My concern is that this is just a knee jerk reaction by BJP - very likely they didnt even read the entire book before deciding on the fate of a very senior leader. This just speaks of the immaturity of the party that many thought was the next big hope for India.

Somewhere i get the feeling that the next elections are going to be a cakewalk for the Congress, with the BJP so intent on killing itself.

re-assessment of jinnah in india is long overdue - please also keep in mind that jinnah was an indian for all but the last two years of his life! And, yes, its fair to say that the INC has an vested interest in deflecting Jawaharlal Nehru's role in the "partition".

Transcript of Karan Thapar's interview with Jaswant Singh

By the way, there is more to the expulsion than the book itself. In fact the book probably provided the final--and very good--excuse, for getting rid of a senior member who was becoming somewhat dissident (asking for clarification regarding "hindutva," subtly questioning BJP's tactics that alienated muslims etc.). He had made some powerful enemies in the party over the past two years or so....

Jaswant Singh symbolizes the worst examples of the shameful abandonment of principles of the Vajpayee administration, because of the role he played in the IA 814 Hijacking. But this is still wrong.

The BJP is shooting itself in the foot. The BJP used to accept differing views internally, but had some core ideals. Now it has abandoned its core ideals and is relying upon gimmicks. This is hypocritical because of all people Advani is the head of the party right now, and I doubt that any BJP supporters have forgotten Advani's comments on Jinnah.

Al Beruni, thanks that interview is great -- wish I'd seen it earlier! In fact, it looks like the quotes from Dawn were lifted directly from the interview.

Praising Jinnah is heresy for BJP leaders, so this week, Jaswant Singh, who has been with the party for many years and served in several Cabinet posts under Vajpayee, was formally expelled from the party.

but I also question many of his (Jinnah’s) choices in the lead-up to Partition. (One bad choice that is often mentioned by critics of Jinnah is Direct Action Day, in 1946, which led to widespread communal rioting.)

By the way Amardeep, Jaswant Singh would have no quarrel with that. His point is that Nehru's tactics turned Jinnah into an instigator. From the interview with Karan Thapar that Al beruni links to :

in the later part of his years, he became exactly what he charged Mahatma Gandhi with. He had charged Mahatma Gandhi of being a demagogue.

I don't follow Indian politics closely enough to have much insight here; all I can say is that my family had lived in Lahore for centuries, and some were killed when they were expelled coincident with Partition--so, Jinnah is viewed as very misguided by my family.

Jinnah is viewed as very misguided by my family.

Final comment, also after reading the excellent interview with Thapar: J.S. admits that he is contradicting himself. One one hand he says that a de-centralized India like jinnah wanted with reservations for Muslims would have kept India intact, but on the other hand he is against communal reservations in politics since he fears that such policies more often than not lead to fragmentation. So in effect if Jinnah had got what he wanted it would probably have been a matter of time--if you take this argument--before India would have in all probability broken up, or at least collapsed into civil war. In fact other cases like Yugoslavia, and Lebanon (which has sectarian reservations and intermittent civil wars) support this argument.

It sounds like a smart book. I've only read the Karan Johal interview so far -- strongly recommended. It is heartening that a man with such a smart, subtle understanding of Muslims in India occupied such a prominent role in the BJP. They are clearly not all just bunch of Modis.

Some quotes to think about (and cross reference with Chaudhry Rehmat Ali's famous essay Now or Never:: Are we to live or to perish forever?

Q:Was Jinnah secular or was he communal?
A: It depends on the way you view the word ‘secular,’ because I don’t know whether secular is really fully applicable to a country like India. It’s a word borne of the socio-historical and
religious history of Western Europe.

A: Here is the central contest between minorityism and majoritarianism. With the loss of the Mughal empire, the Muslims of India had lost power but majoritarianism didn’t begin to influence them until 1947. Then they saw that unless they had a voice in their own political, economical and social destiny, they would be obliterated. That’s the beginning. That’s
still the purpose.

Q:Both Jinnah and Besant have been borne out?
A: In the sense that mass movement, unless combined with a great sense of discipline, leadership and restraint, becomes chaotic.

A: Yes, indeed why? I cannot yet find the answer. Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and if you truly see through the pain they live — to which land do they belong? We treat them as aliens, somewhere inside, because we continue to ask even after Partition you still want something? These are citizens of India — it was Jinnah’s failure because he never advised the Muslims who stayed back.

A: Indeed, because I think what has happened is that we try and treat this whole thing as if it’s an extension of the image of the U.P. Muslim. Of course the U.P. [Muslim] is... Pakistan is a step-child of U.P., in a sense.

Whoops! Karan Thapar, not Karan Johar. That would be a very different sort of interview!

Thanks Ikram. Yeah I find those parts especially revealing (reminds me of some of the things that my grandmother, who was born muslim, but was a socialist, used to tell me).

Also these other answers to give some context to the last one Ikram quotes:

Q: But you’re the first person from the BJP I have ever heard say, “look into the eyes of Indian Muslims and see the pain.” No one has ever spoken in such sensitive terms about them before.
A: I’m born in a district, that is my home — we adjoin Sind, it was not part of British India. We have lived with Muslims and Islam for centuries. They are part.... In fact
in Jaisalmer, I don’t mind telling you, Muslims don’t eat cow and the Rajputs don’t eat pig.
Q: So your understanding of Indian Muslims and their predicament is uniquely personal and you would say
A: ...Indeed, because I think what has happened is that we try and treat this whole thing as if it’s an extension of the image of the U.P. Muslim. Of course the U.P. [Muslim] is... Pakistan is a step-child of U.P., in a sense.

They are clearly not all just bunch of Modis.

From what I've read here and at Pak Tea House, Singh's book seems very sensible. It is high time for a reassessment of Jinnah in India. Nehru and Jinnah were both good and decent men but also politicians who sometimes made mistakes. Jinnah used Pakistan as a bargining chip and Congress called his bluff, leaving him with a moth-eaten Pakistan. Then Jinnah died and Pakistan's subseqent leaders moved away from his secular vision and allowed the national discourse to get hijacked by the religious right. That's Pakistan's tragedy.

It took great courage for Jaswant Singh to write what he did, considering that he is part of the BJP. It's shameful that they've kicked him out for daring to dissent.

Jinnah was secular in his religion but rather strident when it came to advocating for Muslims. So his secularism should be put in the proper context. As Mirza Ghalib said 'I have none of the hallmarks of a Muslim; why is is that every humiliation that the Muslims suffer pains and grieves me so much'.

Paagal wrote:
Jinnah was secular in his religion but rather strident when it came to advocating for Muslims

Read the JS interview. He says:
JS: Jinnah is fulsomely receiving Gandhi and Gandhi says I’m glad that I’m being received by a Muslim leader.
Q: So [Gandhi] was only seeing Jinnah in Muslim terms?
JS:Yes, which Jinnah didn’t want to be seen [as].

So -- reading into JS here -- Jinnah, in 1915, wants to be an Indian leader, and Gandhi calls him a Muslim, leader, ghettoizing the pork-eating, whiskey-drinking politician to Mullah-ville.

I noticed the JS was soft-pedellingn his nagative comments on Gandhi. A BJP leader can make Nehru a villain, but not Gandhi. Not yet.

Kabir wrote:
It's shameful that the [bjp] kicked him out for daring to dissent.

The BJP is a political party, not a reading club. I'm sure BJP leaders arenT' that upset in private, but they have to pretend to be outraged, for political purposes. The same sort of stuff happens in Pakistan all the time.

A BJP leader can make Nehru a villain, but not Gandhi. Not yet.

YogaFire
Why would they make Gandhi a villain?

Gandhi was a Congress party leader, like Nehru. Congress is their main electoral rival. But maybe Nehru is special to the BJP. They seem to love Sardar Patel, even though he is another Congress leader. More about ideology than party?

YogaFire also wrote:
Hell, not even Modi is one of the "Modis." The "Modi" is a caricature assembled from all the worst aspects of grassroots activists congealed into the Platonic form of the Hindutva villain

I'd love to think so, but now this:
Narendra Modi-led Gujarat Government on Wednesday banned sale of the expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh book ... The Gujarat government blamed Jaswant's book for denigrating the image of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel ... .

The only interview I've read of Modi is this, in the Atlantic. He sounds like a man who personally dislikes Indian Muslims. It may not be true -- I'd love to read a better interview, if you've got something.

Within the Indian academia, especially BJP supporters, or rather Congress haters among the educated elite, there has been a strong sense that Jinnah would have been a much better choice as India's first Prime Minister (much like Sardar Patel) than was Nehru.
Jinnah had declared himself an atheist early on. He grew up in a liberal Gujarati Khoja muslim household. He was also instrumental in keeping the Muslim League's demands under control for a long time.
But Jinnah (like Sardar Patel) got a raw deal from the Congress, my feeling is, not because he was Muslim, but because Congress was pretty much run by Nehru-Gandhi friendship. Rich dude Nehru, who was antagonistic and British-bred, and probably much less aware of Indian sentiments and realities than was the self-made middle-class intellectual Jinnah, supported (financially and politically) Gandhi's mass-protests. Gandhi in turn was dedicated to making Nehru the first Prime Minister, much against the wishes of many within the Congress itself. But the Nehru-Gandhi clan was too powerful and had too much mass support from the people of India for anyone to speak up against.
Jinnah's ego got hurt when he realized that he is not going to be in a position of power equivalent to his capabilities (and I believe this had little to do with his sympathies and sentiments for his fellow Muslim brethren, whom he had never identified with to begin with), he decided to support the Muslim League's aspirations for an independent homeland. He, of course, knew that by doing so, he would be the most powerful man in the new country. With his ego bruised and health failing him (he had a terminal condition that he hid from everyone other than his sister, a staunch Muslim and supporter of the Muslim League as well as Jinnah's nurse in his final days) Jinnah decided he is going to see how far he can take his game. The partition talk was also a ploy he played so that the Congress would take him more seriously, and understand he could do serious damage. He was probably more shocked than relieved when Nehru and Gandhi seemed to start relenting to the two-nation theory (rather than having opened up negotiation room towards the parliament of India as he had hoped)
At the end, like Jaswant Singh claims, Jinnah died a failed man: one who failed his beliefs (as an atheist and a political liberal), and failed his actions (given the current state of the country he became founding father of).
So, I guess, the Partition of India was a game of squabbling Congressmen gone too far...who had the final laugh? The British of course!

@ 20: in my previous comment, I meant to say Nehru was agnostic, not antagonistic...

#17, #19: Ikram, you sound annoyingly sensible. Can't you adopt some extreme ideological position to fit in ?

Most Indian pols were Congress people at one point or another, but pre-Emergency Congress is very different from post-Emergency. Indira Gandhi turned it from a large and oftentimes misguided (on economic policy and poverty alleviation especially) but nevertheless nationalistic party into a patronage machine with herself at the center.
Either way it doesn't make much sense to draw equivalence between the INC of today with the Congress of yesteryear even though I will admit this is done frequently by Congress-wallahs and their discontents alike.

The only interview I've read of Modi is this, in the Atlantic. He sounds like a man who personally dislikes Indian Muslims. It may not be true -- I'd love to read a better interview, if you've got something.

Unfortunately I don't understand Hindi so most of the other statements of his I had to receive second-hand from friends and colleagues who do. There was one very good English interview in some paper I read a year or so ago, but I can't seem to find it anymore. Basically he strikes me as someone with a very single-minded focus on modernization, state-building, and economic development with little patience for issues that distract from it. Insofar as "cultural" issues are concerned I suspect he is just extremely good at manipulating them to build the kind of loyalty that will push his state-building agenda.
He may or may not like Muslims or Islam personally, but from that interview I read I get the feeling that his moral compass is pretty deontological (i.e. rigid, un-nuanced, rule oriented) so I doubt he would act on it overtly.

I get the feeling it's not so much that he dislikes Muslims so much as he doesn't particularly care about their concerns so long as he can realize his ambitions for Gujarat. That can be problematic, but my personal opinion has always been that with poverty and bad governance being as endemic as it is in India we could benefit greatly from putting everything else on a back-burner until we fix those. In fact, fixing those will generally help the communal, class, and caste cleavages take care of themselves.

Within the Indian academia, especially BJP supporters, or rather Congress haters among the educated elite, there has been a strong sense that Jinnah would have been a much better choice as India's first Prime Minister (much like Sardar Patel) than was Nehru.

Anyone would have made a better leader than Nehru, who was unqualified for any position of power. Gandhi's biggest mistake was anointing Nehru the leader.

@ 25: As I mentioned in my earlier post, Gandhi and Nehru's personal friendship gave a lot of color to the Congress decisions. Once Gandhi solidified his position among the masses, it was difficult to oppose his opinions/decisions within the Congress party. It was not his mistake, but in his personal interest, to appoint his biggest supporter, Nehru, who never found anything Gandhi did controversial, as the first leader of Independent India.

Ikram wrote

Gandhi was a Congress party leader, like Nehru. Congress is their main electoral rival. But maybe Nehru is special to the BJP

1.

Gandhi was a Congress party leader, like Nehru.

2.

They seem to love Sardar Patel, even though he is another Congress leader. More about ideology than party?

3.

The only interview I've read of Modi is this, in the Atlantic

About the Jinnah business- well, no sympathy for a man who never faced jail for a day during the independence struggle, was a deracinated Anglophile, allegedly a British puppet and sowed the seeds of a divisive hatred that has turned into a jungle that blocks the path of development for the entire subcontinent.
As he said, he had a pistol and he used it.

All those who are dissing Nehru here must not forget that Nehru spent a big chunk of what could have been his most productive years, in prison. Yes, he was born into wealth but that's not his fault. And prison life ain't luxurious.

1. The Congress until well after independence always had a "conservative" faction within it which can be categorized "pro-Hindu." (This does not necessarily mean anti-Muslim.) Figures like Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad and Purushottam Lal Tandon are good representatives. It must not be forgotten that when the Somnath Temple was rebuilt after Independence, Sardar Patel was prominently associated with it. It's not surprising to see the BJP admire Sardar Patel.

2. Jaswant Singh attributes Nehru's unwillingness to accept Jinnah's representation demands for Muslims (within a unified India) to his Socialist leanings which lead him to favour a centralised rather than a federal state. Surely, there's more to it than that. One significant issue was that if one conceded what Jinnah wanted - which essentially was some sort of a veto right for the Muslim community - then you have to concede the same right to other communities too. Otherwise, it would be "unjust." On the other hand, if all communities have veto rights, then how on earth are you going to make everyone feel that they are part of a common state? See Pratap Bhanu Mehta's remarks in the Delhi Roundtable on Secularism on youtube. (Pratap Mehta starts talking at roughly 3:10)

"His principal disagreement was with the Congress party."
Jinnah divided India between Muslims like him and everyone else (Hindu, Sikh, Muslims who did not believe in two nations, Jains, etc...) because he disagreed with Congress. That sounds like utter selfishness that god knows how many South Asians ended up paying for with their lives during partition and ever since.

"Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing, and single-handedly he stood up against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn’t really like him."
The British thought he provided a great opportunity for them to remain in South Asia "[Turkey] had lost her leadership of Islam and Islam might now look to leadership to the Muslims of Russia. This would be a most dangerous attraction. There was therefore much to be said for the introduction of a new Muslim power supported by the science of Britain ... It seemed to some of us very necessary to place Islam between Russian communism and Hindustan.
- Sir Francis Tucker, General Officer-Commanding of the British Indian Eastern Command." They liked him well enough for with him the partition of India was possible, which meant a strategic victory for them against Communist Russia.

"I think we misunderstood because we needed to create a demon."
You don't need a demon. Without Jinnah how likely would have an Islamic country Pakistan been? Far less likely.

"And those assurances amounted to reservation, which I dispute frankly. Reservations went from 25 per cent to 33 per cent. And then from reservation that became parity, of being on equal terms. Parity to Partition."
"He had ideas about certain provinces which must be Islamic and one-third of the seats in the Central legislature must be Muslims."
I also don't think there should be reservations for religions. A secular democracy should neither favor nor discriminate against any religion, majority or minority. That is the only space people of all religions should expect. The fact that Jinnah wanted special privileges for Muslims is anything but secular. It also means to me Jinnah was not a secular person. He may have been a lax Muslim but he was not secular by asking for more for Muslims than anyone else was to get, and then making sure that the land was partitioned in order to get it.

"...Muslim fear of Congress majoritarianism..."
There were many Muslims who did not share the two nation theory and even went campaigning against it. The Muslim League did not represent all Muslim Indians.

"He in fact went to the extent of saying that let there be a Pakistan within India."
There should be one law for all people in a secular democracy where no religion is promoted or discriminated against, majority or minority.

"He was not a Hindu-hater but he had great animosity with the Congress party and Congress leadership. He said so repeatedly: I have no enmity against the Hindu."
By promoting his particular religious group for reservations to be treated not as equals with Indians of all religions but special, he does not have to hate Hindus to make a situation where Hindus are separate and unequal to Muslims.

"He was non-sectarian. Gandhi used religion as a personal expression. Jinnah used religion as a tool to create something but that came later. For Gandhi religion was an integral part of his politics from the very beginning."
Gandhi used his religion to unite Indians of all religions. Jinnah used his religion to divide Indians between Muslims who think like him and everyone else. Jinnah was sectarian in the worst way.

"And Jinnah wanted religion out of politics. Out of politics. That is right — there are innumerable examples."
You can't have religion out of politics and at the same time push for Muslim reservations and Muslim "space."

"Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and if you truly see through the pain they live — to which land do they belong?...Muslims have paid a price on both sides."
Despite the dwindling non-Muslim populations in Pakistan and Bangladesh, you could ask the same question for them as they live their lives in an Islamic state where they cannot ever be PM because they are not Muslim. Indians of all religions have paid the price on both sides.

Ikram@17,
Gandhi might have called Jinnah a Muslim leader because he joined the Muslim league, and became an advocate of Muslim interests.

As I understand, Jinnah was never a mass leader, except that the Muslim league looked up to him for his influence in the power circles. He's a constitutionalist and a brilliant lawyer. He's probably more like Ambedkar than Nehru.

Some news from the Hindustan Times which shows that the expulsion decision may be more complex. Excerpts: "But Singh had it coming, say BJP insiders. If it was only praise of Jinnah, Singh could have expected a more calibrated response against him. What could not be digested by senior BJP leaders and cadres was Singh's decision to fault Sardar Patel, along with Jawarharlal Nehru for causing Partition."

Regarding Narendra Modi government's ban of Jaswant Singh's book: "Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi ordered a ban on the book after he was told that the Opposition Congress was planning a massive agitation on the issue."

A little bit about the Muslim League and its relationship with Britain by Maulana Azad:

""The Muslim League was established in 1906 in Dacca after the session of the Muslim Educational Conference during Christmas. It owed its origin to the efforts of Nawab Mushtaq Husain. I was present at the session and remember the two reasons advanced for the establishment of the League. It was said that one of the objects of the League would be to strengthen and develop a feeling of loyalty to the British Government among the Muslims of India. The second object was to advance the claims of the Muslims against Hindus and other communities in respect of service under the crown and thus safeguard Muslim interests and rights. The leaders of the League were therefore naturally opposed to the demand for political independence raised by the Congress. They felt that if the Muslims joined in any such demand the British would not support their claims for special treatment in education and service. In fact they described the Congress as a disloyal organisation of rebels and regarded even moderate political leaders like Gokhale or Sir Ferozeshah Mehta as extremists. During this phase the British Government always used the Muslim League as a counter to the demands of the Congress...

"The Muslim League entered into the second phase of its activities when it found that the Government was compelled to introduce some reforms as a result of Congress pressure. It was somewhat disturbed when it saw the Congress achieving its object step by step. The League still remained aloof from the political struggle but as soon as any advance was made, it put in a claim on behalf of the Muslim community. This programme of the Muslim League suited the Government well. In fact there are reasons to think that the League was acting according to the wishes of the British. During the Morley-Minto Reforms as well as the Montford scheme of provincial autonomy, this was the attitude adopted by the League.

Then came the third phase in the League's programme during World War II. Congress had gained immensely in prestige and strength. It was now clear that the British Government would have to recognise Indian freedom. Mr. Jinnah had now become the leader of the Muslim League and felt that he must take advantage of every difference between the Congress and the Government. Whenever there were discussions between the Congress and the Government for the transfer of power, Mr Jinnah would in the beginning remain silent. If the negotiations failed he issued a milk and water statement condemning both parties and saying that since there was no settlement there was no need for the Muslim League to express any opinion on the British offer. This is what he did during the August offer in 1940 and the Cripps proposals of 1942. The Simla Conference presented him with a new situation that he had never faced before." ...

"Now that the political issue between India and Britain seemed on the point of solution, the Conference broke down over the question of communal representation in the new Executive Council.

... Congress had taken a national stand on this question while the Muslim League demanded that the Congress should give up its national character and function as a communal organization. Mr Jinnah took the strange stand that the Congress could nominate only Hindu members of the Executive Council. I asked the Conference what right Mr Jinnah or the Muslim League to dictate whom the Congress should nominate." [pp. 118-119]..." http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/writings/other/azad/india_wins.htm

The current arrangement looks better than all the "if only" possibilities raised by Jaswant.

Interesting interview. I don't know how big of a deal this is in itself since he hasn't been hugely influential within the party recently, but given the post-election hand wringing and self-examination, the general message this sends about their intended future direction isn't very comforting.

It is however, encouraging, that they read 600 whole pages. Shabash

BJP are being silly, history can't be one sided..if those are Singh's conclusions, there must be a good reason for it

Among the aspects of Mr Jinnah’s personality Mr Singh said he admired his determination and will to rise. ‘He was a self-made man. Mahatma Gandhi was the son of a Diwan. All these (people) — Nehru and others — were born to wealth and position. Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved in Bombay, a metropolitan city, a position for himself. ‘He was so poor he had to walk to work … he told one of his biographers there was always room at the top but there’s no lift. And he never sought a lift.’ (link)

Jinnah might have been a self-made man, but he definitely wasn't a pauper. He was the son of a prosperous Gujarati merchant (Wikipedia says so). Probably not that different in status and background from Gandhi, the son of a Diwan.

It's of course easy to second-guess in hindsight, but arguing for a centralized Indian state given that it would be democratic as well, was hardly an illogical choice given the challenges independent India faced in 1947-48. Not including the integration of the erstwhile princely states, the diverse India that the british had kept together through force/dealing was thought by many back then, impossible to hold together along with democratic, representative government.

But it held together, and the 50s were a heady time. Nehru's not without his flaws, as is Jinnah, but give credit where it's due.

nehru wasn't able to hold india together. the chinese and pakistanis both carved out a piece for themselves, and even after the world shows india's altered borders, both countries claim many more regions (rest of Kashmir, arunachal pradesh etc)...no, cannot give nehru credit for holding india together

I believe Advani also offered compliments to Jinnah, so if it is heresy it has only recently been deemed so. The VHP wing of the BJP is often pro-"two state" in that they begrudgingly accept that Pakistan is here to stay and would very much like to be their Hindu analogue. That Mr. Singh was booted may be a sign that the "secular right" faction of the party is taking over or the party leadership has made a pragmatic decision to go that way after their recent electoral losses

Amardeep,

The summary needs an update.

Remarks against Patel, not Jinnah, led to Jaswant's expulsion: BJP/b>

'Remarks against Patel led to Jaswant's expulsion'

Unfortunately, the indian press is incapable of reporting without editorializing, so this is the closest to a direct quote that I could get.. BJP on Wednesday said Jaswant Singh was expelled not for his views on Pakistan founder but for his "uncharitable" comments against Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Here is an clear opinion piece on what could be the hidden reason http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_it-s-a-signal-to-raje_1283836

There are reasons to criticize the BJP's actions and the methods in this matter, but the Jinnah angle -- saying that Jaswant was expelled because of remarks against Jinnah -- is just editorializing passing off as reporting press by an incompetent Indian press.

Some thoughts:

1.By referring to Jinnah as 'poor', Jaswant has shown that his research may not have been all that perfect.I am actually surprised Karan Thapar did not question JS on that.

2.The role of the Bombay-based businessmen - Parsis like JRD, Ardeshir Shroff and Gujaratis like Lalbhai and Birla - needs be to be looked at when trying to understand the pulls and pressures on Gandhi and others.It is incorrect to say that Nehru's riches financed Gandhi's civil movements.It was primarily the Gujju businessmen in Bombay who bankrolled the expenses related to Gandhi's struggles.My theory is that none of these businessmen felt comfortable enough with Jinnah.Nehru was more suited to their world view, especially on how the post-independence economy needs to be run.Even though Nehru did not accept the Bombay Plan formally, the five-year plans owe as much to the Bombay Plan as to the Soviet Union.

3.The other aspect (I have not yet read the book - I take my time unlike the BJP head honchos who seem to have read it in less than 48 hrs) that I wish Karan Thapar asked JS about relates to Jinnah's problems with the rich and influential Parsi community of Bombay.Jinnah, who married an impressionable Parsi lady 24 years his junior, much against the wishes of her parents (Dinshaw Petit, who was a businessman selling stuff to the Brits whilst being a 'Nationalist'), and then proceeded to neglect the girl's needs due to his political work- was not to be trusted with running the country ?

4.So, I don't think Jinnah ever had any chance of convincing Gandhi and his businessmen backers.Nehru fit the bill perfectly - like Jinnah, he was close with the Brit establishment; Nehru also had friends in the Soviet Union, and British Labour.He understood business and can be trusted to take decisions that would allow protectionsim for domestic industry.The Parsis, and the Gujjus were on his side.

5.In spite of all these advantages, the provincial congress chiefs still did not favor Nehru as their PM candidate in 1946.Out of 16 PCCs (Pradesh Congress Committees), 15 backed Patel as PM and one backed J.B.Kripalani (another Gujju-Sindhi politician).Gandhi first forced the CWC (Congress Working Committee - the high command) to announce Nehru's name (a fine example of how Gandhi and Nehru actually practiced democratic ideals !), and then forced Kripalani to withdraw in support of Nehru.Patel was also convinced by Gandhi to withdraw, leaving the field open for Nehru.Gandhi-Nehru's disdain for democratic processes was evident even earlier in both Jinnah's case and Subhas Bose's.Being a clever man, Jinnah would have known that this coterie would never allow him to reach his goal of becoming the PM of free India.I think Jinnah wouldn't have minded being second in command for Gandhi, but to accept a much junior Nehru (politically as well as a professionally as a lawyer) would have galled him to no end. In fact, Jinnah seems to have given up hope and relocated to London almost permanently, when he was called back by the Muslim League in 1936.

6.It is also possible that Jinnah saw himself as the metaphor for Indian Muslims (what is good for me is good for muslims), and the wily INC-Bania nexus as the villain.

7.I agree with JS that all of them - Jinnah, Gandhi, and Nehru can be seen as failures in terms of their larger visions.Nehru may have failed the country in one aspect, but he did manage (with Patel's help) to lay the foundation for a stable Indian democracy, albeit much federal than he ever wishes for (and much centralised than the Indian right ever wanted).

Coming to the political fallout of Jaswant's book, I have seen many lazy opinion pieces in Indian newspapers since yesterday.And I agree with DizzyDesi that Amardeep could have been more accurate in giving his headline.

Jaswant's remarks on Patel is being cited as the official reason for his booting.But it is such a lame excuse, even if one accepts that Patel = Gujarati pride and that BJP can't afford to slight its core constituency.

Jaswant has always tried to portray himself as the 'liberal' in BJP.Without Vajpayee's charisma, I doubt the RSS coterie in BJP would have allowed Jaswant any position in the Govt or the Party. (I suspect Jaswant sees a lot of Jinnah in himself - some times it happens with biographers.)

And now that Vijaya Raje needs to be taught a lesson, Jaswant was available as a soft target to deliver the message.Most of what's happening seems to be the handiwork of Rajnath Singh and his RSS-nominated coterie.They still see BJP being in power in some major States, and they don't want to share the power with any one who has not been with RSS.

Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, and now Jaswant Singh.Three capable and honest people in BJP are now on the sidelines.

That leaves the 'Iron Man' LKA, who has been reduced to an impotent titular head.

If NaMo and a few other mass leaders wish, this is the time to split the BJP and fashion a genuinely right of center political movement in India - one that is devoted to transparency, federalism, democracy and inclusiveness.But I don't think Congress is sitting idle. They have already announced an agitation in Gujarat against Jaswant's book - forcing NaMo's hand, and making him look part of the problem and not the solution.

His point is that Nehru's tactics turned Jinnah into an instigator.

haven't read jaswant singh's book, but this statement is not incorrect, and unfortunately, the indian veneration of pious myths means that the immensely tortured history of 1920-1950 is hardly examined in detail. that said, jinnah was wrong on the big picture, specifically the paradox of a liberal religious state.

of course, jaswant's comments about jinnah (and i don't know i he makes the equation with the bjp's own view of india and hindutva) strike at a foundational and institutional view of the bjp, and it seems to be moving in a predictable direction, much like the republican party's narrowing of its miniscule tent in the us.

also, modi has banned jaswant's book in gujarat.

Kumar,

a fine example of how Gandhi and Nehru actually practiced democratic ideals !

See Akeel Bilgrami's comments on Gandhi's attitude towards representative democracy in the Youtube clip that I mentioned in comment #28. (See approx 6:30-8:10 in the clip.)

specifically the paradox of a liberal religious state.

You mean like Great Britain, Sweden, Greece, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and parts of Switzerland?

Also, la-la land.

Rahul

also, modi has banned jaswant's book in gujarat.

Read the last paragraph of Kumars post for context (just above your post)

Also:
Congress supports Guj govt's ban on Jaswant's book
http://www.zeenews.com/news556918.html

"According to the (Congress -DD) spokesperson, Congress suspected praising Jinnah was "a pre-planned design" of BJP to defame Patel. "

Modi could have taken the position to not ban the book on liberal principles. But as disheartening as it may be, such a decision would have been against the multiparty consensus in Gujarat and highly unpopular.

Personally, I want to see what happens in Simla and what direction the party takes. I hope LKA retires. Fresh blood is needed.

jinnah was wrong on the big picture, specifically the paradox of a liberal religious state.

Rahul, that was NOT Jinnah's vision of the role of Islam in Pakistan, to the extent that one existed, to the best of my knowledge. He, publicly, anyway, stated on some occasions that Muslims were a social and cultural group. I would say he was wrong on the big picture too, but the bigger problem was that all of the nationalist leaders - Jinnah - Nehru - even Gandhi - made choices that resulted in Partition. Where Jinnah maybe can be given more responsibility is in his failure to deal with the necessity of a popular Pakistani movement - especially after Pakistan was born. Those first few years were crucial, and statements like 'Urdu is the language of Muslims' or along those lines by him and Liaqat Ali Khan were extremely counterproductive.

But the counter to that are the ideas that Pakistan at independence is a) how unsettled the question of what 'Pakistan' meant was and b) its economic and geopolitical weakness (e.g. India inherited 90% of the industry- which has economic political and social consequences- and, I think, held the debt that Britain owed to Pakistan). There's a short essay version of Ayesha Jalal's argument in South Asia and World Capitalism, ed. Sugata Bose.

Just FYI, partial text of the Lahore Resolution (1940) that helped lay the groundwork for Pakistan(s) (possible plural). You can find this on the wiki page for Lahore Resolution.

No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

This is a demonstration of exactly how unsettled South Asian Muslim nationalism was on its ideas at the moment of independence, which combined with the other factors that made Pakistan difficult to navigate, helps to explain some of the reasons why it eventually became an Islamic and military-bureaucratic state.

I too have got to agree with DizzyDesi at #40 that Amardeep's summary requires a further update. I am also willing to meet DizzyDesi halfway on this:

but the Jinnah angle -- saying that Jaswant was expelled because of remarks against Jinnah -- is just editorializing passing off as reporting press by an incompetent Indian press.

"Halfway" because the Jinnah angle isn't entirely irrelevant; there are individuals, who are party to Jaswant Singh's expulsion, whose decision would have been tempered not so much by the political effect the expulsion would have, but by their heartfelt ideological dislike for any humanizing (?) accounts of Jinnah. That Jaswant Singh has a few critical observations on Sardar Patel -- who is a sort of a political colossus to the BJP -- must not have helped either.

Critical and calmly analytical assessments of Sardar Patel are a true rarity. The only other assessment -- by someone of substance -- that I can remember is Maulana Azad's ring-side account, "India Wins Freedom" of the days leading up to the Partition. (However, Azad was so grieved by the Partition that one could debate whether "India Wins Freedom" is a consistently analytical book.) It appears that Jaswant Singh must have read "India Wins Freedom" quite carefully. To Azad, his perspective on Patel and Nehru was potentially so explosive that he deemed that certain key excerpts of the book remain under wraps for the next 30 years. Here is some of what he had to say about Patel that was redacted from the first edition:

"...Sardar Patel discovered that though he was Home Minister he could not create the post of a chaprasi without Liaqat Ali's concurrence. The Congress Members of the Council and were at a loss and did not know what to do.

"A truly pathetic situation had developed as a result of our own foolish action in giving Finance to the Muslim League. Lord Mountbatten took full advantage of the situation... It must be placed on record that the man in India who first fell for Mountbatten's idea was Sardar Patel... He was convinced he could not work with the Muslim League...

"...The moment he [i.e. Mountbatten] found Patel amenable to his idea he put on all the charm and power of his personality to win over the Sardar. In his private talk, he always referred to Patel as a walnut... Sometimes in a jocular mood he used to tell me that he had spoken to Walnut, and Walnut had agreed with him on every question."

This is taken from page 197 of the Orient Longman edition of "India Wins Freedom". From my (admittedly superficial) reading of a part of Jaswant Singh's book, I am quite sure that he must have read the above words.

Rahul, that was NOT Jinnah's vision of the role of Islam in Pakistan, to the extent that one existed, to the best of my knowledge. He, publicly, anyway, stated on some occasions that Muslims were a social and cultural group.

Wait - I take this back. I think this is part of what you were actually pointing to. Sorry about that!

Critical and calmly analytical assessments of Sardar Patel are a true rarity

If you haven't done so before, check out "Patel - A Life" by Rajmohan Gandhi

http://www.indiaclub.com/shop/SearchResults.asp?ProdStock=3463

It is heartening that a man with such a smart, subtle understanding of Muslims in India occupied such a prominent role in the BJP.

