Ragini Sharma takes on Rambachan

A Forum Member responds to Anantanand Rambachan 

Anantanand Rambachan, ever since he has been called out as being one of the proponents of the Neo-Hinduism thesis in Indra's Net has been attacking Rajiv Malhotra personally. His latest is in a piece in the Open magazine.

Ragini Sharma, one of the forum members of Rajiv Malhotra's discussion forum wrote a brilliant rejoinder to Rambachan's attack, as a comment below his article. It is reproduced here, along with brief follow up comments from Rajiv ji.

Dear Anantananda,

With all these accusations and counter accusations, I thought I must be fair to you and therefore I just did some research on you. So you studied 3 years with Dayanand about Advaita and you say you learnt some practices and then you spent the rest of your career as a Prof. at an evangelical Christian University in the US to teach about what you know.

According to the Olaf U website you and “a regular participant in the consultations of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican” and your writings seem to directed towards the Christian community - to explain Hinduism to them. I have read several of your articles. I am not impressed with that but I do see Rajiv's point about your neo-Hinduism ideas because its the type of ideas that Paul Hacker, the founder of Neo-Hinduism, had. Like you, Hacker was educated in Yoga and Advaita,  he then converted to Catholic faith, and was doing this Hindu-Christian dialogue. You did not.

Now I saw your earlier article that you do not refer to Hacker in your thesis, but it is not contested that you PhD Supervisor, Ursula King, did write a translation on Hacker and would be an influence on you. All your talk about you wanting to "interrogate" Advaita and the sacred texts and revered gurus and you need to "critically evaluate in order for the tradition to be relevant and creative" reeks of neo-Hinduism. The problem is that your interrogations are within the Doniger-Pollock-Clooney-Rambachan clique. If you are honestly interested in interrogating the truth, why not have this dialogue with Hindu practitioner scholars in India - with the current religious leaders in India who do never read western academic work - they are the ones who live it, breathe it and have the most invested in its survival.

You would agree that it is the oral tradition, of guru paramparas, that have preserved the sacred knowledge - not your books, written texts. Whatever, is written is a fraction of what is known to the oral tradition even today - along with its cultural context. Work like yours and other western non-practitioner scholars do not come close to knowing what the oral tradition lives - in the hearts of devotees. You do not have an ounce of devotion in you - and Bhakti -devotion, which cannot be divorced from Gyan because it permeates every cell of the disciple that learns at the feet of the Master, while he questions the teachings, with an open mind. The Guru is happy when his disciple turns out to be more learned than him or her. And, the love of the guru is equal to 1000s of mothers, and guru is exalted in all Vedic traditions. You just never had one - I mean a guru you gave your heart to. You are stuck in the head.

Just to give you a fair chance, I thought I would check out some of your talks. Again, Rajiv is right. You are well intentioned but you are an apologist for a Hindu. I have posted the links to the videos below - I am referring to your talk at the KAICIID Global Forum of 2013 - a multi-faith dialogue on how religions conceive the Other. Your introduction to this idea of the other in Hinduism was pathetic and apologetic, no mention of Vasudev Kutumbakam or Hindus' illustrious history of giving shelter to Jews, Parsees, Buddhist etc.; or that there are over 300,000 mosques in India and almost as many Muslims as in Pakistan, living in peace, as compared to in the rest of the word. You did not say anything about 800 years of rape, murder, killing of Hindus by Mughals, burnt libraries, and the Muslim Iconoclasts (Goel) who smashed every temple they could find in India - millions and the cultural genocide. Never mentioned the Goa Inquisition of the Catholic Church and the menace of conversions today by saffron robed Christians - the shame of acculturation, which by the way I hope you talk about in your classes you teach. Or the stealth of thousands of our Sanskrit texts by German, English and others.

Rajiv is completely right - because, you DID bring up the issue of caste and shamefully in the context of religion. Not only is this contested by Hindus who assert the caste system is not in the Vedas, which have varna, and also the social context of jati. You call yourself a Professor but you present yourself as ashamed of your Hindu roots. Can you bring up the issue of Hinduphobia in the academia - about Wendy's and her protégés horrible sexualisation of Hindu gurus, deities and texts? Do you have any guts to defend Hindu rights? No, for that we need Rajiv.

At the same time, at the conference, the Muslim cleric began by reciting a Koranic prayer, and to lecture about tolerance, Islamophobia, racism, multiculturalism. No mention of extremism or problems with its religion - Pakistan has 15% Hindus - now has 2%, they were killed off. There are hardly any temples left. there and Shias, Ahmediyas are being killed.

The Jewish presenter talked about "humanity as one", hegemony, tolerance. You could learn pride in one's religion from these people, they have no less intra-religious conflicts and problems.

The Catholic Priest presenter took the cake - its the religion that has the history of causing cultural genocide and mass killings in every corner of the world. And the sexual abuse of children all over the world. Yet, he only talked about how great the Pope was and his religion was.

Also, there was Buddhist priest from China who lectured everyone about extremism - no mention of atrocities on Tibet. She preached others about harmony of non-sectarian, practical use of faith. Amazing.

You looked sheepish and ashamed of Hindu faith - you are not fit to represent our wonderful faith to the world. Yes we have problems, but lets present a balanced picture, with honesty and talk about the progress that has been made, considering our own cultural genocide and continued assault on our religion from all sides. Rajiv Malhotra does that. Can you return the western gaze or are you a colonized Hindu? Your talks and writing demonstrate you speak as the latter.

I also saw your talk on Karma and forgiveness. It was so Christianized - no mention of the mystery of karma - you never mentioned the reincarnation either which is such an important aspect of karmic theory.

Anantananda, here are the links. I wish you well and hope you can find some courage. And attacking Rajiv for exposing your half-heartedness Hindu self is not going to do it for you.  And trying to present Rajiv, who lives to protect Hindu Dharma, as a terrorist, is pathetic and shameful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBbtDWq7Kzg Jewish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2uvefumQ0 Catholic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYnWhZiBQxo
Muslim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5iSJDrq3AY
Chinese buddhist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljKdLzMOSLI Rambachan

Rajiv Malhotra's followup comments

• Ragini's new comment deserves to be posted as an article, so I hope people will do so wherever they can.
• The Rambachan-Richard Fox nexus becoming clearer all the time.
• Wondering why Aseem Shukla, otherwise quite level headed, fell into this and cannot see the big political picture.
• I would respect Rambachan a lot more if he wrote on the contentious issues rather than "defense by offense". In other words he should act like a philosopher he claims to be, and argue his point that Vivekananda did not properly understand Vedanta. Why obsessed with personal defensiveness?

 

