The beauteous descriptions of Ayodhya in the pages of Sri Valmiki Ramayana, surpass just the external charm of a vibrant city; Valmiki Rishi speaks in great detail of the inner beauty of the citizens and rulers. For example, one of Dasaratha Maharaj’s ministers, the great Jabali, states, “ yajnasva, dehi, diskhasva, tapstpyasva, santajya” or “perform yagna (atma samarpana), give charity, take diksha (resolve for some regular sadhana), do tapasya and have dedication”. (Ayodhya kanda 108-16) Therefore, followers of Sanatana Dharma hope to see that the Sri Rama Janmabhumi temple will spread not only the glories of the external temple, but the real culture of Ayodhya outside the borders of Ayodhya, to all over Bharata, and beyond.

Sri Rama and Sri Krishna are the heartbeat of every Indian – even if some heartbeats beat on a rhythm of hate, most follow a tempo of love and affection. Let the heartbeat of every Indian pulse with positivity for the emergence of this long overdue temple; let everyone study Sri Ramayana for enlightenment, entertainment and transformation of their physical and spiritual realities.

Ayodhya literally translates to, “the place which cannot be fought”, or “invincible”. Thus it is certain that the physical geographical location of Ayodhya will emerge evermore glorious, yet we should also remember that the spiritual “Ayodhya” in the hearts of those that place Sri Rama as their ruler, also has to grow much deeper. The light of Sri Rama glowing deep within everyone’s spirit, signifies His coming back from vanvas to celebrate Deepavali. That lamp is in the form of the awakened heart that makes a conscious effort to practice the essential five principle policy of Ayodhya – atma samarpana, dehi, diskhasva, tapstpyasva, and santajya.

Let us joyfully celebrate the ground breaking ceremony for the emerging temple in Ayodhya, while also sincerely resolving to celebrate the vital teachings of our beloved Sri Rama so that the real Rama Rajya can be established in everyone’s heart.

Jai SitaRama!!
Jai Ayodhya!!

The post Ayodhya, Sri Rama and Us appeared first on Dharma Today.

There is ample historical evidence that the Dalits “the Untouchables” were themselves a creation of the Anglican Colonialists of the Church of England –

Legalizing The Caste Conspiracy

The castes and tribes “notified” under the 1871 Act were labelled as Criminal Tribes for their so-called “criminal tendencies”. As a result, anyone born in these communities across the country was presumed a “born criminal”, irrespective of their criminal precedents. This gave the police sweeping powers to arrest them, control them, and monitor their movements. Once a tribe was officially notified, its members had no recourse to repeal such notices under the judicial system. From then on, their movements were monitored through a system of compulsory registration and passes, which specified where the holders could travel and reside, and district magistrates were required to maintain records of all such people. However, when they tried to make a living like everybody else, they did not find work outside the settlement because of public prejudice and ostracisation and this has continued to this day. The British rulers enforced this law for almost 100 years, with the determination, meticulous attention to detail and diligence which has become the hallmark of “Britishness” with vast numbers being removed from their ancestral communities and culture and being marginalised in society, on the outskirts of towns and villages. Madras alone saw 273 tribes being grouped as criminal in one fell swoop of the British Legislators pen. When India gained freedom from the British in 1947, thirteen million people in 127 “criminal by birth” communities faced search and arrest if any member of the group was found outside the area prescribed to them, by Anglicans. 

This was the genesis of the Dalit or ‘untouchable’. This masterfully destructive British legislation of 1871, precisely like the Lord Harries’ amendment, was posed widely as a social reform measure, which reformed ‘by-birth criminals’ through work. The Colonial racist agents of the Church of England created the Untouchable Caste and today wring their hands in shared compassion and solidarity with the self-same ‘Dalits’, supporting them in their hour of need, against the terrible wrongs done to them by those ‘demonic Brahmins’, those educated Hindus who had the temerity to challenge the predator priests of the Church of England, then and now.

The Tribes that challenged the British with physical force and were crushed to become the downtrodden, the Brahmins challenged the Anglicans with knowledge and were vilified and denigrated and portrayed globally, as the oppressors of the Dalits, “divide et impera”… divide and rule.

It beggars belief that decades later we are still hearing the same reasoning from such luminaries as Lord Harries, and yet almost all of the British establishment are quite happy to accept without scrutiny, the reasonableness of what is being proposed. This implies that even today it’s perfectly natural to assume that such reasoning only applies to “brown non-Christian folk”. If “criminal-by- birth” were universally applicable the present day descendants of the Slave Traders and Colonialists, almost all of European “nobility” and certainly the Bishops of the Upper Chamber, are guilty of crimes against humanity on such a scale that whole continents would have to be converted into prisons to contain all of them.