I would say reassuring, not heartening, but it is good that from 1999 to 2004 someone who thoguht these kinds of things was on the inside of that party. But is that enough? Perhaps he is eccentric, like Russ Feingold in the Democratic Party - but he is also someone that remained a member of the BJP from its formation until he was expelled. It is only with the appearance of their decline that he's no longer a member, and that, not even by his choice. If his sensitivity provides an escape hatch for apologists for the hardline rather than policy changes or influence that benefit Muslims (even by minimising the damage done by the hard right in the BJP), what good can we said it has done? Of course that's a question - the history of the BJP remains to be written (or read by me anyway)- I'll wait till then or someone more informed can comment.

To DizzyDesi at #52: thanks! I actually bought the two books "India Wins Freedom" and "Patel -- A Life" together. "India Wins Freedom" seemed to be the racier of the two, and I read it first. Unfortunately, right about when I finished it, time began to turn into a commodity in short supply. I confess I haven't yet been able to get to "Patel -- A Life".

I would say reassuring, not heartening, but it is good that from 1999 to 2004 someone who thoguht these kinds of things was on the inside of that party.

Applying the Democrat / Republican framework on the Indian political scene does not work. Forget the hindus who can "understand the Muslim viewpoint", in the BJP, there have always been a few Muslims in the BJP.

They are not often mentioned in the press, and when they are, they are usually derided as Uncle Toms. If you ignore the press, and look for yourself, though you would find people like Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Sikader Bakht have often been in top leadership positions, and not mascots.

I wonder if there isn't something of a class-conscious rift between India's literati and the BJP's main base (business classes/middle class Hindus) that motivates the nature of much of the coverage.

YogaFire wrote:

There are reasons to criticize the BJP's actions and the methods in this matter, but the Jinnah angle -- saying that Jaswant was expelled because of remarks against Jinnah -- is just editorializing passing off as reporting

I don't think so.

From the Hindu
Mr. Jaitley said in Shimla: “No political party can allow any member, let alone a frontline leader, to write or express views against the core ideology of the party. If any member wants to say something or express his views against the party’s ideology he should stand outside the party” and then have his say. It was not a question of writing “a book” but writing a book that went against the basic beliefs of the party. Mr. Jaitley referred to the ... party resolution rejecting the two-nation theory championed by Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Also

[Jaswant Singh said] “I don’t know which part of the belief in Patel I have demolished. It was Patel who banned the RSS. What is this core belief about? There are only eight references to Patel in my book.

It's a little bit gong show, a little bit clown college.

(Also, check out the September 1948 obituary of Jinnah in the Hindu)

Applying the Democrat / Republican framework on the Indian political scene does not work. Forget the hindus who can "understand the Muslim viewpoint", in the BJP, there have always been a few Muslims in the BJP.

it actually works perfectly in this context, in discussing wishy washy centrism and far right politics among the two major parties in each country. The equivalent would be to say there have always been a few Black people/LGBT people/Latinos in the Republican Party. Anyway, your point actually reinforces how much more relevant the overall thrust of the BJP's politics (ranging from 'moderate' rightwing politics like textbook editing to out and out killings) is than a few individual members here and there, rather than what I had said above - I think Ikram's point (and my reinforcement of it) was off. There are even Muslim voters that vote BJP, but that doesn't change that there is a strong presence of Hindutva communal politics in all or almost all their work, though in varying forms and at differing levels.

Where the comparison between the two countries in this context would fall apart is that politics is far more regional / state / and even district level in India than in the United States for a variety of reasons.

I don't think so.

There is no interpretation required for the official reason. A clear official statement was provided. It isn't rocket science.

Wasn't Vajpayee the first Indian PM to visit Jinnah's grave? Also, Advani has stated at least a couple of times that Jinnah was secular. So, JS isn't the first BJP leader to describe Jinnah in not-so-unfavorable terms. Jaswant's explusion has more to do with the Raje-Rajnath-Advani battle for power than anything else.

The Daily Times, PK:

Any departure was not to be tolerated, as LK Advani, the parliamentary leader of the BJP, discovered when during his visit to the city of his birth, Karachi, he uttered a few words of tepid praise for the Quaid and then had to offer his resignation to quiet the storm that this had occasioned. Advani of course was forgiven his trespasses after he had offered a half-hearted apology.

Earlier, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former prime minister and an iconic figure in the BJP, suffered, I was told by Indian friends, a considerable loss of political support when as part of the now much praised Yatra to Lahore in 1999, he visited the Minar-e-Pakistan and acknowledged in his remarks in the visitors book that Pakistan was a reality, and with whom India would seek good neighbourly relations. Again while Vajpayee paid a political price, this was seen as no more than a hiccup from which he soon recovered.

Some levity: Bal Thackeray said yesterday: "If Jinnah was secular, why did LKA move to India in 1947?" Interesting that Thackeray dissed LKA, not JS :)

We Indians have a distaste for grey shade.Every thing has to be black or white.This malaise is not limited to the BJP.It can be seen even strongly in case of Indian marxists (the scum of the earth if you ask me) and Congress (I).

What boggles me is that without any one realising it, Sardar Patel seems to have become the equivalent of GOD.Any thing you say about Patel which could show that he is a human too, will be termed blasphemous.

I started reading Jaswant Singh's book yesterday and I am almost half way through.It is tolerably well-written and JS seems to have gone to great lengths to be balanced.And it is a history that many of us have a stake in.So, that makes it engrossing stuff.Being a center right person, I don't have many problems putting on a BJP hat.I did that and honestly, could not find anything that contradicts the core tenets of BJP.

That Jaswant is bemoaning the Parition can actually be seen as his belief in the concept of Akhand Bharat.The RSS would be very happy, if they care to read the book.

I think the real reason for the BJP sacking JS lies in the uneasy relationship between the coterie in BJP and the RSS new leadership.Coming so close on the heels of Mohan Bhagwat's public address in Chennai where he said that the RSS would no longer keep quiet on national affairs and would actively seek to influence them, this (the expulsion) is probably LKA's way of showing that he is no longer dependent on RSS in any way.Power brokers in the BJP are probably having the last laugh now, but I feel the BJP has made a grave mistake in underestimating the reach and commitment of RSS.The RSS can't disown the BJP but they can still influence the course of events such that a younger generation of leaders will soon take charge.It may take a year or two for this transformation to occur but it will happen.

I don't know how many of you are aware of Radha Rajan and Sandhya Jain.Here's an analysis by Radha Rajan.

Its getting funnier, but I like the way JS talks.

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/aug/21/i-covered-up-for-advani-on-kandahar-says-jaswant.htm

being conservative with the truth indeed :)

I wonder if there isn't something of a class-conscious rift between India's literati and the BJP's main base (business classes/middle class Hindus) that motivates the nature of much of the coverage.

Yes, you would. anything to avoid examining the actuality.

This is getting funnier and funnier. On Advani lying during the campaign about the trip to Kandahar, J. Singh says

I didn't go to Kandahar because there was a good night club there.

Dizzy wrote:

clear official statement was provided. It isn't rocket science

Yes, but the official statement is silly and un-believable, unless you think the BJP is made up entirely of idiots. But the way things are going..,

Anyway, Jawed Naqvi, the Dawn's Delhi correspondent, has a good column on the Singh debacle, as well an intersesting take on Delhi's Iftar party rituals.

Excellent obituary on Jinnah published in "The Hindu" one of the first English-language newspapers in India, on September 13th, 1948, 2 days after his death here:

http://bit.ly/4pdWmk

Few excerpts:
"Till barely a twelvemonth ago he was, next to Gandhiji, the most powerful leader in undivided India. And not only among his fellow-Muslims but among members of all communities there was great admiration for his sterling personal qualities even while the goal which he pursued with increasing fanaticism was deplored."

"he came to be as nearly a popular idol as it was possible for a man so aristocratic and aloof by temperament to be."

"In an age which saw centuries-old empires crumble this Bombay lawyer began late in life to dream of founding a new Empire; in an era of rampant secularism this Muslim, who had never been known to be very austere in his religion, began to dally with the notion that that Empire should be an Islamic State. And the dream became a reality overnight, and perhaps no man was more surprised at his success than Mr. Jinnah himself."

"Pakistan began with Iqbal as a poetic fancy. Rahmat Ali and his English allies at Cambridge provided it with ideology and dogma. Britain’s Divide and Rule diplomacy over a period of half a century was driving blindly towards this goal. What Mr. Jinnah did was to build up a political organisation, out of the moribund Muslim League, which gave coherence to the inchoate longings of the mass by yoking it to the realisation of the doctrinaires’ dream. Two world wars within a generation, bringing in their train a vast proliferation of nation-States as well as the decay of established Imperialisms and the rise of the Totalitarian Idea, were as much responsible for the emergence of Pakistan as the aggressive communalism to which Mr. Jinnah gave point and direction."

"At the first Round Table Conference he took a lone stand in favour of a unitary Government for India because he felt that Federation in a country made up of such diverse elements would strengthen fissiparous tendencies. It was an irony that such a man should have become the instrument of a policy which, by imposing an unnatural division on a country meant by Nature to be one, has started a fatal course the end of which no man may foresee."

"Mr. Jinnah was an astute lawyer. And his success was largely due to the fact that he was quick to seize the tactical implications of any development. His strength lay not in any firm body of general principle, any deeply cogitated philosophy of life, but in throwing all his tremendous powers of tenacity, strategy and dialectical skill into a cause which had been nursed by others and shaped in many of its most important phases by external factors."

"The freedom that Pakistan has won, largely as the result of a century of unremitting effort by India’s noblest sons, is yet to be consolidated. It is a task that calls for the highest qualities of statesmanship. Many are the teething troubles of the infant State. Apart from the refugee problem, which is Britain’s parting gift to both parts of distracted India, the Pakistan Government has by its handling of the Kashmir question and its unfortunate attitude towards the Indian Union’s difficulties with Hyderabad, raised in an acute form the future of the relations between Pakistan and India. Mr. Jinnah at his bitterest never forgot that firm friendship between the two States was not only feasible but indispensable if freedom was to be no Dead-Sea apple. It is earnestly to be hoped that the leaders of Pakistan will strive to be true to that ideal."

Wow. That was 61 years ago. So many fears have come true!

Mr. Jinnah at his bitterest never forgot that firm friendship between the two States was not only feasible but indispensable if freedom was to be no Dead-Sea apple.

Kumarji,

Thanks for the Articles. Good to see clear analysis now and then.

Yoga Fire (#67), what is it that you find so funny about the quoted statement? Just because Partition had become inevitable didn't mean that there necessarily needed to be enmity between the two new independent states. In fact, when he was leaving Delhi Jinnah even said "I am an Indian and am going to be Governer-General of Pakistan, just as Mountbatten is an Englishman and is going to be Governer-General of India". It's a different matter that this statement was later officially edited out.

Partition was a horrible human tragedy made worse by the fact that the boundries were only officially announced after 15th August-- a decision taken by Mountbatten. It could have been handled in a better manner. Anyway, it was not inevitable that Pak-India relations would end up being as messy and tense as they are today.

This Jinnah business is just an excuse.
There is an ongoing power grab by Modi. (in the BJP)
Jaswant was just a pawn that got sacrificed in a larger game.

I don't know whether it is BJP or Congress's take on history or intellectual deconstruction of Jinnah's role ....Muslims are better off with their freedom in their own homeland of Pakistan and Bangladesh...the rest who want to live in India are welcome to assimilate just as the Hindu/Sikh/Christian/Muslim South Asian-immigrants in Christian USA and Europe....Seriously with so many Hindu temples and cultural symbols destroyed over the course of Mughal rule why should the Muslims be so welcome to dictate the terms just because they fought for India's independence from the British ?

Arti, I am troubled by the logic of your arguement. You argue that Indian Muslims need to assimilate. This seems to somehow imply that they are not full Indians. Indian Muslims are not immigrants to new societies as desis are to the West for example. India is just as much their homeland as it is anyone elses. Further, India is a secular state not a Hindu one and I believe the motto is "unity in diversity". What then are you advocating? That India be declared a Hindu Republic just as Pakistan is the Islamic Republic (which I'm also not in favor of by the way)? It's sentiments like this that made Indian Muslims in 1947 feel they needed their own country. We really don't need a revival of this rhetoric again.

Kabir, desis are hardly "new immigrants" to America-- they've been coming here since the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Indian Muslims are not immigrants to new societies as desis are to the West for example.

That part is certainly correct. They did not immigrate. They came as conquerors, and stayed as overlords.

Minority rights are not based on "years in". Indians have been in the US in insignificant numbers since the 1700s as indentured servants and even slaves, but there was no real community as such until the 1960s. Everyone has different ideas of what assimilation is, for me it means having a roughly similar idea of how society should operate (e.g. France's liberty, equality, fraternity). Everything else is window dressing.

TTCUSM, I'm with you on some of the historical grievances against Mughal rule, but it is probably no more than 5% Indian Muslims that can be considered the descendants of conquerors. "They" are "us", this is borne out by genetic analysis as well. It was a tactic for social mobility to invent Afghan-Turkic ancestors

After 60 yrs. i feel Sub continent is better off being divided in 3 nations which are culturally different. india would have faced more unsolvable problem had we remained as one Nation with more than 40% minority population. Hope USA with growing Latino(Spanish) population would be spared such conflict in future.

Is the US Latino situation comparable in any way? They are Christian, their kids speak English and serve in the military in large numbers, they don't march to the orders of the Mexican govt. I see the tension in the US as being based on assimilating people with an agricultural mindset into an economy that no longer has opportunities for the less educated immigrant

Change "mindset" to "background" in comment #78 above, don't mean to imply that 1st gen Hispanics can only comprehend agriculture. Just think about the difficulty an Indian from the villages has in finding his way in urban India

Hindus have not fully assimilated to the Indian ideal either. Indian traditionalists of all faiths seem to think they have a right to intercede when it comes to "private sin" (e.g. women drinking in Karnataka), village courts that kill couples that marry outside caste or religion etc. These are not exactly corner cases, the police sit on the sidelines because there is often broad support for this behavior in these majority Hindu communities.

Just in case anyone's curious about data on Mexican immigrants to the United States, here you go. Pew Hispanic Center has other data too which might help provide more detail.

comments 71 and 74 are blatantly racist and it's hard to know where to begin in addressing the faulty understanding of history on which its based. please read a respectable and fairly accurate introductory history book on south asia (modern south asia by ayesha jalal and sugata bose comes to mind).

"They" are "us", this is borne out by genetic analysis as well"

Louiecypher, I so rarely agree with you on anything, but it's good to know that you're not one of those crazies who keep arguing that Indian Muslims are somehow a different race from Hindus, despite all the evidence.

You argue that Indian Muslims need to assimilate. This seems to somehow imply that they are not full Indians.

I believe assimilation as a word carries negative connotations in this context only because of the haziness surrounding the definition of the Indian cause. As in 1947, the question is whether Indian Muslims can find it possible to work towards the Indian cause. In 1947, Congress (Patel and Nehru) thought that subcontinental Muslims will not find such a basis and thus granted Partition. The question remains whether subcontinental Muslims are being encouraged by powers external to India to adopt such postures.

For example, Desai in an article today argues that it was Liaquat Ali Khan's budget that convinced Patel and then Nehru to opt for Partition. What is left unsaid is whether the British government worked through Jinnah to have Liaquat present such a budget.

Ghosts that haunt India

Just because Partition had become inevitable didn't mean that there necessarily needed to be enmity between the two new independent states.

Again, I am left wondering if this is due to foreign instigation. Pakistani society needed its elites to survive as a viable nation. Without the enmity with India and the resultant closure of options, there would have been little to compel these elites to go to Pakistan and to stay there on a permanent basis.

"I believe assimilation as a word carries negative connotations in this context only because of the haziness surrounding the definition of the Indian cause. As in 1947, the question is whether Indian Muslims can find it possible to work towards the Indian cause"

Ashish, I don't see why Indian Muslims won't work toward the Indian cause. They are citizens of the state and as long as that state guarantees their fundamental rights, then they (like all other people) would focus on making a good life for themselves and their families and contributing to India's economy. I think the key guarantee is India's status as a secular state. In 1947, prior to the Indian Constitution being written, there was some fear that Hindu domination would institutionalized in the newly independent country. This didn't come to pass and it is much to Nehru's credit that secular principles are well respected in India.

I don't like the word "assimilate" because it seems to imply that Indian Muslims need to become "Hindu" in their outward behavior, clothing etc, if they want to live in India. I don't see why they can't be proud of and retain their own identities while still being loyal citizens of the state. One can argue that desi immigrants to the West substantially adapt their lifestyles, clothing, etc, but they are voluntarily entering a very different society. Indian Muslims whose families have lived in India for 500 years are not immigrants and shouldn't be treated as such. They are Indians plain and simple.

As for Nehru's secularism, I don't think he or the Constitutional fathers ever intended India to be a pure secular state.Nehru especially wanted discrimination in favor of the minorities (vote bank politics) and he was lettered enough to know that he can't possibly call India a secular country. His daughter had no such compulsions considering her lack of education and disdain for any pretense of democratic traditions. She wanted to aggressively pursue vote bank politics, and she used the Constitutional amendents to do so. The word 'secular' was amended into the Constitution by Mrs.Gandhi in the 1970s.And as every one who has seen India's constitution in practice knows, India is neither secular nor does it guarantee the property rights of its poorer citizens.

If only the assorted left-leaning and Hindu-hating leaders, NGOs and academics allow Indian muslims to modernise their faith and take advantage of the many opportunities that a growing India has to offer, I am sure Hindu-Muslim enmity will be a thing of past.But then people have their careers and awards to think of, not to speak of vote banks that allow them to rob the country's riches much worse than the colonial masters ever did.These leeches will never allow true rapproachment and solutions for age old issues such as Ayodhya, Kasi and Madhura.

Today, you can't find fault with a building society not wanting to give a house on rent to a Muslim professional because we have seen that many of them sympathise with LET, Taliban and Al Quaeda, and there have been several cases of young muslim (mostly Mallu) professionals working as foot soldiers in the global jihadi movement using the relative security of their IT jobs.Who has misguided these youth?

And there is nothing to stop local Congress or Communist leaders from having a portrait of Saddam Hussein or Mullah Omar on election posters, expecting the association to give them chunks of muslim votes.

The Hindus are so riven by caste differences that it is next to impossible to unify them on religious or nationalistic lines, for the moderate elements to have any chance.The little mobilisation that happens is that of lunatic extreme right wing variety with mostly mercenary type unemployed youth who flit from being VHP goons today to Congress goons tomorrow.

Most of the young, educated urban Hindus are being taught that India never existed as a nation till the Brits unified them, and that the very idea of a Nation is so 20th century.There is a lack of critical mass of articulate Hindu leaders who can command a following and say the right words.The Hindu right have become so reactive over the years that they abhor any form of intellectual discourse.Quite simply, they lack any relevance in India but they get all the attention from the media, locally and internationally.What a shame ! And the ideological corruption has seeped in so much that even the RSS has given up on making themselves understood properly.

Most Muslims in India do accept that they were possibly Hindus 300-500 years back.But you are mistaken if you think any of them would protest the rabid sermons made by their Mullahs.It is exceptionally hard to find a single muslim mass leader who doesn't have criminal cases against him.They insult their political opponents, threaten the citizens and the local police, and still, they are the ones who get MP tickets and MLA tickets.And they expect to be voted to power because they are Muslims.All over urban India, Muslim areas have the worst sanitation and other civic amenities. And yet the same Congress, Muslim League or MIM candidates continue to get Muslim votes. Who can convince Muslims to vote based on their economic interests and not religious affiliation. Who can do the same for Hindus - i.e. vote based on economic interest and not caste affiliation?

I don't think there is any hope for India and the sub-continent in this generation.We are cursed by the excessive attention of do-gooders, who hold our education and civic life in their tentacles and are asphyxiating us.And we have millions of unemployed youth, who hate themselves and the monied people so much that any hate project is bound to be a success.

Sorry for the ramble.This is not just an academic conversation for us resident Indians.We see the reality everyday and lead lives of 'quiet desperation' and constantly feel ashamed of our selves.

"Today, you can't find fault with a building society not wanting to give a house on rent to a Muslim professional because we have seen that many of them sympathise with LET, Taliban and Al Quaeda, and there have been several cases of young muslim (mostly Mallu) professionals working as foot soldiers in the global jihadi movement using the relative security of their IT jobs.Who has misguided these youth?"

Kumar, I understand where are coming from, and I know it is out of patriotism and love of your country. However, I think that decent people cannot condone this sort of institutionalized discrimination. Just because some Muslims have been linked to LET and Al Queda doesn't mean all of them support these groups. Most Muslim professionals are just like every one else, working in IT, and trying to support themselves and their families. I don't see why they should have to suffer because of some extremists. This is like the arguement that African-Americans are disproportionately criminals, and thus white people don't want to rent out houses to them. Institutionalized discrimination is wrong in any case wherever it occurs.

"Most of the young, educated urban Hindus are being taught that India never existed as a nation till the Brits unified them, and that the very idea of a Nation is so 20th century"

I don't want to get into a whole back and forth about this, but isn't it objectively true that except for a 500 year period, no one kingdom ruled all (or even most) of what is now India? I don't think it is inconcievable that the South, for example, couldn't be one nation-state while the North would be another. This is not to say that I have any problems with modern India's borders, but they are not divinely ordained or anything.

Kabir,

I understand where are coming from, and I know it is out of patriotism and love of your country.

The people refusing to consider Muslim tenants in their societies are not doing it out of patriotism.They are doing it because they don't want to take chances with their own security, and they don't want police to be snopping around just in case. I don't think we can call it institutionalized discrimination. Any way, I agree that its sad that every one gets suspected because of a few misguided people.

My questions are two fold:
1.Who in India is allowing these youth to be misguided? It cannot be poverty because most of the IT employee turned Jehadi sympathisers (Orkut and MySpace are full of them if you know where to look) are earning decent salaries and have done engineering or similar courses.And surprisingly high number of them are from Kerala, where the average Muslim is richer than his counterparts in rest of India.
2.Why are the ordinary peace loving Muslims across the country not protesting against the hate speeches in their mosques or the teachings in Madarasas.For God's sake, it is not Pakistan, where the State is allowing Jehadi ideology to be indoctrinated into impressionable minds.

isn't it objectively true that except for a 500 year period, no one kingdom ruled all (or even most) of what is now India?

No, Kabir, you are wrong:)

I can give you a dozen links with maps to show that how, not just modern India, but current day Pakistan, Afghanistan were also part of Bharat, but then you will have some equally convincing arguments to make.So, lets not get into this loop.

My point was not 'only' about the geographical boundaries of India.It was about the idea of India. Among all the modern nations in the world, only two nations have survived as civilisational entities - Indian and Chinese.In a sense, these two countries are not jut nation states, they are 'civilisation states'.

Aside: In vedic rituals, when we begin a pooja, we do what is called 'sankalpam' (the commitment to start, go through and finish the ritual properly).As part of the sankalpam, we typically state the geographical coordinates of the place.We say:Jambo dweepey, bharata varshe, bharata khande, and then go on to describe the closest rivers and temple town. The idea of a continent, and the Indian sub-continent existed before CE when these rituals originated.

What we see in India today, especially as a fad among the Hindu youth is to denounce 'nationalism' as a concept worth any thing of value.The kids prefer the US flag as a fashion accessory, but it takes an effort to make people even stand in respect when the Indian national anthem is played.When you suggest that a young couple should teach their child to speak and write in their mother tongue- the response would be: No, we don't have such hangups. We are global citizens.We speak in English at home anyway.

I am not saying the above scenarios are good or bad- these things are relative, I know.But I want to emphasise this detachment among Indian youth (in India), especially the Hindu youth, to what is their own civilisational heritage.They are becoming true global citizens on the one hand, but refuse to leave their caste affiliations on the other hand.The idea of 'we are all Hindus' is way down the pecking order for most of them.So, it is rather more difficult to create a value-based Hindu reawakening.It is far easier to create cults of extreme right lunacy.I used to attend the VHP programs as a kid, and it was full of retired profs, judges and scientists.We were made to learn and recite Gita and some one would talk about human values. The VHP was not very popular those days.It became popular when some bigots took control and started using it for political ends.In today's India, the VHP is no loner a respected entity, and even the good work done by some of the retired profs gets besmirched.Sadly, I don't see much hope.

I am trying to articulate what to me is a complex phenomenon.I hope I have made myself understood a bit.

Kabir,

Visited your blog and read a bit here n there.You have an interesting blog.Will try to read and comment there as well. Thanks.

Relevant discussion stirred up by Jaswant Singh's book. I also found Narendra Singh Sarila's book: "The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India's Partition" (Amazon link: http://bit.ly/dX6b6) to be quite insightful about the events of that time.

Kumar, I agree it's a really complicated phenomenon. Some thoughts about the issues you have brought up:

1) I feel that one of the major problems in South Asia is the education system. Even those who are "well educated" in the professions (IT for example) don't have a lot of social science background, but are mostly technically trained. Thus they fail to understand the complexity of social phenomena, where there is no one right answer as there is in an equation. A social science education makes one aware that different points of view exist that may be equally rational depending on the way you look at things. It also teaches the skills of a respectful academic debate such as the one that you (a center-right person) and I (a center-left person) are having right now. Without this understanding of history, sociology, religion, etc, it's very easy for youth to get co-opted by dogma, whether it is Hindu, Muslim, Christian, whatever. This is one of the reasons that the South Asian Idea was started-- to provide South Asian college students with some ways of thinking about societal issues. (It's not my blog, btw, but a friend's)

2) I agree that giving up your mother tongue and culture in an effort to be a global citizen is misguided. I would never give up Urdu/Hindustani and I would want to teach it to my children. I think one can be a global citizen while at the same time appreciating one's culture and heritage.

Regards

The VHP was not very popular those days.It became popular when some bigots took control and started using it for political ends.In today's India, the VHP is no loner a respected entity, and even the good work done by some of the retired profs gets besmirched.Sadly, I don't see much hope.

Everyone, at some point in their lives, is going to have some sort of existential identity crisis. What helps us resolve those "Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?" questions is our sense of having roots. A sense of religious and/or cultural identity is the firm soil that lets those roots take hold.
A kid raised without that will go through life on a daily grind without any sense of direction. Since they don't have any spiritual roots, when they inevitably have some sort of existential crisis they are on their own without much help. They might turn out alright if they come across people who are good influences or some decent mentors or good role models. On the other hand they might end up reading Atlas Shrugged and turn into self-righteous jackasses or, worse yet, listen to some wingnut or cultist and end up hurting themselves and others.
This is why the Islamic fundamentalists don't recruit from religious households so much. They target the engineers and doctors who typically grow up in the kind of middle-class background that prides itself on being "progressive" and "secular." Ironically religious bigots and ardent "secularists" are in something of an Ouroboros loop. They feed on each other. People see religious bigotry, get turned off or hostile to any presence of religion on public life, and aggressively try to censor and whitewash it out. Then absence of a constructive religious presence in public life guarantees that there will be an ample supply of destructive bigots.

TTCUSM wrote:
That part is certainly correct. They did not immigrate. They came as conquerors, and stayed as overlords

Which gives me the opportunity to quote a favorete sher

Hazaaron saal ki yeh daastan. Aur unko yaad haiy sirf itna; Kay Alamgir zaalim tha, hindukush tha, sitamgur tha

Thus they fail to understand the complexity of social phenomena, where there is no one right answer as there is in an equation. A social science education makes one aware that different points of view exist that may be equally rational depending on the way you look at things. It also teaches the skills of a respectful academic debate

Techies work in companies. They have to deal with bosses, with customers who complain, with layoffs. In the old economy companies, they have to deal with unionized labor. Techies learn very quickly that cultivating support is more important than technical skills; that having a good personality gets you the plum projects, not superior technical skill.

A social science education imparts none of the skills you claim it imparts. The simple fact is that no academic course can help you to confront your own self and your sense of identity. You are a Muslim, and must be aware that many people all over the world dislike Muslims. Tell me which course helped you to deal with that fact.

First of all, you are making an assumption:I may have a muslim name, may be from a muslim family, but you know nothing about my religious beliefs, or lack thereof, so let's leave that issue aside.

My social science training helped me to understand the reasons why some people dislike muslims (to go with the example you have brought up). I understand that it is not some conspiracy and the world isn't out to get Islam. Rather, there are historical, sociological, anthropological and geopolitical factors involved. I understand the political consequences of the US creating the Mujhadeen to defeat the Soviets and then leaving Pakistan to deal with Frankenstein's monster. The Pakistan Army for it's own part decided to use these radical fighters to create "strategic depth" in Afghanistan and for covert warfare against India. Then there is the role of the Saudis in exporting Wahabism. Now we are dealing with the consequences of those decisions. Also I am aware enough to understand that there is no one "Islam" or "Hinduism", rather there are different interpretations of each religion.

All these analytical skills were developed through social science training. You may feel that social sciences are worthless, but I think you are just kidding yourself. It's people without a social science base who easily fall prey to jingoistic nationalism and religious dogma.

Hazaaron saal ki yeh daastan. Aur unko yaad haiy sirf itna; Kay Alamgir zaalim tha, hindukush tha, sitamgur tha

This is a nice sher - whose is this ? Alamgir zaalim to thaa par itna nahi thaa. :)

BTW: My roomie in school was a Pakistani who knew quite a bit of Ghalib's work, (OTOH we were pretty clueless about Ghalib-level-Urdu) he was always willing to eduMacate us on Ghazals. I remember his explanation of "ek bahamaNn ne kahaa hai ke ye saal achchhaa hai" and his subsequent discomfiture realizing...

He would often comment on the Indian Serial "Mirza Ghalib" - " yaaR iN LonGon ne ye kaam aachha kiy kiya hai " and then realize that he is the only non-Indian in the room. :)....Hope you are well Umair!

-- apologies for going off the tangent - back to regular programming

What helps us resolve those "Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?" questions is our sense of having roots. A sense of religious and/or cultural identity is the firm soil that lets those roots take hold.

Yoga Fire,
I can't say I have been following this post or comments-thread very close, but these above words caught my eyes.

J. Krishnamoorti took the exact opposite view. In my mind, I can remember the exact passages and words but I am not sure how i will find them online. I'll try in a bit.

Of course, the plane of existential inquiry he was concerned with is of a different nature.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Krishnamoorti and quote one of my favorite lines from Tagore: "Liberation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree."

I agree that some rare people will be able to transcend earthly and cultural constructs to find the truth, but people at such high levels of spiritual aptitude are few and far between. For the vast majority of humanity guidance is required.

My point was not 'only' about the geographical boundaries of India.It was about the idea of India. Among all the modern nations in the world, only two nations have survived as civilisational entities - Indian and Chinese.In a sense, these two countries are not jut nation states, they are 'civilisation states'.

I don't think this claim will hold up under scrutiny, but I'm interested to hear what the evidence for it is.

The simple fact is that no academic course can help you to confront your own self and your sense of identity.

Why don't you try writing a masters thesis or even an essay on a topic that you care about and see whether or not you can do it without confronting your own self and your sense of identity ;) God knows academics try, but if you spend enough time around an academic or an academic in training or you yourself are one of the above, you find it generally is for naught.

But to answer your question - a course on Platonic dialogues or a course of diaspora studies, at two opposite ends of 90s chic-ness, would both allow you to confront your own identity. Nothing can FORCE you to learn, and you don't need to be in a course or to study formally to learn things- but the idea that someone can't engage with material intellectually and emotionally that is personal to them is ludicrous. What is the point of religion if not that?

How would it not hold up? You could make an argument that Israel, and Egypt might also qualify, but Israel is a reconstructed nation and if you transported a modern Egyptian to Ramses' court he would be unable to identify himself in there. The religion is different, the languages aren't even from the same family anymore, and so on.

Transplant a modern Indian to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, however, and you would recognize it as being from the same cloth. India and China are really the only ones where the cultural and civilizational identity has persisted for as long as it has.
Japan, I suppose, could also qualify but I don't know enough about its history to say for sure.

Ethiopia? Nepal? Cambodia? United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Greece? Mongolia? Korea?

Madagascar? Samoa?

Why don't you try writing a masters thesis or even an essay on a topic that you care about and see whether or not you can do it without confronting your own self and your sense of identity

Well, let's think of a Muslim techie working for a Hindu boss. And let's say the company is losing money. Everybody is afraid of being let go. Here are some of the things going through the techie's mind? Will my boss put my name in the black list? Is he a Hindutva supporter? Did he lose relatives in Kashmir?

If the techie is let go, here are some of the things that go through his mind. "Should I hate Hindus? Or was it a fair decision? One day I may become a manager, and then have to let people go? What should I do then?"

People in all walks of life can be thoughtful. There is nothing special about social studies.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

Doesn't count. One of the primary requirements is that the name must fit the meter of

East or West,
_____ is the Besht.

Not that I understand what complex terms like cultural and civilizational identity mean when you have constant evolution and assimilation. It seems like it can be used to support any idea in the entire spectrum from "Things have never changed" to "Things were never like this when I was a young boy/girl".

Ethiopia? Nepal? Cambodia? United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Greece? Mongolia? Korea?

Not that I understand what complex terms like cultural and civilizational identity mean when you have constant evolution and assimilation. It seems like it can be used to support any idea in the entire spectrum from "Things have never changed" to "Things were never like this when I was a young boy/girl".

"Can be used to support" doesn't invalidate the existence of the concept. Darwinism "can be used to support" arguments for eugenics.

This is not even an analogy. Your statement about Darwinism is about a scientific theory being used for moral judgments. In contrast, you are making a factual claim that cultural and civilizational identity is essentially unchanging, when many people view the same cultural and civilization identity as being subject to seismic shifts within a generation. That is a basic disagreement about the antecedent.

Britain went from being Anglo-Saxon to Roman to Norman to whatever else.

And English common law still has aspects of all these traditions, in fact English law is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Norman, first and foremost.

Why do you think the English language is such a tortured mess of exemptions to every rule?