RMF Summary: Week of December 26, 2011 - January 1, 2012

December 26

ISKCON U-Turns Explained bluecupid shares: Since Rajiv makes ISKCON part of his research, you might be interested to know why many of the "gurukuli" youth have U-turned from it upon reaching adulthood.  Keep in mind that these people never CHOSE to join ISKCON but were born into it through their parents. They grew up in ISKCON's "gurukula" system wherein many of them experienced severe psychological, physical and even sexual abuse. It may be that had they not experienced this abuse, they would not have done U-turns, and there are some who, having even experienced such abuse, did not do a complete U-turn from either ISKCON or Vaishnavism in general. These young people, now adults, are currently writing about their growing up in ISKCON and what affect it has had on them as adults. Here's a peak into one such life: http://childhoodissacred.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/an-epiphany/ Another U-turner is a relatively longtime adult member (at the time) who was considered an intellectual treasure some decades ago in the organization. He has since gone on to write books about his experiences and other topics. His critique is insightful and not entirely negative. Website; http://surrealist.org/writing/gelberg.html In the section where he discusses all the things he learned from his ISKCON experience, I'm posting below what he writes "ON TRANSPLANTING AN INDIAN RELIGIOUS TRADITION TO THE WEST" but I recommend you read all of the "things learned". 40 I learned, in the end, that it is nearly impossible to transmit and translate a religious tradition from its land of origin into a completely foreign cultural environment. However earnestly one may attempt to preserve its original cultural and experiential ethos, that tradition is unavoidably refracted through a radically different cultural lens, and in the process is distorted, perhaps fatally. 41 I learned that any such attempt to universalize a religious tradition is further complicated when the transitioning culture has been redefined and repackaged as an elitist monastic society preaching a world-rejecting ideology. 42 I learned that such a foreign religious transplant, re-branded as a world-rejecting monasticism, would naturally create a high level of tension with the new host society, further causing the transplant to assume a defensive posture and recede into a hard institutional shell. ...... 45 I learned a thing or two about the role of the intellectual in a cultic milieu. Because intelligence, like everything else, is to be used only in Krishna's service, the intellectually inclined member finds him or herself constrained to a narrow range of intellectual or academic activity. His research library consists not of the accumulated wisdom of mankind, but of the writings of his guru (and those who support the guru's views). Thus, while the independent, non-apologetical intellectual engages in open-ended reflection and analysis in search of deeper insight and unbiased understanding of a chosen subject, the cult intellectual works under a particular mandate: to explain, promote and defend the ideology of the cult, as well as to promote the institution that embodies it. ... Carpentier responds to bluecupid: I often wonder at the rather sudden epidemic of sexual abuse in all organisations, spiritual, religious or not...Is it not some fashion that has become endemic.Millions of people now remember that they were sexually abused in infancy or adolescence. I am sure most are sincere and some are telling the truth but still! In some countries in the West many women equate any sort of sexual contact that they did not specifically demand with rape or abuse. Rajiv's comment:  "...This "blame Indian culture" is yet another example of superimposing western bias (in this case from the imagined liberal kind). I went to a catholic school in delhi and many boys said that as punishment they often got caned in a private room after having them remove their pants! In USA today there would a huge class action law suit against the whole chain of catholic schools. Probably it also happened in non catholic schools judging from stories told by boys from various places... So these "excuses" by uturners are just that. Their are right in making the charge, but wrong in accusing a particular faith or culture for it. The same is true of blaming caste bias on Hinduism per se. I was recently at the Huffington Post holiday party in Manhattan where a young Muslin woman (self classified as a Muslim feminist) was telling me how one prominent Indian Hindu scholar (name withheld) was giving a talk in Istanbul recently, and got totally stumped and embarrassed when an Indian Muslim woman in the audience asked her of caste biases in Hinduism. The Hindu woman had no idea what to say and retracted her entire thesis in embarassment. So I told this Muslim feminist that Islam has an even more severe caste system. I explained how the ashraf muslims (upper caste) in south asia imagined they were descendents of Arabs, Turks or Persians, including Saids who claimed to be direct descendents of the prophet. How the ethnic clashes in Pakistan were often involving those who migrated from the India side (mujahirs) after partition, and hence were not considered ashraf but ajlaf muslims (lower caste). This muslim caste is a form of racism. There has never been a single panel on it in the AAR or the past 40 years of South Asian Conferences in Madison where Hindu caste is staple diet for the scholars. Muslim caste is worse than the Hindu caste bias which is recognized and has quotas etc to help those who got affected. The muslim caste has no self consciousness on the part of the ashraf - Shabana Azmi and her pompous husband and most other prominent Indian muslim elites proudly claim to be ashraf, in ways that would be considered scandalous if brahmins did that in Delhi's elite circles. The muslim feminist was in full agreement with my understanding of the muslim caste system. I went on to tell her that every Pakistani newspaper in any language has matrimonial ads where they announce the caste of the person and the desired caste of the partner they want - this is out in the open as muslim caste. There was a christian Indian also present in the conversation. I was about to open the question of christian caste, but she anticipated this and calmly walked away in another direction. The muslim feminist then told me: Why did xyz (name withheld) not respond this way in the conference when she was asked? I told her that it was the wrong kind of Hindu ambassador invited to the event. " Kundan responds: "... debate on prime time on CNN-IBN will further substantiate Rajiv ji’s view that both Islam and Christianity practices casteism in India, given that there are two Islamic scholars who talking about the need of caste based reservations within the Muslim population in India (the case of Dalit Christians is also taken up). Though both Islam and Christianity have adopted devious and violent measures for conversion in India throughout Indian history, they have always claimed that they want to bring about the conversion to end caste-based discrimination in Hinduism. There is no society in the world where there isn’t any discrimination. But somehow Hinduism is a chief target of intellectuals to criticize. In the psychological parlance, we call this as “shadow projection.” Shadow projection happens when one projects one’s deficiencies, problems, and issues onto others, instead of examining it within oneself. What happens on an individual level also happens on a societal level. If one looks at the American society, discrimination based on lines of race, skin-color, gender, and religion abounds. However, India continues to be center-stage of projection where all discrimination happens. Despite that South Africa continued to practice apartheid till only a few years back, the specialty of Hinduism in this area continues to be reserved. Caste discrimination happens to be one of the greatest barriers among the Hindu Indian American kids in having a confident identity about themselves. It is also one that makes westernized Indians or “White Indians” as Rajiv ji mentioned in his dialogue with Francis Clooney at UMass, Dartmouth highly apologetic. It produces “Difference Anxiety from Below” and creates a fertile ground for assimilation and disowning of one’s Hindu/Indian identity. As we begin “reversing the gaze” we will ultimately need to write ... It requires work along the following lines: An insider’s perspective on varna as it has been described in various dharmic texts beginning with the “Purusha sukta” of the Vedas. We will then need to look at its discussions in all the dharma-shastras that have been given to us over ages. This is specifically because varna-dharma has changed according to time and place. This will, of course, reveal that Varna traditionally in India was guna-based and was not hereditary, according to the family of birth, as it became in later times (since I had written a detailed email on this topic some time back, I will refrain from writing about the same thing again). How the varna-based society was described in the travelogues of the foreigners since the times written records are available. How the varna based society changed during the Muslim and English rule (Ronald Inden and Nicholas Dirks talk about the English impact but the Islamic impact remains to be studied).   A critical inquiry of assumptions of all those philosophers like Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau etc who are said to have laid the foundation of “equality.” And finally the social problems that specifically appear and arise from the philosophical foundations of western societies. This is important further because in India, there is an uncritical aping of the west that is happening, which is problematic on at least two accounts: a) what India may be aping may not be in conformity with its particular way of being—this does not mean to say that the west is wrong in having its present society; just that India does not need to be aping it, and b) the problems that have emerged in the West due to its current social philosophies have not been sufficiently studied. And they need to be studied using the Indian cosmology.....   And as I say the above, I want to clarify that I am an opponent of birth-based jati/caste system, with all its problems of discrimination, rigid hierarchy and oppression but I do not share the same views regarding guna-based varna system which was a different matter altogether. The guna-based system, in my opinion, was based on plurality and diversity with utmost respect for people’s individual guna-based swadharma ... Because most people in India have forgotten the wisdom of the guna-based varna, many children are subjected to utmost oppression by their well-meaning and more-often-than-not-loving family members where every attempt is made to make them something which is not in tune with their natural flow, their swadharma." Venkat adds: "A very important point that is overlooked in any discussion about ISKCON is that Prabhupada emulated the Christian model as well as fundamental beliefs and incorporated them into his movement. It was, in a certain sense, inculturation, just that it happened in the reverse direction. Consider these: Tithing the church was a Christian practice and requirement (Deuteronomy 14:22-29) which Prabhupada borrowed into ISKCON. Prabhupada's opposition to sex is directly borrowed from Christianity (Matthew 19:11-12, 1 Corinthians 7), and was a radical departure from the Hindu ethos regarding sexuality. Even the congregational structure he created was based on the Christian model of congregation. The anti-intellectual strand that ran through ISKCON .... The list can go on but what Gelberg and others miss is that ISKCON's is not a problem of a foreign dharma entering the US soil - after all Christianity is a desert religion of Semitic origin. It is foremost the case of a dharmic religion acquiring Abrahamic memes. The abuse in ISKCON has been a fraction of what happens in the Catholic or Protestant churches but the media is generally prone to treat Christian churches with kid gloves. As Daniel Dennett says the only difference between a cult and a religion is the number of followers it has acquired."   bluecupid responds to Venkat: ""Prabhupada's opposition to sex is directly borrowed from Christianity (Matthew 19:11-12, 1 Corinthians 7), and was a radical departure from the Hindu ethos regarding sexuality." Wrong. Its borrowed from the Bhagavat Purana, Bhakti Sandarbha, and Hari Bhakti Vilas. Please see here; http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/Brahmacarya.htm#Sex_and_begetting_prog\ eny One of the problems when discussing ISKCON with Indian Hindus is that they are more often than not unfamiliar with the texts of the previous Vaishnava tradition that ISKCON sprang from and which much of ISKCON is in fact based. "The abuse in ISKCON has been a fraction of what happens in the Catholic or Protestant churches but the media is generally prone to treat Christian churches with kid gloves." Wrong again. There was hardly any coverage of the ISKCON scandals in the mainstream media when the news broke. Even now, when you say "Hare Krishnas" in the West, most people think of happy people singing and dancing in the streets back in the 70s and often wonder "where have they gone?" They are unaware of the scandals. Same in India. Unless you are an ISKCON member or related to them, you would not be privy to what happened. Even the new comers who join the organization now are largely unaware. As far as the child abuse being a "fraction" of what took place in the Catholic Church during the same time period, well, adjust for population size and they are pretty par. It may even be more in ISKCON."    [this post is tied to the 'Jesus in India' thread that was discussed else. search Keywords] December 28 Frank shares:  I am about to travel to India to produce a documentary and would like to ask for recommendations.  The film will be called Beyond Reason and will be about the roots of Vedanta and the scientific nature of Indian Philosophy. I have already produced two documentary films on spirituality that you are guaranteed to love.    These documentaries are sure to invoke a lively discuss.  The first film, Beyond Me, is about consciousness, instincts, personality disorders and evolution and makes a case for how meditation is the solution for human suffering.  The second film, Beyond Belief, presents a case for Missing Knowledge that Jesus taught and that His authentic teachings have their roots in Vedanta. http://www.beyondmefilm.com"   Ravindra reviews the films Watched both the movies. Movie 1: Good documented case of Punar-Janma (re-incarnation) with lot of fuzzy statements about claims on behalf of Buddhism's new contributions on Yoga, that can not be substantiated... Movie 2: Mainly Speculative, wishful thinking, need of Christians to show Christianity and Jesus as Victimized, so create a story that Brahmans and Xshatriyas tried to kill Jesus. And Jesus learning Yoga directly from Rishis and Mahavira etc.. Basically a load of BS. December 28 Our own leaders inadvertently helping in the digestion of Yoga HSS USA is kicking off its annnual Surya Namaskar Yagna (SNY) from Jan 14th 2012. This is from their website:Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA (HSS) announces the...    January 1 Clarification to Ch.2 Dear Rajiv, I recently bought a copy of Being Different and am reading it with great pleasure and edification. You deserve our thanks for having undertaken the...   Jaunary 1 Triple anxiety of being different. Dear Rajiv Ji, Namaste, I have recently purchased your latest book, Being Different, and I have just begun reading it. Though I wanted to read it through to...   January 1 Another review of Breaking India in Tamil One of the good tamil literary website has published article on Breaking India. http://solvanam.com/?p=18567...

