his meetings with officials of the State Department in Washington, DC, yesterday and today. On behalf of the Social Justice Movement of India he submitted a Memorandum highlighting the resurgence of attacks against the religious minorities, Dalits and the Tribal people . . . Bishop Sargunam and P.D. John also met officials at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and on Capitol Hill . . . Bishop Sargunam expressed his disappointment in the US Administration’s reluctance to address these kinds of continuing serious human rights violations with their Indian counterparts.28 2004 During the 2004 hearings, a four-member delegation of US Congressmen visited India to investigate on behalf of the USCIRF. Its leader, the Christian fundamentalist Joseph Pitts, said that the delegation would report to Congress about ‘the anti-conversion laws, treatment of Dalits and anti-minority violence to be included in the country reports’. Pitts attacked the anti-conversion law calling, it a ‘reversal of human rights in the land of the Mahatma Gandhi’.29 Congressman Steve Chabot compared the situation in Gujarat to that of Rwanda. AICC secretary-general John Dayal said that his delegation of Indian minorities had put concrete demands before the US delegation: ‘One of our demands is that there must be reservations for minorities in the foreign companies that collaborate with India’.30 This mobilized the global Christian lobby to ask for preferences for Indian Christians as employees and in business trade and investment deals at the expense of non-Christians. What is clear is that Indian Christian leaders collaborate with the US right-wing Christians. The Indians are encouraged to dish out atrocity literature to feed into the US system, so that the Americans can use it as a justification for action. In return, these Indians are built up by their American sponsors and paraded as world-class activists and champions of the oppressed.

the rape of nuns, the destruction of churches, the assault on a priest, are ominous signals to Christians of all denominations. . . . How many perpetrators against the Christian community in India have been brought to book? Commissions of inquiry are appointed but very little comes out of them. Action? Seldom! A true picture or a distorted, engineered report? Against this backdrop we are expected to report objectively and dispassionately, to be correct and impartial. It is no wonder that those who try to do their Christian duty are branded as activists. Talking of activists, three days before I left Chennai I met John Dayal, the editor of the midday newspaper, based in Delhi. He has involved himself in the United Christian Council, which is currently involved in telling Christians about various anti-Christian activities around India, activities which, as a journalist, he obviously is privy to. We are due to have our general elections during the month of September and, the information he gave at that meeting was most valuable. I heard him and I also saw the reaction from the six hundred organisations that were represented. . . . Christian media persons like ourselves have to use the power we have to influence. 99


Gegrapha is a facilitator of Christian journalists who ground their professional work in personal faith and use their transnational connections. Stephen David is another strategically placed Gegrapha member who is the principal correspondent on political and current affairs for India Today, the country’s largest news weekly. Such journalists now comprise a rapidly growing group across India’s media, where they can act behind the scenes in framing the news. Yet, the impressions that are created internationally by John Dayal, Jennifer Arul and other high-profile Indian Christian journalists, is that the Indian media is anti-Christian, that Hindus terrorize Christians, and hence, foreign intervention is necessary for justice in India. This is music to the ears of their sponsors, who, naturally, reach for the pocket book.


Evangelization, says: Never before has this kind of information on India been so carefully surveyed, prepared, well published and distributed. . . . We do not believe it is accidental. God is allowing us to ‘spy out the land’ that we might go in and claim both it and its inhabitants for Him.104 John Dayal resonates with Luis Bush and wants all Indian proselytizers to study such population databases: Dayal suggests that all those seeking consecration or ordination from a Christian institution must be made to read and pass a simple examination based on the contents of at least the first volume, the Preface, of the multi-series book, ‘People of India’, published on behalf of the Anthropological Survey of India by Seagull Books.105

The complete bibliography referred to in the above paragraphs can also be found below.