The horrors inflicted upon Hindus by the strategies and social experimentation of the Anglican invaders were so grave that when Emily Eden arrived in India accompanying another agent of cultural genocide, Lord Auckland, she wrote back to her relatives in England “I wonder how we are allowed to keep this country a week …. Why don’t they cut all our heads off and say nothing about it?”

The answer to the question “who created the “Dalits/Untouchables” is that the radical Anglicans  of the British Raj created the Dalits/Untouchables with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. The Church of England is responsible for this crime against humanity and to be held accountable. 

Caste & the Creation of a Hinduphobic Hate Brand

The Right Honourable Lords further ignored the manner in which the evangelical Church has carefully and diligently developed the word “Caste” into the global, ultimate anti-Hindu, Hinduphobic brand, the use of which can be relied upon to instantaneously trigger Hinduphobia – it was crafted with this purpose in mind by Anglican missionaries and is knowingly and unknowingly leveraged by them to this day. It is now a trigger word, a word which can, like ‘nigger’, ‘paki’, ‘chink’ and ‘wog’ before it, be relied upon with Pavlovian predictability, to create feelings of contempt for all things non-white, foreign, Hindu or Indian, so much so that like all advertising brands the faculties of thought, reason and the need for supporting evidence, are not even considered necessary or even relevant.

As evidence of this pinnacle of the achievements of the Anglican clergy, I submit the following incident which occurred as recently as 29^th May 2016 and which was broadcast upon the BBC’s national television channel BBC1 and in which I was participating as a Hindu representative. The subject of this TV programme was “Did Man Create God?” and as one can rightly assume, Caste has no relevance and should never even have entered the course of the dialogue. The reality was however starkly different; when I was receiving a degree of audience support for the Hindu view, the host Nicky Campbell true to his no doubt unconscious conditioning, immediately interjected “But you Hindus have the Caste system”… again the principle of the Pavlovian dogs at work, because as everyone knows, “Hindu” automatically equates with Caste. Unconscious conditioning is the most favoured weapon of the supremacist racist and I could almost hear the Bishops in their gilded Palaces clapping their hands with delight.

The fundamentalists of the Anglican tradition are at this very instant, fully engaged in grooming and radicalising the least educated and most vulnerable, sowing discord and creating an “army of the discontented” in India and now it would seem, here in the Britain of the 21st Century.

Archbishop Justin Welby trumpeted his desire to concentrate upon Evangelism, which to non- Anglicans means “grooming in preparation for radicalisation”. The most despicable but wholly critical and vital aspect of this strategy, includes repeatedly blaming the “high castes” for the poverty in India, ignoring all of the evidence which indicates that over 240 TRILLION POUNDS of wealth was siphoned out of India during the heady days of the Anglican jihad.

It should be further noted that the maximum number of conversions has been amongst the least educated and least knowledgeable and also the most innocent and most vulnerable and these are the peoples who are even today being groomed and radicalised by the Christian proselytisers in India’s hospitals and schools and other places where vulnerable desperate souls can be coerced and converted. Even a cursory inspection reveals the favoured strategy of the plunderer at work – “Divide et Impera”, divide and rule, in full flow and being sustained by the present day Church of England.

There is one key fact which the Hinduphobic manipulators of Lambeth Palace rapidly skip, hoping that no one will ever ask: What is the metric by which a Hindu was classified as high caste or low caste? It wasn’t money, the Brahmins were always traditionally poor having taken a vow of simplicity. It wasn’t political power or land because when the Anglican plunderers arrived in India, two thirds of the country was ruled by Shudra kings and Queens. So what metric was used to denote whether a person was “High” or “Low”?

There is only one metric which applies consistently to every occurrence of “caste measurement” and that is simply this – the threat level to the Church of England. The educated spiritual priests and intellectuals were all banded together into one and labelled ‘highest caste’ because they represented the ‘highest threat’ to Anglican domination and those who represented the ‘lowest threat’ to the Anglican jihadis were pushed into the ‘lowest caste’. It then became a simple task of applying the weapon of cultural genocide ‘divide et impera’  and the rest, as they say is history.