RMF Summary: Week of October 24 - 30, 2011

Toward the end of this post is a riveting discussion on "free enterprise". There is a Dharmic approach to this enterprise that is original to India, appears to be organic in the way it came up, is pro-environment, and provides a viable (almost surely better) alternative to the "right wing or left-wing" economic models employed in the west.

 
October 24

{Breaking India} Vishal Mangalwadi: India’s Pat Robertson Excerpted with permission from Malhotra, Rajiv and Aravindan Neelakandan, "Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines," Amaryllis...

October 25

Inculturation - Christuva Brahmana Seva Samithy http://thammayya.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/christuva-brahmana-seva-samithy/ Recently read this blog.Another example of Inculturation as explained in "Breaking...

October 25

Similar books or those against which BEING DIFFERENT argues Similar books or those against which BEING DIFFERENT argues Below is a list of comparable titles in this area, of varying degrees of relevance and value. With...

October 26

Prof. Al Collins review of BEING DIFFERENT Reviewer: Al Collins, Ph.D., former core faculty, California Institute of Integral Studies. In 1957, Mircea Elaide wrote that "Western culture will be in...

October 26

Dr. Shrinivas Tilak's review of BEING DIFFERENT Reviewer: Shrinivas Tilak, PhD, historyof religions, an independent researcher based in Montreal In Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western...

October 26

My Q&A with an American journalist on BEING DIFFERENT Foll. are the responses sent to a written set of questions from someone in American media. We shall wait to see what finally appears, but I felt that this Q&A...

October 27

My response to Steve Farmer w.r.t. Angana Chatterjee Dear Steve Farmer, you have made a false allegation below that I offered 100K to CIIS to get rid of Angana C or anyone else from her job. The CIIS president...

October 27

Dr. Satya Narayan Das' review of BEING DIFFERENT Reviewer: Dr. Satya Narayan Das, Founder of Jiva Institute of Vedic Studies, Vrindavan Many Indian spiritual leaders, lacking a profound knowledge of their own...

October 29

Bhakti Vikas Swami (ISKCON): review of BEING DIFFERENT Reviewer: Bhakti Vikas Swami, Vaishnav scholar and ISKCON sannyasi, author of twelve books All Things Must Pass -- so sung George Harrison on a megahit album..