If anything, this argues that the English language is a consequence of assimilation of concepts/ideas/words from all these cultures, much like modern Hindi borrows from Urdu, regional dialects, and English. One man's unchanging identity is another's drastic mutation.

98 · Dr Amonymous on August 24, 2009 04:50 PM

I

don't think this claim will hold up under scrutiny, but I'm interested to hear what the evidence for it is.

Perhaps you can start with this article ' Why India Is A Nation', if you have not already seen it.

I don't think we can call it institutionalized discrimination.

To be precise, allowance for private property restrictions is institutionalised at this point in time. In 2005, the Supreme Court overturned a Gujarat High Court decision in the Zoroastrian Co-operative Housing Society case, thereby legitimising such discrimination.

But I have not seen any data that shows that Muslims or any other group is exclusively or disproportionately impacted by this housing law as compared to other Indian communities. IMO the government should legislate that housing is a public good, but that's another discussion.

Communal bias in building blocks

Meat Nazis

For the vast majority of humanity guidance is required.

I am in a cranky mood so I'll pass it on to you.

I am at a crossroads and I have to make certain (job-related) decisions but apparently no one can help me, no one wants the responsibility of helping me, and --get this--everyone tells me i know best. A case of guidance required, not received.

I don't wonder about where I go after I die, whether I go anywhere at all, but all around me people insist on telling me where they will go and where I will not go. Turns out, they think, I know nothing at all. A case of guidance not required, but generously given.

To Jiddu Krishnamurti's credit, he would have told me he knows nothing about either situation and would have asked me whether the changes/decisions/knowledge will affect or develop my ego? And if I had said, 'yes' he would have said 'get rid of the ego'.

On the other hand they might end up reading Atlas Shrugged and turn into self-righteous jackasses or, worse yet, listen to some wingnut or cultist and end up hurting themselves and others.

Malathi, your future doesn't look very bright to me. Stay far away from libraries and any means of mass communication and you might get through this unscathed, though. Or get "constructive" religion.

And English common law still has aspects of all these traditions, in fact English law is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Norman, first and foremost.

If anything, this argues that the English language is a consequence of assimilation of concepts/ideas/words from all these cultures, much like modern Hindi borrows from Urdu, regional dialects, and English. One man's unchanging identity is another's drastic mutation.

The proper comparison of India and China is more like the EU. The idea of "Europe" or "Christendom" as they used to call it more closely parallels what Indian or Chinese civilizational identity is based on. In that sense India and China are substantially older than any other.

I don't wonder about where I go after I die, whether I go anywhere at all, but all around me people insist on telling me where they will go and where I will not go. Turns out, they think, I know nothing at all. A case of guidance not required, but generously given.

I am at a crossroads and I have to make certain (job-related) decisions but apparently no one can help me, no one wants the responsibility of helping me, and --get this--everyone tells me i know best. A case of guidance required, not received.

If you want to talk about England's indigenous culture you'd need to find yourself some druids. Ah, but there aren't any anymore.

And we'd need to talk about Harappa and Mohenjodaro. Ah, but there arent any anymore.

It's not about things not changing, it's about being able to see bits of yourself in the past.

As I said, the claim that other countries cannot do this mostly comes from a bias in perspective. People can choose to see bits of themselves in the past, and equally people can say that modern culture is nothing like the one they were accustomed to from a few decades ago.

Eponymous, thanks for the article. Although I don't agree with all the arguments in it, it is generally well written and a serious argument. Among its strong points are distinguishing between the state and society as they currently exist in most of the world and any possible political or social arrangement (which is something that Sudipta Kaviraj points out and is very useful to keep in mind). it also acknowledges the relative recency ('modernity') of ideas like a 'nation-state'. the critique of european-derived analysis is also useful.

i think where it fails to be convincing for me on an analytical level (politically, i would disgaree with it and do think, despite the objections it raises, it does substantially 'Other' Muslims and Islam while essentialising to some extent Hinduism as a function of the idea of 'India'). is that it uses textual citations as an example of 'a nation' (and at time hyperbolises) and thereby diminishes the diversity that existed in South Asia and the importance of understand a 'society' or 'a civilisation' as a fundamentally social thing - it can be discovered in a few textual citations though if there are enouhg of those that can be fairly compelling. this, in fact (to address yoga fire's question) is my main objection to saying that 'India' has existed for thousands of years - I am not personally aware of a great deal of evidence for such a thing, nor am I sure that it would even be possible to actually answer this question. There are some things in studying societies - just as in the hard sciences - for which we have to say ' there is no way for us to really know'

It also conflates South Asia as a geographic and cultural area with India (and perhaps by sleight of hand with the Indian 'nation-state'). if one were discussing, say, Pakistan+North India+Bangladesh that would make sense to me as a common cultural area rather than simply discussing 'India'. Of coures, you could call that common cultural area 'india', but why would you? Who did? How many? What about the other identities that people had - which ones were central? Which goes back to the point about evidence.

So it doesn't answer for me the objection it attempts to:

Isn't India simply like all of Europe, sharing some common history and religious ideas but no more?

And it also doesn't answer for me the obejction:

If the British hadn't been here, wouldn't we be a bunch of fighting kingdoms?

by which i think it means - this cultural or civilizational thing that's being called india was fairly unified, rather than being divied up into a variety of social and poltiical and cultural groupings. I can sort of see a geographic argument for that, but then is Kashmir part of South Asia or Central Asia? If Southeast Asia was part of the flows of trade and commerce and cultural exchange, why isn't it now - and if it was then, was it part of 'India'? What role do the interactions that different parts and cities and other things in 'India' have with other parts of the world like central asia or the Arabian peninsula have in this explanation? it seems overly convenient to me to say that there was ONE civilisational entity and that it can only be described in one way - rather than that there were a lot of overlapping forms so that at times there may have been one grouping whereas at other times there may have been another- though again, it's very hard to know any of this.

But it does do an admirable job of skewering the pretensions of European knowledge - the idea that Rome or Greece were 'European' or 'Western' as opposed to mediterranean is just one of several farces perpetrated upon us. I am just very convinced that we need to not even go part of the way towards doing the same, and I think saying with conviction that there was a unified, social (and at times hinted at political) entity which spanned the entirety of the subcontinent doesn't pass my bar for evidence. It could be that I just need to read more, or that more work needs to be done to establish these kidns of facts, or I am overly skeptical, but it takes all kinds, and I am one of them.

Well, let's think of a Muslim techie working for a Hindu boss. And let's say the company is losing money. Everybody is afraid of being let go. Here are some of the things going through the techie's mind? Will my boss put my name in the black list? Is he a Hindutva supporter? Did he lose relatives in Kashmir?

If the techie is let go, here are some of the things that go through his mind. "Should I hate Hindus? Or was it a fair decision? One day I may become a manager, and then have to let people go? What should I do then?"

People in all walks of life can be thoughtful. There is nothing special about social studies.

Yes, but your original argument was that people who undertake academic work CAN'T be thoguhtful about personal identity issues. I said as much as what you're saying here above - though I think your imaginary Muslim person is a bit unrealistic - I suppose he/she could exist, but then, it might be easier to talk to real Muslim techies (and others) who have lost their jobs and ask them what they actually thought ;) And therein lies the point of academia - it's basic premise is - don't make shit up.

The entire concept of nationhood is based on having a common sense of history and a common future destiny.

And therein lies the rub. Because you don't actually have to have a common history to have a common sense of history. Moreover, the collective idea of the history of the nation might be partly true, a skewed version of what was true, or totally new- and which one probably says more about the ideology of the present than anything in the past. So 'India' could be wholly constructed, and people could still have a common sense of its history as continuous and ancient- and the Soviet Union's and the United States's state ideology could have been constructed to include some aspect of newness, but in each case, there were continuities and quite long running things going on as well.

but your original argument was that people who undertake academic work

Thus they [the techies] fail to understand the complexity of social phenomena, where there is no one right answer as there is in an equation. A social science education makes one aware that different points of view exist that may be equally rational depending on the way you look at things. It also teaches the skills of a respectful academic debate

Why stereotype techies negatively? Why stereotype social science positively?

The simple fact is that no academic course can help you to confront your own self and your sense of identity.

Okay fair enough - it wasn't about academics but about the academic process. I still think it's incorrect.

Why stereotype techies negatively? Why stereotype social science positively?

Agreed, sort of - it shouldn't be about positive or negative but about accurately describing what people do and how they're shaped by the different kinds of work and other activities they engage in. In any case, I agree with your general point that people can have real world experiences that help them confront their own experiences in life. My only point was that you can do this through an academic process as well - all while learning - or trying to learn - about OTHER people's as well. It never works out perfectly, but it's helpful. You can do this outside of academic work too - like i said, there are many many many activities that can leave you better tuned in to specific circumstances than academics work is - or at least will have a different and more interesting and useful vantage point for specific purposes. I'm just saying there's nothin wrong with learning - whether inside or outside school - and that the core values of learning have to involve understanding that you're part of a group of people that is learning and there's never a perfect answer, but there is a striving towarsd trying to get a better answer.

I don't see that thing about (all) social sciences people being more accepting of difference at all. The haste with which labels like 'Hindutva' get bandied about belies the claim. Techies are as likely to listen to opposing points of view without demonising them as anyone else.

This 'techie'/'social science' divide is a case in point. ;-)

My internet has been down for a few days so I haven't been able to respond to the comments. I did not mean to stereotype all techies, but I do believe that a narrow technical education does not help to overcome familial and cultural prejudices. I can give you countless examples of people who are very well-educated doctors, engineers, IT specialists, who become completely dogmatic about "Islam" or "Pakistan" without being able to understand that there are other equally rational perspectives out there. I'm sure many of you know the same kind of people in India who are rigid about their own views on religion or politics (the Hindutva types come to mind).

It has been my experience that people who have studied social sciences and liberal arts, whether or not that is their actual profession, are generally more tolerant because they have learned, as part of their education, that societal issues are not like equations and there multiple rational perspectives, depending on one's reading of the facts. For example, in AP World History, we actually had to systematically evaluate bias and ask ourselves questions such as "Who is writing this?" "Where does he or she come from?". To bring in a South Asian example, if the history of the Kashmir conflict is told by a Pandit it can be substantially different from the history as recounted by a Muslim from the Valley. Neither is wrong, they just focus on different incidents. It is the job of the non-partisan social scientist/historian to look at both sides of the conflict and incorporate them into the narrative. People who don't have this analytical training tend to just focus on their own side of the story while demonizing the other.

It is the job of the non-partisan social scientist/historian to look at both sides of the conflict and incorporate them into the narrative

It does not happen in practice. History textbooks in India do read like an action movie with clearly-defined good guys and bad guys. Akbar good guy; Aurangazeb bad guy. Gandhi good guy; Jinnah bad guy.

History textbooks in India present the notion that secularism is a good ideology, and two-nation theory is a bad ideology. They do not adopt a neutral stance between the two ideologies.

In various posts, you have written that secularism is good. Now, if you are commissioned to write a history textbook of India, will you portray the two-nation theory in a neutral manner? Will Kabir, the textbook author, be more neutral than Kabir the SM poster?

I think it would be the duty of Kabir the textbook author to be more neutral than Kabir the SM poster. As a commenter I am just expressing my own views, but as someone responsible for educating young people, I would have other considerations, chief among them to teach the skills of historical analysis. I think history textbooks should lay out the facts and should clearly delineate different points of view. For example: the League thought this, the Congress argued that, without making value judgements. Of course I agree with you that subjects like history or social studies are too often used as tools of indoctrination or propoganda. This is one of the criticisms that hard science types or "techies" have of social scientists. It's also why it's important to read multiple sources on historical issues and thus get not just the "Indian" or the "Pakistani" views.

Of course I agree with you that subjects like history or social studies are too often used as tools of indoctrination or propoganda. This is one of the criticisms that hard science types or "techies" have of social scientists. It's also why it's important to read multiple sources on historical issues and thus get not just the "Indian" or the "Pakistani" views.

Techies in India have a low opinion of social scientists because

-- The social scientists usually come from the bottom of the class.*1Techies often did better in high school in the soft subjects than the social scientists who went on to specialize in them.
-- The standard of Social Sciences in India is disgraceful. Textbooks are full of mistakes and propaganda. Journalists are unethical, incompetent crooks and most research is regurgitated or stolen or both
- sycophancy is endemic in India, but it is slightly less in the fields techies go into

(*1 Things have changed recently with an explosion in opportunities, but this still seems to be the norm. Here are the cut-off marks in Mumbai, which probably has the best opportunities for arts graduates in India:
http://blogs.mybandra.com/2009/07/15/fyjc-admission-cutoffs-marks-2009-cutoff-marks-of-the-top-colleges-in-mumbai/ The only college where they are even comparable is Xaviers which has the best arts program, but only a decent science program. And even in Xavier's the difference used to be much more in the early nineties)

-- The standard of Social Sciences in India is disgraceful. Textbooks are full of mistakes and propaganda. Journalists are unethical, incompetent crooks and most research is regurgitated or stolen or both

social science = study and industry
textbook writing in India = politicised political activity / educational activity
journalism = producing material for publication for the purpose of informing 'a public'

I'm oversimplifying here, but I just wanted to point out that the same way that you wouldn't mix up a computer scientist, an IT policy bureaucrat and a daily newspaper journalist on an IT beat, it would be good to keep straight that producing 'knowledge' for public consumption is a broad range of activities and that concrete social science work is one of those activities. It can be done well or poorly, but the three things that you have lumped together here are not the same.

Which a social science /cultural studies perspective on analysing how 'knowledge' is created helps one grasp :P

I don't see that thing about (all) social sciences people being more accepting of difference at all. The haste with which labels like 'Hindutva' get bandied about belies the claim. Techies are as likely to listen to opposing points of view without demonising them as anyone else.

There's no such thing as 'anyone else'. Meaning that everyone, in whatever field they are in, is guided by certain values and shaped in certain ways by their training - in the worst case people tend to get turned into hammers that look for nails. The benefit of studying (whether in academia or outside) is that it ideally helps you at least analytically describe the nail a little better than if you just decided that you were right that everything is a nail.

That doesn't say anything about techies - just about the values that kabir is talking about are more possible to pursue in industries that are a bit more distant from the profit motive or intense politics than the ones that are more closely tied to it (e.g. when i was doing my masters and when i was working as a journalist i did similar kinds of things, but i had a lot more free reign to work towarsd 'the truth' in the educational part than in writing for an editor in a company in an industry where the company is trying to make money.)

It doesn't mean that academia isn't an industry or that it doesn't have its own biases and problems - just that there is (more frequently and in more ways) more space to point them out as a laborer in that field than in some other professional fields. In the same way that a doctor is going to be fairly honest about doctoring but still have some biases, and a techie is going to be fairly honest with themselves about whether their spellcheck works or it doesn't but still face professional pressures and having industry-conditioned biases- a social scientist is going to be more hoenst about describing the social world - or will at least, have more of an opportunity to and will be pushed towards that guideline - particularly if they have a politics that calls for that.

anyway, i would recommend thomas kuhn's the structure of scientific revolutions or abdolkarim sorouhs's reason, freedom and democracy in islam, but it seems like assessing these things through ideas and study is not that popular here.

Next on Sepia: Which is stronger: rock or paper?

It does not happen in practice. History textbooks in India do read like an action movie with clearly-defined good guys and bad guys. Akbar good guy; Aurangazeb bad guy. Gandhi good guy; Jinnah bad guy.

Maybe that's because social scientists aren't given enough sway over the content of textbooks ;)

Next on Sepia: Which is stronger: rock or paper?

Oh. Not more accurate but unuseful one-liners that disrupt important conversations that need to happen? :)

subjects like history or social studies are too often used as tools of indoctrination or propoganda

textbook writing in India = politicised political activity / educational activity

The next time a history textbook-rewriting controversy comes along, on the lines of saffronization of history or the California history textbook controversy, will you take such a stand? At that time, will you testify that both sides are talking nonsense, since textbooks are bunk anyway?

There's no such thing as 'anyone else'.

Statements such as this create a low opinion about social scientists.

Also unnecessarily long articles defending indefensible prejudices. :-)

In the same way that a doctor is going to be fairly honest about doctoring but still have some biases, and a techie is going to be fairly honest with themselves about whether their spellcheck works or it doesn't but still face professional pressures and having industry-conditioned biases- a social scientist is going to be more hoenst about describing the social world - or will at least, have more of an opportunity to and will be pushed towards that guideline - particularly if they have a politics that calls for that.

I daresay I have more to learn about the human condition from a classicist or a philosopher than most of what passes for sociology.

Start here for a primer. Matt Briggs kindly provides us with a summary. Both of these men being statisticians do a thorough job of exposing some of the faulty logic behind what goes unquestioned in ivory towers and they elucidate upon the statistical innumeracy that causes these misunderstandings.

Oh. Not more accurate but unuseful one-liners that disrupt important conversations that need to happen? :)

So.... rock?

It does not happen in practice. History textbooks in India do read like an action movie with clearly-defined good guys and bad guys. Akbar good guy; Aurangazeb bad guy. Gandhi good guy; Jinnah bad guy.

Looks like the discussion has moved on to...the usual topics :)

I can only speak about the Indian situation with respect to sciences and social studies.

It is a fact universally acknowledged in India that most of the university social science departments are dominated by leftist or center-left people.Though a merit student, I did my BA by choice and used to be part of AISF (All India Students Federation, student wing of CPI) for a while.In my town, the AISF used to meet weekly at a place called Ho Chi Minh Bhavan.When I attended my first meeting, I was surprised to see several of my college lecturers present there.What I remember from those interactions is the emphasis on how we need to increase the presence in academia, and journalism. (It is a different matter that I got out of AISF after 9 months).

When I did my MA (English)at a central university in India, the place was completely dominated by the left and ultra-left types, right from the professors to the Ph.D students.It was easier to get Ph.D admission if your ideology matches with that of the dominating faction in the department.The profs can also help you out in other ways (assigning you to a survey project with good funding, referral to a US univ etc.)

When I joined a newspaper and started mingling with English and vernacular journos, I realized how pervasive left sympathisers were in the Indian media.I once covered a national level CPM meeting, and in one of my despatches referred to them as 'Reds'.The editor was offended because he thought 'Reds' was slightly derogatory and colloquial.My initial job was to receive reports from journos in the field (called stringers), select the more important ones, and translate them from Telugu to English in time for the first edition.I was surprised at the quantity of reports that referred to activities by CPM or CPI workers or leaders.On the state page, if I carried two big items on Congress or TDP (the main opposition), the senior editor used to ask me to balance it by carrying some items on what the Left leaders uttered (even though the popularity of the left parties was much less than the main parties, the news editors ensured equal coverage for them, and I found it a bit biased).

I left the media and joined the IT industry later.While mingling with the 'techies', I learnt that most of them had forgotten the high school history and civics they'd studied.Very few knew things like Vasco Da Gama reaching Calicut, the Panipat wars, the years of first world war and so on, leave alone an appreciation of historical events.

In recent years, the awareness among techies about history, geo-politics etc has increased, but it (the awareness) is primarily created by TV anchors such as Rajdeep Sardesai, Prannoy Roy, Vinod Dua etc.The rise of the BJP and the role played by NRI /foreign returned techies and bloggers (who are generally much more right wing than the average Indian techie, in my observation)has addressed the media imbalance a bit, though the mainstream media and academia are still dominated by the left.

The advantage of a techie turned right/left wing blogger/amateur journalist is that, in general, they seem to be clearer in communication and use fact-based arguments. Social science 'scholars' and 'professors' tend to use long winded sentences, question 'facts' ( techies get bewildered when facts are questioned !) and typically create so many nuances about any event or situation that techie crowd would skip reading those long sentences with too many adjectives.

To address Kabir's point, yes, social science and humanities education is a must for every individual.It helps in making better sense of our world.But it can be obtained through self-study and discussions with peers.However, a social science scholar who uses his/her facility with language to confuse things and disregard facts will find it hard to get the true respect for the ideas being offered.

In India today, social sciences and humanities is taking the backseat to technology and finance.Text books are still written, edited and approved by left-oriented academics, but one can see a slow change towards balance.Indian history needs to be rewritten because the current authorised one is by a left-nationalist (Bipin Chandra et al) clique and they are not allowing any differing narratives to be even offered to the students.

Thanks Kumar ji for that comment, your experiences are very interesting and contain valuable insights.

My main point just simply that social science and humanities education are necessary in order individuals to get some understanding of societal phenomena instead of just relying on whatever the family or religion tells them. I didn't mean to denigrate "techies" at all. I agree with you that social science academics tend to use long sentences and too many nuances that sometimes turn the layperson off (But isn't this true of academics in most fields?)

I also agree that there needs to be a balance in the teaching of history. Primarily what should be taught is the ability to take evidence and come to one's own conclusions. History lessons are not meant to indoctrinate kids into state ideology, though they are often used for this purpose.

As an aside, I would say that academia tends to be dominated by left of center individuals, and this is not a uniquely Indian issue:)

Thanks, Kabir. I am glad we found a few points where we agree with each other.

Yes, I am aware that academia in US/UK is also dominated by the left, but the US media seems to have representation from across the spectrum.On any event of importance, one can find views ranging from far right to far left. A 'liberal right' is slowly taking shape in India, though most of the time they get pigeonholed by the mainstream (Left) as Hindutva fundamentalist :)

The politics of the UPA govt in India offers an interesting case study.The UPA govt talks about the 'aam admi', inclusive growth etc, using largely center left phraseology.But in practice, esp. with respect to the economy, they have been more center right than the NDA govt :)

So.... rock?

Scissors, in the avatar of rock.

I'm sorry but this is a load of hooey, and I say this as someone who has to do a lot of social science research himself, albeit in the private/non-profit sector rather than in academia. There is a prevalent lack of objective standards in most social science research and a level of fixation on minutiae that guarantees that there is very little interdisciplinary study. This further ensures that most work leans towards coining new jargon, coming up with cute new phrases, and developing increasingly arcane and esoteric ways to show off how smart we are rather than actually saying something useful.

I agree with these criticisms of academia and academic culture. I also agree that ordinary people and self-study is an important part of life. What I was pointing to was the greater sense of possibility in the activity of learning and critical thoguht and consulting sources and engaging in ethnographies and holding some leavel of adherence to accuracy rather than the demands of your boss or what you were preconditioned to believe before your ideas are broken down, complicated, etc. My point is not to juxtapose people who are paid to work in these fields from people who don't (if anything, I rely on the outsidfer intellectual as a hero - Jane Jacobs, Antonio Gramsci, Emma Goldman, etc.).

My main point was simply to say that a) the distance from the market in ordinary life provides the opportunities for many academics to be able to engage in heterodox studies and independent thinking that can but does not necessarily run contrary to the influences on them and their fields; b) the values of the fields, while still biased in a variety of ways because of funding structures and whatnot, still have an aspect of establishing accuracy in the same sense that a coder will have to produce code that works. The first can be established in any field (and is - comptuer scientists in academia have more leeway to study a variety of interesting things than others) but the second is more difficult - as someone who worked as a journalist and was also a postgrad student, the reason I gravtiated towards study was because of the greater amount of freedom it gave. I've also done knowledge production in a variety of other contexts in non academia (NGOs, trade unions, etc.) and there is a more political and less personal process to your work and it is more tied to oragnisational needs. This is not intrinsically bad, but more often than not tends to be because it depends on the values of the organisation/industry.

The major flaw with social sciences is that in the absence of strong incentive for 'social science that is accurate' you end up getting too much leeway to go into exactly the kidns of things you point to and worse. Moreover, this varies from field to field and even within that frmo person to person. For example, I think economics - esp in the U.S. - is a particularly egregious example of imposing and reflecting an ideological vision of the world through academic work. For example, I believe that historians of South Asia and really anyone who is willing to ensure their theory and ideas are reliant on empirical evidence (archives, ethnographic studies, etc.) these days tend to have more vigorous and useful debates than, say, political scientists (and I say this as someone who focused a lot on Politics). This is not an indictment of the individuals in those fields, but simply a call for actually studying the fields themselves from a social science and cultural studies vantage point. There needs to be more understanding and action on this, and that applies in knowledge production at every level, from newspapers to television to professors.

However, with all that said - the reason I didn't get into it in depth before is the same reasno that biologists (and philosophers of science) might not get into a discussion of the nuances of theory and the ways that paradigms work in science with a creationist who argues that intelligent design and evolution are both 'theories' and therefoer they are equally valid. There are some basic poitns to be made first - like - there is a use and a need for study of society and culture, reading, learning, and most of all a greater emphasis on what is actually out there than what is in your head to begin with - in all fields, including social science itself.

This is especially on an issue that is within the framework of communal dissension in South Asia - the means by which people in power can use all of us and pit us against each other are too easy within that communal framework and so at minimum taking a step outside of it to really ask questions and find mentors and peers who will really ask questions is really worthwhile.

I'm sorry to be so long winded, but I do hope to become a studier someday and have the autism and lack of communication skills that can come with or is exacerbated by social science academic training :D

The next time a history textbook-rewriting controversy comes along, on the lines of saffronization of history or the California history textbook controversy, will you take such a stand? At that time, will you testify that both sides are talking nonsense, since textbooks are bunk anyway?

In my private capacity - of course. From a purely historical vantage point, the problem with the California textbook controversy was not that the original reading was good, but that the alternative reading made it even more inaccurate in most cases. From my political vantage point, I agree with the assertions of Friends of South Asia and the academics that wrote in that they were not only largely baseless, but in many isntances designed to push forward a particular politicised interpretation of HInduism in the interests of a broader political agenda. That's the whole point of studying and holding up truth as a value - so that you can make these kinds of assertions with some confidence and accuracy and back them up (which leads you to be able to make the kinds of assertions that many academic critics - including many South Asia academics - made of the HEF's claims). And you can distinguish - at least to some extent - what you are saying because you have a 'studier's' hat on (i.e. describing the world) and what you are saying with an activist or political hat on (i.e. engaging in the world.) Not everyone does this, and of course I fail at it too because like everyone, people interested in studying are human and prone to social conditioning and mistakes and unfairnesses, despite that we may not want to acknowledge it all the time.

However, there is a relevant descriptive AND political point here. Unlike Kabir, I have a Gandhian answer to the question of 'neutrality' - I think it woudl be a great idea. Unless everynoe int he world is equal and all institutions and coutnries are are equal (which is saying the same thing) there are power imablances in any argument. So then it's not just what you say, but the way you say it, how often you say it, and what you think you're likely to gain from saying it, and the context in which you think you're saying it.

In this case, once I acknowledge that both readings are deeply flawed (though not necessarily equally - the same way milk can be one day bad or 7 days bad) but are also occuring in a very political context which I had no role in creating, I am basically acknowledging that I have to engage the power struggle rather than in a reasoned debate about which of various poor readings is slightly less poor, let alone what a good reading would look like. So in this case, you have the diasporic extension of the textbook wars in India, and you have to pick and the sides are laid out before you're already involved, unless by some chance it ties to your daily life already and you actually know enough to make a point and have enough power individually or collectively to be listened to. My choice is to say that a) this export is wrong b) it's trying to take advantage and thereby undermine an openness in the system to feedback rom groups described c) putting inaccuracies into textbooks for political purposes that are designed to bolster things i disagree with is not okay with me and d) it makes it basically impossible to engage in an actual debate iwth the textbook because the debate has been polarised and you have been pressured to 'pick a side' rather than assembling your own and mobilising it in the name of something greater than a narrow and rigid ideological stance.

A 'liberal right' is slowly taking shape in India, though most of the time they get pigeonholed by the mainstream (Left) as Hindutva fundamentalist :)

It would be easier for those of us who are part of the Left (which is not mainstream - India is so fragmented that it is hard to say what mainstream would be but in the political and cultural elite, neoliberalism is probably the closest you can come to a mainstream political ideology) to engage with the 'Hindu' 'liberal right' if they would take as much responsibility for publicly confronting and engaging Hindu right zealots - particularly in egregious instances like in the ongoing abuse of Hinduism and power in Gujarat - as they call upon Leftists, Muslims, and others to do in other contexts. This is a basic fact - if you don't help us distinguish in your language and in a greater reliance on facts than adherence to the tenets of the Hindu right zealots - especially those in power - it is virtually impossible for us to engage in a conversation - especially when some of those zealots will periodically interject and act in an illiberal way (e.g. trying to drown out all dissenting viewpoints, including the 'liberal right.'

Kumar ji, from what I've read of Jaswant Singh, he's definitely not what I would call a "Hindutva Fundamentalist". In an article published in today's DAWN he was quoted as saying that he wants to build a "constituency of peace" and he wishes Pakistan and Bangladesh well. He also believes that liberal principles should apply in South Asia though he did state that it has to be our own kind of liberalism, and not just a copy of Western liberalism. If he is an example of the liberal right you are talking about, then that is an encouraging development.

I'm still very disturbed though about the way the BJP expelled him from the party. From the analysis I read by Kuldip Nayyer (again in today's DAWN) it was because the BJP is beholden to and can't go against the RSS.

For example, I think economics - esp in the U.S. - is a particularly egregious example of imposing and reflecting an ideological vision of the world through academic work.

For example, I believe that historians of South Asia and really anyone who is willing to ensure their theory and ideas are reliant on empirical evidence (archives, ethnographic studies, etc.) these days tend to have more vigorous and useful debates than, say, political scientists (and I say this as someone who focused a lot on Politics).

It would be easier for those of us who are part of the Left (which is not mainstream - India is so fragmented that it is hard to say what mainstream would be but in the political and cultural elite, neoliberalism is probably the closest you can come to a mainstream political ideology) to engage with the 'Hindu' 'liberal right' if they would take as much responsibility for publicly confronting and engaging Hindu right zealots - particularly in egregious instances like in the ongoing abuse of Hinduism and power in Gujarat - as they call upon Leftists, Muslims, and others to do in other contexts.

From a purely historical vantage point, ... From my political vantage point, ... I have to engage the power struggle rather than in a reasoned debate ...

There seems to be an inner conflict between Dr A, the non-partisan academic, and Dr A, political activist. And, during a controversy, it is the latter who wins. But the public is in a quandary as to which Dr A is speaking up, the non-partisan academic or the political activist.

Consider this hypothetical situation: Dr A, with his impressive degree from a famous college, is appointed as a museum curator. The museum has a copy of Babar's diary (Babar of Babri Masjid). During Dr A's tenure as museum curator, it is discovered that pages between April 2, 1528 and September 18, 1528, are missing from Babar's diary. What should the public believe? That these pages were lost during bad weather? Or that Dr A, the political activist, ripped out the pages in question, because they contain uncomfortable statements?

There seems to be an inner conflict between Dr A, the non-partisan academic, and Dr A, political activist. And, during a controversy, it is the latter who wins. But the public is in a quandary as to which Dr A is speaking up, the non-partisan academic or the political activist.

Yeah, I'm a human being - I have multiple sides.

Consider this hypothetical situation: Dr A, with his impressive degree from a famous college, is appointed as a museum curator. The museum has a copy of Babar's diary (Babar of Babri Masjid). During Dr A's tenure as museum curator, it is discovered that pages between April 2, 1528 and September 18, 1528, are missing from Babar's diary. What should the public believe? That these pages were lost during bad weather? Or that Dr A, the political activist, ripped out the pages in question, because they contain uncomfortable statements?

Depends on how much faith you inspire in me that a bunch of people aren't going to be killed if they're released to the public. Political activists have values too ;)

I'm still very disturbed though about the way the BJP expelled him from the party. From the analysis I read by Kuldip Nayyer (again in today's DAWN) it was because the BJP is beholden to and can't go against the RSS.

This analysis is bogus. Keep in mind that Nayar was a Congress MP. And Arun Shourie has gone on record asking the RSS to replace BJP leadership (Rajnath Singh) over Jaswant Singh's explusion.

Jinnah was once secular, committed to undivided India

What ex-RSS chief Sudarshan said about Jinnah is right: Bhagwat

Ashish, I wasn't aware that Nayyer was a Congress MP (I'm not Indian). Thanks for the new information. But he's not saying anything different from what Kumar ji was saying above: The expulsion of JS has less to do with the book (the immediate cause) as with the power struggle between the liberal wing of the BJP and the RSS types.

Kabir,

Sorry, but I have never said there is a struggle between liberal right (examples: JS, Shourie, Yashwant, Khanduri) and the RSS.With the exception of Jaswant, all the others respect RSS a lot, and the RSS respects their views too.

The struggle is between: (a)RSS and the power brokers in BJP led by a once tall leader leader who has lost his integrity in the lust for power and (b)between the liberal right and the zealots represented by VHP,Bajrang Dal et al.

The RSS is the parent organization for some, but even non-RSS people who know it well have nothing but respect for it, though in recent years, we have seen the RSS becoming ineffectual in containing the rot in its affiliate organizations.

It disturbs me when much of the abuse against extreme Hindu right attitudes is borne entirely by the RSS.It is not a blameless org, it has its double standards (their take on Gandhian thought is an example), but the 'manufacturing of consent' by the left controlled media, academics, and communal socialist rhetoric has successfully created an image of RSS which is far from reality.

Forgive me if I assume you are a Pakistani origin bro, considering the Dawn references, and being unaware that Nayyar is a Congressman.So, here are a couple of factoids about RSS that you may have never read about.

-The RSS completely rejects the caste system, and internally, they encourage dalit and tribal volunteers to take up bigger roles, and support their political careers wholeheartedly.Suraj Bhan, Babulal Marandi are the names of dalit/tribal RSS volunteers who rose to high political positions.More so, the RSS has been advocating training of dalit and tribal priests and uses them as priests in temples where it has a say.I am sure you know that temple priest is a role that is the exclusive preserve of caste brahmins, and no one, even the Congress of the Left have ever suggested that people from other castes be allowed this privilege.

-Nehru,, the secularist poster boy had a lot of respect for RSS.After the sino-indian war, he invited them to participate in the republic day parade as a token of respect for their war contributions.

When you find time, please go through Deendayal Upadhyaya on integral humanism.It is the guiding philosophy of the RSS, and by implication it ought to be the guiding philosophy for the sister orgs.But in practice, especially in the last decade or so, the RSS has failed to ensure the values in BJP and VHP.

I agree with you, however, that the more important struggle is probably between the liberal right and the far right in India.The liberals are more in number and will prevail.