Bibliography 

64. (US Commission Global Human Rights, 2005) 

65. (asianews.it, 2006) 

72. (AICC, 1998:2010)

73. (indianchristians.in, 2001) 

74. (CSW, 2001, 14) 

75. See the section on US Commission on International Religious Freedom for AICC/John Dayal testimonies against India.

113. (News Media, 23 July 2002)

114. (Shashikumar. VK, 2004)

115. (John. PD, 2002)

116. (Marshall, 2003)

17. the father-son Robertsons are from (Hinduism Today Archives, 1995)

18. (Hinduism Today Archives 1995)

25. The official bio of its international president, Dr Joseph D’Souza, states that he ‘lives in India and operates out of London and Denver.’ Jospeh D’Souza runs US-based Dalit Freedom Network (DFN). Significantly, he is also featured on the webpage of Gospel of Asia as the executuve director of Operation Mobilization in India. (See (GFA, 1996:2009)) DFN’s other directors include: Peter Dance (India Director-OM USA, Operation Mobilization, Tyrone,GA), Melody Divine, J.D. (Former Judiciary Counsel and Foreign Policy Advisor, Rep. Trent Franks, Rep-AZ Denver), Bob Beltz (advisor to the chairman, The Anschutz Corporation, Denver), Richard Sweeney (chief operating officer, Dalit Freedom Network, Greenwood Village), Gene Kissinger (chairman of the Board Interim President and CEO, DFN Outreach Pastor, Cherry Hills Community Church Highlands Ranch), Cliff Young (lead singer, Caedmon’s Call Houston, TX ), Ken Heulitt (VP and chief financial officer, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago), Kumar Swamy (South India Regional Director, OM India Bengaluru, Karnataka India).

26. (Fahlbusch, Bromiley and Barrett, 1999, 642) 

27. (www.omusa.org 2002)

28. (Cademon’s Call, 2004)

29. (DFN, 2003:2010)

30. (www.ccu.edu)

99. (www.rightwingwatch.org, 2008)

104. (Sharlett, 2008, 260-72). These pages offer a revealing portrait of Senator Brownback.

105. (Towns, 2 Augyst 2001, 18 March 2003)

Reproduced from the Kindle version of the book Breaking India with permission from the author.

RMF Summary: Week of November 22-28, 2012

Nov 23 [New Thread]
U-Turn example: Meditation experiences in Buddhism and Catholicism
Chandramouli shares another case of U-Turn:
"
Becoming a Tibetan Buddhist nun is not a typical life choice for a child of an Italian Catholic police officer from Brooklyn, New York. Nevertheless, in February of 1988 I knelt in front of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, as he cut a few locks of my hair (the rest had already been shaved), symbolizing my renunciation of lay life.
I lived in the vows of a Buddhist nun for a year, in the course of spending two years living in Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and India. Including my years of lay practice, I spent twenty years of my adult life practicing Buddhism, before returning to the Catholicism into which I had been born and baptized...
...Over the years, I have found that much of what I learned about and experienced of Buddhist meditation during those years enriches my prayer life as a Christian....
"

Nov 24
White Hindus - Sarma on Huff Post
Deepak Sarma, Associate Professor at Case Western and list administrator for RISA, has published an article on  Huffington Post entitled "White Hindu Converts: Mimicry or Mockery?"

In addition to the comments below, it occurs to me that he is employing classic techniques of demonization, in an attempt to engender doubt about the validity of an entire swath of Hindu practitioners, both in themselves and in Indian-born
and diaspora Hindus...

Below find several of my responses. I'm sure I'll be contributing more, as I have experienced racism in Nepali temples....

..."Deepak Sarma, who got his Ph.D. under Wendy Doniger, and is the moderator of the RISA-l discussion, chastised Antonio De Nicolas for supporting the petition and sent him warnings to stop further posts that criticized RISA members....

.... see his current and very crude rant against non-Indian Hindus as racist and anti-Hindu, and in the service of a Christian agenda opposing any acceptance of Dharma traditions. The only other possibility that I can imagine for his screed is that he would be in the service of Indian nationalists.

Many, many westerners have embraced Hindu beliefs and practices, and live their lives accordingly.