The Colonialist Anglicans having built their religious empire in Britain by leveraging physical force and fear, found in India religious ideas which, if shared with their flock, would reveal the shallow emotional and intellectual manipulation of the Church’s ideology. They discovered, like thousands of pilgrims to India before them, teachings and wisdom which celebrated and elevated humanity as inherently and intrinsically, divine and not sinful. They found concepts which applauded exuberant human creativity and ingenuity and which above all, worshipped as divine, the human sibling faculties of ‘Jnana’ and ‘Bhakti’, reason and devotion, in a unique union, a wholeness of blissful tranquillity, a natural state called Yoga.

The late Huh Shih, nationalist scholar, diplomat and one of the legendary leaders of Chinese thought, in a paper presented at the Harvard Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Science in 1936, made a fundamental observation on India’s contribution to the evolution of Chinese civilisation.

 “India”, argued Huh, “conquered and dominated China culturally for two thousand years without ever having to send a single soldier across the border. Never before had China seen a religion so rich in imagery, so beautiful and captivating in ritualism and so bold in cosmological and metaphysical speculations. Like a poor beggar suddenly halting before a magnificent storehouse of precious stones of dazzling brilliancy and splendor, China was overwhelmed, baffled and overjoyed. She begged and borrowed freely from this munificent giver. China’s indebtedness to India can never be fully told.”

Fearing a similar fate, the Anglican Church fathers however adopted a pathology most akin to cancer, they attacked the physical, spiritual, academic and linguistic organs of the civilization, with a level of meticulous determination, which if applied to learning with love and honesty, would have seen a global evolutionary leap of all of humanity, but the price to be paid, being the death and possible resurrection of the Church of Empire, was deemed too high. Seeing this dire threat to their multi- national, transgenerational religious “Ponzi” scheme, they set about the deconstruction of the very being of India and chose a path of destruction of the best of all things human.

The Shame by the Lords of Britain

Sustained denigration of all Hindu scholars, priests and educated families and guilds was as critical to the success of this cancerous assault as was undermining the Dharmic teachings themselves and Anglican scholars did this by deliberately conflating and mistranslating texts that had been unchanged for over 4 thousand years. Suddenly the fluid, supportive empowering social structures which had created the greatest, most harmonious and unwarlike civilisation, were gleefully misrepresented as vehicles for social injustice, sustainers of discrimination and oppression.

Within a hundred years of Anglican domination, millions of Hindus had died of famine and poverty and her economic infrastructure had been all but dismantled, converted into a resource extraction process of unyielding torture, horror and genocide. As computed by Brooks Adams in the 57 years from 1783 the Anglican pirates extorted or simply stole between 2.5 Billion and 5 Billion US Dollars out of India. Indeed records show that Robert Clive, the Anglican 1st Baron of Plassey sent 4 million dollars of plunder to Calcutta in one shipment alone, remarking “When I think of the marvellous riches of that country, and the comparatively small part which I took away, I am astonished at my own moderation.” One can’t help recalling Lord Debens’ remarks about traditional British values. 

The inherently fluid and naturally life-embracing wisdom of Varna, Jati, and Kul were deliberately and maliciously transmuted into clinically corrosive Caste and the cultural and religious deconstruction of the oldest living indigenous civilisation, the last remaining threat to global domination of the Church of Empire, began. In Lord Harries’s amendment, it continues unabated, even today.

Caste, Varna, Jati & Kul

As to ‘Caste’ – It first appears in mid-16th century Europe (in the general sense of ‘race, breed’): from the Spanish and Portuguese casta ‘lineage, race, breed’, feminine of casto ‘pure, unmixed’, from Latin castus ‘chaste’. Modern day Caste is defined as having three attributes – “hierarchical, endogamous & hereditary”, and was the word describing the Portuguese and European social structure of Pope/Cardinals, Aristocracy, Merchants and ‘Peasants’. There is no equivalent word or concept in the Hindu Scriptures and no identical structure either recorded or promoted in Hindu Scriptures.

As to ‘Varna’ – This is a Sanskrit word which means “type, order, colour or class.” It more precisely means “variations/variety, choice from a varied selection.” As in Varmala – the Garland of choice used by a Hindu Princess at her SwayamVar (“self choice”) to declare to all her chosen suitor, the Varnmala ie the alphabet – a garland of variations ie different sounds. Var like so many Sanskrit roots has found its way into English as in variation and variety.

In the context of the often misquoted core Hindu Scripture the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krshna says “I have created 4 variations of person – the intellectual, the warrior, the trader and the labourer”. There is no connection in the verse quoted with birth, no mention of hierarchy and no connection with endogamy. Indeed there are verses clearly denying the hereditary and hierarchical claims. Varna clearly does not mean a hereditary, hierarchical, endogamous social structure which is what the word “caste” means.