Dr.A,

A conversation is possible when both sides do purva paksha.

Kumar ji, sorry for unintentionally misrepresenting your views. I genuinely thought that was what you were trying to say.

Yes, I am a South Asian from Lahore, Punjab--but I don't think of myself in narrow terms as "Pakistani" or "Indian". I was not aware of the nuances of RSS. I am sure that it has a role to play in Indian society, but I wish they would have disawoved more strongly the pogroms committed by communal Hindutva fanatics? If I am unware of where they have done so, please point me to those sources.

Best,

Kabir

Dr.A,

A conversation is possible when both sides do purva paksha.

I am not familar with this term and have looked it up as a show of good faith. Do you mean to raise objections in the name of truth or do you mean studying and becoming an expert in the perspectives of the people you disagree with so much that it seems like you're in different worlds so you can debate them?

The point I was making was much simpler - which is that if we are willing to dispense with the notion of sides and agree on a few core values - a floor for basic conduct in all contexts - it would make life easier. For example, one rule for behavior might be - do not respond to perceived provocation with disproportionate force or driven by a spirit of anger rather than self-protection or empathetic protection. Another rule for behavior might be - when such a thing occurs in your mind, speak openly about it, acknowledge its truth even internally, and don't hide from the reality of it. Another rule for behavior might be - listen as much as you speak, speak as much as you listen.

etc etc etc.

I'm not saying I'm perfect at following the rules above or realted ones- but I am willing to try, and when soeone points out I am failing, I will try to address it. I have not found the same from the many people who have spoken in the name of Hinduism from a political Hindu right perspective in the Internet spaces I have been in in the last five years. I have come to realise that this damages not only people outside of that 'community', but is a way of establishing power over people within that community as well by redefining what it means to be a member of that 'community' and forcing people who may identify with aspects of it to 'choose.' It is, in other words, a power game, and it is destructive and additionalyl is conducted for destructive ends in some/many cases.

So as a Hindu, I would like an apology from other people who are speaking in my name to deny reality, to push people to choose through their actions between a very narrow and ideologically particular definition of Hinduism and simply disidentifying altogether, for marginalising or subsuming the views of people they disagree with to amass collective power, which in some/many instances has not been used in accord with the rules/guidelines of conduct I've described above. moreover, i wouild like this apology from others who have done it in the name of other ideologies - e.g. CPI(M), Congress, the American political elite, Islamists, the Republcian party, the Labour Party, the BNP (the Bangladeshi one and the UK one); the IMF; Alan Greenspan; and many, many others.

I have lived long enough at this point to have come to believe that these apologies are not readily forthcoming, which is why, in this context, I am asking people who politically identify with Hinduism or Indian nationalism of any kind really but are not willing to support the actions of people like Modi and Varun Gandhi or deny that they exist to take a principled stand against them - if only by simply acknowledging the things that have happened - even silently - and that there have been and continue to be massive repercussions from them. Otherwise, what content or meaning does dharma (duty) really have?

You know who was a really quotable religious figure? Jesus: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Frankly, the fundamentalist right presents much less of an existential threat to the nation when stacked up against the Maoists, Naxalites, and separatists inspired by the left. At least the former mostly tries to stick to legitimate political engagement rather than armed insurrection.

I disagree that state violence is in any meaningful sense distinct from nonstate violence as a category, which renders the choice to politically engage with the state as a more complicated issue than you make it out to be in terms of measuring the effects of violence on the people who suffer from it.

In any sense, I think it is a responsibility to call attention to such things and talk about what they can do to stop them. I think I do a somewhat okay job - for example in this thread and elsewhere, as an American-born Hindu. You can judge for yourself on other matters.

But it's only recently that a crop of people have started coming up who questioned the colonialist/Marxist dogmas of the past. And it is only within the past decade or so that legitimate historians have started doing so rather than leaving the job to political activists.

This is not accurate. It was an anniversary in the 1970s - I forget which one - when it emerged, then it got sidelined for a while, and now it is coming back (I think it's detailed in 'the decline of the subaltern in subaltern studies' by Sumit Sarkar, who is a very good historian). And there are extremely good historians like Ayesha Jalal who have been around for a while now. But my comment was mainly on the influence of Bernard Cohn on history and anthropology and others to the point where you now have anthropologists doing political economy and legal studies more effectively than the people in those fields.

#149 So as a Hindu

#151 As an American-born Hindu

Dr A. Twice in a row you have publicised your Hindu heritage. Apart from being born in a Hindu family, what makes you identify as a Hindu? What do you do that makes feel Hindu, separate from, say, a Christian or a Muslim?
Was this a purely rhetorical device?. I don't mean any disrespect. I am not even looking for an argument. Just curious about what your idea of being Hindu is.

Dr A. Twice in a row you have publicised your Hindu heritage. Apart from being born in a Hindu family, what makes you identify as a Hindu? What do you do that makes feel Hindu, separate from, say, a Christian or a Muslim? Was this a purely rhetorical device?. I don't mean any disrespect. I am not even looking for an argument. Just curious about what your idea of being Hindu is.

No worries. I am grappling with this question myself. I won't describe it in opposition to other religions, i will simply tell you what i have experienced that relates to my understanding of Hinduism, which is only part of who i am, not its totality, and in the past i have described it as 'goddess worshipping hindu' 'culturally ...' or something else - i dont' think it necessarily needs to be pointed out, but i chose to do so in this context because it made sense:

1. cultural background to lay the roots: I grew up immersed in a Hindu household with a thakur ghar in my room, was read the ramayana and read mysedfl the ramayana, going to durga puja every year, being taught and participating in things like anjali ijncluding fasting, abstaining from eating meat (and onions and garlic at that point) during the puja, being instructed to abstain during the death of my paternal grandparents, witnessing my father shaving his head during both, having sayings from vivekananda etc on the walls, having my mother say a prayer to jai ma every time she started the car (usually when i missed the bus, etc.).

2. being part of the community that provided the above, on an ongoing basis, which I can't recollect the impacts of outside of what my mother has told me (e.g. everything has a pran, etc etc) nor explain which facets of it relate to 'hinduism' and what has to do with class, caste, gender, or other categories, but that has to do wtih it.

3. a curiosity and interest in faith and the ideas and philosophy behind it - aside fro the books and ideas mentioned above, as i grew older, i read the gita on my own, took a course in hinduism at university, wrote on and studied ideology and a few figuers that were hindu and nationalist (taraknath das and aurbindo ghosh), and paid close attention to contemporary dialogues and conversations around hinduism, and later took courses at a masters level on south asia. this helped me undersatnd things like the diversity of belief in hinduism as it is described in various contexts today, some of the ideas that i had been unable to grasp that my family spoke of (example - never was able to understand the sudden switch from ' you absolutely should not date' to tolerance for and discussion of dating and other such mattesr, phrases like 'in student life you do...' etc etc etc - until i learned about asramas and wahtnot), some of the myths that have been raised around hiunduism, the role of politics and colonialism in constructing contemporary legal notions of hinduism, the living tradition of interpreting what hinduism means in law, the roots of caste, etc.

4. awarenss of exclusion as part of a diaspora - growing up in a community that was not predominantly hindu int he united states, i was made aware and it is part of my basic worldview / outlook at some point that i 'was hindu' and that this was different, though like many hindus, i also celbrated christmas, etc.

5. practices in the household - this can be placed here because it is pure, this is impure, dont' do this with your lefthand, don't touch that, this is dirty this is clean don't wear your shoes in the hosue, don't eat food that other people have already eaten, don't give someone a dish you've eatne from, etc etc etc etc etc. this tied in significantly to my understanding of caste, purity, pollution and OCD.

6. a trajectory - at first i understood myself as hindu, then i contemplated defining myself as a specific other faith - judaism, christianity, islam - instead i ended up taking various aspects of those faiths on that i liked and combining them in ways that made sense for me an called myself 'eclectic.' Later, i realised, to my bemusement, that 'eclectic' is what it means to be Hindu.

I think where I would depart from most contemporary cocneptions of Hinduism is that I am wiling to openly explore Islam and acknowledge that it is in part a South Asian faith tradition, and accept some of the things I like about it and relate them to other thigns I've learned - for example - i find the comparison between 'submission' to god and the call for submission to dharmic duty in the gita fairly interesting.

hpe that helps.

That was quite insightful, Dr A. In fact that is quite similar in parts to my own experience of being Hindu.
Of course this is quite a complex issue, and a lot of factors can shape one's political and ideological views. I feel that your educational background and growing up in a diaspora may have shaped yours to a great extent.

Later, i realised, to my bemusement, that 'eclectic' is what it means to be Hindu

Yes, that is partly true. The eclecticism exists within a malleable dharmic framework. The difficulty is in accommodating exclusivist beliefs to this framework. Being a civilisation cultural and spiritual tradition rather than a 'revealed' religion, I feel that a crucial element of Hinduism is also a reverence for the civilisational land, the matrabhoomi.

Anyway, good to hear your views. Will discuss this issue at greater length probably on another thread.

Dr A,

In 153, you are being reasonably respectful about Hinduism. You even speak of the dharmic duty in the gita. Yet it was not so long ago that you were sarcastic about Krishna. So 153 cannot be the complete story. To complete the story, you also need to say where yo ur negative attitude to Hinduism came from.

In 153, you are being reasonably respectful about Hinduism. You even speak of the dharmic duty in the gita. Yet it was not so long ago that you were sarcastic about Krishna. So 153 cannot be the complete story. To complete the story, you also need to say where yo ur negative attitude to Hinduism came from.

I don't believe in the historical accuracy of the gita, which makes it easier for me to be what other people consider blasphemous - I take it as a story or an allegory (is that the word?) that is designed to teach a certain lesson - which I believe is the way it's to meant be taken. As I said in the comment that you're mentioning (I think) I prefer an upanishadic reading which doesn't have the anthropomorphic god that presents itself as overhwelming and magnificent in nature - i find that sort of approach cowing people into submission, in a sense, rather than appealing to their minds or, preferably, their emotions. that aspect of it is anathema to my still raw conception of what spirituality is.

on an emotional level, I am hurt that the book that is the book that is presented as the primary holy book in the faith that is usually ascribed to me does not suit me. i also resent the overemphasis on the book given that it was little part of my upbringing and has little to do with me beyond what i take to myself. I think religion is a very personal choice, does not have to involve god or gods, and for me, is not to be profaned with ideas that insult my capacity to think. That doesn't mean I t6hink it always has positive effects even when all that is the case, but i think that is a necessary prerequisite for it to be something productive.

As for whether I am respectful or not - well I think you can only be respectful to people in this sense. Respectfulness to ideas entails representing them accurately, but beyond that, I don't think they have feelings that can be wounded :)

Being a civilisation cultural and spiritual tradition rather than a 'revealed' religion, I feel that a crucial element of Hinduism is also a reverence for the civilisational land, the matrabhoomi.

With respect, I think this is a misreading of Hinduism, though obviously different people will have their own interpretations. I think it is extremely dangerous to tie religion and nationalism together (e.g. see Hinduism). I strongly believe that nationalism, in a contemporary context, can often be exactly the kind of exclusivist faith that you're talking about. it quite literally bounds people and excludes people outside of those bounds, which is contrary to a spirit of openness that religion or spirituality or secular openness can - at its best - have.

I feel that your educational background and growing up in a diaspora may have shaped yours to a great extent.

Um, isn't this true of everyone? :) In the sense that the things that shape them, including formal education or lack thereof and their social and racial and national positions have an effect on hwo they see things? :) The only difference is really if see it in themselves or not.

anthropomorphic god that presents itself as overhwelming and magnificent in nature

Vishwa swaroop that you read as an anthropomorphic god presenting himself in an overwhelming way is actually something quite different. Anyway, I will not debate theology with you. You are entitled to your opinions.

With respect, I think this is a misreading of Hinduism, though obviously different people will have their own interpretations. I think it is extremely dangerous to tie religion and nationalism together (e.g. see Hinduism). I strongly believe that nationalism, in a contemporary context, can often be exactly the kind of exclusivist faith that you're talking about.

Well, that is my reading of the religion. Could you name one place in the mythology or history of Hinduism which is outside the subcontinent (including Tibet)?. I am not talking about nationalism for a political entity that came into being in 1947. Associating that with a 3000 year old creed would be extreme myopia.I am just defining it as a spiritual tradition that largely evolved in a particular geographical location. Of course, now with Hindu diaspora scattered across the globe, future evolution of the religion might occur differently in different places.

I feel that your educational background and growing up in a diaspora may have shaped yours to a great extent.

Um, isn't this true of everyone? :) In the sense that the things that shape them, including formal education or lack thereof and their social and racial and national positions have an effect on hwo they see things? :)

No I wasn't being judgemental. I was just stating the obvious. Exactly what you said above.

I think where I would depart from most contemporary cocneptions of Hinduism is that I am wiling to openly explore Islam and acknowledge that it is in part a South Asian faith tradition.

In keeping with the discussion Dr. A and Lupus are having, I would like to ask what we are to consider the preaching of those saints who attempted to combine the good elements from both Islam and Hinduism, for example Bhagat Kabir. Is his philosophy "Islam" or "Hinduism"? Even today, Kabir is a name given to both Muslim and Hindu boys. The legend goes that when the saint died, the Muslims claimed he was Muslim and the Hindus that he was Hindu, they respectively wanted to bury or burn his body. The body disappeared showing that the saint was above all such considerations. What about Sufism? What about Sikhism, which (correct me if I'm wrong) blends elements from Hinduism and Islam to create a distinct faith. I don't know why people feel threatened by Hindus exploring Islam in a non-judgemental manner. After all, not all "Islam" is Wahabbi Sunni Islam.

Personally, I am in awe of the poetry of Meerabai, yet I cannot call myself a Hindu because I was born in a Muslim household (albeit an extremely liberal secular one). I don't see the harm in appreciating our South Asian composite culture. Perhaps it will even help build greater tolerance in the subcontinent.

Kabir,

If you want to call yourself a hindu, whats stopping you ? In India you would find many hindus visiting the dargahs of various muslim saints, but you don't have to mix hindu and muslim beliefs to appreciate a south asian composite culture.

I don't think its just 'wahabbi' Islam that would have an issue with mixing hindu and muslim beliefs. Most of the orthodox and sufi orders that exist in India would frown upon such deviations. The key tenets of Islam are quite clear and I personally don't see how you can honestly follow these and also incorporate this with hinduism.

In fact trying to blend hindu and muslim practices would in my view not build tolerance but could be viewed as an attempt to 'assimilate' muslims into the hindu fabric and would be perceived as an attack on Islam.

Sikhism is its own faith and I think it would be incorrect to see it just as a blend of hinduism and Islam.

Desi in DC, I don't personally advocate blending of Hinduism and Islam. I was just trying to ask how one would classify certain philosophies such as those of Bhagat Kabir. Kabir stated in his bhajan "Where do you seek for me (god), I am with you" and "I (god) am in faith." There's also the bhajan "koee bolay ram ram koee khudai" which I believe is also by him. Basically, these type of philosophies make the point that there are multiple ways to approach god and that all these ways are fine.

Btw, I am also based in DC. I live in Foggy Bottom, if you are ever interested in taking these discussions offline:)

Anyway, I will not debate theology with you.

I am happy to discuss theology with you. The chapter in the Gita I am referring to is towards the end of the series of explantions that Krishna givres Arjun for why he should engage in the war, and 'reveals' himself to Arjun, in a sense overwhelming his senses (it's chapter 11 - see here). this is very different both in tone and in style than the manner in which brahma is treated in at least one of them upanishads I've read as a force that is existent in the entire universe, but is not in the form of a human being and is not presented in a way that attempts to coerce (the reader, if not Arjun), in my opinion.

Could you name one place in the mythology or history of Hinduism which is outside the subcontinent (including Tibet)?

Well, there are places like Bali and the diaspora, where it's still practiced, and many places where it once was but no longer is, like other parts of Southeast Asia.

I don't know why you expect conceptions of Hinduism to explore Islam. It is a bit like expecting conceptions of Christianity to explore Buddhism.

As I stated above, the only comfortable way I have of undersatnding Hinduism as one that allows and even embraces eclecticism and syncretism of all faiths. Asking a Hindu who is concerned with faith and interested in faiths and is tied to the subcontinent to ignore Islam and Muslims doesn't compute for me.

Yet this happens all the time, unfortunately. On a social level, if Hindus in the subcontinent cannot embrace the diversity of all tradtions witihin Hinduism, intermingling and exploring with people who identify with other faiths as well on the subcontinent, including those held by their neighbors whio are various kinds of Muslims, adivasis of various kinds, Sikhs, Jains and dalits - then what hope does India or South Asia have given how many Hindus live there?

It IS more difficult because its personal and an extensive history of mutual violence and discord intervene and, obviously, the deliberate state policy during the colonial era and subsequent fragmentation of british india-- but it is also possible, if one truly cares about life, people, and social communities in South Asia or its diasporas. it is weird, actually, to imagine that someone from the subcontinent holds a faith that encourages exploration of other faiths anjd understands itself as a civlisational identity but does not explore the faith of 35% of the population and one that has existed in that geographic area for hundreds of years and profoundly shaped aspects of the place's history. It undermines both the claim to a 'civilisational' status, sycreticism, broadmindedness, and respect for all faiths.

There is, as kabir points out, a tradition of interchange and sycreticism that has been - let's say interrupted - and that need to begin to be remembered and renewed - on all sides. In some cases it is easier - for example, in cases of common language, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, or other ways in whcih people might come together in a common context. Even within the context of faith, for example - sufi and bhakti devotees might find in exploring the histories of their traditions that they would connect on some grounds.

Desi in DC, I don't personally advocate blending of Hinduism and Islam. I was just trying to ask how one would classify certain philosophies such as those of Bhagat Kabir.

Perhaps it is best not to classify sometimes, especially with regard to matters of faith in the subcontinent :) But syncretic is generally the word they are given.

You might be interested in this paper:

In the People of India study (1985-1992) a large number of communities has identified themselves in terms of dual religious configuration, such as Hindu-Sikh, Hindu-Muslim, and Hindu-Buddhist. Thus amongst the people of India all those having Hindu-Sikh segments are: Bania, Bazigar, Khatik of Haryana; Chuhra, Chamar, Megh of Himachal Pradesh; Banjara of Maharashtra; Punjabi of Orissa; Gujjar, Gagra, Ahluwalia, Bairagi, Kumhar, Bauria/Bawaria of Punjab; Sonar, Banjara, Chamar-Jatav, Chippa of Delhi; Saini Bazigar, Chamar of Chandigarh; Chimba of Jammu and Kashmir. Some of the communities with Hindu-Muslim segments are: Bohra, Manka of Gujarat, Ranghar of Himachal Pradesh; Mirasi, Sonar, Rajput of Punjab; Bhil-Tadvi of mahashtra; Cheeta and Singhwala of Rajasthan; Sabar of West Bengal, Orissa; Bihari of Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Nagaland, Sikkim; Koch of Tripura; Cheintz of Jammu and Kashmir; Siddhi of Karnataka; Arora, Taga of Dadra and Nagar haveli. Some of the communities with Hindu-Buddhist segments are: Gurkha/Gorkha/Nepali of Assam, Haryana, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh; Chamar of Haryana; Swangla, Kinnaura, Khas of Himachal Pradesh; Mahar of Maharashtra; Koli of Rajasthan; Gurung, Tamang of Sikkim; Bhotia, Limbu, Tamang of Uttar Pradesh; Mahar, Tamang of West Bengal, Chakma of Mizoram; Indo-French of Pondicherry (Singh: 1992(2002), 1996). There are communities such as the Khasi Muslim of Meghalaya and the Nicobarese of Andaman and Nicobar islands which have segments professing three or sometimes four religions, such as Islam, Christianity and tribal religion. The communities with segments professing Buddhism and tribal religions are: Singpho, Turung of Assam; Khampa of Himachal Pradesh; Lepcha of West Bengal; Na, Sherdukpen, Singpho of Arunachal Pradesh; Mag/Magh of Mizoram. The communities with segments professing Christianity and tribal religion are: Karbi/Mikir, Mizo-Hmar, Munda, Oraon, Riang of Assam; Kharia, Munda, Santal of Bihar; Nahal of Madhya Pradesh; Anal, Chote, Gangte (Singh: 1992(2002), 1996).

Dr A-- That's really interesting thanks. I guess I would call myself a Hindu-Muslim (or Muslim-Hindu), though I think I've settled on "bhakti/sufi":)

I totally agree with your point that it's weird that Hindus and Muslims living on the Indian subcontinent find it difficult to engage with each other's religions, especially given that Hinduism is not a "revealed" religion and thus less rigid in many ways than Islam. Also, given the fact that there already exists a syncretic tradition, it's a shame that people are afraid or reluctant to explore it.

To give another example. One of Meerabai's most famous bhajans is "Shyam piya moree rang day chunariya". I read in a book somewhere that Indian Muslims used to sing substantially the same bhajan simply changing "Shyam" to "Khwaja" and addressing the bhajan to a Sufi saint (can't recall whether it was Nizamuddin Auliya or Moinuddin Chisti).

Dr A-- apropos of the link you have presented, you (and others) might be interested in this post on the South Asian Idea blog.

http://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/hindu-muslim/

This is very different both in tone and in style than the manner in which brahma is treated in at least one of them upanishads I've read as a force that is existent in the entire universe, but is not in the form of a human being and is not presented in a way that attempts to coerce (the reader, if not Arjun), in my opinion

Dr A. I didn't want to discuss theology simply because I am extremely busy in my new job, and don't find as much time as I used to do the kind of reading and research (and writing) that would do justice to the subject.
However, just to close this loop...
(I shall be quoting Dr Radhakrishnan's translation and at a few places his expositions)
Chapter XI verse 8
But thou canst not behold me with this human eye of yours; I will bestow on thee the supernatural eye. Behold my divine power.
It is analogous to the the upanishadic hearing they hear not, knowing they know not,seeing they see not, Only with the eyes of enlightenment do they see. Also similar to the biblical lord opened his eyes so that he may see
What is it that he is being shown? surely not a powerful human being who can work miracles. It is something of an entirely different dimension and magnitude.

Verse10- Of many mouths and eyes, of many visions of marvel, of many divine ornaments, of many uplifted weapons
This is not all that different from Purusa sukta, hymn 10.90 of the Rg Veda. Also, we must not forget that this description is being given by Sanjaya. His mind is perceiving the supreme in ways that he is familiar with.

Verse 12 If the light of a thousand suns were to blaze forth all at once in the sky, that might resemble the splendour of the exalted being.
The exalted being is the embodiment of the universal form. Surely this is not a description of a human form.

Verse 47 By My grace and through My divine power, O Arjuna, you were shown this supreme form, luminous, universal, infinite and primal
Here, the lord is not speaking as Krishna, the person, the charioteer- the My here is that of the Supreme being, the absolute, unconditioned Brahman, the attainment of which is the final and highest salvation.
I don't understand how you have read the Gita as efforts of a man attempting to coerce worship. Even if so, please read just chapter XIII (the field and it's knower) again. It might make things clearer.

Asking a Hindu who is concerned with faith and interested in faiths and is tied to the subcontinent to ignore Islam and Muslims doesn't compute for me.

Can't recall whether it was Nizamuddin Auliya

Kabir, thanks for the link - it was indeed interesting. I think it very much sums up one dynamic that exists - there are communities engaging in their practices until someone comes and forces them to define 'which side' they are on and alter their practices and the trajectory of their practices. Moreover, this demand can come from 'Hindus' or 'Muslims', and happens both in India and in Pakistan. This is why I was suggesting challenging easy classification in pre-existing categories :) You can see in the response you received, even, from Desi in DC - I think the commenter is not Muslim (I could be wrong), but is policing who can claim Islam.

I totally agree with your point that it's weird that Hindus and Muslims living on the Indian subcontinent find it difficult to engage with each other's religions, especially giv toen that Hinduism is not a "revealed" religion and thus less rigid in many ways than Islam. Also, given the fact that there already exists a syncretic tradition, it's a shame that people are afraid or reluctant to explore it.

I don't think it's that people are reluctant or enthusiastic to engage in these types of activites of their own. The trouble is that there is now a long history of defnition, classification, and consolidation of various people into categories. And it would be a mistake to think that they themselves are not participating on a concrete level in this process - the concrete and the abstract occur in the same person who is both ffected and exerts agency. But there is an abstract - a dynamic of communal definition classification, and violence that exists, and we all need to come together to be able to end that, explore what hte factors are behind it at this point (India-Pakistan rivalry and the nationalism that ensues, legacies of colonialism and continuing influence of modernjism, the use of politicised religion as part of neoliberalism's electoral aspect, path dependency due to violence, etc.). We have already witnessed time and time again what happens when this dynamics starts to trump other matters - and it can be self-reinforcing. I thuink that's why the conversation we are currently in among a variety of people in a peaceful and civil way is quite good :)

LS,

Thank you for the lengthy exegesis and good luck with your new job. I may have written unclearly earlier - I am not trying to say that I think Krishna was simply a powerful person. I think if that were the case, the whole story would lose its appeal and I would lose my curiosity :) This is clear in that Krishna has two identities from the outset - the charioteer whose name I can't remember and Krishna. As such, charioteer/Krishna is both human and divine at once (or rather in what portions he is depicted at alters depending on thye moment and the part of the book) and is not just Krishna or a person. And Krishna/supernatural/transcendent supernatural goes through the enormous list of other things he is as well to establish his divine cred.

What I was trying to saying relates to the overall trajectory of the story and specific aspects of specific parts as they contrast to what I believe are preceding traditions (i.e. what the Gita has before it and where it takes those beliefs). The overall thrust of presenting him as in human form and tied to other aspects of Krishna worship, then showing a different form (while STILL Krishna/divine/supernatural and able to go back to being the charioteer as well because the supernatural an move back and forth among different aspects easily) is different from presenting brahman as an impersonal, all-penetrating force. It is that difference between the divine partly as being (and speaking) and having already presented themselves and the divine as simply existent and all pervasive force tat I don't lke - this si what i refer to as anthropomorphic.

I am particularly concerned that the more abstract and philosophical version (for whuc you need eyes of enlightenment) present in the upanishads or in Buddha preceded the more concretised and anthropomorphic version (for which you need eyes of the supernatural). It is much less soothing and much more scary and presents a different kind of model of authority / the divine.

In other words, Krishna is named - he walks, talks, and moves -while can reveal himself also as a manifestation of Brahma/the supernatural/the divine - that even someone as heroic as Arjun can become frightened of and Krishna conceals himself again because we human beings can't handle the truth- well that's not my preference for what approach I think religious education and contemplation would ideally take.

That is what I meant- whenever there is a philosophy or strain that emphasises unity and one-ness, it will be explored and welcomed in the dharmic fold. If it promotes exclusivism or superiority of the faithful, it will be ignored or opposed.

I notice an unfortunate irony in what you say here :(

One asymmetry along the Hindu-Muslim axis (among, no doubt, many) is the absence - in the Muslim tradition - of the kind of discourse I see here regarding the Gita - a secular questioning of accepted/revealed truths, of scriptures, an attempt from a humanistic perspective to deconstruct that which is regarded sacred and beyond questioning by believers, a re-examination of the role of the deity or the prophet.

I bring it up in case I am merely misinformed.

Kabir @165:

I totally agree with your point that it's weird that Hindus and Muslims living on the Indian subcontinent find it difficult to engage with each other's religions, especially given that Hinduism is not a "revealed" religion and thus less rigid in many ways than Islam. Also, given the fact that there already exists a syncretic tradition, it's a shame that people are afraid or reluctant to explore it.

Actually you will find a lot of Hindus in India frequenting Sufi Dargah as much as temples, where they exist locally: Dargah of Khwaja Chisti is one famous example where Hindus (including Jains and Sikhs) frequent from far and wide. Personally, I have grown up visiting our local Sufi Durgah just as much as temples in my small town in India. When I moved to another small town, there wasn't any Sufi place (although Mosques were aplenty), so that tradition ceased. You will also find that most Hindus (that I know) don't have a problem praying to Christ in chruches (but not in a formal manner and not if the church is making an effort to convert). However, I have almost never seen the same respect given (in large scale), forget the kind of mass visits, by people of Abrahamic religion to any Hindu place of worship, most likely because the Abrahamic religions are exclusive. Kabir, I see you are not aware about the reverence of Sufi Dargah's amongs local Hindus and wanted to point it out to you.

@ Wunderbar: I am not at all a religious scholar, but I do know that there is a tradition of scholarship in Islam. For example, deciding which Hadiths are authentic and which are corruptions. There are also several different schools of Islamic Law, so one can imagine that there must have been vigorous debates and disagreements at some point. However, I agree that there isn't a "re-examination of the role of the deity or the prophet" partly because the scripture is considered to be the direct word of god and thus can't really be questioned, at least not by those who believe it to be divine revelation.

@zee, Thanks for the insight. I was aware that Saints like Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti are greatly respected in India. I wish more emphasis was given to the syncretic tradition and less on communal discord and hardline Islam or Hinduism.

Dr. A, I hate to jump into the middle of an interesting discussion between you and Lupus, but since he's apparently preoccupied with his new job, I just thought I'd chime in here. With all due politeness, I think I see an unfortunate misreading here in your scriptural peregrinations. The Upanishads are in essence, commentaries on the Vedas that expound the core teachings of Vedanta. The Bhagavad Gita in essence condenses that and packages it in a practical format for the layperson. The Gita was not created in opposition to the Upanishads, but rather runs in consort with it. Could they (upanishads) be packaged in a form that is more palatable to your tastes?--sure. But that does not mean that there is a fundamentally different message from the Gita. The Krishna of the Gita is the same as the Brahman of the upanishads. That is the nature of the divine--everything and yet nothing at once (as in no parallel phenomenon). That is why the na iti na iti approach is advocated because the divine is simply indescribable. Brahman, Krishna even Kali (which your ostensibly bengali household was probably very familiar with) are all alternately described as embodiments of Eternal Truth.

Accordingly, from what I gather, your aversion to Krishna is on the basis that he is seemingly war-like and encourages violence. But again, that is a misreading. What Krishna advocates is the practice of duty (I don't think submission as you used above was the right word). He chastises Arjuna for cowardice and for shirking from his duty. Pure compassion and humanism without recognition of severe threats to righteousness is cowardice--and since you feel inclined to draw parallels between politics and religion...
What Krishna advocates is that in order to defend righteousness there are times when we must take up arms. As a Kshatriya, Arjuna has enjoyed the privileges and luxuries of his class, and so, he must now implement the duties that are required of his class and defend the dharma without regard for family or self. Krishna is not celebrating violence or calling for atrocities, he is saying that righteousness (whether it is protecting women, restoring rightful rulers to their thrones, safeguarding the weak against the strong) sometimes requires the use of arms for its protection. Would it be great if we could all just compromise and engage in dialogue with our adversaries?--sure. But the pandavas did that, and ultimately, the kauravas continued to humiliate and supplant them, that is why the kurukshetra war must take place.

Now, please understand, I am not saying that you must believe in Krishna because of blah blah blah. No one has that right to tell you what to believe. However, I am saying that I think this was a rather facile reading that missed the point of the Gita . With respect to the depiction of Krishna's Vishwarupa, which you refer to as anthropomorphic (again, I think the wrong word is used here), the point of its revelation was not to instill fear in Arjuna--who himself asks to see the true form of the divine. The point is to recognize the many and awesome forms the divine can take and permeate throughout the universe at the same time. That is why hinduism sees no contradiction in appreciating the teachings of other saints and prophets irrespective of religion--ekam sat, viprah bahuda vadanti (there is one truth, but there are many ways to it--Rig Veda). Moreover, I disagree that syncretism is an absolute must for anyone on the subcontinent to be good "south asians". What I do agree with is that I think people should take the time to study other faiths and appreciate their festivals and teachings so they can better understand and coexist with their brethren--and even better understand themselves in the process. I think there's a difference here. Anyhow, I don't want to ramble on, so I'll just leave it at that.

1. Yajnavalkya iti hovaca. Thank you for the above explanation.It was quite lucid. I am busy with my new job, however, this being the bank holiday weekend, apart from reading journals, I do have some time on my hands before the deluge on Tuesday.

Dr A

This is clear in that Krishna has two identities from the outset - the charioteer whose name I can't remember and Krishna. As such, charioteer/Krishna is both human and divine at once
The overall thrust of presenting him as in human form and tied to other aspects of Krishna worship, then showing a different form is different from presenting brahman as an impersonal, all-penetrating force. It is that difference between the divine partly as being (and speaking) and having already presented themselves and the divine as simply existent and all pervasive force tat I don't lke - this si what i refer to as anthropomorphic.
In other words, Krishna is named - he walks, talks, and moves -while can reveal himself also as a manifestation of Brahma/the supernatural/the divine - that even someone as heroic as Arjun can become frightened of and Krishna conceals himself again because we human beings can't handle the truth- well that's not my preference for what approach I think religious education and contemplation would ideally take.

I agree that there is an asymmetry in Hindu-Muslim relations. And we cannot discount the role of the partition in perpetuating this mistrust.
We are essentially the same people separated by mental constructs.
I remember the genteel, Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb of Lucknow when I was growing up. instead, to hear news like this really saddens me

However, I agree that there isn't a "re-examination of the role of the deity or the prophet" partly because the scripture is considered to be the direct word of god and thus can't really be questioned, at least not by those who believe it to be divine revelation.

Yes, of course, but there is no such discourse (or perhaps it is much less common ?) even from (sceptical ? secular ?) Muslims. For instance, you will rarely see it on blogs like this anywhere near as often as you do from the 'other side'.

This is not to pressure you into saying anything in particular. It was an observation of asymmetry. I find asymmetries interesting.

Wunderbar, you are right. I believe the reason is that the skeptical and secular Muslims are so intimidated by the fundamentalists (and who wouldn't be given how easy it is to get someone punished for "blasphemy" in Pakistan for example) that they don't even want to get into theological debates. Speaking only for myself, I don't even want to talk about Islam with anyone, because I find it personally irrelevant to my life, and feel it is much more effective to engage with societal issues through secular, rational arguement. The only time I jump into "religious" discussions is to clear up misconceptions that come from a place of Islamophobia and equating all of "Muslim culture" with Wahabi fundemantalism.