Manish responds:
"... given that Sarma comes from the Wendy Doninger pack of hyenas, it isn't surprising that he slips in an offensively contrived conclusion, disguised as a question, in the midst of innocuous and sensible-sounding stuff. So, he slips in an insinuation (the text in red) even as he pretends to make saner comments before or after it. 
Thus, in Sarma's warped Doningerised mind, everyone is forever a prisoner of their own religious history..."

Another thread follows up on this HP post:
Two Responses to Sarma's HuffPost "White Hindu Converts: Mimicry or
Two very thoughtful columns have been published in response to Deepak Sarma's Huffington Post article, "White Hindu Converts: Mimicry or Mockery?" The earlier...

The earlier has been written by Amod Lele, entitled "In Defense of White Hindu Converts."


..The second column is "Mimicry, mockery or mumukṣutva? A response to Deepak Sarma," by Jeffery D. Long, who earlier raised multiple criticisms and questions in the comments section of the HP article,..


November 25
The Kalavantulu of Coastal Andhra Pradesh
Dear Friends,
One of my friends who just completed a course on classical Indian music at IIT Gandhinagar sent me the paper I have attached with this mail, 'Memory and the Recovery of Identity : Living Histories and the Kalavantulu of Coastal Andhra Pradesh' by Davesh Soneji. It forms a part of his book, 'Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India'. Davesh Soneji is the Associate Professor of South Asian Religions at McGill University ...

... The paper makes for a very informative read and there were several times while reading it when I was reminded of Rajiv ji's work in "Breaking India" with regard to the colonial discrediting of the devadasi culture and it's art forms, and the later purging of Hindu motifs in Bharatnatyam by the likes of Leela Samson....

Here a YT video link [the uploader has prevented embedding, so I can't preview it here, sorry.]
 

Kavita responds:
"Thank you for sharing this valuable information Sumantgaaru.

Kalavantulu left behind a legacy and this dance form is now called VILASINI NATYAM. It has been painstakingly revived from its death throes (due to the unjust Devadasi Act) by Guru Padmashree Swapnasundari gaaru..."
Sumant comments:
"Thank you so much for your mail !  The videos were brilliant ! The perfect combination of music and dance had such a harmony to it...."
[We take moment to silently remember the victims of the Nov 26 terrorist attack on Mumbai, as well as the many heroes that day revealed. Om Shanti.]
Nov 26
(Mumbai) Evangelical Tycoon Gul Kripalani takes center-stage at 26/11 event 
Ravi comments: *(Mumbai) Evangelical Tycoon Gul Kripalani takes center-stage at 26/11 Memorial Event* See last page of today's Rediff article: ...
 
 ....
More details about Gul Kripalani here:

'Christian businessmen must talk about Jesus' | The Christian ...

www.christianmessenger.in/‘christian-businessmen-must-talk-about-j...
Dec 30, 2010 – Gul Kripalani: Talk about Jesus in marketplace. By Pallavi Bhattacharya. IT took Gul Kripalani, a Sindhi businessman, a while to see the hand of...

Nov 26
Life of Pi - lessons for Hindus
Arun posts:
Equal-equal Hindus might feel encouraged by the attention paid to that idea in Ang Lee's visually magnificent movie, "The Life Of Pi". A sampling of Christian reviews of the movie should open their eyes. Here is a fairly comprehensive one.

Here is a quote from the post above, from the Christian Broadcasting Network:
"While Christian audiences will be thrilled with the amount of onscreen time devoted to the cause of Christ and what it means to believe, they will also be quite disappointed as Islam and Hinduism receive equal representation."

You should read the above just to glimpse the Protestant venom against
Catholics! Let alone Hindus.