Historically, in India, just as in any nation anywhere in the world throughout history, sons and daughters followed in the footsteps of their fathers and a whole community was dedicated to single professions, preserving and refining the knowledge capital of a civilisation. But this is a universal social phenomena, whether it is the coal miners of America’s Appalachian mountains or the cattle ranchers of Africa’s nomadic tribes. There is also social injustice along these class/guild lines in many different countries not to mention the fault lines between Celtic and Rangers, Catholics and Protestants and so on. But the Anglican British social engineers, by their own admission, were largely responsible for the deliberate transmutation, stratification and ossification of the Caste system in India, as we have it today.

Does social injustice that falls along class lines exist in India? Of course, as it does in Great Britain and in the US, where they have a prison population of 85% black men, yet no one places this problem at the feet of Christianity, even though a clear connection can be made to certain verses in the Bible, slavery and even current day race relations in many countries. The Rockefellers and Lords of London are not dining with the janitors of London while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Unlike the case of India and Hindus, no one ascribes this social injustice to a religion. The Lords are not troubled by the horrific racism statistics propelling America’s #BlackLivesMatter initiative and yet the mission of elevating the British Hindus out of their backward ways, like a lodestone drawing iron filings, perennially draws all of their attention – and we are asked to believe that it has nothing to do with conversion.

“ No aspect of Indian society is as poorly understood as its social organization. The caste system, as described in Indian textbooks, is a creation of the anthropologists and sociologists of the nineteenth century who were then studying the bewildering complexity of Indian society. The informants of these social scientists used the theories of the archaic Dharma Sastras to fit the communities in a four-varna model. Although such classification was wrong, it has been used by generations of Indologists and filtering into popular books it has, by endless repetition, received a certain validity and authority. In an example of reality being fashioned in the image of a simulacrum, many Indians have started believing in the enduring truth of the classification (Subhash Kak,1994)”

Caste as a concept and practice and social cancer is purely and exclusively a European creation, and has no roots nor support an any Hindu ideology. The Church of England is both responsible and accountable.

Conclusion

It should now be clear that by entrenching a falsified concept of Caste into Law, the Church of England sought to protect its centuries old anti-Hindu branding project. The “divide and rule” policy being so skilfully executed to separate and maintain distance between Dharmic communities along the lines of Caste required the concept of Caste to be enshrined in law. This would allowing Christian Clergy the world over to leverage the concept as a platform from which to denigrate the oldest most tranquil spiritual tradition in the world, thereby facilitating “easy conversionary pickings” year after year, generation after generation.

It’s also self-evident that only in a world where Dharmic ideals are providing guidance (as was the case in pre-Abrahamic days) can intercultural harmony exist. We must recognise that

• none are deemed sinners at birth,

• none claim exclusive entry to higher realms of consciousness,

• no theocracy is required for humanity to exist according to our naturally endowed higher qualities and aspirations,
• Divinity can be found in the deepest heart of all people simply by sustained tranquil introspection,
• thus all are truly equal in the eyes of Divinity.

Consider a possibly extreme, light hearted example. Even if you think that the Hare Krishna’s are a little “dynamic” in their devotion, it is certain that if all humanity were “Hare Krishna’s”, there would be food for all, more dancing and singing and no religious warfare! And the same applies to all members of the Dharmic family of spiritual traditions. The record (as opposed to the marketing literature) of the Abrahamic traditions of enforcing with violence, their exclusivist, aggressive insistence on uniformity and submission over 2,000 years, rests in stark contrast and is also plain to see.

Recalling the words of the ancient Hindu Mundaka Upanishad, and the Indian national motto, Satyam Eva Jayate – “truth/reality alone triumphs”, recalling also St Augustine’s pronouncement “truth does not need to be defended, it is a lion and merely needs to be released”, we present our understanding of the truth of the Bishop Lord Harries “Caste Amendment”.

The permanent solution to eradicating any discrimination is to erase the Colonial concept of Caste from Consciousness altogether and clearly not to preserve and sustain it, by enshrining it in Law.

The post Caste & Conversion – A 21st Century Colonial Conspiracy – Part 2 appeared first on Dharma Today.

There is another market prevalent in many parts of India, that of ‘pseudo-mutton’ – meat from young calves. This meat is most highly valued by consumers and hence for farmers this is the most cash-rewarding. This is mostly the meat available in roadside bars and restaurants (often sold in the name of goat or sheep mutton).