On the other hand, I think skeptical Hindus are a lot less likely to fear getting killed for questioning certain aspects of the Gita. Yes, the asymmetry is certainly interesting.

Yajnavalka iti hovaca:

"Moreover, I disagree that syncretism is an absolute must for anyone on the subcontinent to be good "south asians". What I do agree with is that I think people should take the time to study other faiths and appreciate their festivals and teachings so they can better understand and coexist with their brethren--and even better understand themselves in the process. I think there's a difference here"

I completely agree with you. I don't think anyone was implying that one must believe in a syncretic faith to be a good "south asian"-- that sounds almost fascist, like we want to officially enforce an ideology. But, as you say, an appreciation and non-hatred of the "other's" faith is a pre-req for tolerance.

@ Lupus:

"We are essentially the same people separated by mental constructs.
I remember the genteel, Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb of Lucknow when I was growing up. instead, to hear news like this really saddens me"

Agreed entirely... in the words of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, "hum kay there ajnabi kitnee mada raaton kay baad, phir banaygay ashna kitnee mulakaaton kay baad?"

I took the weekend off, and glad to read these discussions on Gita, asymmetry and stuff.

First, to address Kabir's question on the RSS:

Yes, Kabir, the RSS did condemn the Gujarat and Khandamal riots.But they don't see it as a pogrom like you do.However, the RSS condemnation of these events doesn't mean any thing.Just words.The RSS has to take its share of the blame for what has happened, and is likely to happen in future as well, namely communal riots in India.Not just the RSS, but the entire political system in India has blood on their hands.However, I feel it is lazy analysis to blame the RSS for all the riots.Hopefully, on some other future thread, I can get to this topic in more detail.

Ref. the discussion between Dr A, Lupus and Yajnavalkya:

1.Both Saguna (having a form) and Nirguna (formless) worship is prevalent in Sanatana Dharma.And though it is accepted by saints and scholars that nirguna is a higher form of worship possible for jnanis, the masses have always followed the saguna approach.

2.The same 'Saguna' approach informs the area of ethical or dharmic conduct of the people as well.People like Harischandra (truth), Maryada Purushottam Sri Ram (uphold dharma in all spheres of life), Kings Bali and Sibi( the concept of daan) etc are as real for Hindus today as they were for people thousands of years back.In a sense, these purana characters and Gods in the pantheon are the vehicles though which the foundational principles of the civilisation have been handed over to generations.And to keep pace with changing times and mores, one needs to invest these puranas with enough flexibility so that the same story can be interpreted differently to advocate subtle or revolutionary changes in the social customs.Like Krishna who can be divine (not supernatural) and human at the same time, the people should also understand the messages given by these memes and also question them when needed.It is some sort of a perpetual open source movement.

3.Even simplistically speaking, the Gita is poetry and philosophy of such high order, that one wonders at the society /civilisation that created a poet who described or imagined a warrior-poet (Krishna) to deliver these messages.It is one of the most awesome set of thoughts that the human civilisation itself has come up with.

4.Yagnavalkya nailed it when he quoted Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahuda vadanti (Truth is one; scholars see it in different ways). This then is the fundamental difference between sanatana dharma and the abrahamic religions.My friend Rahim will cease to be a true Muslim the moment he recognizes any other faith as valid for its followers.That is why Saudi Arabia can never allow a church or temple to be built in that nation.

5.As some people have argued, one way out is a possible Indianisation of these semitic religions-convincing them to make this one change in their theological outlook.

6.Indian civilisation has been able to accomplish this with respect to the engagement with Islam.It cost us the looting of thousands of temples, and the death of millions.But this interaction has also created people like Kabir, Guru Nanak, the sufi saints, and I wonder why no mentions Shirdi Sai Baba.The Baba is a recent person and people like Tilak, Gokhale (who knows even Jinnah may be?) seem to have met him.By his own admission, Sai Baba was brought up as a Muslim, and the most common phrase from his lips was: Allah Malik.Today, crores of Hindus worship him as a God.The same multitudes of Hindus also throng dargahs of sufi saints or festivals of Arogya Mata (one of the names of Mother Mary in S.India) or Velankanni.

(Contd).

"My friend Rahim will cease to be a true Muslim the moment he recognizes any other faith as valid for its followers.That is why Saudi Arabia can never allow a church or temple to be built in that nation."

Kumar ji this is not true. I don't know whose interpretation of Islam this is, but the Koran itself recognizes Jews and Christians as "People of the Book". The prophet also apparently said at one point when the Quarish were offering him all kinds of riches to repudiate his new religion, that "To you is your religion, and to me is my religion." The only reason the scripture doesn't address Hinduism is because it was authored or "revealed" in the Middle East, where Hinduism did not exist. Saudi Arabia not allowing a church of temple to be built in that country says more about the Saudis than about Islam.

Kabir,

Actually it was in response to Dr. A:

As I stated above, the only comfortable way I have of undersatnding Hinduism as one that allows and even embraces eclecticism and syncretism of all faiths.

Anyhow, I am glad you agree that the common good can be promoted if we all just take the time to understand each other and avoid forcing our opinions and beliefs onto others.

(Contd. from 179)

7.Initially, the number of Muslim and Hindu devotees for Sai Baba was almost equal.But over the years, Sai Baba has become a completely Hindu god in the sense that Muslims in general don't seem to visit his dargah in Shirdi or his temples anywhere in good numbers.So, somewhere along the line, the syncretic aspect of Indian Islam has been lost, I reckon.Probably one of the side effects of freedom movement and the partition debates/violence.

8.I grew up in a town that was/is 40 % Muslim.And our town has one of the most syncretic dargahs in India, made famous by bollywood devotees in recent years, inspired by A.R.Rahman's devotion.Most Hindus visit the dargah on Fridays on their way to/from the Goddess temple near by.My muslim friends who never missed a single episode of Ramayan or Mahabharat on TV, neverthless had no clue about Sufism.Many still don't realize their Islam is different from Wahabism.The new Mullahs getting trained in Deoband or in some Saudi-sponsored school can't afford to downgrade the local Sufi saints.Instead, they make attempts to show that Wahabism is the only true way and they are scholarly enough to reinterpret sufism also to suit their purposes.It is a battle for the minds of poor but inclusive Muslims.How long can these people withstand the effects of moneyed indoctrination? I donno.

The only reason the scripture doesn't address Hinduism is because it was authored or "revealed" in the Middle East, where Hinduism did not exist.

One pet peeve:It is middle east only from a Euro-centric perspective.It is actually West Asia :)

Genuine question: How does one establish that Sanatan Dharma was absent in Persia and Arabia during those days ? What were the 300 idols destroyed by the Prophet (PBUH)'s army at the Kaaba ? I am sure you are aware of the close civilisational ties between the sub-continent and Persia? Especially between Zorastrainism and Sanatana Dharma?

I don't want to get into a discussion on the interpretation of the Koran or Hadith as I am not an expert and only have read the English translations a few years back.I am aware that Jews and Christians as 'people of the book' are placed slightly above the kaffirs, but that has not stopped wars between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world from the very beginning.

Also:

Saudi Arabia not allowing a church or temple to be built in that country says more about the Saudis than about Islam.

I am sure many Islamic scholars may have interpreted the Prophet's words (PBUH) in the spirit of modernism, but can you say their views are dominant? Where are the examples of even limited success in syncretic behavior among Muslims in nations where Islam is the dominant religion? A single instance where a specific Muslim community worshipped Jesus or even allowed a syncretic culture to evolve? If there are such instances, I don't think they have been publicised enough.

Essentially people want freedom, peace and prosperity.As we can't change the holy book like we can do a constitutional amendment or a reinterpretation of the Gita or the Vedas, we have to make the 'inclusive' interpretation of the Holy books as the dominating version, and make the Wahabi version extinct if possible.This won't happen unless the Saudis and assorted fundamentalists give their buy-in to it.How do we get there, dost?

By making the above statements, I am not saying that people following other faiths have been angels or that there is no need to reform.But I see a strong case, that at least in India, the civilisational character of 'inclusivism' and 'Sarva dharma Samabhava' has more to do with Sanatan Dharma than any other factor.A Wahabi Muslim or a Seventh Day Adventist Christian may have problems with idol worship. But a truly Indian Muslim or Christian would not.We could agree to disagree on this.

Anecdotal examples of syncretism are dime a dozen in India, post-1947. Off the bat: A Dileep Kumar converts into Sufi Islam and becomes Allah Rakha Rahman.Hindutva types have no problem.A K.J.Jesudas sings songs in veneration of Lord Ayyappa.The Church may have a problem with it, but ordinary Hindus and Christians don't.Sound engineer Resul Pookkutty may be a devout Muslim, but he talks about the primal sound of 'Om' when he makes an Oscar acceptance speech.The foundation stone for a Govt building or a private limited company headed by a Muslim CEO is laid after breaking a coconut.No one finds it objectionable.The ancient Bharadwaj Ashram in Allahabad is maintained by Muslims in the nearby slum.Ganesh idols are decorated by Muslim flower sellers.And no one thinks of the Khans as Muslim superstars. We can go on like this.

Even after giving all the benefits of doubt to my Pakistani and Bangladeshi brethren, I fail to see such examples from those societies.The Saudis may be fundamentalist as Kabir seems to imply, but what about my fellow South Asians? What excuses do they have? Leave alone killing the Hindu minorities, they are killing fellow believers as well.What is the cause for so much hatred?Why be surprised when that poison of hatred crosses the border and infects some Hindus as well ?

The misunderstanding or lack of respect for 'Hindutva' is primarily because of the way a naturally evolved civilisational or societal more has been brought into the political space with the expectation of rewards, by the self-styled Hindutva forces.Even then, Indian Muslims did show an initial willingness to bury the past and make a fresh beginning.Unfortunately, the politicians (Rajeev Gandhi, V.P.Singh, LKA, Vajpayee, PV Narasimha Rao, Mulayam Singh Yadav etc) saw a great political card in the entire Rama Janmabhoomi issue.In this, they were no different from Jinnah, Nehru, Patel and others who demonstrated a similar misconception of the subcontinental ethos.By partitioning the country and destroying the delicate balance, we may have irrevocably changed the very inclusive character of large chunks of the sub-continent.Sad.

Kumar ji, you are right that Pakistani society at this point would never tolerate an A.R. Rahman type case of a Muslim converting to Hinduism and yet being successful revered in his country. I think that the reason for that has to do with the increasing Wahabistation/Sunnification of Pakistani Islam, going back to Ziaul Haq. A country that doesn't even consider the Ahmedis muslim, though the Ahmedis themselves have always asserted that they are Muslim, clearly has huge problems with tolerance and differing viewpoints. But again, this is Pakistan and not something inherent in Islam (at least that is my argument).

I also agree with you that we need to bring more attention to the inclusive and tolerant interpretations of Islam and counter the Wahabbis and other fundamentalists. In this struggle, people such as yourself (Indian Hindus) can be very useful. Rather than allowing other Hindus to use global Islamophobia as an excuse for their own bigoted political ends, you can always make the point that just as extremist Hindus don't speak for all the adherents of the religion, Islamic fundamentalist sects don't speak for all Muslims the world over. Your own first hand experience of your town is testimony to this.

Regards,

Kabir

One asymmetry along the Hindu-Muslim axis (among, no doubt, many) is the absence - in the Muslim tradition - of the kind of discourse I see here regarding the Gita - a secular questioning of accepted/revealed truths, of scriptures, an attempt from a humanistic perspective to deconstruct that which is regarded sacred and beyond questioning by believers, a re-examination of the role of the deity or the prophet.

I don't know enough about the topic to go into depth, but I can say that I believe your argument is overstated at minimum. If you read someone like Abdolkarim Sorough - Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in islam - you will see the lengths that are gone to honestly and analyically but at the same time with a concern for the faith. The absence of knowledge about these attempts are among the reasons why I think it would be worthwhile for those people who think f South Asia as a civilisational entity to look into one of its major contributors - similar to how in every day life, if you have a maidan, you should probably know the word comes from persian :), if you like bhakti, you should probably explore the ties to sufi and other mystical movements, and if you're interested in music, you should explore not just the music of villayat khan or nusrat or kazi nazrul islam but their lives and verse as well.

Yajnavalkya iti hovaca, thank you for your response.

The Upanishads are in essence, commentaries on the Vedas that expound the core teachings of Vedanta. The Bhagavad Gita in essence condenses that and packages it in a practical format for the layperson. The Gita was not created in opposition to the Upanishads, but rather runs in consort with it. Could they (upanishads) be packaged in a form that is more palatable to your tastes?--sure. But that does not mean that there is a fundamentally different message from the Gita. The Krishna of the Gita is the same as the Brahman of the upanishads. That is the nature of the divine--everything and yet nothing at once (as in no parallel phenomenon). That is why the na iti na iti approach is advocated because the divine is simply indescribable. Brahman, Krishna even Kali (which your ostensibly bengali household was probably very familiar with) are all alternately described as embodiments of Eternal Truth.

This is your reading of it. However, if you look over the enormous amount of time, the variety of different believes that are presented in the Vedas, the Mahabarata, the Ramayana, the many, many Upanishads, the enormous amount of traditions that have prolifereated and died in that time, the role of colonialism in shaping a different form of Hinduism, I don't belive that all these texts work in harmony with each other in every single aspect. Case in point the difference I pointed out between a greater emphasis on the impersonal nature of God and the Krishna-pesronified nature of God. This is not to deny that the Gita's conception of the divine relies on invoking Krishna as Brahma - but you can look at this as a strategic move by the author's of the text to subsume Brahma worship into Krishna worship. This is not a religious argument on my part, but a religious studies argument - looking at religion and how these texts and other items function in relation to each other and over time and in interesection with other aspects of religion in the world - society, power, etc. It is pretty shallow in itself, my argument, but I think it is more accurate than asserting that all these texts which were composed at different times, by different people, in different societal contexts, intrinsicially have a unity rather than having different pieces which one can weave together into a coherent narrative (possibly many). And in fact, it is that diversity that is worth the price.

As for the argument that all deities are one - this is a basic point of continued evolution in Hinduism as its now known - that there are many and there is one. Some people would rather focus on one of the mnay - e.g. Kali. Some people will take the concept and limit it differently from you (e.g. all Goddesses are one, but Krishna, and Siv, and others are different). Some people will extend the concept to Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, pirs, various local deities, etc. Some texts have used the equation atman = brahman to reconcile it - an all pervading force with also rests in each individual (and perhaps living creature).

In other words, the version that you have presented of the relationship between the many and the one of the divine is one of an almost infnite variety of ways to reconcile - or choose not to reconcile - the relationship between the many and the one, if we choose to accept it. What I would say is that a) it is a choice b) it requires choosing from the variety of streands and different aspects and c) for me, it shoudl take into account lived realities. Just as the Indian courts have changed their definition of hindu marriage from saptapadi to 'any custom practiced for a long time' or some such thing, Hindus ourselves have be brave enough to look at what we have inherited and build somethign that is of use to *US* rather than anything else, imo. It is, in fact, our prerogative to emphasise Kali or Krishna, to disregard texts entirely, to look to other deities, to worship almsot exclusively of persons or deities that are not considered Hindu and adopt a practice of vegetarianism and nonviolence at the same time. All these, are relevant.

For example, in the Gita, in the section in which different types of duties are ascribed to different people - I disregard entirely the idea that this cdan legitimise the caste system. On the other hand, I take it to be enormous progress over the European idea of the universal man - by acknowledging that different people are cut out for different things, this idea which has led to a lot of destruction, can actually be reread in contemporary circumstances to provide some freeom for those who want to be barbers or bookstore owner but their parents tell them they can only be doctors, lawyesr, enginners or IT gurus.

Accordingly, from what I gather, your aversion to Krishna is on the basis that he is seemingly war-like and encourages violence. But again, that is a misreading. What Krishna advocates is the practice of duty (I don't think submission as you used above was the right word). He chastises Arjuna for cowardice and for shirking from his duty.

your reading is my reading exactly - we can quibble over whether submission or dharmic duty is the right or wrong word - i was trying to draw a parallel in psychoclogical bewteen the notion of submission to Allah in islam and the notion of submission to ones dharmic duty. My objection was to the section at the end (I ahd provided a link at the end) in which the divine is presnted as frightful, unbeholdable (except to Arjunj in that one isntancce), and overwhelming, in a sense. To me, this is a counterproductive notion of the divine and alternativer ones can be found elsewhere in texts that can form the basis of a modern Hinduism. for example, I think I highlighted in LS's commentary the words 'supernatural' and 'enlightened' - I dont' know if the original sanskrit is different, but the meanings in english - the language in which we are speaking now - are very different and draw on different traditions. This has repercussions on what you atke to be the relationship between man and Bhagwan.

Pure compassion and humanism without recognition of severe threats to righteousness is cowardice--and since you feel inclined to draw parallels between politics and religion...

There is an answer to this in the theory of non violent commnication. Essentially, you adopt force to the extent that is necessary to stop harm from being done to yourself and other, but you do not stray into adopting force for purpsoes of retribution, anger, blame, judgement, or other thigns - at which point it becomes violence. this is extraordinarily difficult ot practice, but i think holding it as an honest ideal would be worthwhile for all people and I think hindus would be particularly receptive to it given the links bewteen the ethos of NVC and that of faith traditions that have existed in South Asia.

What Krishna advocates is that in order to defend righteousness there are times when we must take up arms.

That is not my reading. My reading is that Kirshna advocates that in order to uphold rigtheousness (which in this context I blieve means the dharmic order though it would be presented as an unmitigated good in the Gita probably), one must perform one's duties even above and beyond our doubts. What I would argue is that rather than singlemindedly overriding our own concerns, we explore them and attempt to reconcile them with our conception of duties (in which i have reinterpreted dharmic to abandon the caste laden and 'given' duties in place of behavior that accords with one's self of self, thereby honoring the conscience, and, if you are inclined to believe so, the portion of the conscience that partakes in the divine) Personally I think it is irrelevant whether or not the divine partakes in the conscience or vice versa beccause of the equivalent of pascal's wager - if it does, and you honor your conscience, it will be pleased or react hoever it would otherwise; if it does not partake in your conscience or exist at all, then no harm done anyhow - you're actually better off anyway for having honored your conscience.

So in short, I believe the method of resolving the conflcit between duty and doubt as well as the ways in which that relationship are described, particularly in the extreme context (by the standards of the book) in whcih they take place leaves something to be desired. it has nothing to do with krishna per se but with krishna as he is presented in the book as the main conveyor of the message within the context of the narrative overall. If you take the lessons of the book too literally - if you were today asked to kill your brothers and sisters in the name of your dharmic duty, regardless of your doubts, withotu fully exploring all possible alternatives or what your relationship is with your duty and you conscience and your doubts - well, taht wouldn't be what i would recommend. Of coures, the whole book is in fact a disccussion of that sort - but it is too much driven externally not in Arjun's internal psyche - the doubts, as you show, are too readily equated with cowardice and are not adequately resolved. In the real world, killing against your will would have enormous repercussions on your own soul.

Now, please understand, I am not saying that you must believe in Krishna because of blah blah blah. No one has that right to tell you what to believe. However, I am saying that I think this was a rather facile reading that missed the point of the Gita

I have already addressed this above. I believe I have written unclearly or what you have called a misreading is in fact a misreading of my reading :)

. With respect to the depiction of Krishna's Vishwarupa, which you refer to as anthropomorphic (again, I think the wrong word is used here), the point of its revelation was not to instill fear in Arjuna--who himself asks to see the true form of the divine. The point is to recognize the many and awesome forms the divine can take and permeate throughout the universe at the same time.

The sense of Arjun's interest in the revelation is a fair point. However, I would point out that it is only Arjun who has ever seen the revelation and that he is left frightened. What message does this convey to the reader? You will likely never see the divine, and if you are lucky enough to behold its magnificence, you will be left overawed and frightened. And consequently---?
to recognise the many forms of the divien and diversity in oneness and unity in diversity can be conveyed in other ways.

Again, I have explained my earlier poor use of the word anthropomorphic - as you will see in the text, unless it is different in sanskrit, the divine is speaking. the divine may no longer be krishna, but in the trajectory of the book, the same supernatural
entity has started out in the form of krishna. It is my opinion that the divine does not concentrate itself in a single personhood to the exclusion of other personhoods - to me this is a very narrow way of distributing the benefits of divinity and god. Much better, then, to accept what my mother has told me and say that everythign has a pran, that that pran is connected to a pervasive divine, and taht different manifestations in the form of symbols, peoples or aspects of them, and other ways cadn come together without precluding other readings. This is not a mutually exclusive raeding from that of the Gita, but I was indicated why I did not prefer this reading - and that has to do with what i believe i have correctly labeled an anthropomorphic conception of the divine in comparison to one of the upanishadic readings of the divine as brahman.

Moreover, I disagree that syncretism is an absolute must for anyone on the subcontinent to be good "south asians". What I do agree with is that I think people should take the time to study other faiths and appreciate their festivals and teachings so they can better understand and coexist with their brethren--and even better understand themselves in the process. I think there's a difference here. Anyhow, I don't want to ramble on, so I'll just leave it at that.

Yes, I agree with you here - I think I got carried away before and there is a difference. What I meant was the kind of interchange that you are discussing. syncretism is optional, if fun :) What I would not compromise on is that syncretism must be tolerated - even embraced - because in a place that is so rife with tension based on poltiicised religion - on all 'sides' - those that have traditions taht are outside of that dynamic need to be respected and allowed to exist without excessive interference from that dyamic.

Yagnavalkya nailed it when he quoted Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahuda vadanti (Truth is one; scholars see it in different ways). This then is the fundamental difference between sanatana dharma and the abrahamic religions.

Compare this statement to what Abdolkarim Soroush has said about Islam (paraphrase): the Quran is truth, but what we know about the quran
(religious knowledge) contracts and expands over time. Moreover, this is a social enterprise, not an individual one. I am sure you could find similar sentiments in other Abrhamic religions as well (e.g. unitarianism perhaps?). Again, this is why I think it would be worthwhile for those who are interested in faith in South Asia to expose themselves to more currents of contemporary Islamic thouht - as well as the more pertinent aspect of how Muslims live their religion. The same could be true of over faiths that are considered Other.

However, more to the point - this is not a difference between faith communities. the division you are pointing to pervades faith communities - there are always those who are narrow and those who are broader in outlook. there are those who are sectarian and those who are more embracing of diversity within a faith. there are those who will only stick to books and those who will look at the practices, beliefs, etc of people of a variety of kinds. there are those who will only consult what is in their faith (generally following orders) and those that will go outside it.

If youwa nt to see the general truth of this, just consider that these statemetns apply to Leftist communities and people within various academic fields as well as most religious communities. This is not to say there aren't challenges and specifics to the various faith communities - jsut that the openness-to-others / close-mindedness to others in practice transcends them and divides them from within, not between them.

Compare this statement to what Abdolkarim Soroush has said about Islam (paraphrase): the Quran is truth, but what we know about the quran (religious knowledge) contracts and expands over time.

Only read the translations, but the quran seems pretty straight forward,( especially compared to various hindu texts, like say, the upanishads.) Basically do this do that, this is correct, that is not...
So there does not seem to be that much room for interpretation.

So when a non-muslim reads the quran, it might bring understanding, but need not really bring about respect for Islam. After all, how is a non-muslim supposed to react after reading something like this:

004.089 YUSUFALI: They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;- PICKTHAL: They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them, SHAKIR: They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.

Again, this is why I think it would be worthwhile for those who are interested in faith in South Asia to expose themselves to more currents of contemporary Islamic thouht - as well as the more pertinent aspect of how Muslims live their religion.

I am tempted to say there is no such thing as "more pertinent" - but as a techie, I can't take recourse to sophistry.

In any case, Kabir has responded differently upthread, so I will let you figure out whether it is he who needs to expose himself to Islamic thought or you.

Only read the translations, but the quran seems pretty straight forward,( especially compared to various hindu texts, like say, the upanishads.) Basically do this do that, this is correct, that is not... So there does not seem to be that much room for interpretation.

That's why Soroush is useful. He argues that the Quran is always true, but the level of knowledge about it at a given time and how it should be understood varies. In general, I don't think any religious text should be relied upon literally and that individual interpretations are useful. Basically, it takes the way that science of philosophy looks at the way that western science looks at nature, but looks at the quran that way. Anyway, the point or attempting to interpret and vesting faith in human beings who live is both possible and useful.

In any case, Kabir has responded differently upthread, so I will let you figure out whether it is he who needs to expose himself to Islamic thought or you.

I didn't realise I was obligated to agree with Kabir or he with me on any or all points :) The point I was triyng to make is that all South Asians and those in the diaspora who are intrested in faith could benefit from greater exposure and familiarity to other faiths to promote social cohesion - as well as diversity within their faith. Obviously, to the extent that I am interested in South Asia and faith and history, I could benefit from greater exposure to the history, practices, and anthropology of the ways in which Islam has functioned in a whole different range of places and times in South Asia, sycretic practices, and the reality of all the different ways that Islam has influenced and been a fundamental part of South Asia for a long time.

Hello Dr. A

Thank you for your response. With respect to the Vedas and Upanishads, as well as the various epics, nowhere have I said they were all composed at the same time and are all consistent on every point to the nth degree. What I did say was that they work in consort with each other, in short, they are partners in helping understand the each other. Irrespective of the time period, the sages who composed these texts were ultimately exposed to most if not all of the same foundational philosophies. Also, unfortunately, I think you are misreading things again. The Gita does not propound Krishna as the only form of godhead or as the sole personification of brahman. The idea here is that they are all interchangeable. It is not a restrictive construct of divinity. Again, I refer back to na iti na iti, where in Brahman is described as "not this, not this". This method was advocated by Shankara because God/Brahman is everything.

This in turn leads me back to Krishna's vishwarupa. I think ultimately find things for which you are actively looking. If you want it to be a terror inducing experience, you will convince yourself as such, irrespective of what I say, or more importantly what the text says. Moreover, no, I disagree. It is not the english translation that matters, but rather, the original sanskrit that matters. If you really want to delve that deeply into the purported meaning of each word, I would recommend you study the actual language before passing judgment--unfortunately, sanskrit is something that many self-regarded historians do not have a mastery of and it has had its own negative impacts on the study of hinduism and indology. Also, Arjuna was neither the first nor only person to whom the vishwarupa was revealed. And Arjuna requested it as a blessing, not as means of scaring him into his duty, so I think it's a needlessly negative characterization of what Krishna's true form is. Like Brahman, it is meant to embody everything--life, death, good, evil, truth, etc, indeed, verily the entire universe. The fact that it takes a terrible form--like Kali herself does--does not mean the message is to scare devotees into submission. So I think that's a rather incorrect interpretation on your part. The Gita does not demand submission--again, I think the parallel you are drawing is rather affected and incorrect--but rather, it exhorts. Duty is something to embraced and encouraged, not by which to be laid low. This notion of subsumption I think is similar to Paul Courtwrights deconstruction of Ganesha's trunk---something completely out of line with both the history and purpose of the texts. By ascribing these type of "strategic" motives on the part of Vyasa I think you are taking some rather odd liberties with these texts. In short, there is no demonstrative evidence for what you are theorizing. This is a continuing problem in the study of Hinduism or Indology in general.

There is an answer to this in the theory of non violent commnication. Essentially, you adopt force to the extent that is necessary to stop harm from being done to yourself and other, but you do not stray into adopting force for purpsoes of retribution, anger, blame, judgement, or other thigns - at which point it becomes violence. this is extraordinarily difficult ot practice, but i think holding it as an honest ideal would be worthwhile for all people and I think hindus would be particularly receptive to it given the links bewteen the ethos of NVC and that of faith traditions that have existed in South Asia.

Yes, perhaps would should have recommended the theory of nonviolent communication to the Allied forces when faced with Nazi panzer tank divisions.

What Krishna advocates is that in order to defend righteousness there are times when we must take up arms.

That is not my reading. My reading is that Kirshna advocates that in order to uphold rigtheousness (which in this context I blieve means the dharmic order though it would be presented as an unmitigated good in the Gita probably), one must perform one's duties even above and beyond our doubts.

Actually, he advocates both. Things need not always be an either/or dilemma.

If you take the lessons of the book too literally - if you were today asked to kill your brothers and sisters in the name of your dharmic duty, regardless of your doubts, withotu fully exploring all possible alternatives or what your relationship is with your duty and you conscience and your doubts - well, taht wouldn't be what i would recommend. Of coures, the whole book is in fact a disccussion of that sort - but it is too much driven externally not in Arjun's internal psyche - the doubts, as you show, are too readily equated with cowardice and are not adequately resolved. In the real world, killing against your will would have enormous repercussions on your own soul.

I think you are being simplistic here. At no time does Krishna advocate not thinking about one's actions--and their consequences ( that is why I continue to disagree with your insistence on using "submission"). As a yogi, Krishna advocates all the various types of yoga, and insists on self-reflection through meditation. This is not a mindless call to fratricide, but an insistence that dharma must be upheld irrespective of personal costs. Again, you find the message for which you are looking. If you seek to condemn, you will "discover" the material needed to issue your condemnation. Remember, I said pure compassion and humanism, not any compassion or humanism. There is a difference. Those who insist on peace at all costs are emblematic of the former.

The upanishadic texts do not proscribe the capacity of form for brahman. That is the idea behind the vishwarupa. If brahman could possibly be visualized, it would be so tremendous in breadth and depth that the entire all embodying phenomenon of the universe would be manifested. As such, your use of the word anthropomorphic remains inaccurate.Since the great cosmic spirit embodies us all (this may be subject to some nuance if you are an advaitin, dvaitin, or vishishtadvaitin), it is only natural that when manifested in the form of Krishna's vishwarupa, it would be all encompassing. I have already described its ascribed nature above. UItimately, as discussed above, your personal preference to (presumably) worship in unmanifested form rather than manifested (partial or vishwarupa) is also discussed in the scriptures. Saguna and Nirguna brahman.

Finally, no one said syncretism is bad. I was only pointing out that traditionalists who embrace their own ancient religious heritage should not be condemned either. It is possible to retain the orthodox practices of one's faith while being open minded in the scholarly study of other faiths.

DizzyDesi, of course there is room for interpretation in the Koran. This is why so many Muslims have different views about certain issues. One example is the whole burqa issue. The Koran enjoins modesty for women and some people use scriptural text to support the burqa/ abaya while other people say that the injunction to modesty is met quite well with shalwar kameez and dupatta/chunni. Another example is the whole thing about good Muslim men getting 60 virgins in heaven. Some have pointed out that the word "houri" actually means white grapes, so all those men might be in for a huge surprise when they actually get to heaven.

The Koran is just like the Bible or the Torah. Different scholars interpret it differently. Of course, the fundos who insist that each word in the Koran came directly from god to Muhammad generally have a problem with interpretation, but that doesn't mean the text is not open to interpretation.

DizzyDesi, of course there is room for interpretation in the Koran.

kabir, i admire your patience in dealing with extremist wahabbists like dizzydesi. sadly for hindus and india, people like him are on "our side" and bringing this same kind of extremism to hinduism.

Dr.A,

The point is not about your interpretation of the Koran or mine or a certain Islamic scholar's.It is about how the injunctions in the Koran are being understood and practiced by a significant number of oil-rich societies and their client states like Pakistan, and how that is leading to Jihadi terrorism.Do we see that happening in other faiths to that extent?

At a personal level of practice, Islam would of course be peaceful and humane.It is the preponderance of an aggressive political Islam that is causing terrorism and Islamophobia.

I don't think you would advise me to take American Thinker seriously, but imagine such articles being published in an Indian newspaper/magazine? There would be a furore and the publication would be dragged to court, at a minimum. Thankfully, the Indian right is much more exposed to the good side of Islam that though there are some elements who do think like John Griffing and the commentors on that article, they are forced by general public opinion to keep a lid on it.What you suggest (study various strains of Islam and other faiths) may be needed for the American far right, but I don't think the Indian right is that bad in understanding how Islam is lived.

It is incumbent upon the peaceful practitioners of Islam to take leadership of the Ummah and reform the practice of organized Islam.Same goes with extremist factions in other faiths, including Maoism.

Personally speaking, I have been fortunate to have a good exposure to Sufi Islam, which I prefer to look at as Indianized/Hinduized Islam.The Sufis may have been at some point used as the vanguard of Islamic raiders/conquerors of India, but that doesn't take away the essentially inclusive nature of Islam they developed.

After all, how is a non-muslim supposed to react after reading something like this:

DizzyDesi,

It is a vicious spiral of evil - A non-Muslim reads such translations and assumes that all Muslims think that way or told to think that way.Because non-Muslims think about Muslims that way, otherwise uninterested (in faith matters) Muslims take offence and get reactionary.

So, my advice would be to think like this - how would a devout Hindu feel if Maa Kali is described as a blood thirsty tribal goddess by a Hindu converted Christian missionary? Ordinary Hindus or Muslims have no political space or agency to challenge certain notions about their faiths.It is best to ignore really vile readings of Islam because there are many good natured Muslims who have told us that it is a wrong interpretation.It is in our interest to believe them (people like Kabir here for instance) wholeheartedly.

We (Indian right) have to understand that there is no way we can solve the problem of terrorism (the major complaint against Wahabi Islam) without having peaceful Muslims on our side.Often, we end up arguing and alienating people who could be our allies in the fight for economic and social freedoms.It is the lack of any strategic or tactical thinking by the Indian right and its supporters in the diaspora that a narrow definition of Hindutva is now seen as the mainstream belief.And the young, urban India are so impatient with us, they feel we are slowly becoming irrelevant.We need to re-evaluate what we stand for and how we are going to attain the vision of a truly free, peaceful, equitable, and globally influential Indian civilisation-state.

My apologies if I have assumed a certain ideological proximity with you, in case I am wrong.

Thanks tulsi, I'll keep fighting the good fight and clearing up misconceptions... though I know I'll be unsuccessful more often than not

Kumar ji,

I would quibble slightly with your calling Sufi Islam "Hinduized Islam", because Sufis like Maulana Rumi had nothing to do with India or Hindus, but were still Sufis (as far as I know). But yes, the Bhakti and Sufi movements are essentially very similar, Muslims just prefer to use the term "Sufi" rather than "Bhakti".