 

Venkat presents a passage for the related book:
"I am not sure if the below passage from the book "Life of Pi" is told
in the movie. Its worth reading. v

http://hindus.livejournal.com/77001.html
On Hinduism - from "Life of Pi"

I am currently reading "Life of Pi", a novel by Yann Martel. While
reading it I came across a passage which captures beautifully the
essence of Hinduism and what it means to be a Hindu. I could relate to
it so well that I couldn't resist reproducing it here. So here it
goes:

"But religion is more than rite and ritual. There is what the rite and
ritual stand for. Here too I am a Hindu. The universe makes sense to
me through Hindu eyes. There is Brahman, the world soul, the
sustaining frame upon which is woven warp and weft, the cloth of
being, with all its decorative elements of space and time. There is
Brahman nirguna, without qualities, which lies beyond understanding,
beyond approach; with our poor words we sew a suit for it - One,
Truth, Unity, Absolute, Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being - and try to
make it fit, but Brahman nirguna always bursts the seams. We are left
speechless. But there is also the Brahman saguna, with qualities,
where the suit fits. Now we call it Shiva, Krishna, Shakti, Ganesha we
can approach it with some understanding; we can discern certain
attributes - loving, merciful, frightening - and we feel the gentle
pull of relationship..."
  
Vedam posts a review by a RMF member:
"... In one scene, after Pi barely escapes the tiger's attack, stranded
on a makeshift raft, reasons as only a Hindu would - that the tiger's
nature is to kill and eat - for that is his Karma. Unencumbered by
a philosophy that would put man in charge of all animals (thus in a
position to decide the tiger's fate), Pi proceeds to do the unthinkable
for a vegetarian - catch a fish, and kill it, to feed the tiger, despite
the knowledge that keeping the tiger alive is suicidal for Pi: there could
not be a better implicit message of duty/dharma. His breakdown at killing
a fish is an explicit ode to the Dharmic credo of ahimsa.

The trails and tribulations that follow with forlorn Christian and
Islamic messages are perhaps the author's attempt to seek the divine
from a syncretized viewpoint that is only possible in a Hindu, and
would have monotheists squirming in their seats..." 

Dvai adds:
"My nine year old nephew analyzed pi as follows after having watched the movie --Pi represents the bridge between divinity and the individual soul...the circle representing the universe and the diameter the individual.
It was interesting to see a movie evoke such questioning in one so young.

Personally I found the novel a tad tedious. Also I found the attempts at religious syncretism a bit cliched..."

Carpentier comments:
"The film is a wonderful allegoric epic. The tiger is the ahankara while Pi is the infinite, nameless Brahman that is one with the universe and hence indestructible. The floating island on which he lands is the universe of matter, life giving during the day, deadly at night (prabhava-pralaya) in which the soul is entrapped. The boat is the physical body which takes the Self and its ego across the ocean of Maya-Samsara..."

Western Universalism and Top-N lists
shivadeepa1 posted: Exhibit 1: Foreign Policy magazine came out with a list of top-100 global thinkers recently.  It is an interesting exercise to go thru this list to see who's in and out, and their rank. Thanks to BD, we can start to see patterns. This list is from a western p.o.v, but it implicitly claims to speak for the globe, and most readers are conditioned to accept this at face value ...
... Exhibit 2: TIME came up with its top 100 novels of 'all time' but comes with a specific cut-off date :)


... Exhibit 3: Every school kid in India [at least in the 70s-80s] was indoctrinated with the "Top-7 list of the wonders of the ancient world"

 ...Generations of Indian children were taught that that there were no wonders worth mentioning in ancient India (or in neo-India except the Mughal Taj), or South-east Asia or South America, but remarkably, we all bunched together around the middle-east and Mediterranean...

Rajiv Malhotra responded:
"Rajiv comment: A very important post. People should ponder and add substantive comments. Same also applies to international awards, institutions, laws, aesthetics, etc. WU is normative across civic society, with the exception of pop culture which is not where power resides. See my two videos on lectures at india international center in 2005. I explain the difference between pop culture and deep culture. The latter is where WU resides."

Arun notes:
"...It is our educational system's defect to elevate the ancient Greek list to
something other than a fact about ancient Greece.