October 29

Jati economics and free enterprise Rajiv Malhotra: Those who have read the works of Prof. Vaidyanathan (IIM-B) will appreciate that free market was not the invention of the west. It was european colonialism that closed what had previously been free trade and free markets. They did this to control markets and come pout on top. Jatis functioned without state controls, and were free to negotiate with each other according to norms mutually agreed upon. Many of them still do so today and are thriving as a result. Chinese are making the claim that free enterprise is consistent with Confucian thought. Why are Indians scared of free market as some "American" thing? One day these folks might think of yoga as an imported american thing!!! Of course, there are many kinds of free markets - those that plunder the ecosystem are not dharma compliant, for instance. But I do not subscribe to the view that a dharmic renaissance would be one that cannot take advantage of modern science, technology, free markets and so forth. Its an alternative approach to globalization, not an ideology of. Pooja responds: "" a dharmic renaissance would be one that cannot take advantage of modern science, technology, free markets and so forth" Isn't this more along the lines of christian teachings ? I have not seen it in any of the major Hindu "scriptures" as a part of Hindu/Sanatan Dharm. This is not what the Vedas say, neither does Bhagwatgita say thay anywhere, that I have read it. All of them have encouraged the use of science & technology for prosperity, but have also listed the downside of over-dependence on them to the point of denying the importance of life. Over mining, over consumption, etc. have been pointed out & the consequences too have been pointed out." Rajiv's response:  I disagree that Vedas are counter to science. In fact, in my new book there is a lot written on why science and dharma never went to war against each other and why Christianity has had (and still has) war with science. The Biblical metaphysics (called Hebraic) has never been fully reconciled with Hellenism (based on reason). But dharma has not rejected reason or science. After all, Indians have a great history of scientific achievements since ancient times - volumes have been written on this including Infinity Foundation's own 20-vol series of which 8 are available now). If you quoted me more than just the sentence above, I DO say that damaging the environment is against dharma. But your statement that somehow we must see modern science and Vedic civilization as opposites is not true."  Rakesh adds: "I believe, with the discovery of new world ( the real promised land ), the Scarcity driven Abrahamic top down control civilization has met a new geographical context that has led to an irreconciliable tension- between the economic reality of openness to immigration to improve capital productivity in a resource rich United States and the compulsion to minimize difference anxiety by converting all of them to Christianity ... With a Hindu ethos, the need for a single ideology would be much lower and a multi party system would have resulted in the USA. Abrahamic religious ethos, is behind the stalemate today, where each party is the GOD and the other the Devil ? I also believe war torn, land deprived Abrahamic ethos, extracted more out of resources, higher productivity- so my view is not one-sided But the tensions between Helenic democracy and Judeo Christian top down centralization characterizes American foriegn policy- even if Helenistic at home, judeo christian in its preference for top down totalitarian regimes such as China compared to chaotic India ..." Rajiv's comment: I am glad Rakesh has been reading BEING DIFFERENT as he noted earlier, and making these points on difference. Indeed, BD gives the differences in dharmic approaches and these could be extrapolated further to develop a dharmic free market world - quite different than western capitalism. Please note that enterprise in dharma is not "bonded" or "controlled", but free."  Venkat responds: "I am familiar with Prof. Vaidyanathan's immensely valuable work. But the traditional Indian system was not Free Market. I use the term Free Market in the same sense as its  proponents use: a system of commerce without state intervention and a system that is only constrained by the agreement between the transacting parties. In a Free Market system anyone is free to start any business anywhere provided the consumers of the services they offer exist. JÄti institutions transacting business was by no means Free Market since jÄtis were often debarred from competing with other jÄtis especially when such competition jeopardized livelihoods. If members of a certain jÄti or varána violated this norm and took up professions that were considered the preserve of another jÄti or varána then those individuals were excommunicated." Rajiv response: Your description of jatis is right. But non-competes were by mutual consent, not imposed from above. I spent time living with fishermen jatis in Nagapatinam district after the tsunami where we sponsored building a strategic youth hostel (by AIM For Seva) for victims' kids - in the shadow of the famous massive cathedral. I studied their fishing non-compete practices. Each jati specializes in some kind of fish and hence a certain kind of boat and net, and hence where they go to sea varies. They dont interfere with the fishing variety of the other jati. This is not counter to free market. Call it cartel-like arrangement, perhaps. Or just a mutual agreement of non interference in order to specialize and maximize the total benefit rather than cutting each other. Ditto for marketing the fish. Men went to catch the fish while women were the marketers. They too had their territories and practices neatly divided. I dont use free market in the limited western sense. To me the contrast is with top-down central authoritarian rule. it starts with roman imperialism combined with Christian Church being the top boss and controlling everything. In medeival times the Knights Templar became one of the first multinational corps (though mostly in europe) controlling manufacturing and trade. This later served as a model for the British East India company, which CLOSED THE PRE-EXISTING FREE MARKET OCEAN TRADE. Thus the modern MNC was born. I dont like the idea that free marketing be gifted as a western invention. i dont like people being told that its an either/or choice between dharma and modernity/science/free-market/prosperity.  The reason smritis are rewritten and kept separate from shruti (whereas in the abrahamic religions they got collapsed into one book) is precisely to allow dharma to evolve. So just as the chinese claim Confucian Modernity, I am working on ideas of Dharmic Modernity - not a contradictory term."  George adds: "... in the Anglo-Saxon model practiced by the USA and its European cronies, it is applicable only to people and places approved by them, and goods and services from other places deemed unfavorable to them are restricted on various pretexts like "child labor", "bad quality", "unauthorized nuclear research", whatever. The farming subsidy is also part of this restrictive trade practice. So, actually, the "free trade" mooted by the West is a despicable practice that should be rejected by dharmic people. Innovate, not imitate! In India, I know for sure that the fishermen of the sea could fish only in the sea and the fishermen of the backwaters/rivers could fish only in their own territory. They don't even inter-marry. Though these inter-jati conventions were not written down, they were inviolable laws at a time. And in case of inter-jati disputes, the Raja was the mediating authority. However the Raja had no right in intra-jati disputes."   Carpentier adds: "The Varnasrama code of trade and economic activity had its western medieval equivalents in the system of guilds, corporations and sodalities which were analogous to jatis and were linked by pacts of complementariness, solidarity and interdependence which protected them against State encroachment. One of the first acts of the "Liberal" , banker-driven French revolution was to ban all those guilds and decide that every individual was solely submitted to the government and had not other means of association for self-protection. That was the origin of the modern capitalist or socialist state." Rajiv response:  "I agree with this assessment. The top-down events in Europe that "every individual was solely submitted to the government and had not other means of association for self-protection" is where dharma traditions have a chance to make a difference in the type of free market that emerges. According to Vaidyanathan's statistics, well over 90% of India's work force are self-employed, making it the largest number of individual entrepreneurs in the world. This is a very different type of free market than one with large scale corporate entities under heavy government regulations. I am opposed to corruption, but I differentiate that from many aspects of the black economy where people simply dont want to fall under the gov't controlled economy - thats a free market indian style that has not yet succumbed to western style controls."  Senthil provides a wonderful perspective: "The context in which the term "Free" is interpreted is different w.r.t to western and indian (dharmic) scenario. In west, the free market is the one where any one is free to enter and corner any amount of market share. The best performing entity (company) becomes the winner, and it doesnt matter, how many lost their business, or how many even lost their life. In Indic Scenario, Free market is the one, where the constituents of the market are free to trade, without interference from external forces (economic & physical). Its NOT free for all. In part, i agree with KV, that there is no free market in india. Let us look at the name of different Vyshya community, and the region they came from. In Tamilnadu, the Choliya Chetty, Kongu Chetty, Pandya Chetty are indications, that they are the vyshyas for their respective dhesam. Within each dhesam, there are vyshyas for different products. For eg, among kongu chetty, there are Ennai Chettiyar (For trading Oil), Uppiliya Chettiyar (for trading Salt) are still existing. Same with Devanga Chetty, Gomathi Chetty etc. I dont know much about North Indian Vyshyas. But my point, is that Many Vyshya communities are associated with one of the ancient 56 Dhesams, as we see from the examples i gave above.  (And this is the unexplored secret of Indian jathis) So a king protects the vyshyas of his dhesam, from alien economic invasion. NOT just vyshyas, but protects every other jaathi in doing their profession without any interference or invasion from others. We need to see Indian Dharmic Free Market as localised, ethical Trading. In one perspective, the term market in indic sense refers to a specific place where different products ( or particular product) are traded. We call it as "Sandhai" in tamil. However, from the western perspective, a market is defined based on selling potential. ie, they see entire India as a market. ( Please correct me if i am wrong) Next, the use of Gold as currency is another factor in the existence of Dharmic Free Market. No one can manipulate Gold, and its value is universal across the world. The British East India Company, tried to persuade Shivaji to accept their currency, but Shivaji refused, and demanded they trade in gold. The fallacy of Western Freemarket can be understood, if we study the way in  which British East India Company, monopolised different trade in India. For example, salt was produced in Gujarat and traded to Bengal. To control this, the Company erected a 4000 KM long Live Fence, from orissa to Kashmir, which is called Great Hedge of India. This is still largely unknown among indian historians and intellectuals, and recently Rox Maxhom, from University of London Library, rediscovered about this and published a book in 2001. For more details, pls refer the wikipedia article.  "

October 29

BEING DIFFERENT - Prof. V.V. Raman's review This review is pending publication in print journals, and meanwhile Prof. Raman will be posting it online at various sites.

RMF Summary: Week of August 8 - 14, 2011

August 8

Visit of St Thomas to Kerala Devendra posts: See the report that appeared in The New Indian Express on debunking the visit of St Thomas to India. It appeared in the Chennai edition on August 5, 2011. ...

August 8

SAA Rizvi and Imtiaz Ahmad Manas asks:  "A while back it was mentioned in this forum that SAA Rizvi and Imtiaz Ahmed were hounded out of AMU and JNU respectively, apparently for not toeing the Marxist-secularist line of negation, whitewashing and history engineering. Does anyone have any reference for this?.."

 (w.r.t. Imtiaz Ahmad)

  (w.r.t SAA Rizvi)

[if anybody reads this thread and has some updates, please post in the comments section]
 

August 8

Christianity: From Religious Microsoft to Spiritual Ubuntu Is Christianity now beginning to plug into India's God Project ? It was Josh Schrei who first posited the insight that Hinduism was an Open Source project of..