By the way, not that it invalidates your point to DizzyDesi, but I don't call myself Muslim except in a cultural sense. Islam is part of my heritage, I use greetings like "Salam" and expressions like "Inshallah", but I don't identify with the religious aspect of it. Just thought I'd clear that up.

I would quibble slightly with your calling Sufi Islam "Hinduized Islam",

Kabir,

I agree with you.I was referring only to the Sufism that I have been exposed to, and in that context, it does strike me, as you rightly put it, as similar to the Bhakti movement in India.However, the popularity of these saints (people from all over the Islamic world visit these dargahs in India) tells me that Indianized Sufism has some attraction even in Arabia and North Africa.

Islam is part of my heritage, I use greetings like "Salam" and expressions like "Inshallah", but I don't identify with the religious aspect of it.

I was referring to you as an example of good natured Muslim interlocutor.You are right in pointing out that you consider yourself as a Muslim only culturally, but not in terms of faith.I am a follower of Sanatan Dharma both culturally and in terms of faith, but I also use phrases like 'Insha Allah', 'Khudafees', 'Khairiyat', and if I am speaking to a Muslim friend, even 'Alhamdulillah' when he enquires about my welfare.And I remember my grandfather (hard to find a more orthodox brahmin) addressing a Muslim gentleman as 'Hazrat'.It is all part of living together for hundreds of years, in small towns, I suppose.

Kumar ji, it's heartening to have people like you around. I also have no problem greeting someone by saying "Namaste" or "Namashkar", it's not a big deal. "Salaam" just means "peace be with you" and "Namaste" means "I bow to you" (according to Wiki). Since both these greetings mean good things, I don't see why people tie themselves into knots about them. (In Pakistan, people even tie themselves into knots over "Khuda Hafiz" vs. "Allah Hafiz)

But, I'll stop now lest we start becoming a mutual admiration society:)

The point is not about your interpretation of the Koran or mine or a certain Islamic scholar's.It is about how the injunctions in the Koran are being understood and practiced by a significant number of oil-rich societies and their client states like Pakistan, and how that is leading to Jihadi terrorism.Do we see that happening in other faiths to that extent?

At a personal level of practice, Islam would of course be peaceful and humane.It is the preponderance of an aggressive political Islam that is causing terrorism and Islamophobia.

well the certain islamic scholar that i was quoting was fairly deeply immersed in the iranian revolution. so i would suggest he be given a hearing at least prior to being dismissed, if this is the topic of interest :) Keep in mind also that the best way to undersatnd the dynamic of religious extremism on a social level in the pst 25 yaers is the construction of an autocratic state and the concomintant bubbling of an incipient populist discontent or rebellion - in some states this takes the form of islam, and the longer the state of affairs continues without a move towards democratisation ina real sense the longer the poles will become removed from each other or find hideous compromises (like mubarak torturing brotherhood members who then go on to exact revenge on other people).

I have refrained from entering this terrain up to this point, because I believe it is the most disconnected from personal experience and the most reliant on analysis and a sound historical understanding,. If you want to understand the development of 'Islam' from that of a 'social and cultural group' in Jinnah's words to a more embedded, state ideologicdal, and frequently exclusionary and sectarian set of ideas in Pakistan, start with British colonial practices - particularly after the start of the rise of more militant nationalism in british India; go on to Ayesha jala and read abotu the role of Anglo imperial rivalry in exacerbating the development of a bureaucratic and military state in conditions of extreme economic weakness when compared to India; consider the undeveloped nature of the nature of what 'Paksitan' meant and the subsequent lack of social cohesion - and in particular what happened under Ayub when an adequate development policy for industrialisation purpsoes but one that did not fit with the geography or political and cultural devidies of the country took place and eventually led ot its partition; and the partition of pakistan cannot be underestimated as a seminal event in Pakistan in terms of exacerbating the potential of the idea of an existential threat - so after the Bhutto experiment failed - probably because he overreached and alienated all the powerful social classes ina situation of economic instability so that he was forced (chose) to crack down on populists rather than the landholding class; and then go on to Zia, more direct and controlled military rule and the concomitant search for legitimacy thorugh an Islamic state - not coincidentally during a period in which the U.S. was arming and providing massive amounts of moeny to Islamists to fight communism. that's pretty mucht he trajectory - the 90s saw a further embedding of miltiary social and economic power (see Siddiqa, Military Inc.) and then a restoration of the military to formal power - with the return of massive amounts of aid to the military ruler from the U.S., again to engage in geopolitical battles. this is one example - and not even the most glaring - of the convergence of colonialism (whether influence or occupation), continuing external influence ot domination and global power games, and internal social structural and political dynamics. All of which is overlaid by basic conditions like geography, economic state, etc.

As to your second point, I would argue that something extremely similar holds with Hinduism in Indian politics. the situtations are not the same, but they are analogous - and it is difficult for a non hindutva Hindu to speak in the language of Hinduism and more difficult still for a secular, cultural, or lived Hindu to speak in the language of pluralism and tolerance and openmindedness withotu being called deracinated, despite that a nonovert manifestation of a cultural political and social traits is often far more relevant than what a person says. The most glaring examplke and the one to be rectified immediately is of course the state-sponsored murders in gujrat, continuing lack of justice, and other issues. this is an issue not just for those concerned with human rights or civil society dynamics, but for Hindus! how can one sit by and allow this kind of extrardoinary degradation of human beings and murders of human beings to go on - not just at the moment, but for years afterwards up to this day - in the name of one's religion, and not say anything? I think it is imoprtant to say something.

On a lesser scale, when canal projects are opposed on the basis of non scientific evidence, countless claims of alleged or real hindu temples are created as if that were a justification for te4aring down extant mosques, the civil code debate is used as a way for the hindu male-dominate4d elite to fight with the muslim-male dominate4d elite and the entire world is portrayed in the lens of one communalism or another - I would say there are some similarities to be pointed out in the level of aggression and propensity for violence or justification for violence in the Hindu right as there is in the Muslim right in the middle east.

as with most other phenomena, interpretations of Islam themselves are shaped by a variety of other factors - I have met LGBT Muslims, trade unionist Muslims, feminist Muslims, secular human rights oriented Muslims, etc. I have read works which articulate why jamaat-e-islami was unable to secure the rural vote among Bangladeshi women, and the resonses of those women are elucidating (class basis of jamaat made their injunctions inapplicable tot he lives of those women - some of the women have a clear undersatnding that they are always being told they are wrong and the mullahs are always right, etc.). This, of course, as a history to it as well, but i point it out simply to again reinforce that multitude of possibilities that exists in contemporary Islam, not just in the past. What do Kazakhstan, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, and diasporic Indian Muslims have in common? Some, I'm sure, but not so much that one can't explore diferences, form cross - faith bonds, etc.

similarly, the same applies to Hinduism above - there are other lenses with which one can look at people who are Hindus while not denying the influences upon them - whether they define themselves as religious, spiritual, cutlural, civilisational, political, or otherwise 'Hindu'. And Leftism, and Congressism and many other social and cultural and faith groupings one can be brought into or join.

Hello Yajnavalkya,

I am running a bit short on time right now, so I am going to answer briefly - please don't take it as a sign that I am not interested in what you're saying.

With respect to the Vedas and Upanishads, as well as the various epics, nowhere have I said they were all composed at the same time and are all consistent on every point to the nth degree. What I did say was that they work in consort with each other, in short, they are partners in helping understand the each other. Irrespective of the time period, the sages who composed these texts were ultimately exposed to most if not all of the same foundational philosophies.

I mentioned the point about the different periods of time and contexts in whcih they were written not to contest something that you had said, but to illustrate my point - in my experience, even with a great amount of exposure, there is a difficulty in arguing that texts written over the course of hundreds or thousands of years don't have different poitns of emphasis (really my main point - i was drawing the contrast more starkly jsut to illustrate it). If anything, it would be shocking if th messages were the same - and if it is not evident in the broad brush strokes of the texts, then it is more clear in the details. From what little I have read of the Vedas, some of the upanishads, the Gita, and the ramayana, I think it is a mistake to believe that seeing unity in them is something that is in the text, rather than something that is in the intepretation of the text. this does not make it less legitimate from a religious standpoint, but i don't htink it is accurate in a material sense.

Also, unfortunately, I think you are misreading things again. The Gita does not propound Krishna as the only form of godhead or as the sole personification of brahman. The idea here is that they are all interchangeable. It is not a restrictive construct of divinity. Again, I refer back to na iti na iti, where in Brahman is described as "not this, not this". This method was advocated by Shankara because God/Brahman is everything.

See my point above regarding different points of emphases. My argument is that the Gita takes the oneness / everythingness of God (atman=brahman) and removes it from the abstract and into the personhood / deity of krishna. Now this may not be as objectionable to some people as it is to me because other people, as pointed out above, might have a different path to appreciating stories of the divine - but i need to be clear that, especially in Hinduism precisely beause it is NOT exclusionary in many ways but is instead catholic, these kinds of shifts in meaning and intepretation are of enormous importance. It is, in fact, how ideas and politics get changed within the interepretations of texts and undersatndings of what 'Hinduism' (or whatever the local name for the local faith is - Brahmanism, etc etc etc).

This in turn leads me back to Krishna's vishwarupa. I think ultimately find things for which you are actively looking. If you want it to be a terror inducing experience, you will convince yourself as such, irrespective of what I say, or more importantly what the text says.

This is to some extent true that as a reader I will react to what I react to. However, I am still somewhat tied to the text and would acknowledge if I were wholly disconnected from it about it :) see below for a portion of what I'm talking about:

O god! to pardon (my guilt) as a father (that of his) son, a friend (that of his) friend, or a husband (that of his) beloved. I am delighted at seeing what I had never seen before, and my heart is also alarmed by fear. Show me that same form, O god! Be gracious, O lord of gods! O you pervading the universe! I wish to see you bearing the coronet and the mace, with the discus in hand, just the same (as before) 1. O you of thousand arms! O you of all forms! assume that same four-handed form.

The Deity said:

O Arguna! being pleased (with you), I have by my own mystic power shown you this supreme form, full of glory, universal, infinite, primeval, and which has not been seen before by any one else but you, O you hero among the Kauravas! I cannot be seen in this form by any one but you, (even) by (the help of) the study of the Vedas, or of 2 sacrifices, nor by gifts, nor by actions, nor by fierce penances. Be not alarmed, be not perplexed, at seeing this form of mine, fearful like this. Free from fear and with delighted heart, see now again that same form of mine.

Sañgaya said:

Having thus spoken to Arguna, Vâsudeva again showed his own form, and the high-souled one becoming again of a mild form, comforted him who had been affrighted.

Moreover, no, I disagree. It is not the english translation that matters, but rather, the original sanskrit that matters. If you really want to delve that deeply into the purported meaning of each word, I would recommend you study the actual language before passing judgment--unfortunately, sanskrit is something that many self-regarded historians do not have a mastery of and it has had its own negative impacts on the study of hinduism and indology.

I agree with this. I point out only that I am not 'passing judgement' but giving a preliminary read on the basis of the admittedly little that I know, without discounting what I do think I know.

Also, Arjuna was neither the first nor only person to whom the vishwarupa was revealed. And Arjuna requested it as a blessing, not as means of scaring him into his duty, so I think it's a needlessly negative characterization of what Krishna's true form is

Yes I agree with the first part, but I wonder about the effects on the reader to be told that even someone presumably 'greater' as a person than one's self (arjun) is terrified as well as delighted and that God can bestow the vision of the divine form upon those whom he/she/it favors. I do agree that my characterization has been overly simplistic.

Like Brahman, it is meant to embody everything--life, death, good, evil, truth, etc, indeed, verily the entire universe. The fact that it takes a terrible form--like Kali herself does--does not mean the message is to scare devotees into submission. So I think that's a rather incorrect interpretation on your part.

I disagree with the aspect of intent - thouhg as you poitn out , much dependson the text and the propensities of the reader.

The Gita does not demand submission--again, I think the parallel you are drawing is rather affected and incorrect--but rather, it exhorts. Duty is something to embraced and encouraged, not by which to be laid low. This notion of subsumption I think is similar to Paul Courtwrights deconstruction of Ganesha's trunk---something completely out of line with both the history and purpose of the texts. By ascribing these type of "strategic" motives on the part of Vyasa I think you are taking some rather odd liberties with these texts. In short, there is no demonstrative evidence for what you are theorizing. This is a continuing problem in the study of Hinduism or Indology in general.

On a first point - I don't believe that the Gita demands submission to the Divine directly. I do believe - and you can use a slighytly less strong word like exhorts - it asks for and hopes to receive submission to dharmic duties which are laid out in advance in the text. I will freely admit that I am not an advanced scholar on hinduism but that I am only giving my own reading based on a few readings of various texts and conversations i have had with others, some minimal coursework i have done (which has both advantages and significant downsides), etc. However, unless there is a problem with the translation I have presented above, I don't think I am taking odd liberties with the text of the Gita that we have been discussing and I would have to identify and revisit the particular upanishad I was referencing to know whether I think I'm taking odd liberties with that. There always the chance that I am mistaken, that the texts are mistaken, etc. - but as someone who is left to interpret these texts today, I can only hope that those people who feel I'm mistaken will provide me with a more convincing and textual or social analysis of what's going on than what my own is.

There is an answer to this in the theory of non violent commnication. Essentially, you adopt force to the extent that is necessary to stop harm from being done to yourself and other, but you do not stray into adopting force for purpsoes of retribution, anger, blame, judgement, or other thigns - at which point it becomes violence. this is extraordinarily difficult ot practice, but i think holding it as an honest ideal would be worthwhile for all people and I think hindus would be particularly receptive to it given the links bewteen the ethos of NVC and that of faith traditions that have existed in South Asia.

Yes, perhaps would should have recommended the theory of nonviolent communication to the Allied forces when faced with Nazi panzer tank divisions.

Don't mistake the name for the substance or fail to read the text of what I have written, please. The point is the motive from which you act, and the extent to which you act. If there is a German Panzer tank marching down your street or a crowd of VHP activists swarming the car you are in, the point is to act to defend yourself to the extent necessary, rather than attempting to exact revenge or retribution. It does not mean that one should not act - but that if one does act, that it is as carefully thought through as possible and as fully in accorsin with principles of non violence as possible. This does not seem to be too much to ask, as the consequences of escalating violence are horrendous, and the self-reflectiona nd analysis it takes to consider whether it is necessary and justified is fairly minimal, if one is honest with one's self.

In this context he does advocate going to war. However, I believe the whole point of the book is to pose a fairly extreme circumstance of moral dilemma (follow your duty or follow your doubts about killing your brethren). The point, then, is the wayi n which you resolve the dilemma, not war for war's sake. It is war for duty's sake. (which, as i stated above, i have a lot of problems with too, in the way taht the resolution of the dilemma is presented).

I think you are being simplistic here. At no time does Krishna advocate not thinking about one's actions--and their consequences ( that is why I continue to disagree with your insistence on using "submission"). As a yogi, Krishna advocates all the various types of yoga, and insists on self-reflection through meditation. This is not a mindless call to fratricide, but an insistence that dharma must be upheld irrespective of personal costs. Again, you find the message for which you are looking. If you seek to condemn, you will "discover" the material needed to issue your condemnation. Remember, I said pure compassion and humanism, not any compassion or humanism. There is a difference. Those who insist on peace at all costs are emblematic of the former.

I am not seeking to condemn. I am seeking to explore feelings of betrayal and a bad feeling I get about the idea of a divine authority/adviser telling me waht to do. In a sense, what you're saying is fair in that it is not a mindless call to fratricide, but I on a different point I think there must be a maximum amount of space to explore what dharma means on a personal level if the idea is that it must be upheld regardless of internal doubts (personal costs is not the appropriate way to put it in today's society, imo) . to read dharma as the vedic or mahabharatan or ramayanan senses of order (all of which, I would guess, are going to be different, and differe from tanslation to translation, version to version, book to book) rather than in a contemporary sense is a grave mistake. This retains the basic principle of following your heart's internal order and compass without straying while still operatingi n YOUR context rather than arjun's or more broadly the gita's.

The upanishadic texts do not proscribe the capacity of form for brahman. That is the idea behind the vishwarupa. If brahman could possibly be visualized, it would be so tremendous in breadth and depth that the entire all embodying phenomenon of the universe would be manifested. As such, your use of the word anthropomorphic remains inaccurate.

If it is inaccurate, why do we call the charioteer/deity Krishna? why don't we call him brahman? Why does he take human form? Why does he present as divine form? One of the standard power plays that operates in Hinduism (and other pantheistic faiths) is to subsume other people's worship into your own and place your own preferred deity at the top. if this is not what is happening, explain to me in what way it is not. I have frequently considered the possibility that the order in which i read the texts ratehr than the order in whcih they were written is what has influenced me, but I would like to know more to know why I should not have this doubt about the motive behind presenting the Divine in this fashion.

Finally, no one said syncretism is bad. I was only pointing out that traditionalists who embrace their own ancient religious heritage should not be condemned either. It is possible to retain the orthodox practices of one's faith while being open minded in the scholarly study of other faiths.

sure. But the practice of faith must be balanced with living in a contemporary society. And taking a 'traditionalist' or 'orthodox' stance towards a faith is but one way of doing this, and can be contested. Whether it would be or not, by me, depends on what effects it produces.

My argument is that the Gita takes the oneness / everythingness of God (atman=brahman) and removes it from the abstract and into the personhood / deity of krishna.

If all things are an emanation of the atman, then it necessarily follows that Krishna himself is also a personification of it. Because he is an avatar, however, that means he is more acutely aware of this fact than the rest of us mere mortals.

I'm not even sure what translation of the Gita you would be reading to interpret it the way you have. It seems more influenced by the crackpot, new-agey gobbledygook trying to equate Krishna to Christ than anything in the source text.

"Khuda Hafiz" vs. "Allah Hafiz

I am seeking to explore feelings of betrayal and a bad feeling I get about the idea of a divine authority/adviser telling me waht to do.

You have admitted yourself that you have your own biases that blind you to certain things. How do you figure, then, that your "internal compass" is a reliable arbiter of truth? It takes a lot of conditioning to be able to overcome your own cognitive limitations as a human being. Don't you think it's a little boastful to just assume you're there already?

This is the problem with the buffet approach to religious teachings, it only works if you're vain enough to believe you are the only one who knows how to determine objective truth for yourself. Part of the reason most religions preach humility and the elimination of the ego is specifically to get rid of that tendency.

But, I'll stop now lest we start becoming a mutual admiration society:)

Oh, that's a pity. The stopping part. Not the admiration part.

There aren't enough admiration societies in the world.

Yoga Fire, "Khuda" is the Persian word for God and "Allah" is the Arabic one. I guess those who oppose "Khuda Hafiz" think that it is too secular a greeting (as in Allah is purely the Muslim God, while Khuda can theoretically include the Christian or Jewish god as well). The interesting thing is that Arab Christians use Allah to refer to God, so the theory doesn't hold water. My parents have always used "Khuda Hafiz" and they say it's really only post-1980s that Allah Hafiz became de rigeour.

Of course there's always the Punjabi "Rab Rakha", but that's way too secular for the fundos:)

If all things are an emanation of the atman, then it necessarily follows that Krishna himself is also a personification of it. Because he is an avatar, however, that means he is more acutely aware of this fact than the rest of us mere mortals.

I'm not even sure what translation of the Gita you would be reading to interpret it the way you have. It seems more influenced by the crackpot, new-agey gobbledygook trying to equate Krishna to Christ than anything in the source text.

I think either we disagree or what I am saying is not coming across clearly, given that you are now speaking somewhat insultingly. I am comparing a reading of the Gita to a reading of one of the Upanishads whose name I can't remember and looking at the two together to evaluate the reading in the Gita. so, obviously, the Gita is drawing on the ideas already present like atman=brahman and Krishna therefore is also partaking in that sense the individual / universal divine. What I am arguing is that in placing the individual/universal divine into voice and the body and the personhood and divinity of krishna (and, yes, by extension, everything else that is holy) - it is taking a broader strain and putting it into a narrower and more personal one. As several people have pointed out above, my preference is for a more impersonal and less incarnated sense of the spiritual or divine, so combining a human form and a supernatural deity and the overarching force into a persona that retains some thread of being the same through the coures of the book is not to my taste. It can be to your taste, but it's not to mine. I would have thought that would be enough.

Do you typically feel betrayed or get a bad feeling when a doctor dispenses advice about your health or when a science teacher tells you the value of the universal gravitational constant?

yes, if they don't answer my questions and help me understand why the things they are telling me might or might not be accurate (exempting such things as maybe the doctor is hoping for a placebo effect). If there is not an underlying structure of logic or reasoning or proof - even if that very structure rests on a first act of faith as I believe science does in investing the senses with the faith that they are reflecting something about the material world - then I get frustrated, cynical, and eventually suspicious because at the end of the day, if you only have the authority of another person or a text to rely on and it's not falsifiable or verifiable by some other metric, then you're pretty screwed if something happens that is not to your liking - because you'll have nothing to appeal to in contrast to that authority.

You have admitted yourself that you have your own biases that blind you to certain things. How do you figure, then, that your "internal compass" is a reliable arbiter of truth? It takes a lot of conditioning to be able to overcome your own cognitive limitations as a human being. Don't you think it's a little boastful to just assume you're there already?

I don't think one can overcome the cognitive limitations of a human being, being a human being :) Nor do I think that I am anywhere other than where I am - which is as one person, who knows what he read, and what he came to believe. I could be in error, but I believe it sincerely, and am open to being corrected, but being corrected doesn't mean being told you're wrong - it means someone working with you to try to help you figure out what you think and how it relates to the matter at hand. Consider the inverse of what you suggest - if you DON'T trust your internal arbiter to some extent, then on what basis can you know anything? How do you know what you like and don't like? Aren't you just a slave to what other people tell you, what social conditions have created you, to an even greater extent than you would be anyway? Out of the 0.1% of free will that is at least possible for me to imagine I can exert, why would I give up that possibility and cease to imagine that? how would you even choose what direction you will move in, given that all that has shaped you already is already in you? At an extreme, isn't this an abandonment of the meaningfulness of faith altogether by imagining a person as a passive recipient who cannot be trusted to judge?

This is the problem with the buffet approach to religious teachings, it only works if you're vain enough to believe you are the only one who knows how to determine objective truth for yourself. Part of the reason most religions preach humility and the elimination of the ego is specifically to get rid of that tendency.

This precludes the idea that i am a social being. If I were sitting in a room, in isolation, reading texts and not talking to anyone my entire life, then I would agree wtih you. But that is not the case, and it is virtually impossible for that to be the case for nearly anyone. I have been exposed to reform and conservative judaism, american christianity in various forms, the kinds of hinduism i described above, and some aspects of islam, explored things my friends are interested in like vipassana buddhism and nvc, and talked to marxists and capitalists (more the latter), explored postmodernism, cultural theory, etc. etc. etc. among other things. it's not that I've gone out and chosen to sample the buffet because it's a buffet- it's everything that's been around me that i've interacted with.

In order to do all this, you have to strive to combine humility and faith in one's self (to avoid falling into a constant pattern of running from one cult or self-help book to another which I've seen people do)- in other words you have to have a sense of self. If having that means that I don't have humility, then so be it - i think that's a misunderstanding of what humility really means and how I can develop it further, but it doesn't fundamentally matter whether you believe me.

It's all cool, Dr A.
As the man said, 'Appo Deepo Bhavah'

the state-sponsored murders in gujrat,

Here's where the conversation breaks down.

Heh, if you consider that to be brief, Dr. A, then I'll count my blessings...

Anyhow, let's get to the crux of the matter here. While I do agree that you are entitled to your own opinions regarding anything, let alone hindu texts, that does not mean your interpretation is correct. Indeed, it is precisely why the hindu tradition advocates the tutelage of various gurus, pandits, or acharyas. This is because there is a tangible difference between merely reading scripture and properly understanding its intended meaning. Sanskrit, while grammatically perfect according to computer science theorists, is exceedingly supple and nuanced, with individual words often having as many as 20 meanings. As such, we often find "academics" (typically from the west and who are mindlessly parroted in the east) who often project their own perspectives onto these translations and in many cases produce oversexualized or just plain irrelevant work that has nothing to do with the intended meaning. More maliciously, colonial and neo-colonial historians have often taken such liberties to develop ahistorical theories such as AIT without a shred of scientific evidence or develop inaccurate narratives to sow discord among northern and southern language groups--convenient for the British Raj. I know you ranted about CAPEEM above, but there are serious issues with the caste, cows, and curry version of indology. That is not to say I support a whitewashed history that merely reacts to colonial narratives, but I think we have to be very careful before we start concocting theories without the appropriate qualifications or education. As such, many of your interpretations here are coming across as rather amateurish.

If it is inaccurate, why do we call the charioteer/deity Krishna? why don't we call him brahman? Why does he take human form? Why does he present as divine form? One of the standard power plays that operates in Hinduism (and other pantheistic faiths) is to subsume other people's worship into your own and place your own preferred deity at the top. if this is not what is happening, explain to me in what way it is not. I have frequently considered the possibility that the order in which i read the texts ratehr than the order in whcih they were written is what has influenced me, but I would like to know more to know why I should not have this doubt about the motive behind presenting the Divine in this fashion.

The first of of course is Krishna vs Brahman. I assume your left leanings naturally color your efforts to ascribe an inherent conflict of traditions here, when there is a fundamental unity to them. If you read the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, there is a Mahavakya: "Aham Brahmasmin". Literally, it means I am Brahman. While this may be subject to some nuance if you are an advaitin, dvaitin, or vishistadvaitin, this quote is particularly notable because what you rather oddly like to characterize as Vyasa's strategic effort to subsume Brahman, is really the consistent vedantic discussion of the nature of Brahman pervading all prakriti and purusha. Krishna, thus, is Brahman, and Brahman is Krishna. Krishna is discussed in both human form (as the avatar meant to restore dharma in the dwapara yuga) and in divine form (vishwarupa) to reveal himself to Arjuna--and many other of the key figures in the Mahabharata and assorted puranas. To discuss this as a simple power play in hinduism does a gross injustice to the text and relegates us to the realm of Paul Courtright theories.

As lupus noted, your preference for nirguna rather than saguna is not uncommon, and in many cases encouraged as the higher of two; however, that does not mean that the manifestation of brahman as Krishna's vishwarupa is somehow invalid or emblematic of some "brahminical conspiracy" to take over something distinct. The two (saguna and nirguna) are inextricably linked, just like energy and matter. This is where the value of the traditional hindu education finds value. It is not sufficient to merely read translations by "scholars". The acharyas and pandits are schooled in the proper intended meaning of these works. Mere undergraduate coursework in the western ivory tower does not suffice (I would say really disadvantages rather than advantages to your point above). Besides, I think if we can respect the theological construct of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we should have no problem digesting nirguna vs saguna. Also, please note that I am not saying that all of these texts are just repetitions of each other. The Upanishads and Brahmanas are commentaries that explore and elaborate on the Vedas. The Mahabharata and Ramayana are great epics that synthesize the great philosophies stemming from the Vedas with semi-mythological stories that offer pragmatic manuals on how to live good, virtuous and productive lives. The Mahabharata, of course, includes the Bhagavad Gita which essentially crystallizes the core philosophies of vedanta. Now do all these texts repeat all the exact same things in the same contexts and constructs?-- obviously not. However, there is a fundamental unity of purpose in them, irrespective of the obviously distinct time periods of their respective compositions, so I think you are seeking needless discord where none exists. As to why? I think you'd have to ask yourself that question. But just off the top of my head, I would say that it could be because of your tendency to color things through political lenses. This of course leads me to the next point.

I am not seeking to condemn. I am seeking to explore feelings of betrayal and a bad feeling I get about the idea of a divine authority/adviser telling me waht to do.

Dr.A, even the Buddha, arguably the most palatable to the Granola Free Spirit movement, ultimately tells us what to do with his Eightfold Path. So while I wouldn't even think to tell you how to feel, I would say, your feelings of betrayal are rather odd and perhaps even unjustified. A divine authority/adviser is there precisely to tell us what to do--although I would argue especially in the modern era, to choose carefully ;). I know individual freedom is at the core of modern political theory, but that is why I find many of your social science frameworks to be inapplicable. We subscribe to gurus (be they divine or corporeal) to tell us what to do because they know what is spiritually good for us (even more than we ourselves do--granted even true gurus warn against charlatans seeking material gain, so again, be careful). Now if that means you don't want a guru, no problem, you live in a free country. Does that mean hinduism is incompatible with rationalism or evaluative discouse?--no to the contrary, many of its schools openly encourage it (see Nyaya--one of the 6 orthodox schools which literally means logic). In fact, I'd recommend you read the assorted works of Swami Vivekananda. He does an excellent job of providing a deep insight into hinduism.

In this context he does advocate going to war. However, I believe the whole point of the book is to pose a fairly extreme circumstance of moral dilemma (follow your duty or follow your doubts about killing your brethren). The point, then, is the wayi n which you resolve the dilemma, not war for war's sake. It is war for duty's sake. (which, as i stated above, i have a lot of problems with too, in the way taht the resolution of the dilemma is presented).

Like I said, this is not a mindless call to fratricide or even war for war's sake. It is war to restore dharma. The Kauravas have violated dharma again and again. As such, Krishna himself has already destroyed them for their repeated misdeeds--Arjuna is merely the instrument. As for panzer tanks and nonviolence, even Gandhiji ultimately recognized that satyagraha has its limits. Nazis would have no compunction about mowing down line after line of satyagrahis with the devil's sprinkler. That is my point: against some adversaries, the mere moral force of your righteousness, humanism and compassion will have no impact--jihadis come to mind here. That is why force was necessary against the Kauravas, why it was necessary against the Nazis, and why it is necessary against jihadis.

To the point on orthodoxy, I think you misunderstood. There are 6 ancient orthodox schools of hindu philosophy, called astika. They hold the Vedas to be the fundamental authority. There are of course the various nastika, or heterodox, schools that reject the authority of the Vedas, These naturally include sramanism, buddhism, jainism and would by corollary, include many of the modern syncretic traditions. So what I mean is that casteism and mindless ritualism are no way to live especially in the modern era, and in essence, conflict with the core message of the scriptures themselves. As Krishna himself stated, a brahmin is so determined not by birth but by conduct. Indeed, Satyakamala Jabala was given a traditional hindu education on the basis of his character and not on his birth (he was the son of a courtesan). In fact, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad contains an ongoing dialogue between the sage Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyi, who desires brahmagyan (in essence, knowledge of the divine). Indeed, there is no shortage of hindu tapasvinis, yoginis and other women in the ancient tradition, many of whom even had a great command of scripture. This is yet another reason why the caste, curry, and cows construct of hindu history must be replaced.

Also, just to elaborate on my initial point about politicization and philosophy, I would advise you to avoid mixing the two discussions. While we are entitled to our respective views on things, there is an inherent danger when we seek to project modern political conflict within the realm of ancient philosophical discourse. More than anything else, it hinders a proper understanding of either one, giving the tendency to push a political line in a philosophical discussion (your eagerness to unfairly compare VHP activists with Nazis above did not pass unnoticed to me). Please note that, although I myself have not connection or affiliation with any of the organizations within the parivar, there are many vhp/rss/bjp members who were upset by the gujarat riots and openly call for pluralism and harmony within india, see Tarun Vijay. Their point is true secularism--ucc and true federalism (article 370??) are things for which to strive. Moreover, I would ask that whenever you discuss the gujarat riots that you have the courtesy to remember and mention the dozens of mostly women and children who were killed by a mob at the godhra train platform. The gujarat riots were horrible and I sincerely hope for India's sake that such a thing will never happen again. But there is a fundamental injustice that many NGO types engage in when they concoct narratives about what transpired in that 2002 tragedy. There were hundreds of hindus who also lost their lives and tens of thousands who were made homeless as well. Since we are all here to discuss things as "human beings", I would venture to note that hindus are human beings as well. Accordingly, I think your attempt to draw parallels between nationalist hindu ideologies and islamic extremism are both clumsy and inaccurate. With all due respect to our muslim friends here, hindutva is not an expansionist ideology that seeks to convert the world to its religion at the point of a sword. There is a clear and undeniable distinction here. Oddly enough, it does seek a pluralistic india, but one that does not devalue the contributions of India's ancient culture to the modern state, and seeks to restore the country to genuine secularism. That is not to say the crimes of many outfits affiliated or unaffiliated (SRS has nothing to do with the parivar let alone the BJP) with the parivar should not be condemned and punished. But since we are all about nuance here, I would recommend you recognize that communal violence in India did not begin with gujarat or babri. Indeed, in the early 20th century, the mopplah massacre resulted in the deaths, rapes or forced conversions of 3000 hindus for no reason other than the turks abolishing the caliphate (something rather odd considering Gandhiji openly and actively supported the Khilafat movement in the interest of hindu-muslim amity). Even Godhra, split along communal lines, has a long history of religious violence that predates Babri. As such, it is not enough to merely condemn those whom you find politically unpalatable. All communal violence is bad and should be unequivocally condemned and remembered. More than that, attempts to justify horrendous terrorist violence like arundhati roy did through a chorus of "gujarat and babri" are both grossly inaccurate and utterly inhumane--not to mention politically deplorable. ISI-funded jihadis have aims of destroying the Indian state that predate these awful tragedies that serve as convenient propaganda for them. As such, by avoiding such needless politicization in philosophical discussion, I think it will help us all have a more civil and informed dialogue rather than a mere shouting match with labels substituting for ideas.

Finally, I think one other concern I have is that you have tendency to overcomplicate discussion points with unrelated often irrelevant social science frameworks. While, I think it's great that you've had such an education, I don't think they (the constructs or trivia) really help your discussion points other than to advertise to your audience that you've had said education. I know I've had to respond in some larger paragraphs than I'd prefer, but in the interests of constructive dialogue with everyone, I'd just thought I'd note for future reference that brevity is the soul of wit ;). I've enjoyed the discussion...

Re: comments 209 and 210,

I don't want to get into discussions about Hindu theology for which I am not qualified, but I want to further two points that the two of you have brought up.