As far as I know, we have no surviving travelogues from ancient India, and so we do not have ancient Indian opinion on ancient wonders."

November 27 [Continuing thread from Nov 22]
Request for RigVeda and Shiva translation/interpretation of involuti
Rajiv Malhotra posts:
Rig Veda: Aghamarshana rishi experienced the process of involution and described it in Rig Veda ( X.190.1-X.190.3). These verses speak in a very riddled manner of involution. And then of the movement of descent and ascent (samvatsara) and consequentely the alteration of light and darkness (ahoratrani) ordained by the ruler of Time. Then it speaks of the creation of the sun and moon, heaven, the intermediate world and then the world of svar, the heaven of descending light. Can someone find out a good translation/interpretation that I could cite to show the earliest sources for involution?

Shiv-Sutras: Unmesha and nimesha are the terms used to describe involution and evolution. I need an expert interpretation of the text in this regard.

This concept is the very foundation of Ken Wilber's claim to originality in his Integral Theory. He got this from Sri Aurobindo but denies it. I discovered that Sri Aurobindo got it from Swami Vivekananda 

Kannan responds:
"I can only hint at some pointers which may be pursued and tried.

The concept of involution is very evident in what is called bhuta-shuddhi where the Gross Elements are "dissolved" into the Subtle Elements. Thus prthvi, the grossest, is dissolved into ap (subtler than that), which is next dissolved into tejas, and so on. The Sankhyan order is followed here. Hence after aakaasha, we have successive dissolutions into manas, ahamkaara, mahat (same as buddhi), prakrti (also called mulaprakrti/avyakta/pradhaana). And then finally into purusha/paramapurusha...."

Murthy adds:
"Dear Rajivji, having no immediate time to research fully into the
subject, I just refer you, as others have done, to some pointers.
Adishankara's Panchikarana is a compendium on the subject. The Vedas
detail the subject in the Upanishads; in particular, the
BrihadaaraNyaka and the Chandogya; which are exposited - again - by
Adishankara..."

Kesava comments:
"..I thought Aghamarshana Suktam is from Krishna Yajurveda - Taittriya. I practice Aghamarshana Suktam during snanacharna, especially in tirtha sthala. I dont know if Yajur vedic suktam is different from that in Rig. Though I do not classify myself in "expert" group, I would like to point out what I understood from the purohita who taught me this suktam..."
Jaideep comments:
"Regarding your question on Rigveda, the best place to look for an authentic interpretation is the Sayana Bhasya, so I am giving below, the Bhaasya on the Aghamarshana Sookta along with my word-to-word translation. Dr. H. N. Bhat, who is a Sanskrit Scholar at IFP (cc'ed), very kindly helped me in the translation.."
Rajiv Malhotra thanks those who responded with concrete help:
"I thank the few persons who provided solid information. This has been very useful..."

Chittaranjan adds:
"..Evolution and involution of the tattvas are the very basis of creation and
dissolution in both Samkhya and Vedanta. The principle on which evolution and involution are based is called `satkaryavada': the doctrine of the pre-existence of the effect in the cause. In the schools of Vedanta that hold Brahman to be the material cause of the universe,..."

Vish posts:
"...RV ( X.190.1-X.190.3) speaks of Cosmic creations  of layers from subtle to gross. (Harvard calls it a Cosmogonic hymn).

(1)

Here is a translation that I found on the internet, which literally appears correct:

From blazing Ardor [of Purusha?], Cosmic Order came and Truth; from thence was born
the obscure night; from thence the Ocean with its billowing waves.
[
x.190.1].."


This thread below is a really important one because it talks about an event that brings together Rajiv Malhotra and other leaders of various decentralized institutions of Hinduism under one roof to discuss some really critical issues. We plan to cover this thread in-depth in a separate post.
November 28 [continuing from last week]

Very successful Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, Ahmedabad
I just returned from India after attending the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha's 5th Bi-annual Conference in Ahmedabad. I was fortunate to be invited to deliver a...