August 9

Professor Ramesh Rao on the Ghulam Nabi Fai issue Champagne, seminar and ISI August 05, 2011 11:36:50 PM Ramesh Rao The genteel face of Track 2 diplomacy was given a crude scar by the FBI’s inquiry into the Ghulam Nabi Fai operation and this time the usual counter (“its Hindu nationalist cant”) is not available for the defense of the liberal elite About ten years ago, when at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin, I presented a content analysis of The New York Times and The Washington Post’s coverage of Indian matters over a three-year period (1998-2000), I was heckled by some who sought to shut me up. This was when the NDA held the reins in Delhi. In my paper I had concluded that the Post, despite some partisan editorialising, was more circumspect about Indian matters but the NYT was consistently tendentious and didactic. The people who tried to shut me up included an academic/activist from California, along with a couple of graduate students representing the “left-secular-progressive” front. For them, anything that was even remotely supportive of the NDA regime was anathema..." We carry the followups to this post in full without excerpting to ensure that the message is clearly understood. Rajiv Malhotra's response is stinging: "What Ramesh Rao fails to mention is that Infinity Foundation wanted an analysis of US media bias against India, and he was given the grant to do this work. It was eventually finished with the help of other scholars we brought in... Infinity Foundation also sponsored research by a team of scholars at Penn State University to analyze bias against Indians in US film and television. Likewise, there were grants given to analyze school textbook biases - years before such topics became fashionable among the diaspora. After 400 such grants to a variety of scholars and many millions of dollars given away over several years, I finally reached the conclusion that I had to publish my own original research that makes its points with hard hitting facts. This is not a praise for me, but rather an assessment of the shoddy quality of most academic scholars in the humanities especially when it comes to India related work. It seems that the students who were too bad to get into things like science, IT, medicine, law or business are the ones who entered the humanities. Unfortunately, this low caliber lot are empowered to speak as the "experts". Srinarayan responds: " i am a chemical engr from iit- chennai and do not agree that those who go in humanities are of lower caliber. i would appreciate if we would avoid such comments." Rajiv's followup: "Emotions and political correctness has no place when hard facts are being discussed. It is a FACT that bright kids choose careers with best prospects as evidenced by surveys, exam scores of students entering various fields. Based on this, it is TRUE to say that the brightest go for certain disciplines and unfortunately humanities suffer. There was once a time in India when the brightest pursued very intellectual fields without considering material wealth opportunities. Thats why brains like Adi Shankara and hundreds of others we know entered fields where they did not stand to make any wealth. This is simply not true today. Its reflect on the state of social priorities and the measures by which we judge people. For you to deny this because it is discomforting is hardly responsible. Instead, you should inquire WHY are bright kids not preferring humanities on ground of principles, and what would it take to encourage that." August 10 Another whistleblower comes out - we need more of this. We all know the virulent bias of N. Ram, the lucky son-in-law who took over the Hindu group of newspapers as its head (India's largest or number two media... August 11 Thanks to Kalyan Vishwanathan for a great event in Dallas Just a short note that: Kalyan Vishwanathan pulled off a very professionally organized and successful event in Dallas yesterday, one of the best managed by ... August 11 China Banning U.S. Professors Elicits Silence From Colleges Rakesh posts: Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- They call themselves the “Xinjiang 13.” They have been denied permission to enter China, prohibited from flying on a Chinese airline and pressured to adopt China- friendly views. To return to China, two wrote statements disavowing support for the independence movement in Xinjiang province. They aren’t exiled Chinese dissidents. They are American scholars from universities, such as Georgetown and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who have suffered a backlash from China unprecedented in academia since diplomatic relations resumed in 1979. Their offense was co-writing “Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland,” a 484-page paperback published in 2004. “I wound up doing the stupidest thing, bringing all of the experts in the field into one room and having the Chinese take us all out,”... " Rajiv's response: "Thanks to Rakesh for sending this VERY IMPORTANT ITEM below. I have written many times that China controls the study of its civilization, standing up to western pressure on so-called "intellectual freedom." India works the opposite - thinking it is a favor when others study India regardless of what they end up saying. India has an inferiority complex of being ignored, so its leaders are craving to be "included" no matter what. hence the programs in USA that study Indian languages, cultures, etc are fashionable WITHOUT THE DUE DILIGENCE TO MAKE SURE THE OUTPUT IS NOT A MISREPRESENTATION."  August 12  More applause for Sheldon Pollock Some may find this article, "Columbia U. Professor Broadens Access to Sanskrit, Ancient Language of the Elite", which appeared in today's Chronicle of Higher... August 12 8000 yr old wall discovered in west Indian coastline This appeared in the DNA newspaper in July. The discovery was made by a retired Professor from Deccan College of Archaeology in Pune. .. August 12 Relevant article on infiltration: Is India turning into a banana rep http://www.samachar.com/Is-India-turning-into-a-banana-republic-limnJTej\ ihb.html Is India turning into a banana republic? RSN Singh | 2011-08-12 [Anna... August 12 The birth based hysteria I penned down an article in my blog on the unquestioned hatred on jaathi, just because it is birth based. What is an inherent strength of our society... August 13 Correction: I named the wrong D'Souza in my talk In my recent talk in Dallas, I mistakenly mentioned the name Dilip D'Souza as a person affiliated with Dalit Freedom Network. The right name is Joseph D'Souza,... ICCR setting up Sanskrit chair in Cambodia, and cultural centres in N. S. Rajaram posts: "Time of India: 'The East has been deeply influenced by India' The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has opened a centre in the South Korean capital Seoul and set up a chair of Sanskrit at the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University in Cambodia. These initiatives are part of the Indian government's 'Look East' policy. ICCR president Karan Singh talked with Shobhan Saxena about India's growing soft power and need for more engagement with countries in our extended neighbourhood." Rajiv Malhotra responds: " In fact in 2005 Infinity Foundation sponsored the first Sanskrit Conference in Thailand where a sanskrit studies program and journal were inaugurated. The then BJP govt and its famous HRD minister had refused to fund it, and a Delhi Univ. prof had contacted me to salvage India's image in the eyes of the Thai royal family who were the conference patrons. So I became the "Indian representative" and source of funds (a small sum just symbolically to save face for India). But in the last minute once it became clear that this was going to be a big success with the royal family present, the honorable HRD minister suddenly announced that he would attend. The Indian embassy scrambled to get him into the program in a prominent spot. The Thai Crown Princess attended every minute of the 3 day event and threw a big series of cultural programs in honor of India and Sanskrit. As the inaugural speaker, I presented my paper on Sanskrit Phobia and the inter-civilization issues raised by Sanskrit studies. This paper later got adapted and is now on Sulekha... It was published by their Sanskrit studies journal. The famous Gombrich (Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford) was present and felt tensed by statements about how sanskrit studies in the west in fact undermined the sanskriti civilization behind the language. The GOI involvement was entirely driven by the craving for media and PR attention by certain bigwigs, not any deep love for Sanskrit or sanskriti. The same is true of the present ICCR - mostly driven to bring back pictures that can be shown to visitors to impress: "I had lunch with the president of that country who rarely allows visitors"; I met the very old head of that monastery and he gifted me this rare manuscript"; etc. Many of these GOI programs are funding the pro-Aryan camp of scholars ..."  August 13 a documentary on the fanatical Christian evangelical drivers behind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhRM4Jg96Kc Please watch this series of 5 videos on the Kandhamal riots. Most documentaries made on such issues are inevitably... August 14 Re: Plight of activism, escapism, doing nothing beyond talk... I diligently read all the posts in breakingindia. Some are simply informative, others raise important questions, and recently some questions as to what can be... August 14 US Diplomat in India racist comment on Tamils US Diplomat in India made racist comments on Tamils as "dark and dirty". Now whole of Dravidian brigade are up in arms against her.... [update: Maureen Chao finally left her post as vice-consul in Chennai] August 14 Response to K P Ganesh's Natural exploitation driving the colonial... The irony is that the movie "Avatar" itself is a supreme example of avarice. Producer James Cameron is known as the most self-involved and...