1) Dr. A is right in referring to the "state sponsored murders" and pogroms in Gujerat. The "riots" or whatever one wants to call them occured on Modi's watch and the police and government must be held responsible. I am surprised that someone as reasonable sounding as Kumar ji is in denial about this.

2) RE: Article 370. Article 370 is there because of the special status of Kashmir. This special status was given in agreements between Maharaja Hari Singh and the Indian government. (Instrument of Acession, anyone?). It was reinforced in agreements between Shiekh Abdullah, the popular leader of the Kashmiris and the Indian government. Whatever one might like to pretend, Kashmir is not just another Indian state, it is disputed territory and thus has a special status. I am basing these arguments on a book called "Kashmir In the Crossfire" by Victoria Schoefield, which is a very fair non-partisan history of Kashmir from the time of Ashoka to the Modern Era. Please note that it was written by an Englishwoman, not a Pakistani or Indian. Thus, she cannot be accused of blindly following the "Paki POV". Facts are Facts, and there's no getting away from them.

Regards

Yajnavalkya, thanks very much for your detailed response. I will do my best to brief, and I will fail.

Points of agreement:

While I do agree that you are entitled to your own opinions regarding anything, let alone hindu texts, that does not mean your interpretation is correct.

there are serious issues with the caste, cows, and curry version of indology. That is not to say I support a whitewashed history that merely reacts to colonial narratives, but I think we have to be very careful before we start concocting theories without the appropriate qualifications or education.

Krishna is discussed in both human form (as the avatar meant to restore dharma in the dwapara yuga) and in divine form (vishwarupa) to reveal himself to Arjuna

your preference for nirguna rather than saguna is not uncommon, and in many cases encouraged as the higher of two; however, that does not mean that the manifestation of brahman as Krishna's vishwarupa is somehow invalid or emblematic of some "brahminical conspiracy" to take over something distinct.

Like I said, this is not a mindless call to fratricide or even war for war's sake. It is war to restore dharma.

you have tendency to overcomplicate discussion points with unrelated often irrelevant social science frameworks.

Questions/ points of disagreement

Indeed, it is precisely why the hindu tradition advocates the tutelage of various gurus, pandits, or acharyas. This is because there is a tangible difference between merely reading scripture and properly understanding its intended meaning.

What is the benefit of understanding its intended meaning where it is not relevant for the life you are living and indeed may destract from it? What is the social and political process by which the intended meaning was and continues to be formed?

I assume your left leanings naturally color your efforts to ascribe an inherent conflict of traditions here, when there is a fundamental unity to them.

Power operates in all contexts, including in Hinduism. One of the unfortunate problems with the exceedingly poor scholarship that was done on South Asia (and basically every colonised part and population of the world) is that I don't have ready access to the detailed understanding that we have of, say, the Reformation, the Counterreformation, the impact on the 30 years war, connectinos to the development of capitalism, etc. What I would agree with is that the idea of a fundamental unity can be said to exist among many Hindus - among many Hindus I have seen today, it is exceedingly syncretic. However, just as forest dwellers 'outside' society were brought into the caste structure and placed in a subordinate position, similar trends can, generally speaking, happen within the faith tradition. Thus, the mode of conflict I am using may be incorrect, but the notion that there are hierarchies and power operating in terms of which faith traditions are prevalent and which ones are not is, imo, a basic fact of South Asian society as it has existed and corroborated by evidence such as the isntance I presented above (it's from an account of 'South Bihar' (now Jharkand) in a volume of Subaltern Studies)). To deny or obscure difference or differences in power in the name of unity is simply to assert the hegemony of a particular viewpoint on the topic at hand.

While this may be subject to some nuance if you are an advaitin, dvaitin, or vishistadvaitin, this quote is particularly notable because what you rather oddly like to characterize as Vyasa's strategic effort to subsume Brahman, is really the consistent vedantic discussion of the nature of Brahman pervading all prakriti and purusha. Krishna, thus, is Brahman, and Brahman is Krishna. Krishna is discussed in both human form (as the avatar meant to restore dharma in the dwapara yuga) and in divine form (vishwarupa) to reveal himself to Arjuna--and many other of the key figures in the Mahabharata and assorted puranas. To discuss this as a simple power play in hinduism does a gross injustice to the text and relegates us to the realm of Paul Courtright theories.

I have no idea who Paul Courtright is. However, what I would suggest is that you are giving an individual interpretation with no more or less authority in terms of accuracy than I am giving, unless you would care to cite the methodological tradition by which you arrived at it. A proper study of this would require a genealogy, which, as I hinted at before, I am not capable of producing. Above all, though, it requires what I stated above - acknowledging that within the context of the desire for unity, differences in power and subsumed conflict can and often do exist. Until such time as I am presented with a sound approach that contradicts my own ideas, I'll continue to hold to my ideas or shape them as I see fit on the basis of my own efforts with likeminded people.

This is where the value of the traditional hindu education finds value. It is not sufficient to merely read translations by "scholars". The acharyas and pandits are schooled in the proper intended meaning of these works. Mere undergraduate coursework in the western ivory tower does not suffice (I would say really disadvantages rather than advantages to your point above). Besides, I think if we can respect the theological construct of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we should have no problem digesting nirguna vs saguna.

I recently spent a good 2 hours with a few people trying to understand exactly what 'The Holy Spirit' is. It was fairly inconclusive and resulted in a resort to wikipedia. The idea is convoluted, something of a catchall. Moreover, the whole notion of the trinity is not simply doctrinal or theological, but tied to institutions, battles in early Christianity (E.g. see Arianism, which still exists in a minority), and relates to the role of the church(es) in wider society. And don't get me started on transubstantiation and why someone woudl ingest the body and blood of christ...

Profane analysis? Yes. The same is, imo, needed for Hinduism, alongside the participatory and personal understanding of the divine. There is Hinduism as a social and cultural and idea-based set of thigngs in the material world (which includes ideas) and there is Hinduism as is understood by its followers. I would suggest that sticking to the tradition of 'intended' meanings, not examining the choice of texts which have been elevated as important (why is a section of the upanishad you mentioned not raised above as 'the' primary text of the Gita), understanding the long lengths of time that have transpired over the course of the composition of these texts (in some cases collectively), and similar factors which work in the real world would do a disservice to both understanding the texts as well as interpreting them for contemporary use. To rely on received authority is, as you know, a choice - it is a contemporary choice - and it is no more than that. That is not to say that there are not some benefits that could come about - for example, by having technical questions answered - but there is a difference between that and being instructed on the spirit of the text.

Also, please note that I am not saying that all of these texts are just repetitions of each other. The Upanishads and Brahmanas are commentaries that explore and elaborate on the Vedas. The Mahabharata and Ramayana are great epics that synthesize the great philosophies stemming from the Vedas with semi-mythological stories that offer pragmatic manuals on how to live good, virtuous and productive lives. The Mahabharata, of course, includes the Bhagavad Gita which essentially crystallizes the core philosophies of vedanta. Now do all these texts repeat all the exact same things in the same contexts and constructs?-- obviously not. However, there is a fundamental unity of purpose in them, irrespective of the obviously distinct time periods of their respective compositions, so I think you are seeking needless discord where none exists.

I have yet to hear what this unity of purpose is, how it was developed, why it was developed, and how it is not a fundamentally anachronistic modern implantation on texts that were written or orally composed (in some cases the same text) by many different people over many many many many hundreds of years. Even the New Testament is not consistent and that was composed in a fairly short amount of time and does not contain all of the gospels (to say nothing of the other holy people who were ignored besides jesus). The Old Testament has two different, and in some people's minds conflicting, versions of the Creation story within the same book. What is the process in the real world by which this corpus of texts has somehow managed to escape this process? To me, many contemporary interpreters of Hinduism, especially on the Hindu right, are seeking for greater unity than actually exists.

As to why? I think you'd have to ask yourself that question. But just off the top of my head, I would say that it could be because of your tendency to color things through political lenses.

See above - there is an analytical component to it which bases itself on the ability of human beings to study their own social practices (i.e. religion in this case) and there is a much smaller political component to it here - the idea that texts need to be reinterpreted and even discarded if they are not of use in the current day. I take the same position on the 2nd Amendment of the American constitution as I do on Hindu scriptures in this respect. And of course there is, as pointed out above, the personal relevance of a text, which can encompass both of these things and much, much, much more. But, as you say, that is for me to account to myself for.

A divine authority/adviser is there precisely to tell us what to do--although I would argue especially in the modern era, to choose carefully ;). I know individual freedom is at the core of modern political theory, but that is why I find many of your social science frameworks to be inapplicable. We subscribe to gurus (be they divine or corporeal) to tell us what to do because they know what is spiritually good for us (even more than we ourselves do--granted even true gurus warn against charlatans seeking material gain, so again, be careful). Now if that means you don't want a guru, no problem, you live in a free country. Does that mean hinduism is incompatible with rationalism or evaluative discouse?--no to the contrary, many of its schools openly encourage it (see Nyaya--one of the 6 orthodox schools which literally means logic). In fact, I'd recommend you read the assorted works of Swami Vivekananda. He does an excellent job of providing a deep insight into hinduism.

If you will read carefully what I wrote above, what I suggested is not that mentorship and mentoring relations are not necessary (whether called Gurus or something else). What I have suggested is that the proper role of the mentor is not to tell you what to think, but to help you come to understand what you think, what is most relevant for you, to work through things. This, in fact, was one of my primary objections to the revelation of Krishna that left Arjun frightened (and delighted) - a good mentor will not make you feel beneath him/her.

I have the entire set of Vivekananda but haven't opened it yet. I will do so.

As such, Krishna himself has already destroyed them for their repeated misdeeds--Arjuna is merely the instrument.

What is the role of human agency in your interpretation of Hinduism?

As for panzer tanks and nonviolence, even Gandhiji ultimately recognized that satyagraha has its limits. Nazis would have no compunction about mowing down line after line of satyagrahis with the devil's sprinkler. That is my point: against some adversaries, the mere moral force of your righteousness, humanism and compassion will have no impact--jihadis come to mind here. That is why force was necessary against the Kauravas, why it was necessary against the Nazis, and why it is necessary against jihadis.

Shall I then fly to Gujarat and kill Modi? What is to stop a single person or a single group from determining, from their world view, what is relevantly moral to the point of killing? The answer, of course, is nothing - which is why social interchange is VITAL to moral conversation.

That is besides the point. What I have referred to is the theory of nonviolent communication, not Gandhian ahimsa. The idea, as presented to me by a follower, is to limit your use of force to where necessary and monitor for what purpose you are using it and use it in a way that is not driven by violent impulses. This is a very different thing from pacifism - because the use of physical force and violence - while frequently related - are not identical things.

To the point on orthodoxy, I think you misunderstood. There are 6 ancient orthodox schools of hindu philosophy, called astika. They hold the Vedas to be the fundamental authority. There are of course the various nastika, or heterodox, schools that reject the authority of the Vedas, These naturally include sramanism, buddhism, jainism and would by corollary, include many of the modern syncretic traditions. So what I mean is that casteism and mindless ritualism are no way to live especially in the modern era, and in essence, conflict with the core message of the scriptures themselves. As Krishna himself stated, a brahmin is so determined not by birth but by conduct. Indeed, Satyakamala Jabala was given a traditional hindu education on the basis of his character and not on his birth (he was the son of a courtesan). In fact, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad contains an ongoing dialogue between the sage Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyi, who desires brahmagyan (in essence, knowledge of the divine). Indeed, there is no shortage of hindu tapasvinis, yoginis and other women in the ancient tradition, many of whom even had a great command of scripture. This is yet another reason why the caste, curry, and cows construct of hindu history must be replaced.

This is an example of the kind of reinterpretaiton of texts that I was referring to. I am fairly certain that the message you have drawn from the enormous variety of texts you have just cited here was not the literal meaning in all instances. At the same time, I think this is exactly what needs to be done, and I am grateful that you have done it in reinterpreting what 'different kinds of people' can mean. The only point I disagree with you on is the same point on which I disagree with most religious people (including American strict constructionists) who are not willing to abandon the object which they are interpretign when it comes down to it. Ask yourself this - if there were an inherent conflcit between something you found as a core message of the texts and something that you yourself think is important, what would you do?

I agree that a framework relying on human beings and which opposes communalism of all varieties, regardless of the religious, ethnic, linguistic, gender, caste, or other identity status of the victims (whether in murder or in day to day life and discrimination) is more useful than politicising religion. To the extent that I have, I believe I am partaking in what we all partake in- which is to bring our values to our ideas. I have chosen to make it explicit to the extent that I can so others can see where I'm coming from.

What I have asked above is taht those who share a belief and a faith in Hinduism will do the same - that they will with equanimity look upon the victims of communalism conducted in the name of Hinduism as they will to communalism conducted in the name of Islam, nationalism, ethnicity, or anything else. Moreover, that they will not disregard the idea of scholarship because so much scholarship in the past has been flawed - scholarship is a process and only works when the peopel are committed to it and what it represents - and do so collectively. Which leads me to:

While, I think it's great that you've had such an education, I don't think they (the constructs or trivia) really help your discussion points other than to advertise to your audience that you've had said education.

I am a poor communicator. This is partly due to trying to reconcile different impulses (and discourses) in the same breath - finding the right nuance and thought to do it is very difficult. However, trust me when I say that if I didn't believe it was useful to try - I wouldn't.

If it is too much, then what can I say? I'm imperfect.

the state-sponsored murders in gujrat,

Here's where the conversation breaks down.

It doesn't have to...maybe today it will, but it doesn't have to...

Whatever one might like to pretend, Kashmir is not just another Indian state, it is disputed territory and thus has a special status.

You can't have a nation state that goes around dispensing "special status" to some groups of people just because they're prone to getting uppity at having their delicate religious sensibilities offended. India does enough of that crap as it is. All that does is encourages the most retrograde troglodytes in the country to continue agitating and committing acts of vigilantism and terror rather than accepting that India should be a nation governed by laws rather than the caprices of mobs.

India's presence in Kashmir is the only thing safeguarding the rights of the few remaining Hindus and Buddhists in Jammu & Kashmir. If not for that we would have a situation not unlike what Pakistan did in Bangladesh or what the Bangladeshis are brazenly doing to their Hindu population right now. It's not just a matter of territorial integrity and long-term geostrategic considerations (although those are important too), it is also a matter of fostering a pluralistic society and safeguarding freedom of conscience for everyone on the subcontinent.

This, in fact, was one of my primary objections to the revelation of Krishna that left Arjun frightened (and delighted) - a good mentor will not make you feel beneath him/her.

What I have suggested is that the proper role of the mentor is not to tell you what to think, but to help you come to understand what you think, what is most relevant for you, to work through things.

What you're proposing is going to make people believe what they wish to be true rather than engage in the actually difficult work of unveiling the truth.

I think what happened is that you saw the phrase "and Arjuna was afraid" and pretty much closed your mind at the suggestion that fear was used constructively. The fact is, however, that fear and awe are the only natural reactions one can have when they see infinity. It's the same feeling I got when I saw the Hubble Deep Field for the first time. What Krishna was doing was essentially taking Arjuna, who at that point was intent on sulking and navel-gazing, and slapping him across the face and telling him to pull himself together and look at the big picture.

Kabir,

How does my remark about a conversation breaking down equate to me being in denial?

I can say with equal self-righteousness (as you have shown) that you have been misled (and so was Dr.A) because you let your ideology blind you from the truths.

Please read more about Gujarat riots.Have all your facts with legally proven evidence ready.Lets discuss it on your blog or some other place of your choice.

I will commit to the debate with an open mind, but will marshall the facts to prove you wrong.I shall expect you to do the same.It should be educative for all of us.

Can't get more reasonable than this, dost :)

Or we can wait for the SIT investigation into Modi's role (ongoing) and accept their findings without rancour on either side.

P.S.: Modi himself declared a few times that people should not expect an apology from him for Gujarat 2002.If he has really done what you guys say he has, he needs to be hanged (Modi's words) so that it will stand as an example, and no one will ever contemplate such a heinious deed as state-sponsored terror.Why let a Hindutva fundamentalist politician get away with an apology?

Btw, I will tell you a genuine case of state-sponsored terror.Nandigram.Poor Muslim peasants were killed and their land taken away.

However, right now, I am extremely worried about missing AP Chief Minister YSR.

Here's praying that YSR is safe and sound.

Sorry for getting off-topic.My local identity (Telugu-Rayalaseema-Kadapa)asserts itself at times like this.

Please read more about Gujarat riots.Have all your facts with legally proven evidence ready.Lets discuss it on your blog or some other place of your choice.

I will commit to the debate with an open mind, but will marshall the facts to prove you wrong.I shall expect you to do the same.It should be educative for all of us.

Can't get more reasonable than this, dost :)

I was going to take you up on this offer, but actually, you can, get much more reasonable than this, bhai. Legally proven evidence in a court system is a function of a political and legal process. There are many things that people have come to believe given a preponderance of evidence outside the legal realm but that are not acknowledged by any legal system (as of yet). For example, to take an obvious case, Henry Kissinger is not in jail for war crimes.

If you are willing to take up a different standard (maybe: 'preponderance of evidence such that a reasonable person, upon reflection, would conclude something did or did not happen, regardless of its status as legal evidence' I'm happy to engage in this conversation with you. Otherwise, what this allows is a major political or public figure to hide behind India's court system, as many others have before and continue to. As noted, not exclusive to India.

Yoga Fire,

Kashmir is not a religious struggle it is a political/nationalist struggle (I'm really getting tired of having to explain this all the time). Sheikh Abdullah, "the lion of Kashmir" was a secular politician all his life and believed in Kashmiriyat-- yet he wanted India out, preferring either independence or autonomy within the Indian Union (going from one position to another at various points in his political career). He spent much of his life in jail, first because of the Maharaja and then because of Nehru.

I grant you that the post-1989 "insurgency" or "freedom struggle" took on a religious character, and the militants did some horrible things. I also concede that what happened to the Kashmiri Pandits is horrible and must never happen again. BUT, none of this removes India's (and Pakistan's) responsibility to respect the Kashmiri people's (all the Kashmiris-both in the Pakistani part and the Indian part) right to self-determination.

Another point to note is that prior to about 1847, "Jammu and Kashmir" was not all one entity. The Dogras controlled Jammu, but the Valley was ruled by other people. Similarly the Northern Areas, now called "Gilgit-Baltistan" were independent kingdoms of Gilgit, Hunza, and Nagar. All this to say, that when a solution is finally reached, the state doesn't all have to go to one country or the other.

Please read Schofield's "Kashmir in the crossfire" and then get back to me-- don't just spew Indian government propoganda. (I would get just as upset with someone who spewed Pak government propoganda). It's not going to help the Kashmiris, who are the most important people in this whole struggle.

"freedom of conscience for everyone in the subcontinent"-- this obviously doesn't include the Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley. Why can't you concede that Kashmiris, throughout their history, have never considered themselves Indian but Kashmiri. I notice (from the "Ladli" thread) that you also resent the fact that the population in the "Indian" Northeast also doesn't consider themselves Indian. Why does this threaten you so much? Why does the Indian state believe it needs to extend it's hegemony over populations that don't want to be part of it?

If we have learned anything from the creation of Bangladesh, it's that the powerful elements in a state (in this case the West Pakistanis) cannot oppress an entire population (the Bengalis) and except to keep them in the country by force. In the long term, military occupation is not the most effective strategy.

A good mentor will humble you and make you admit to yourself how little you know. That's the difference between a mentor and a huckster. One is actually intent on fostering your spiritual growth through self-examination. The other is intent on exploiting your vanity about being a precious little snowflake to win you over. Humility is the first step towards spiritual development and the obsession with the "self" is just a byproduct of the ego.

What I have suggested is that the proper role of the mentor is not to tell you what to think, but to help you come to understand what you think, what is most relevant for you, to work through things.

No, their real job is to tell you how to think. Letting you "understand" what you think basically toes the line between true philosophy and base sophistry. The truth doesn't just jump out at you and say "HERE I AM!" It conceals itself. This is the nature of maya.

What you're proposing is going to make people believe what they wish to be true rather than engage in the actually difficult work of unveiling the truth.

I agree with this.

I think what happened is that you saw the phrase "and Arjuna was afraid" and pretty much closed your mind at the suggestion that fear was used constructively. The fact is, however, that fear and awe are the only natural reactions one can have when they see infinity. It's the same feeling I got when I saw the Hubble Deep Field for the first time. What Krishna was doing was essentially taking Arjuna, who at that point was intent on sulking and navel-gazing, and slapping him across the face and telling him to pull himself together and look at the big picture.

Interesting. i disagree with your psychological analysis of my mind at age 21 when I read the Gita more thoroughly on my own - several times (10 years ago) - it wasn't a single phrase that threw me but the overall tone of the chapter. :) However, I can understand your response to this and appreciate that you've explained it to me in a way I can grasp.

Your summary pinpoints exactly what I have a problem with in this part of the model - people have different styles and perhaps a 'slapping him across the face' can be counterproductive in many contexts ;) As such, presenting this as a model for education - whether spiritual, moral, or otherwise, can present a problematic relationship to emotional and spiritual violence. If you have ever undergone the process of attempting to help someone understand something about themselves or the world that they do not at that moment understand (e.g. people who are lacking in confidence, suffer from depression, have been victims of abuse, or are routinely subordinated as part of their 'normal lives'), you would understand how deeply problematic it can be in many contexts. I could cite some developmental psychology stuff on the most fruitful attitudes in parenting being 'warm and demanding' but I assume that will be considered extraneous :)

I don't want you to think that this is all I believe krishna does in the text - I am aware that the bulk of the text is not devoted to an overwhelming conception of the divine and is instead more of what I would think of as more effective teaching methods. However, I have defended this interpretation of the point because I believe it constrasts with other texts. At minimum, the Gita could be reconstructed without the element of 'overwhelming fear' at all while still containing the same lessons. But that is a bare minimum.

A more relevant and interesting task might be to look over the enormous number of texts - including different versions of the Gita - that have been produced in various traditions that are labeled 'Hindu' today in South Asia and pick and choose other ones to prioritise than these. Haven't you ever wondered why it is that the Gita receives so much emphasis, much like the four specific books in the New Testament do, regardless of how much other writing or practice there is?

t's that the powerful elements in a state (in this case the West Pakistanis) cannot oppress an entire population (the Bengalis) and except to keep them in the country by forc

india goooood. pakistan baaaad.

Your summary pinpoints exactly what I have a problem with in this part of the model - people have different styles and perhaps a 'slapping him across the face' can be counterproductive in many contexts

He, being a warrior, needs to snap out of it and do his job. The talk about mentor/pupil relationships and domestic violence is a digression. If you don't like the "slap across the face" metaphor then go with "having cold water splashed on him" or "having smelling salts cracked under his nose." No meaning will be lost.

At minimum, the Gita could be reconstructed without the element of 'overwhelming fear' at all while still containing the same lessons. But that is a bare minimum.

t's that the powerful elements in a state (in this case the West Pakistanis) cannot oppress an entire population (the Bengalis) and except to keep them in the country by forc

india goooood. pakistan baaaad.

I think you have dialed a wrong number here tulsi.

I think you have dialed a wrong number here tulsi.

uh oh. sulabh had a compute failure :(

this obviously doesn't include the Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley.

Why can't you concede that Kashmiris, throughout their history, have never considered themselves Indian but Kashmiri

I notice (from the "Ladli" thread) that you also resent the fact that the population in the "Indian" Northeast also doesn't consider themselves Indian. Why does this threaten you so much?

Look at the European Union. Through unification of different linguistic and ethnic groups they are no more prosperous and secure than ever. Barriers to trade have dropped, thereby increasing commerce and wealth for everyone, and the prospect of another war like the two that took the lives of tens of millions of people now seems nearly impossible. All because the Europeans realized that what united them is greater than what divided them and they could benefit from setting aside the political power plays of demagogues, princes, and various other potentates and focus on making each other better off.

The logic of these linguistic, religious, and ethnocentric separatists as to why they are distinct isn't any sort of logic that couldn't be applied to any group within India. What it amounts to being is that one group of people in one state or another just decide that they are more important or more deserving of special privileges than the rest of India. They are asserting that they cannot live with and get along with people who don't think, speak, worship, and eat like them thereby undermining the unity within diversity upon which India as a nation and as a civilization were built. One state leaving makes it marginally more justifiable for another state to leave. And another. And another. Separatist sentiments undermine the cultural understanding that holds the Indian federation together.

Now take a look at the opposite case, the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into all the various Balkan states. This is the kind of situation separatism is trying to engender in India. Each linguistic group demands a separate state for itself, but surprise! The borders and lines don't break clearly. So minorities end up in each ethnic state, they don't have a commitment to making a diverse republic work so their rights are predictably trampled upon, and they are in perpetual conflict over land and resources.
So what have we seen in the Balkans over the past century have been wars, conflict, ethnic cleansing, and chronic economic underdevelopment. All of this eventually culminated in the complete subjugation of the Balkans to the Soviets. Because they couldn't get over their petty issues and hold together, the ultimate end was that they would be swallowed up by the Russian Empire for 50 years, not getting together again until Western Europe pressured that Empire into insolvency.

That's what you'll get with India too if separatist sentiments are stoked. A great nation will be reduced to a bunch of disparate, parochial, and increasingly barbaric tribes perpetually at war. And unlike the Balkans, India will have no Western Europe or American hegemony to intervene when China or some other overambitious totalitarian state decides it wants to subdue us. If you think Kashmiris have it bad being Indians, just talk to the Tibetans about how much sunshine and roses they get to see.

Correction: Through unification of different linguistic and ethnic groups they are now more prosperous and secure than ever.

Why can't you concede that Kashmiris, throughout their history, have never considered themselves Indian but Kashmiri. Why does the Indian state believe it needs to extend it's hegemony over populations that don't want to be part of it?

Let us say that your wish is granted, and Kashmir does go out of India. How are we Indians to react? Why should we not think that Hindu-Muslim unity is chimera, a thing that appeared only when the British dominance became oppressive, and disappeared when the British left? A chimera that appeared in Akbar's time because the economy boomed and disappeared in Aurgangazeb's time, when the economy was less strong? Why should we not change our Constitution to say that India will not be a home to Muslims? Why should we not change our history books to say that we only followed Gandhi in his fight against the British, that we never meant to follow Gandhi in his fight to establish Hindu-Muslim unity?

As a historian, what do you think is the basis for forming a nation? Can a nation be a nation with a lot of minorities in it? Let us imagine that all the Jews go back to Germany. Will Germany still be a nation? Or will Germany also have the problems that India has in Kashmir?

@228
For some reason, I can't copy highlighted text from the comments right now. But just to add to your first line about only Kashmiri Muslims want out--since the next counter argument will be that the majority of Kashmiri are Muslims, it's ever important to point out that even that is divided into groups. The Shi'a certainly are less likely to want out.

I was going to take you up on this offer, but actually, you can, get much more reasonable than this, bhai. Legally proven evidence in a court system is a function of a political and legal process. There are many things that people have come to believe given a preponderance of evidence outside the legal realm but that are not acknowledged by any legal system (as of yet). For example, to take an obvious case, Henry Kissinger is not in jail for war crimes.

There is a tendency to compare the post Godhra riots to every liberal cause. The shoe usually does not fit. Try a simple thought experiment.

Think what would be the reaction in the Muslim world if Muslim Malyasian families - men, women and children returning from the Haj, were stopped in Kuala Lumpur Airport and burnt to death by a Hindu Group.

And if all papers, followed it up by saying something on the lines that they were returning from the center of Wahbisim and that they provoked the Hindu crowd by praying and can be safely be considered terrorists, what would be the reaction of the moderates?

Would the reaction be non-violent? Would the moderates continue to respect the media? And even if they did, would this respect continue after the Media keeps reporting discredited, incorrect facts and figures repeatedly and keeps making comparisons of Non-Hindu parties to Nazi Germany?

To cut to the chase -- there is no denial here. There are however different angles. Sure, the response was one sided, by and large. The state govt did not clamp down, possibly deliberately, to the extent that they could have.

The majority of the people closest to the incident -- Gujaratis -- do not feel regret on the reactions. Gujaratis are not violent people by nature, nor do they consider themselves warriors. They saw a threat to their way of life, they saw bloodshed in response, considered the matter and made their decision, in 2002.

Sure this is an issue that provokes strong feelings. And yes, I have several caustic remarks in my head right now and have something to say with your choice of certain keywords. It is just that stating them will lead to paths we have go down several times before, and is not worth going there again in every topic. So since it does not add to the discussion, why insist on going there?

Why should we not think that Hindu-Muslim unity is chimera

I think you mean "Hindu-Muslim unity is an ephemera"...
You know, something that doesn't last very long?

Gujaratis are not violent people by nature

Not sure about that - one of the bloggers on this site is a Gujju that dude is pretty merciless when it comes to erasing comments.

TTCUSM:

I admit to being at the outer limit of my vocabulary here. However, this link suggests that one meaning of chimera is delusion.

de-lurker:

Does the Hindu-Muslim problems have a different impact on Shias, when compared with the Sunnis? Please de-lurk some more, and elaborate.

And yes, I have several caustic remarks in my head right now and have something to say with your choice of certain keywords.

well, you are a hindu wahabbist after all.

They are asserting that they cannot live with and get along with people who don't think, speak, worship, and eat like them thereby undermining the unity within diversity upon which India as a nation and as a civilization were built.

can we please stop with the hindutva bashing on this site?

It wasn't to intimidate, it is the same sort of fear/awe one experiences whenever they try to wrap their heads around the divine.

I am running out of steam. I'll try to wrap up on this topic, but I think we have a difference of opinion about what kinds of feelings the divine or the unknown should inspire. I believe it's extremely counterproductive for it to inspire fear or really any sense of being overwhelmed- particularly by a revered figure. I have a hunch that Krishna's case can and was made without that chapter being necessary.

Yes, but we're not dealing with all the many contexts. We are dealing with Arjuna being lost in a navel-gazing sulk on the eve of the greatest and most crucial battle in history.

The literal reading of story in the book is irrelevant for this- who is arjun to me or i to arjun? :) What is more relevant is reading it as an allegory by which the message(s) are being conveyed - and quite clearly from this discussion, these will differ by the person reading it (or hearing it) and even for the same person at different points.

for me the book has to be more than just a story about arjun and a battle - that would make it cartoonish. this is why external considerations to the book - i.e. the book in the world (for me, my social world) are relevant - things like how would the relationship between krishna and arjun model bewteen other mentor-mentee relationships or authority-follower relationships and who the people who might be reading it might be (there is no universal 'reader' - the reader has a gender, a sex, a sexuality, an age, a spiritual inclination of some kind or another, etc.). again - i'm reading it with different lenses - right now at the level of the text (translated, and in a particular version), another as a material text to be studied with a genealogy and social context, and a third as an allegorical message. There are other ways you can read it.

But again, I can't stress this enough - this is exactly one aspect of one chapter in the book that we've discussed. There are many other things in the book that are worth talking about (and that I'd rather talk about at this point, quite frankly). For example, the idea of duty as tied to maintaining a collective order is also worth discussing, as is the martial metaphor. Both have implications for the meaning of the book as well - if read a little more broadly and creatively. It has to fit, you know?

Firstly, thank you for the civil tone. I appreciate it, sincerely.

So since it does not add to the discussion, why insist on going there?

The reason I brought it up in this context is that a claim was made that a liberal Hindu right is emerging in India. My request was that those people who identify as such back up their claim to that sort of identity by taking a stand against the illiberal use of state, social, and political violence in the name of Hinduism (ongoing, by the way). There was then a challenge laid down to debate the facts of the issue, but the way that 'facts' were defined was problematic for what would constitute a fair debate, in my opinion.

Sure, the response was one sided, by and large. The state govt did not clamp down, possibly deliberately, to the extent that they could have.

I wish I heard this more often, and I am left wishing it went further. Whatever one thinks of Tehelka, Human Rights Watch, or the many other organisations and people that have mounted more evidence to the original violence and the subsequent continuing discrimination than most 'facts' require, this is surely a serious enough matter with enough substance behind it to warrant a real thorough introspective look by members of the Hindu right rather than condeming the organisations and people that raise the issue.

This is exactly what I would ask members of Bangladeshi civil society or the diaspora to do with regard to persecution of Hindus, Ahmadis, and others in Bangladesh or members of Pakistani civil society or its diaspora to do with regard to persecution of Hindus, Ahmadis, and others in Pakistan. It is what I push myself to do as an American and a person of Indian origin and as an ABCD and all else - and it's hard, and I fail (frequently), but that does't take away the need to do it - or the right of other people to call me on it when I'm not. It's in that vein that I raise the topic.

Separatist sentiments undermine the cultural understanding that holds the Indian federation together.

the other side of this argument is that it is not separatist sentiments that have undermined stability in states, but a failure in state capactiy and competence. Pakistan 1948-1956 is a very good example of both structural causes as well as what can be called -at best - poor statesmanship. At its formation, Pakistan had an enormous number of weak points for holding together west and east pakistan - starting with being separated by like a 1000 miles by India. But there were many missteps as well - for example, if, instead of saying 'urdu is the language of muslims in the subcontinent' within months of independence, jinnah and liaqat ali khan had come up with something like Fazlul huq proposed and put the bangla language into a persian script, it might have made a diffrerence. Or they could have come up with what was ultimately done by 1956 i think- which was to make bangla a state language. but by then, it had turned into something else, with the grievances having already been created. You can find similar examples in Sri Lanka of continuous state provocation or Indira gandhi's conduct in the punjab. In contrast, if you look at Canada's dealing with Quebec or Nehru's acquiescence of linguistic reorganisation int he 1950s, you see a very different outcome.

Granted, this is just one way to look at things and involves a lot more factors, but generally speaking, for a state to argue that a separatist region's claims are illegitimate and then try to forcibly suppress those claims is probably among the best ways to strengthen the separatist tendency.