November 28 [Continuing thread from November 22]
Angana Chatterji hosted at Harvard by Michael Witzel
In Breaking India, Rajiv & Aravindan write about some US academics who produce literature with questionable funding that could aid in the disintegration of...

Bhattacharya_S provides a brilliant, and extremely detailed investigative report on the activities of Angana, her husband Shapiro, and Fai over the last decade. We carry only some excerpts here [click the link to the original thread if you are interested in the complete details]:
"...What is most confusing and troubling about the ongoing Angana Chatterji story is the continued backing and support she receives from top levels of U.S. government and academia. However, her relationship with Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)/Pakistani government agent Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, as well as Fai’s own bizarre story are instructive in understanding Chatterji's status in such circles.

Chapter 14 of Breaking India describes how Chatterji called for foreign
intervention while providing testimony regarding events in Orissa before a U.S. Congressional committee investigating international human rights in 2008. The Congressional committee was chaired by Congressmen Trent Franks and Joe Pitts. BI identifies Trent Franks as a strong proponent of U.S. intervention in India regarding caste/human rights issues, and as a board member of Dalit Freedom Network (DFN), while Joe Pitts, a Christian fundamentalist, is described as a fierce critic of India’s anti-conversion laws with a pro-Pakistani bent. Congressman Pitts has also worked with Congressman Rick Santorum in promoting DFN, which, as discussed at length in BI, is essentially a front for Christian
evangelical interests...

...Despite U.S. lawmakers claims that they did not know of Fai’s
ISI/Pakistani government links, he was a naturalized U.S. citizen and very much a political ‘insider’ in America. His Washington-based Kashmir American Council (KAC), founded in 1990 and located a few blocks away from the White House, regularly drew Pakistani dignitaries as well as U.S. scholars and powerful Congressmen to its various events, while Fai’s wife (a Chinese Muslim) worked for the U.S. government’s Environmental Protection Agency. In 2005, Fai reportedly received the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, and in
2007 he was given the American Spirit Medal, both from the U.S. National
Republican Senatorial Committee. Fai himself was reportedly frequently invited to United Nations (UN) conferences during this period,..

... in 2004, Joe Pitts introduced a bill before Congress that
supported Pakistani interests in Kashmir, and called for U.S. intervention in the region. Shockingly, the bill was reportedly introduced only a few days after Pitts received a financial contribution from Fai’s KAC. Pitts has long been involved in Pakistani issues, and even traveled to Pakistan to meet personally with president at the time Pervez Musharraf in 2002 (as well as on earlier occasions). Pitts, a self-proclaimed “champion of Pakistan”, has served as Chairman of the Congressional Pakistan Caucus, created to safeguard Pakistani interests (Dan Burton has also held this post). Inexplicably however, Pitts has served simultaneously on both Congressional India and Pakistan caucuses, which some suggest was to help ease passage of pro-Pakistan (and anti-India) legislation...

... The picture that seems to emerge is that the ISI/Pakistani government arranged for Fai to testify before U.S. Congressional committees presided over and/or containing pro-Pakistani members such as Dan Burton. Fai’s ‘expert testimony’ was either directly prepared or approved by the ISI/Pakistan. And in turn, based at least in part on Fai’s testimony (and while they received money from the ISI/Pakistan), Burton, Joe Pitts (and perhaps others) continually
pushed for Pakistani interests in Kashmir at the upper levels of U.S.
government....

...Surprisingly, after investigation and trial, in March 2012, Fai was sentenced to only 2 years in jail, for charges related to his attempts to cover up his association with the ISI/Pakistan and for tax violations. This punishment seems like a slap on the wrist for what appears to be a decades-long infiltration...