RMF Summary: Week of March 22-28, 2011

March 22

Another example for chpt 8 - Kalai Kaviri [Chpt 8 discusses numerous ways by which inculturation is being used to dupe naive Hindus into slipping into Christianity without knowing it. The appropriation of Hindu bharatnatyam dance to propagate Christianity is given as one example. Below is another.] Kalai Kaviri was founded by a Jesuit priest by name Fr. S.M. George in 1977 at Tiruchirappalli in the Southern part of India... ... no Christian family came forward to support him as dance was considered profane.... ... Kalai Kaviri brought out ‘Yesu Kaaviyam’ the poetical life history of the Jesus Christ written by the famous Tamil film lyricist Kannadasan... ... many tourists from various countries, Catholic fraternity in particular started showing interest in Kalai Kaviri visiting the institution. With such rapid growth, Kalai Kaviri inaugurated the full-time Bharathanatyam diploma course ... ... Inspired by the art forms fostered in the Hindu temples, Kalai Kaviri choreographed Indian classical and semi-classical dances on liturgical themes and presented them during the masses. Such performances were acclaimed to by the Christian community the world over as something unique and the first of its kind.... ... In 1999, Kalai Kaviri introduced Post-graduate degree courses in Bharathanatyam and music... Rakesh asks: "Frankly, what is wrong with this? Afterall, Rukmini Arundale, had to recuperate Bharata Natyam from a Devadasi art form which was looked down upon, and make it respectable for most Hindus. In fact Hindus should appropriate western art forms to propogate their culture. Imagine providing an intellectual back bone to the traditional African and Latin American faiths by incorporating the Peruvian Inca Sun God as Surya Narayana and Krishna and Kali as the Black Pride Divinities. It is better to make Hinduism an inclusive, global faith..."  Response to Rakesh's post: [Inclusiveness is not the same thin as appropriation for the sake of deception.] Inclusiveness is sharing the same platform with another idea or culture with equal diginity. What Kalai Kaviri is doing is not what Rukmini Arundale did. Inclusivism is not appropriating other culture and practices. Interpreting the Peruvian and African gods and godesses as Hindu gods and goddess would be appropriation. However, researching about similarities and differences is a different matter altogether. [What is being criticized is INCULTURATION which is a very defined Church strategy to assimilate "portions" of the target culture in order to make Christianity more easily accepted. It is their entry strategy. This is not what genuine inclusiveness means. When Ravana came dressed like a sadhu, he was not practicing inclusiveness.]] Another commentator states: "Christian inculturation camouflages and conceals its real tentions and does not come with benign intentions." March 22 Look at who is coming to educate Indians!! ARTICLE IN INDIAN EXPRESS After Beijing, University of Chicago plans centre in Delhi A prestigious university, with a well-established academic reputation for... March 23 Varna and Caste (jati): What Vedic Literature says - article Vedic Literature Says Caste by Birth is Unjust By Stephen Knapp (Sri Nandanandana dasa)             ...We all know that the Vedic system of Varnashrama has been mentioned in the Vedic literature in many places. But it seems that many people still don't understand how it was meant to be implemented. It is not because of Varnashrama, but because of this misunderstanding of what it really is that has caused so many of India's social problems. This article contains many quotes from Vedic shastra to clarify what the Varnashrama or caste system is actually supposed to be... March 24 USCIRF Reports an Analysis (Chapter 15) Aravindan Neelakandan: Chapter 15 of 'Breaking India' deals with the US Government's direct involvement in Indian society and polity. The book shows how the US Commission on International Religious Freedom is one such tool for intervention.(Pages 271 to 283) The book shows how every one in the commission has been handpicked to serve the agenda of US political interests. They are also people with strong global evangelical ambitions. For example its past commissioners include Eliot Abrams, undersecretary of state for President Ronald Reagan and notorious for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair. Another key commissioner of USCIRF Richard Land was named by TIME magazine as one of the twenty five most influential evangelicals in America... A. Neelakandan then responded to a question from a commentator: //In the first part, you will notice a question referring to the "brahmanical" system of "enforcing" varna. Is that historically true? That is, did brahmins actively "enforce" varna, or did they just strictly "observe" it?// Yesterday a well known Marxist writer interviewed me for his blog on 'Breaking India'. If you know Tamil please go through the audio interview. The interview precisely touches upon this question. [Here is the mp3 version of the Tamil interview]. http://marudhang.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post_21.html Varna system could not have been enforced by any particular community. Those communities that wielded political, financial powers along with those who were considered the authorities of Dharma should have created this over a long period of time and with enormous regional variations. It was a social contract at its best and it had its ills and merits. March 24 Re: N.S. Rajaram's column on human rights hypocrisy The following column on 'Human rights Madness' appeared in the latest issue of Newsgram. March 24 Re: Who educates Indian MP's - guess ?-- who is to blame?  N. S. Rajaram: Why blame them? They are just filing the vacuum left by Hindu 'thinkers' or 'non-thinkers'. For over a decade myself and others have been urging the Sangh organizations to set up some bona fide think tanks devoted to education, economics and especially national security. They need to be staffed by outside scholars of proven track record. But what do they do? They coin some Sanskrit term like Bauddhik Sangh, Itihasa Samiti, Vedic mathematics, etc and put people with no qualifications beyond Sangh association. Sangh organizations have saddled themselves with the debilitating dogma tha answers are to be found by going back to an imaginary Vedic past. This revivalist attitude hangs like an albtross around the necks (and brains) of Sangh thinkers, and they are sinking deeper into the morass. So why blame the Ford Foundation if they are filling the vacuum left by Hindu 'bauddhiks'? March 25 Dark side of giving: The rise of philanthro-capitalism This article was forwarded by my friend Prashanth Vaidyaraj. It notes from the economic stand point the truth of how philanthropic money is being used to not... March 25 Wickileaks: US Ambassador monitored Dalit tensions secretly Please note that this is ""This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available... March 26 Christians launch political party in Tamil Nadu Varna and jati (caste) we have already covered lengthy and useful debates on this topic and this thread continues the analysis. Here is the link to the previous discussion. Vijaya Rajiva: Comment on Dr. Elst's observation that Jati and Hinduism have been associated for at least two thousand years: Jati has been wrongly translated as 'caste' since the Portuguese did so based on their erroneous theory of different races existing in India. There were a variety of ethnicities in ancient India, but not different races. Jati arose out of the shrenis (guilds) out of economic necessity, the need for specialisation for producing the goods for both trade and domestic consumption. It is generally assumed that shrenis did not exist in the early Vedic period, although some scholars seem to think that there were the beginnings of shrenis in that time frame. Certainly by the post Vedic period they existed and the loose social formations of the period became crystallised into Jatis... Dr. Aravindan Neelakandan responded to Vijaya Rajiva. I've carried more detailed excerpts since Dr. Neelakandan cited a short story of Isaac Asimov as a reference in his response :)    //I disagree with your implicit statement that Jati and Hinduism are actually intertwined. In that regard you and Dr.Elst seem to be in agreement!// No. Exactly opposite is the case. Perhaps the following statement of mine has been misunderstood: //So Jaathi is as inherently intertwined with Hinduism as much as birth-based institutions of Europe are inherently intertwined with Christian theology.// Now the birth-based multi-layered institutions of pre-modern Europe were supported by Christian theologians and law-makers. This does not make Christianity, in the eyes of modern scholars, a supporter of this system. However with Hinduism different yard sticks are used. An essentialist argument is put forth to say that Hinduism is intertwined with Jaathi. This is simply not the complete picture and is a distorted picture of history. In this connection, with regard to the evolution of untouchability, one of the best insights on the subject is in an unexpected realm. I suggest the science fiction short story "Strikebreaker," by Isaac Asimov, in "Anthropology Through Science Fiction", (Ed. Carol Mason, Martin Harry Green- berg, and Patricia Warrick, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974)Unfortunately I lost my copy of this wonderful collection.:( In the related discussion, Asimov states that caste system evolves in a society with limited resources and limited mobility... ...Veracity of this speculation by the good doctor of science fiction, can be further validated by the fact that pre-Modern Europe also had defiled trades and ritual notions of purity and untouchability. It is not just an accident that not many works or literature can be found on this subject in the Western curriculum. The one rare book I came across in this regard is "Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany" by Kathy Stuart (Cambridge University Press 2006)... [I found a free and legal archived pdf link to Kathy Stuart's work here] ... So we need not justify or label Jaathi as an uniquely Indic phenomenon. But what one finds unique as an Indian is this: There is not a single instance of mass movement in Christendom that spoke for these voiceless people of dishonorable trades. ... So caste system can evolve anywhere given the appropriate social conditions. In India it became rigid with colonial resource drain. In Europe it withered away with enormous inflow of capital and resources ... ... I also think those who want to somehow preserve the Jaathi and project it in a positive light often fail to see the dark alchemy that this system is undergoing in India....  ... Here let me again quote 'Breaking India' which deals more objectively the situation and the pros and cons of Jaathi. This is from Chapter 5 of the book and is under the sub-heading "Building on Max Muller's work": Prior to colonialism, the jati-varna system in India had little, if anything, to do with race, ethnicity, or genetics. It was better understood as a set of distinctions based on traditional or inherited social status derived from work roles... ... Max Müller, who was largely responsible for entrenching the racial framework for studying jati, had his own evangelical motive. In his view, caste: which has hitherto proved an impediment to conversion of the Hindus, may in future became one of the most powerful engines for the conversion...  ... Today Jaathi has become an important and effective tool for community evangelism. So those who bat for it should take this worrying aspect into consideration. [there were some followup responses, but for brevity, we will stop here. Readers can click the RMF link and read the discussion in its entirety] March 28 Princeton Univ, March 31: My debate with prominent Indian Christian Rajiv Malhotra: On March 31, Princeton Univ will hold a discussion/debate on my book, "Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines." The response to my talk will be given by the Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Thompson. He is the Pastor at Wesley United Methodist Church, as well as General Secretary, National Association of Asian American Christians in the USA. He is a well-known leader for Dalit activism before the UN, US Government in Washington, Indian Embassy, and media.