But I don't pretend to understand kashmir because I don't understand what happens in border regions with separatism. I wish Kashmir's people would be able to have the power to come to a solution on their own, but it seems like the will of India and Pakistan is going to determine that :(

Yoga Fire, again Kashmir is not just another part of India (for example you brought up Andhra), Hari Singh only acceeded to the Indian Union with the guarantee that he would retain special status for his state. All subseqent agreements between Sheikh Abdullah and the central government conceded this special status. Also note, the Sheikh led the National Conference as opposed to the Muslim Conference (which favored accession to Pakistan). Abdullah believed in Nehru's secularism and in Kashmiriyat. It is only post 1989 that the whole conflict has taken on a religious character. Prior to that the Kashmiris were (largely nonviolently) asserting that they were a qaum-- a nation, not Indians or Pakistanis.

The right of self-determination is enshrined in the UN charter and the Declaration of Human Rights. Kashmir is also the oldest unresolved conflict at the UN. In my humble opinion as a Kashmiri (though 3 generations removed from the Valley), this is not an India-Pakistani issue, but a human rights issue. India and Pakistan have obligations to the Kashmiri people, who have been fighting to leave India for the last 60 + years. In all honesty, tell me how you would feel if your people (the Andrah-ites) wanted out of India and were being kept in the Union by force?

Does it now make sense why Kashmiris wave Pakistani flags and support Pakistan in cricket matches? They are doing it because this is what will upset India the most.

Kabir@239:

Can you state reasons why Kashmiris want to be independent of India? Is it primarily because their majority religion is different, or they believe they are a distinct ethnicity? Human rights violations committed by police/solidiers I understand, but wouldn't that decrease and vanish along with militancy? Do you believe there must be a strong basis for breaking countries apart, or should any subgroup within a country be allowed to secede as and when they define a separate identity for themselves?
Why is being part of India an imposition for Kashmiris (arguing with logic rather than emotion)? The Indian constitution guarantees freedom of worship, absolute non-discrimination, and a large degree of state autonomy (soem of this is in theory, but the constitution works, by and large). A Kashmiri could become the PM of India as well. In contrast to that, what would an independent Kashmir look like? I can't imagine it being anything apart from one that imposes Sharia rule upon its population; in effect, a less liberal state with less personal freedom for all its citizens. Being landlocked, it would be completely economically dependent on Pakistan (if it does not become part of Pakistan, that is). And India would have another hostile state on its borders.

No problem, Dr. A, I've got time to pass now anyways...

1.How do you know the intended meaning (of the entire corpus of hindu scriptures) if you have not had it properly interpreted for you? I think the issue here is that you are jumping the gun and saying that "it must be inapplicable to modern life, but just in case, I am going to deconstruct it into random social and political frameworks (under the guise of context) while missing the point entirely". It is called Sanatana Dharma (truth everlasting, i.e., irrespective of context) for a reason.

2. Regarding power, I think your naturally tendency to view matters through the lens of conflict theory is hindering your understanding. Yes, there are many distinct traditions, sects, and sampradhayas within hinduism; however, to use this as some type of basis for conflict and subsumption within hinduism is rather silly. Forest dwellers such as Valmiki rose to great spiritual heights and fame within hinduism irrespective of their place "outside" the varna system. To insist that hegemony and conflict must exist in all contexts and must drive all religious motivations is inappropriate given the catholic nature of hinduism, which you yourself concede. If you spend too much time insisting on deconstructing things in bad faith, it's only natural that you will not gain the necessary understanding.

3. "However, what I would suggest is that you are giving an individual interpretation with no more or less authority in terms of accuracy than I am giving, unless you would care to cite the methodological tradition by which you arrived at it. A proper study of this would require a genealogy, which, as I hinted at before, I am not capable of producing. Above all, though, it requires what I stated above - acknowledging that within the context of the desire for unity, differences in power and subsumed conflict can and often do exist. Until such time as I am presented with a sound approach that contradicts my own ideas, I'll continue to hold to my ideas or shape them as I see fit on the basis of my own efforts with likeminded people."

and that's the problem. you are so caught up deconstructing, you are not taking the time to understand. like I said before, I am not Vyasa, or a pandit, or an acharya. If you are that interested understanding the various traditions of hinduism, it is incumbent upon you to seek out the right teacher and seek in good faith. As yoga said, the truth doesn't just reveal itself. You have to pursue it on your own, with the intention of learning. Also, I think we're coming from different places with respect to our knowledge of hinduism--so no, I think there is a significant difference in the accuracy in this discussion as indicated by your statements about krishna versus brahman. Much of what you are calling for here is merely obfuscation in the place of understanding. A few intro to hinduism courses do not replace a life time of study.You are, as always, welcome to hold you "ideas" and opinions, but that does not mean they are anything approaching accurate.

4.

I would suggest that sticking to the tradition of 'intended' meanings, not examining the choice of texts which have been elevated as important (why is a section of the upanishad you mentioned not raised above as 'the' primary text of the Gita),

Because you are seeking to impose the western/christian experience on hinduism. Subsumption was a key feature of early christianity (and even modern evangelism if you see some of the megachurch practices in India wherein hindu and christian practices are intermingled to induce conversion), as seen with the Christmas and Easter. And battles on doctrine were often institutional, and were on the basis of power plays. However, that in no way explains why you are constantly seeking to replicate the western experience in hinduism. There is no pope in hinduism. There is no Temple of the Hindu faith seeking to impose a set doctrine at swordpoint or stakepoint. That is the problem and the reason why I keep telling you that your frameworks are irrelevant. Study the material on its own without constantly imposing irrelevant sociological or theological constructs from the familiar. The questioner matters as much as the questions. Received authority is important for both the technical and the spirit of the texts, and it is a choice only if you actually wish to understand rather than deconstruct and categorize the parts while losing the sum of the meaning.

5. Unity of purpose---Because that is the genius of the hindu oral text tradition. The vedas have been passed down unchanged. The additions to the various brahmanas and upanishads were all elaborations on the unchanged original philosophy passed down in the vedas. To me, there are many contemporary interpreters, especially on the "secular" left and far left (there's no true center), who are seeking greater conflict and discord than actually exist.

6.

What I have suggested is that the proper role of the mentor is not to tell you what to think, but to help you come to understand what you think, what is most relevant for you, to work through things. This, in fact, was one of my primary objections to the revelation of Krishna that left Arjun frightened (and delighted) - a good mentor will not make you feel beneath him/her.

I think yoga's point about humility is very relevant here. If you are looking for a mentor that makes you feel good about yourself, I'd suggest you join the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. Spirituality by its nature necessitates authority that is superior to you, just as a mother and father may guide a child and claim precedence. To say that an authority must be invalid because you don't like the notion of serving him/her is indicative of why you are having trouble with these very basic ideas within hinduism. Service and humility are at the core of spirituality. If you have no interest in discarding your ahankara and forgetting the self in the pursuit of brahman, that really means you have no real interest in spirituality beyond its fashionable currency. I don't mean to be so blunt, but these are really very elementary concepts and your point about good mentorship is rather silly. Just as a parent may often need to show his/her authority and scold a child, so too must a guru do the same on occasion--as Krishna did here with Arjuna. At other times, the guru may show love, just as a father or mother would to a child. You missed the key point where Arjuna recognizes how foolish he was to look upon Krishna as his mere friend, cousin, or charioteer, when really, Krishna is divine incarnate and his spiritual guide. Just as a guide is needed through the desert or jungle, so too is a guide needed to maneuver through maya and avoid the crocodiles of sin and sense, ego and evil so that you may reach the ultimate truth.

7. Regarding human agency, I think man must take responsibility for his own actions while having the humility to recognize that God is the ultimate arbiter of the fruits of his labor. “You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action, Never consider yourself the cause of your results your activities, and never be associated to not doing your duty”.

8." Shall I then fly to Gujarat and kill Modi? What is to stop a single person or a single group from determining, from their world view, what is relevantly moral to the point of killing? The answer, of course, is nothing - which is why social interchange is VITAL to moral conversation"

Funny how you keep skirting over buddhadeb bhattarcharya (nandigram), hafeez sayed, or the murderers who burnt the train at godhra. The problem with pure relativism is that you completely lose sense of when to act and when not. Modi is being investigated by the Supreme Court, which will then confirm the nature of his involvement in the riots of 2002, and he will have to answer for it as per the due process of the law. The real question you should be asking therefore is what is being done about the other two? You can't claim the moral high ground if you continually ignore the crimes of others as well. I still am saddened by your deafening silence on the 58--mostly women and children--who were murdered at Godhra. Considering the jholawalla line of going so far as to assign blame on these innocents for courting their own destruction by singing bhajans (just outrageous propaganda from so called secular humanists), I would think you would demonstrate the very humanity your are demanding of others in this matter. Or does your moral relativism prevent you from doing so?

9."this is an example of the kind of reinterpretaiton of texts that I was referring to. I am fairly certain that the message you have drawn from the enormous variety of texts you have just cited here was not the literal meaning in all instances."

Actually, it's not at all. If you actually took the time to read the very scriptures you claim to have read, you would have come upon these examples. Maitreyi is the second most important figure after Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka. That you could have even missed the centrality of her participation is demonstrative of the depth of your study. Satyakama Jabala was also a pivotal figure in the Chandogya Upanishad. Draupadi was a great tapasvini in her previous life--indeed it is her requested boon of having the perfect husband that resulted in her having 5 husbands in her next life as Panchali (since no man could ever be perfect ;) ). Anyhow, I'm sorry Dr.A, but it's not enough to skim read and then claim the authority to deconstruct and cry "revisionism and reinterpretation". You have to actually take the time to understanding the subject matter before you can even approach the state needed to appropriately analyze (whether from a spiritual or social science perspective). Like I said, I don't mean to be so blunt, but these are all very elementary aspects of the scriptures you claim to have read.

10.

I'm imperfect.

At this point, as you previously noted, I think enough has been said on this topic. I don't want to keep repeating myself in discussing your understanding because I do not wish to be rude. Do, however, post when you have thoroughly read some of Swami Vivekananda's works. I don't think there is or ever will be a more lucid communicator of the relevance, nature and beauty of hinduism than he.

Rama @ 240,

It has nothing to do with religion (or didn't for the longest time) but, as you've speculated,with ethnicity. Kashmiris are a distinct ethnicity, with their own history, language etc. Yet since the time of the Mughals they have been ruled by one foreign group or the other. Not hard to understand then the fervent demand for azadi (freedom).

As for what an independent Kashmir would look like, it does not inevitably have to be a Shariah state (I wouldn't support it if this was what it was absolutely going to turn out to be). I can't do better than refer you to this blog post by a Kashmiri student called "Charter for a free Kashmir".

http://bluekashmir.blogspot.com/2009/08/charter-for-free-kashmir.html

To anyone who is at all interested in finding a long-term workable solution to the Kashmir conflict, I would seriously recommend reading the Schofield book that I have referred to above. I have now finished it and have found it to be very thorough and non-partisan. It is also really clear and I feel accessible to the lay reader (though I am perhaps biased as an aspiring academic in the field of South Asian Studies). She also includes a comprehensive bibliography which provides further sources for research. However, keep in mind that it is now fairly out-of-date as it was published in 1996 and thus doesn't include the events of the last 13 years. Still it is useful as a general historical introduction to the dispute.

The full details of the book are as follows:

Kashmir in the Crossfire by Victoria Schofield published by I.B. Tauris.

Yajnavalkya, thank you for the courteous and honest response. As you can see from the tone of civility you have adopted here in telling me that I am too unschooled in the traditions and in knowledge, it is quite possible to do so without making someone feel beneath you. I raise this issue, as mentioned above, in terms of the role of 'modeling' relationships of various kinds through authoritative texts, not through a literal reading of the Gita which, as is mentioned, is not directly concerned with the proper role of mentorship.

How do you know the intended meaning (of the entire corpus of hindu scriptures) if you have not had it properly interpreted for you?

To cut to the chase: How do you know whether the entire corpus of hindu scriptures has an intended meaning? How do you discern what constitutes proper interpretation, and how do you determine who is in a position to offer it? This is the other side of the question you ask.

Regarding power, I think your naturally tendency to view matters through the lens of conflict theory is hindering your understanding. Yes, there are many distinct traditions, sects, and sampradhayas within hinduism; however, to use this as some type of basis for conflict and subsumption within hinduism is rather silly. Forest dwellers such as Valmiki rose to great spiritual heights and fame within hinduism irrespective of their place "outside" the varna system. To insist that hegemony and conflict must exist in all contexts and must drive all religious motivations is inappropriate given the catholic nature of hinduism, which you yourself concede. If you spend too much time insisting on deconstructing things in bad faith, it's only natural that you will not gain the necessary understanding.

This is not an accurate assessment of my worldview on power. Conflict is not the only aspect of how power functions - every day relations are conditioned by power, and power can be generative of identities, perceptions, and realities as well as inducing conflict. The point I was making is that, like brahman in Hinduism, for me, power is an all pervading force. You can call it the Late Foucault-Yoga.

On a historical basis and in the contemporary sense, the ideas that you have presented here about the nature of power in Hinduism as a social and not just theological entity are simply mistaken, as per documented scholarship and even basic observations about contemporary realities - e.g. the Ekal Vidyalayas and their role in Hinduizing people. To believe that there have never been power differentials in a corpus and practice that has been used to justify caste, among other things, read literally to attribute a division of labor to people (varna system), etc., is surely mistaken. Arjun himself is described as a scourge of his enemies and what is going on is a battle. Simply posing the idea of the varna system intrinsically speaks to notions of power that are inherent in the texts, and as we can see from observation, in the lives of people. This is particularly the case of politicised Hinduism which is.

If you are that interested understanding the various traditions of hinduism, it is incumbent upon you to seek out the right teacher and seek in good faith.

There are, in fact, multiple methods to seeking inner or outer truths. That is the point of the middle section of the Gita. Is it possible that there are other ways to go about it? Moreover, here I am speaking of a tradition of Hinduism (vaishnavite Krishna worship) that is not the one of my own upbringing (see: subsumation)- if you want to talk about the role of Durga, the giving of prasad, or why Calcuttans are intent on referring to the Hooghly as the Ganga (as am I, in bangla), then by all means, let us continue. However obliterating all disagreements to the meaning of texts or principles or how they can be used or interpreted serves no one any good. You are free to believe that I have a poor understanding of the conception of Hinduism you have on the basis of the methodology by which you achieved it and the manner in which that methodology developed; I am free to state that there are other methodologies and if Hinduism is not the right word for the conclusions and way of being I come to, then I am more willing to discard the word than to adopt a sensibility that is foreign to my own. This is a common trait among people in all faiths - the willingness to stray into heterodoxy and even hereticism in pursuit of one's own truth. However, I think Hinduism does not necessitate such a thing.

Spirituality by its nature necessitates authority that is superior to you, just as a mother and father may guide a child and claim precedence.

There are different readings of the Gita. Some stress its allegorical nature, as I have (e.g. see Gandhi). It is ironic that in the name of humility you would deny not just my reading or use of the text but fail to examine whether or not the text is actually a call for inner reflection with Krishna as the spiritual center. Is this what was meant by the text by the people who taught it to you? I assume not. Is it a viable interpretation? I don't see why not, particularly given that all human beings, including gurus, remain imperfect. (okay, almost all - and the ones we put in almost all are the ones we choose as gurus for our life paths). We are not children, and guidance for adults is different from guidance from children. It is probably more difficult in many ways.

Never consider yourself the cause of your results your activities, and never be associated to not doing your duty

There are many ways of interpreting this statements. Duty can be, and has been, stated in many different ways, from meeting your inner conscience, to meeting textually laid out duties, to meeting duties argued by practice, to meeting your alleged obligations under a varna system. What is common to all these is that they will appeal to and resonate with the inner conscience, in my experience, even if they do so reluctantly. If they don't, then that is not a spiritually inclined duty, but an external.

Funny how you keep skirting over buddhadeb bhattarcharya (nandigram), hafeez sayed, or the murderers who burnt the train at godhra.

It's not funny at all. It's a deliberate choice. I've commented on and fumed about Buddhadeb extensively on the blog I write on. I don't know who Hafeez Sayed is, and I don't comment on the Godhra incident because whatever the facts of the matter, it is often a rhetorical ploy to invoke it, so I ignore it. I have laid out the principle, however, on which I would judge these incidents in response to a previous comment of yours, and it was relatvistic only in the sense of understanding to a minimal degree the varying levels of social violence that exist in South Asia in assessing them. I have also articulated a principle of nonviolent communication above that would clearly implicate anyone involved in any of these incidents, though the extent and application of such a principle to these situations is, as I have said, undetermined for me in the case of Godhra and Hafeez Sayed.

Anyhow, I'm sorry Dr.A, but it's not enough to skim read and then claim the authority to deconstruct and cry "revisionism and reinterpretation". You have to actually take the time to understanding the subject matter before you can even approach the state needed to appropriately analyze (whether from a spiritual or social science perspective).

Here is the crux of the point and the disagreement between us - you argue that there is a fundamental unity to the texts. I focus on the existence of differenes among them. If you would like to disparage my level of knowledge about them, that's fine, but I think you are missing a fundamental point- 'unity' of message from disparate texts written over hundreds or thosuands of years in a variety of social contexts and in a place where there is still enormous fragmentation of cultures - is virtually impossible without excluding or subsuming large swathes of people. There is a real world process which occurred.

What you are missing is that are participating in it as well. In saying there is a unity, you are not just saying it, but you are seeking to impose it and describe it in a certain fashion- this is not an accusation but an observation of the continuing evolution of what constitutes 'Hinduism' in this space in this conversations. I find it ironic but not unpredictable that I am the one who is told that he is applying Abrahamic notions of religion when i am fairly peripheral to this debate and the interepretations of the hindu right frequently verge on constructing a notion of hinduism that does resemble an abrahamic faith (witness the emphasis on scripture), has built a huge network of people and organisatinos which - while more fluid than 'The Church', nonetheless exists and attempts to interpret Hinduism in a narrow way for the rest of us.

That's my piece. Thank you for the conversation and apologies for any shortness here - the topic is sensitive and work rules are being violated :)

Kashmiris are a distinct ethnicity, with their own history, language etc.

Really? I didn't think Kashmiris were any different ethnically than other Indians or Pakistanis for that matter. What do you mean distinct ethnicity? Are Malayalees distinct ethnic group? distinct as opposed to what?

Razib has talked about this as far as genetics, which I'll admit I don't know much of. But the gist of what he was saying was that according to studies there's very little difference between different Indian groups, except there are a few outliers? (is that the right word) such as Sindhis...I don't know where Kashmiris fit there. J. Nehru looked like a regular Indian to me, whether Muslim or Hindu or whatever. I wonder how much his Kashmiri cultural background, or distinct ethnicity had to do with his identity as an Indian?

A Kashmiri could become the PM of India as well.

Aren't the Nehrus Kashmiri?

Here's some info on Kashmiris - including the recent INdian dude, Cash and Carry as Manju likes to call him, who is the interim head of the department that handles the financial stabilization program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmiri_people

In all honesty, tell me how you would feel if your people (the Andrah-ites) wanted out of India and were being kept in the Union by force?

A Kashmiri could become the PM of India as well.

There have 3 prime ministers of India who were Kashmiris: Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi. The fourth one is waiitng in line.

Also, some of the major power-brokers in Indian establishment since 1947 have been Kasmmiris, including top-level civil servants.

That is true that most of them are Hindus, with only Abdullah family not being one (some of their family members are Europeans, Sikhs and Hinuds)

I'd be pretty angry. . . at the Telugu people for being so parochial that they would try to break the union.

Servility is the highest form of patriotism.

@ PS (245),

Maybe ethnicity is the wrong word. How about nationality? The point is that the Kashmiris don't identify as Indian or as Pakistani, but as Kashmiri. Abduallah used the word qaum on purpose. A lot of Kashmiris feel that rule from Delhi is just the latest in the foreign powers who have occupied them: The Mughals, the Afghans, the Sikhs, the Dogra dynesty, and now Delhi.

The point is that you can't force someone to identify with you. You can give them incentives and try to make them feel that they are better off with you, but if they're not convinced, you may have to consider letting them go. How long can a military occupation last?

#239: Does it now make sense why Kashmiris wave Pakistani flags and support Pakistan in cricket matches? They are doing it because this is what will upset India the most.

Do the people in POK do anything similar ? Wave Indian flags or some such to upset Pakistanis ? Have any of them made common cause with Indian security agencies to blow up Pakistani civilians ?

Frankly from an Indian vantage, they seem to mean exactly how it appears - we want to be one with our Pakistani brethren and we will use their help to hurt you any way we can. I agree this may not be the only voice of Kashmir separatism.

First of let's please not call it "POK". I have refrained from calling the Valley "occupied Kashmir", like a lot of Pakistanis do. This is not conducive to discussion. We can either call it Pakistan-Administered Kashmir (like the NYT or BBC do) or Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which is it's official name.

Now to answer your question, as far as I know, the people of AJK have not started a movement comparable to that in the Valley. This could be either because they want to be part of Pakistan or because Pakistan at least technically supports the Kashmiri right to self-determination. This is why Pakistan has not offically made AJK a province of the country. Instead AJK has it's own PM and President.

Kabir,
Thank you for an honest answer to my question, but I cannot completely agree with you about Kashmiris being a distinct ethnicity. Their ethnicity (and language) is as different from the rest of the Indians (and most Pakistanis) as that of Bengalis and Malayalees. Throughout the centuries, "India" has always referred to a distinct cultural and economic unit. Do you have any evidence to suggest that say, Kashmiris were influenced more by Central Asia than by India, or their economy was more tied to Central Asia than to the Indian subcontinent? My reading of history suggests the opposite. Also, Kashmir itself is as ethnically diverse as India, if you include Ladakh, Gilgit, Aksai Chin, etc.
Did Kashmiris suffer under (foreign) Mughal and Afghan rule (mostly based in Delhi)? Sure, but I would bet that most Delhiites considered Mughal rule (at least the earlier Mughals) to be foreign occupation.
I agree that indefinite military occupation is not a good or a just status quo, both for the occupier and the occupied. Yet, assume that militancy stops some day in the not too distant future . Military occupation would likewise wind down. (I know, it sounds utopian, but let's say that happens). Would you be happy with "distinct ethnicity" as a sufficient rationale for Kashmiri independence? As I mentioned before, it is perfectly possible to live a dignified life (both personally and within one's community) and retain one's culture under the Indian constitution.
Anyway, I don't think we are going to reach an agreement on an issue that involves as much emotion as logic.

To anyone who is at all interested in finding a long-term workable solution to the Kashmir conflict

Isn't nationality itself is an outdated concept? (Started mostly by Europeans and they themselves have given it up and made EU). I believe that Kashmir will do better as an Indian state than falling into the flames of radical Islam like Pak, Afghanistan..
Sentiments apart, India cannot afford to lose Kashmir because of its strategic importance
1. It is a high ground (Anyone even without reading 'The Art of War' would know the importance of a high ground)
2. Rivers, there will be water wars in future and India cannot let that territory controlled by others

In India's interest the way forward would be make Kashmir less Kashmiri by creating conducive environment for people from other parts of India to migrate to Kashmir. The same way China is doing with the Tibet by encouraging the Hun Chinese to migrate to Tibet. I don't tell it is the best way but it serves the interest of majority.
Peace!

Dr. A,

1. I am not the dictator of proper interpretation. Acharyas and Pandits classically schooled in all these texts are. I am simply relaying to you what I have learned from them. They are in the proper position to offer direct interpretation, not you or I. Am I saying hinduism is somehow unitary--no, there is a great tradition of philosophical debate or vadana in hinduism (Adi Shankara debating Mandana Mishra--Mishra's wife was the moderator--being the most famous). That said, while there may be numerous opinions on the meaning of life or different commentaries on the Vedas, that doesn't mean there can't be an absolutely wrong interpretation--yours here is just such an example.

2. You continue to raise hackles at how you felt Krishna was speaking as though you were beneath him and that was a turn off. But assemble any one of the quotes of Christ (whom I admire but am just juxtaposing for argument's sake) and one can feel the same way. Regardless of how academically accomplished you may be, these people/divinities are spiritually superior to us. That is why if you are truly concerned with spiritual enlightenment you must cast aside ahankar. If Buddhist monks can worship at the feet of Sakyamuni, I see no reason for you to run aghast at bowing before Krishna or any other spiritual master/divinity. Your mentorship point is a rhetorical cul de sac

3. Regarding power--that's the problem, whether its conflict or political theory you are still obsessed with deconstructing something of which you obviously have limited understanding. That's the point--first master the material before you start critiquing it and stuffing it into inapplicable frameworks.

4.

To believe that there have never been power differentials in a corpus and practice that has been used to justify caste, among other things, read literally to attribute a division of labor to people (varna system), etc., is surely mistaken. Arjun himself is described as a scourge of his enemies and what is going on is a battle.

Of course there are power differentials in any society at any given time, and naturally they will be reflected or often even justified in religious texts. Remember, the Bible has been used to justify both slavery and freedom and awful and cruel inquisitions (even in India--see the Goan inquisition instituted by the Portuguese). The church actively permitted and encouraged class differentials and used its power to declare the divine right of kings. That does not mean one should not dig deeper into the Bible to find its true message on how to live a good and decent life as Christ and his early followers intended. The same applies with hindu religious texts. This is a moot point.

5.

There are, in fact, multiple methods to seeking inner or outer truths. That is the point of the middle section of the Gita. Is it possible that there are other ways to go about it?

The Gita discusses spiritual enlightenment, not academic minutia of "hinduism and hindutva in the post-pokhran era". The latter you can seek on your own, but even the most spiritually aware, such as Swami Vivekananda, recognized the need for their own gurus in order to attain enlightenment themselves.

6.

You are free to believe that I have a poor understanding of the conception of Hinduism you have on the basis of the methodology by which you achieved it and the manner in which that methodology developed; I am free to state that there are other methodologies and if Hinduism is not the right word for the conclusions and way of being I come to, then I am more willing to discard the word than to adopt a sensibility that is foreign to my own. This is a common trait among people in all faiths - the willingness to stray into heterodoxy and even hereticism in pursuit of one's own truth. However, I think Hinduism does not necessitate such a thing.

Actually, your level of understanding became apparent when you professed an unfamiliarity with Maitreyi and Satyakama and declared that the tradition of tapasvinis and yoginis were just hindutva propaganda--a blatant falsehood to even most communist of indologists. Accordingly, just because you might find the proper interpretation of hindu texts to be restrictive does not mean that hinduism forbids you from finding your own way. One can be an atheist, a polytheist, a monotheist and monist and still be a hindu. Remember there were nastika schools that rejected the authority of the Vedas as well.

7.

There are different readings of the Gita. Some stress its allegorical nature, as I have (e.g. see Gandhi). It is ironic that in the name of humility you would deny not just my reading or use of the text but fail to examine whether or not the text is actually a call for inner reflection with Krishna as the spiritual center. Is this what was meant by the text by the people who taught it to you? I assume not. Is it a viable interpretation? I don't see why not, particularly given that all human beings, including gurus, remain imperfect. (okay, almost all - and the ones we put in almost all are the ones we choose as gurus for our life paths)

My remarks about humility were due to the fact that you remain convinced of your own interpretation and qualification to deconstruct hinduism in spite of the fact that you remain bereft of a basic understanding of key vedic philosophical principles. You are free to interpret things as you like, but just recognize that you should have the necessary understanding and training before you start using your interpretations to push a debate point as you did above. Your points about subsumption of brahman by Krishna were again amateurish and emblematic of an elementary lack of understanding--and I say this in the most humble tone as possible. As for gurus and perfection--a true shishya has the humility to not chasten his guru on imperfection, seeing as in many cases his master truly is spiritually enlightened, and by definition then, is perfect since he has attained self-realization. Like I said, if having a guru is not your thing, no problem, but have the humility to recognize that you might need some formal classical training to even have an iota of the proper understanding of these texts.

8.

It's not funny at all. It's a deliberate choice. I've commented on and fumed about Buddhadeb extensively on the blog I write on. I don't know who Hafeez Sayed is, and I don't comment on the Godhra incident because whatever the facts of the matter, it is often a rhetorical ploy to invoke it, so I ignore it.

Actually, it's emblematic of the same double standards that the PC brigade has employed elsewhere. Without Godhra, there would be no "Gujarat". In the name of humanity you exhorted the so-called emerging liberal bjp'ers to condemn modi and his alleged involvement in gujarat upthread, yet here you are, unable to even utter a word of sympathy for the innocent hindu women and children who were burnt to death or condemn the communal mob that sparked the riots. I am sorry Dr. A, but you have no leg to stand on now, considering even the most vehement BJP supporters who comment here expressed genuine sympathy for ALL the victims of the Gujarat riots and decried religious violence in ALL forms. On the basis of your own standards, your self-declared and oft-trumpeted moral authority has collapsed. In the name of politics, you have rejected your shared humanity with these innocents. I have been polite until now, but that's really shameful...Also, if you truly are as in tune with Indian politics as you profess to be, you really should know who the mass-murderer hafeez sayed is, especially after the events of last november.

9.

I find it ironic but not unpredictable that I am the one who is told that he is applying Abrahamic notions of religion when i am fairly peripheral to this debate and the interepretations of the hindu right frequently verge on constructing a notion of hinduism that does resemble an abrahamic faith

Your comments in your previous post speak for themselves. You specifically discussed catholic doctrine being linked to institutional church power plays and then assumed similar behavior in hinduism--sorry, but you remain guilty as charged. As for the latter part of your comment, again, you are generalizing without understanding. I am not affiliated with anyone who is attempting to abrahamize the hindu tradition and have obviously not done so myself--which is why i said you can be an atheist, a polytheist, etc and still be a hindu (something avowedly un-abrahamic almost by definition). I think you are just attempting to erect the strawmen you wish to tear down...

Ultimately, here's the deal, Dr. A. You have to decide whether you want to properly understand these texts or continue to sharpen your debate sword against hinduism, because you can't do both. Right now, it's apparent that you aren't willing to study these in good faith, but prefer develop theories of conflict (i.e. Krishna v Brahman etc, etc) where none exist. To do the former and be prepared to engage in cogent and honest discussion you must seek out your betters (proper vedic and pauranic scholars) and learn from them. Otherwise, you are welcome to do the latter and keep doing whatever it is that you are doing. I'm not saying the hindu tradition or the Gita can't bear you scrutiny (they most certainly can), I am just saying you at the very least need to do the one before you can do the other; otherwise, you are not attempting to learn or even discuss in good faith for that matter...

Remember there were nastika schools that rejected the authority of the Vedas as well.

can you point to writings from hindu scholars about the carvaka school in a positive light? i only know of the carvaka school from historical writings by hindu scholars dissing it left and right, and nothing positive seems to have survived afaik. but i could be wrong...

The Arthashastra is probably the most readily available text that had a fairly favorable view on Carvaka/Lokayata--Kautilya being the skeptic pragmatist that he was; however, the bulk of the text is naturally focused on statecraft. The original barhaspatya sutras were lost, which might also explain why most of what is out there is negative commentary against lokayata. Interestingly, Richard Dawkins followers have taken to the study of lokayata, no doubt expedient for their goal...either way, a quick google search should give you some good origin of carvaka books.

##253: Kabir, I apologize if POK offends you. I have no particular sensitivity to the use of IOK or any other name/term anyone wishes to use so long as it is clear what it is that is being referred to.

You say AK is not a province of Pakistan. How then do Pakistani PMs dismiss AK governments and detain their heads ?

Your scepticism towards Indian claims to Kashmir is commendable. It sits oddly with the somewhat uncritical acceptance of what is happening on the other side of the LOC. What do you think, for instance, of the separation and annexation of the Northern Territories (out of Kashmir) and the gifting away of part of it to China ?

@Rama (254). Maybe ethnicity was the wrong word, but the Kashmiris definitely feel themselves to be a different nationality (qaum was Sheikh Abdullah's word). I agree with you that it is possible to live a decent life and retain one's culture under the Indian Constitution, but the issue is that a majority of Kashmiris first have to democratically agree that they want to live under this Constitution. The whole debate about J and K's status as "disputed territory" revolves around the argument that the whole population--on the Pakistani and Indian sides has never been given the chance to do this.

@Akash (255). I don't think making Kashmir less Kashmiri is a good idea. What China is doing in Tibet is not right either. The Tibetans like the Kashmiris have the right to self-determination.

@ Wunderbar (259). AJK is technically not a province of Pakistan. This is Pakistan's concession to the status of the whole former princely state as disputed territory. I agree that de facto "Azad" Kashmir is part of Pakistan.

Regarding the Northern Areas (or to give the area it's proper name "Gilgit-Baltistan), according to the Schofield book I referred to above, this area had rebelled against Hari Singh and declared themselves the independent republic of "Gilgit Astore". Also Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar, were independent kingdoms annexed by the Dogras. Thus, it's debatable whether this territory is actually even part of Kashmir. In any case, most inhabitants of the Northern Areas want to become full Pakistani citizens and not have any special status at all. Unfortunately, because of the association of the NA with J &K, Pakistan can't do this at the present time. Thus, the population of this area has no representation in the National Assembly and can't vote for President or Prime Minister of Pakistan, the country that the are de facto part of. This I think is a travesty.

Re: the sale to China. I think Pakistan had no business selling any part of a disputed territory to anyone. So you see, I am not uncritical of events on one side of the LOC while being critical of the other (India).

@kabir (260)
Your sense of lack of integrity is really astonishing me. How can one think that one community or ethinicity or “anything for that matter” can form a separate nation or country because they feel that they are totally different from the rest? Don’t you think that is wrong? How many countries in this world are surviving like that? Why don’t you look at EU(esp Yugoslavia) , Arab nations and central Asian countries. As far as my wisdom is concerned I have always believed in “unity in Diversity” which I consider as a divine quote.

Do you really think Kosovo can survive? Do you think Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro can hold their identities and coexist peacefully. If you really think they can then here is some wisdom for you. Take the example of Germany during word wars 1 and 2. They have suffered heavily from identity crisis which caused them to express themselves through Nazi party. These identity clashes are there since the beginning of Human existence. Now Europe has realized that it’s only through integrity that any nation or continent can survive. One has to realize by now that having a separate nation in not at all a viable solution, not only for them but for surrounding nations too.

That’s why Bharat (India) is a leading example in this world for many such issues. India is a live example for it. Even though there are problems here and there, they are very self-adjusting in nature. If you look at the divisive politics done by many politicians in India it is only because they have no Knowledge or they don’t know what they are talking.