... However, her removal from CIIS was not for any connection to Fai, but rather for academic misconduct. Many likely assumed that Chatterji’s dismissal was related to her link to Fai, especially since news of her suspension coincided with details of Fai’s arrest (and his contacts in academia and government) becoming public. However, it now appears that her association with Fai was either ignored, not investigated, or not reported on. And amazingly, she turned up again this year (2012) in March at a U.S. Congressional committee hearing to testify about human rights in South Asia, where she provided predictably biased,
distorted, anti-Hindu/anti-India testimony regarding Kashmir, religious
conversion/Orissa, the 2002 Gujarat riots, and other topics...

... The transcript (and video) of the 2012 hearing contains an almost laughable exchange between Congressman Pitts and Chatterji during which, in the space of a few sentences, they effectively attempt to clear one another of any wrongdoing regarding their associations with Fai and the ISI/Pakistani government...

... Throughout the 2012 Congressional hearing, however, Congressmen Pitts and Franks make no effort to disguise their own pro-Christian and anti-Hindu biases, which are easily detected in the wording of their questions (to Chatterji and others). Chatterji is of course more than willing to indulge...

 .... Noting her consistently anti-Hindu and anti-India stand, and her proximity to Fai, The Hindu American Foundation lodged a complaint against Angana Chatterji's involvement in the March 2012 Congressional hearing, in which the group even cited evidence pointing to her direct contact with Pakistan/ISI ...

... It is astounding that Chatterji continues to be regarded as a credible expert on human rights in India, but this only speaks to the biases of those who purport to ‘investigate’ human rights. She is still apparently in the good graces of the top levels of U.S. government, while in academia, she appears to have gotten some form of a promotion, moving from CIIS to the higher profile (and much wealthier) institution...

.... At the time of their suspension, the two were the only full-time
faculty members in the department in which they were found to have created and cultivated a bizarre, cult-like environment among students. The couple also frequently gave grades to students arbitrarily, based on non-existent work. Importantly, Shapiro himself has also been an invitee/speaker at Fai's Kashmir conferences, and a vocal critic of India's policy in Kashmir...

.... Shapiro and Chatterji's student cult would thus apparently mobilize to actively demonstrate against the Indian government. The shadowy husband and wife duo have no doubt been instrumental in turning CIIS from an institution founded to promote the teachings of Sri Aurobindo to one in which anti-India propaganda and rhetoric is preached (discussed in BI)....

... Chatterji even apparently first met Fai at CIIS in 2003, when she claims he visited the university where she was teaching to give a talk [http://tlhrc.house.gov/docs/transcripts/03-21-2012_South_Asia.pdf , see page 48]...

... In this regard its notable how the whole Fai affair was dramatically downplayed by U.S. media, despite the profound, far-reaching implications of the saga. There are hardly any detailed reports on the internet among top newspapers, and information is always incomplete. For instance, there is little or no mention of the apparently close and long-standing relationship between Fai and the U.N./international human rights community, and it is extremely difficult to find any information about this aspect of his subterfuge...

... The issues discussed in this post may be appreciated in broader contexts of anti-India nexuses and strategies discussed in BI. Figures 11.5, and the various diagrams in Chapters 13 and 14 of BI (as well as the text of these Chapters) are particularly useful in understanding ties between ‘liberal’ left-wing academicians and 'conservative' right-wing Christian evangelical elements, who are seemingly at odds over a variety of issues, but united in their staunch anti-Hindu and anti-India stand.

(Note: I referred to a number of articles on the web in writing this post that I did not mention. If anyone is interested in references, I'll be glad to provide them.) "


Sumant posts: 
I was sent the link below [from 2011] that discusses issues that have come up on this thread, and indeed on many other similar threads in the past. The author of the blog lists "Breaking India" first amongst his favourite sites. Not sure if he is already a member of this forum.
Abhimanyu [Nice name!] adds:
"I am a part of this forum and have learnt quite a lot from the information shared by Mr. Malhotra and others on this forum.  I am thankful to Mr. Malhotra and some of the other Hindu leaders for inspiring youth like me to create blogs exposing the nexus of Indian Communists/Christian Missionaries/Islamists around the world..."
 

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