March

RMF Summary of a Single Discussion on Jati - March 17, 2011

There was an interesting debate on 'Tribe' and 'Caste' in March 2011 that is worth a more detailed summary. This post covers that discussion. Here's the link to the original thread:

Fw: Tribe and caste(jati) .The discussion was initiated by Dr. Vijaya Rajiva as a response to Dr. Koenraad Elst (probably continuing from a discussion earlier in March 2011). Not surprisingly, this is by far among the most vigorously debated issues in the early life of the forum that was devoted to topics covered in the book 'Breaking India'. Topics in this summary cover caste, race, Aryan Invasion Theory (debunked), Untouchability and its origins, birth-based discrimination, etc. " Tribe and jati are both endogamous, but the jati is integrated with the shreni (guild) and the tribe is not. Dear Dr. Elst, Strictly speaking those Hindus who believe that Hinduism has nothing to do with caste or untouchability are right. There was no untouchability in the Vedic period and the Jati(caste) is related to the development of Shreni (guild), which is a post Vedic phenomenon. How the socio-economic entity the Jati (caste) is related to the later Hindu scriptures is an interesting question and worth some investigation." This assertion was questioned by a commentator 'Rakesh': "I think this is a convenient argument, that undermines our credibility. We embrace the post-vedic, non-vedic Bhakti and Yoga, as they are positives. But when some one talks about a negative we run back to vedic times to say we are spotless on caste. A mature approach would be to accept that Hinduism is not perfect and so what ?" Rajiv Malhotra noted: "Chapter 5 of the book [BI] is on Lord Risley's work in the thriving discipline called Race Science in which Europeans were applying Dardins new theory of evolution of species to human races, and colonialists were specially interested in figuring out each of the races being ruled by them. Risley's personal hatred for Indians is well established and his very explicit work on Race Science. His was an ethnologist compiling field data to support these theories. His method consisted of measuring skulls .... ...None of this says anything about Vedic culture being perfect or otherwise. It merely says that these constructs we got used to are Eurocentric and were downloaded as Apps to colonize Indians." K. Venkat presented a very long and detailed response on an earlier post by Dr. Elst on 'Chandalas'. Only excerpts are included here and the reader is urged to read this in its entirety in the original thread: "On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:52 AM, Koenraad Elst wrote: "Chandella looks like it is derived from the related tribal ethnonyms Gond/Kond/Kandh. So does, probably, Chandâla. Ptolemy mentions the Kandaloi as an Indian tribe. In Wendy Doniger's Manu Smrti translation, Chandâla is given a literal interpretation, "the 'fierce' untouchables", which may well be how Manu himself understood the term." KV: There is a significant danger in making etymological guesses. Chandela and Chandala need not be, and are not, related in any way. The Chandella Rajputs who flourished towards the end of the first millennium would not have proudly advertised their name had it been associated with chandala. Just to give a counter example, *Chandola* is a surname often used by brahmins in the north. It would be silly to argue that this too is related to chandalas. The Chandalas are not an untouchable jati ... ...  One must look for asprsya or teenda (Tamil) for untouchability. One does not find them until the 12th century CE. Race, jati, and tribe are all inter-related. They are all rooted in genetics and that is why one finds unique funerary and wedding rites, culinary customs, and dialect often related with each of these constructs.... ...  If you want to find a bone marrow or heart or tissue donor, your highest likelihood of success is within your own jati. All of these underscore the need for a reasonable discussion on jati unconstrained by western prejudices and ignorance... " ... Untouchability is a late entrant into Hindu society. It was the result of colonization. But the single most factor (there are others --- but later on that) that sustained untouchability is the lack of hygiene. As some jatis fell into economic despair as a result of colonial subjugation they also slowly fell into unhygienic ways. In the pre-modern world, Hindus shared common wells for bathing etc so hygiene was paramount. A jati that did not live up to the social standards of hygiene were treated as untouchables. This ensured that India did not suffer epidemics like Europe did. So, untouchability is not some "upper caste" ploy against "lower castes." It was a natural social defense against epidemics... ... Sri Narayana Guru, the Ezhava-born Hindu saint, insisted on the need for his followers to remain very hygienic. Ezhavas followed his advice. I understand the need to let go western constructs on race and caste and support articulating these form the Hindu point of view. My only caution is that we do not throw science out in the process. " Karigar cautions against western 1:1 mapping of Indic categories:  "I'd submit that the Indic categories (Jaati, Varna, kula, gotra, et al) and Western categories ( race, tribe, 'caste', 'ethnic group') may have certain strong correspondences, that may be, but it is certainly no One-on-One. Much overlaps, & even more does not. The trajectories of Indian civilization/society have enough uniqueness to warrant this." N.S shares some interesting empirical/statistical results from genetic studies: " ... scanning significant chunks of the genome (not just one chromosome) has now become quite affordable and some hobbyists (who are technically well equipped) are doing selective admixture analyses. One such effort (by a hobbyist, Zack Ajmal) is http://www.harappadna.org/ and you can see the results for the first 50 participants (I am #41). Essentially every single person who is Indian (or Bangladeshi and perhaps most Pakistanis), regardless of caste weighs most on the "south-asian" component (which is presumably an amalgamation of ancient south and north indian components going back tens of thousands of years). Every single person who is clearly not Indian (eg. Iranian or Iraqi) does not load much on the southasian component. The nonIndians are easily distinguishable from the Indians (defining an Indian as one with 2 Indian parents)..." BNA recommends a book: "Dear SriRam - Your observation is very good. One must read the book "Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells - A National Geographic research work. This is available in India also and in Amazon. He has studied all races around the world ..." NS responds to one of BNA's assertions: "... Hi Bala, Your characterization of single male line shared by Indians is likely incorrect as are the observation re female lines and relevance of the Puranas reference; there is no reason to restrict ancestry analysis to the Y chromosome (for the male line) or mitochondrial DNA (female line). It is very tempting to project our current belief systems onto emerging data which really don't need to have any respect for them a priori. That Puranas are a respected and important part of our traditions does not make them an all purpose oracle.... "  Seshadri presents a different point of view: "I cannot understand this preoccupation with genome based identity fixing. Is it eugenics in its modern form. Or scientific Racism. The socalled research methods and sampling strategies and selectivity in assumptions and paradigms - all are intractable.... " NS responded to Seshadri with: "...   I do not see how knowing the facts about human evolution as best as current day science allows us is equivalent to endorsing eugenics. The genie is loose and there is no putting it back in the bottle. I think some basic forms of eugenics are universally endorsed by almost every one as when the fetus is scanned for genetic defects. I think it is safe to predict that less than 100 years from now, we'll have all sorts of medical procedures that operate via gene modifications ..." At this point in the thread, Dr Koenraad Elst commented on the origin of the word 'Arya' leading to five responses. We will summarize this sub-thread before returning to the original topic. Here is the link to the original sub-thread: " Someone here voiced the widespread opinion that "Arya" only means "noble". I venture to differ. While the term had no racial ("Nordic") or linguistic ("Indo-European") meaning, it did originally have an ethnic meaning. On this, invasionist linguist JP Mallory and anti-invasionist historian Shrikant Talageri agree. At least, it has a relative ethnic meaning, not designating a particular nation, but being used by several Indo-European nations (viz. Anatolians, Iranians and Paurava Indians) in the sense of "compatriot", "one of us". This term, in India, then evolved to "one who shares the civilizational norms of the Vedic Paurava tribes", "Veda-abiding", "civilized". And thence "noble"." Rajiv Malhotra added: "The famous "Four Noble Truths" that define Buddhism are called the Four Arya Truths in the original Sanskrit. Clearly, Buddha did not refer to the truths of a specific race. His further description of what these truths consist of has nothing to do race at all. Hence, I reject that Arya = race. Many Sanskrit terms are very contextual in meaning. Hence a literal translation into one normative meaning (a common tendency among Westerners) is reductionist " N. S. Rajaram spoke about South Indian practices: "It [Arya] was and still is used by South Indian groups identifying oneself as 'civilized'. Most recently, 'eedigaas' a community traditionally associated with harvesting toddy from palm trees changed their designation to 'arya eedigaas'. Of course Chettiars call themselves Arya Vaishyas. " Come added: "Throughout the world, many people if not most have called themselves "the best" in their respective languages (.i.e the Franks, the Ewins, the Heruli in the West, the Han in China etc...) to affirm their distinctiveness and superiority over their neighbours. That can hardly be equated to race..." Karigar noted: " As the book clearly sees, & shows it's readers, the "aryan" issue currently is a swampy one where discussions can just get bogged down, as some discussions here are..." This concludes the summary on the "Arya" subthread and return to the main topic on Tribe/Jati/Caste.   Koenraad Est commented on Israeli genetic studies: "The one country and community way ahead of everyone else is Israel and the Jews. Genetic data have been used to prove that Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Oriental Jews are biologically much closer related to one another than to their respective Central/East-European, West-Mediterranean and Arab neighbours. Less conveniently, these also show that the Palestinians are likewise close relatives, and the closest are the Kurds, ... ... In evolutionary psychology, we see the beginnings of a comeback of genetic explanations of caste coupled with IQ. Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen in *IQ and the Wealth of Nations*, Michael H. Hart in *Understanding Human History* and Steve Sailer in his blog have claimed that the average IQ of Indians is quite low, like that of Arabs, higher than Africans but lower than Europeans and much lower than the IQ champions, Ashkenazi Jews and Northeast-Asians(Hitler disliked IQ tests because Jews came out too smart) .. Chitra responded to Elst: " Dr. Elst, I do enjoy your posts, even on the occasions when I disagree.  In this case it appears you are describing a line of thinking , not saying that you necessarily buy into it.  Still, this frog would like to briefly share the view from her personal lily-pad. As the parent of a now young adult daughter with autism, my personal experience confirms the following : 1. Yes, IQ means something. It ranks people on their ability to perform certain tests.  But it is no more an assurance of what people can do with it than having two arms and all one's fingers intact is a guarantee of becoming a future concert pianist.  The human is the most variable variable on the planet -- and each human is affected in turn by the humans surrounding him/her.  Natural endowments can be shaped for the better or worse by values, circumstances, economic hardship, emotional setbacks... "  Aravindan Neelakandan added: "'Breaking India', in its Appendix-A, has a comprehensive overview of how consistently attempts were made to fabricate a scientific authenticity to the racial framework that colonial milieu has evolved. It was interesting to see that the Western scholars often with limited data would come out with the conclusion that the foreign Aryans model has been upheld. But a larger and more detailed study of the population by Indian scholars proved the initial study wrong. But the scientific rebuttal by Indian scholars did not get the same media lime light that the initial limited unscientific study by western scholars... ....Jatis were dynamically moving in and out of the Varna space due to various socio-political, economic reasons... ...The book makes it clear that it is for social justice and affirmative action for the betterment of the marginalized sections of society. It points that the quicker we ease out the faultlines in our society with justice and through democratic means the better.... " Rina Mukherji comments on the origins of caste-based discrimination (in areas north of South India): "I do not know much about the dalits of southern India. But there are several experts who believe that discrimination along caste lines arose when Hindus who had converted to Buddhism came back into the Hindu fold. In eastern and northern India, Brahmins who returned back into Hinduism were put to work on funerary rites; and to this day, other Brahmins generally do not intermarry with them..." Venkat provides some stunning statistics: "1. The per capita crime rate against the Harijans is one fifteenth the per capita crime rate against non-Harijans. Contrast this with the apartheid prevalent against the blacks in America's churches or with the fact that one in nine black men in the age group of 25-35 is incarcerated ... Elst gave a good example of how genetic data has been used to almost eliminate Tay-Sachs among the Jews...  .... Aravindan is correct that each jati arose from the original tribal organization but the inference is that this makes jatis biological constructs. His other statement, drawing upon anthropological data, that some of the Harijans may have been priestly jatis who might have fallen due to real or imagined transgressions is well supported by traditions from these own jatis... ... Now to the controversy. It is true that nurture is as important as nature, but it is undeniable that genetics predisposes you with certain aptitudes... .... Yes, genetic data debunks Aryan invasion circa 1500-1900 BCE. But does it negate or support the possibility of Aryan invasion in an earlier period say 3000 BCE?"  Aravidan Neelakandan specifically responds to K. Venkat's important question on AIT in an earlier time period: "Yes. very definitely it does debunk 'Aryan Invasion' hypothesis even if its placed at 3000 or even 5000 BCE. Again I refer to Appendix-A of the book The study I am referring to for this was done in 2009 (published in Nature:) At the outset the paper seems to support Aryan Invasion model. And in fact a report in Times of India declared that this study supported racial basis of caste and linked it to 2009 session of the UN Human Rights Council at Geneva. However when the authors contacted one of the scientists involved in the project and sought details we were surprised. The ANI (Ancient North Indian) and ASI (Asian South Indian) genetic differences belong to what anthropologists call deep time... " ... Let me quote the words of one of the author of the 'Nature' paper here in full: "Our paper basically discards Aryan theory...." " Chitra goes to Venkat's post and questions him on his statement of Hygiene of certain Jatis: ".. Just curious -- is this something you came up with or is there some basis for this line of thinking?  How does one make a sweeping conclusion that a jati AS A WHOLE lacks a sense of hygiene and is therefore justifiably marginalized?  I ask because I know a fair amount of slobs both female and male who belong to my "caste" and scrupulous neatniks who do not..." Venkat responds to Chitra with two types of evidence to support his statement: " There are clear and unmistakeable references on which I made my inference. But one need not even go into literature and epigraphy and instead make observations on the ground. For example, ... ... Now to a few textual references that support my argument: [references include Manickavasakar, Abbe Dubois, Pawar, and Ziegenbalg] ... I did not say untouchability is justified today. But I would urge every member to look into the causative factors instead of emotionally blaming the so called upper castes. In the past, everyone shared public bathing places etc so hygiene was important. If a jati was not adhering to hygienic standards, its members posed a significant danger to spreading germs and epidemics to others. So, they were avoided. But I never said lack of hygiene was the only factor. There are clearly other factors that led to the ostracizing of an entire jati...

"

... <Chitra's followup question> Is it conceivable that a jati that was marginalized for whatever reason and denied full participation in the mainstream would fall into economic difficulties that made the same level of hygiene difficult?

V: Very much yes. For example, the level of hygiene in refugee camps is appalling even though the same jatis had led a very hygienic existence earlier ...
 ... [In response to Chitra summoning Oscar Wilde]

Oscar Wilde summed up the human condition thus:

"All men are born equal -- but some are more equal than others."

V: Oscar Wilde can sometimes be witty but he is plain wrong and ignorant in this case. Bluntly put, all men are not born equal. This is a phony claim. We are all born with varying capabilities. Hinduism teaches that regardless of such differences everyone deserves to be treated with dignity....

... Since we are discussing untouchability here, please show me that it existed in the pre-Islamic period in Hindu society. We cannot sustain pet theories that have no basis in facts. If you look at inscriptions, the Paraiyah jati is a very dominant jati until the 13th century yet subsequently they fall into untouchability under colonial rule. This is why I will expect that those who claim that Hindu society is guilty of discriminating adduce proof for their beliefs... "

Aravindan Neelakandan commented on one of K.Venkat's references:
"I am afraid KV has misinterpreted the statement of Manichavasakar. This is a self-depreciating poetic statement which can not be taken as a proof of a 'report' of 'the head of the Pulaiya being infested with lice. Here is my informal translation of the statement in its context: .."

Aravindan Neelakandan also mentioned:
"Untouchable is a social space. Any community relegated to that space due to socio-political dynamics will naturally become unhygienic. So to argue untouchability is a result of hygienic factors (or even to argue that hygiene is one of the factors leading to untouchability) is a circular argument.

During the course of the research for this book we came across many genuine Dalit leaders who toil for their community. They are well aware of how forces from the West lure their leadership. They have seen their counterparts given air flights and international forums when they become willing partners in the game. Yet they have kept themselves away. But even these Dalit leaders have a strong grievance and doubt against us. To gain their confidence we had to have many sessions of heart to heart talks. We need to look at history and their notions of why they became untouchables from their point of view. We have attempted that in this book [Breaking India] ..."

Venkat further noted:
"... I want to make a clear distinction between jatis that fell into untouchability and jatis that faced the hostility of the rest of Hindu society. Only a very few jatis among the SC have ever been untouchable. Some of the most powerful jatis such as the Mahar were not untouchable but were seen by Hindu society with hostile eyes. One should ask why..."  

The thread ends with a commentator looking for textual references to Venkat's statement on Mahars.