A Reality Check

India also stands among the lowest in the pecking order of ethical treatment of slaughter animals. The brutalities inflicted and the scale is no less than a genocide.  According to conservative estimates by PETA, roughly two million cattle are annually transported to the state of West Bengal from where they are smuggled to slaughterhouses in Bangladesh. In violation of transportation laws such as Transport of Animals Rules, 1978 and Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (which allow for 4 to 6 animals to be transported at a time) almost 25-30 are crammed in a lorry. They are beaten, kicked, deprived of food and water, and are often trampled to death due to high speed driving of the lorries. Pack and draft animals with their large torsos and relatively weak legs are ill-equipped for the bumpy rides on Indian roads. Their limbs get broken during transport because cattle smugglers often drive through rural roads to avoid police check-posts. They are tied together with ropes piercing through their noses. When their pace slows down, their tails are snapped, or tobacco, chilly powder and salt are rubbed into their eyes. The unlucky animals that reach the abattoirs alive, are killed by slitting their throats. Others are skinned alive.

Even in licensed slaughterhouses, cattle are routinely beaten and electrocuted.[1] Since by law healthy young cattle cannot be killed, their owners maim them, break their legs or poison them so that they can be declared ‘fit-for-slaughter’ by corrupt veterinary doctors or serving state officials.[2] Maneka Gandhi once noted that she saw 900 cows crammed in a train wagon that had a capacity of 80-100. On arrival, 400-500 came out dead.[3] In Kerala, they have a unique way of killing cattle – their heads are beaten to a pulp by a dozen hammer blows.

Writes Anne Kellogg in the Quartz[4]:

Science—and common sense—tells us that cows are sentient beings who value their lives in the same ways that we value ours. Did you know that cows[5] have distinct personalities? Some are bold and adventurous, while others are shy and timid. They are intelligent and curious animals who form social hierarchies, can recognize more than 100 members of their herd, have best friends and cliques, and even hold grudges against other cows who have treated them badly. They also mourn when a loved one dies, and there are countless reports of mother cows frantically calling and searching for their calves after they have been taken away and sold for veal.

While we continue to believe in ourselves as world leaders in vegetarianism, it is easy to make up from the numbers of cattle slaughtered that this is not possible only due to food habits of Muslims and Christians in India. The irony is that while Hindus largely do not consume beef or buffalo meat, the supply of bovines comes from farmers that are predominantly Hindu. What explains this strange dual behavior – of least consumption and highest production? Critical scholars will very likely quote-patchy texts from Hindu scriptures to propose that we were always a beef-consuming race. That with the discovery of the bulls’ utility for farming we changed preferences. Very convenient, but this does not explain why no other civilization – which have all done equally well in discovering agriculture – did not follow the same path. Ill-informed and sentimental dharma-rakshaks on the other hand, will be in constant denial that there is anything wrong with our ‘cow protection’ culture. They will not want to even see that the milch cows from our dairy industry is actually the main source of beef cattle apart from bulls and buffaloes.

The Social and Legal loopholes in Cow Slaughter

There are two aspects to why we have a buoyant cattle slaughter industry – the physical and the psychological. Firstly, there is this bad economics for a stressed farmer in maintaining cattle that can neither work in the fields nor give milk (technically known as ‘useless’ cattle). This is especially a problem in drought prone areas where green fodder is not readily available and buying dry fodder makes maintenance quite expensive. In desperate conditions where a farmer prefers to commit suicide so that their family can partake of some meagre government compensation, it is not hard to think they will sell their cattle even if there is an emotional bond. In fact, decades of penury and struggle for basic existence have desensitized farmers to an extent that selling cattle for slaughter is a norm and has become an important part of their income smoothing behavior. Hence farmers have been badly hit by the new anti-slaughter laws in Maharashtra, for instance, where prices of cows in the secondary (slaughter) market has fallen by over 50% owing to a reduction in their demand.[6] Over the last few decades, the useful cattle life has now come to average around 4-5 years. Farmers knowing this, pump them with hormones and perform other unethical practices, so as to maximize milk extraction during this productive lifetime. Once the cattle is weak and useless, they fetch a price in the secondary market that is either the same or higher than what they spent on buying it. So for them selling cattle is ‘good’ economics.

A second feature is loose regulation and enforcement of ethical treatment principles. To give an idea, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assess the best practices of welfare for slaughter animals in the European Union. Just to sample a few of the hundreds of micro regulations:

• ill or injured animals should be segregated and offered comfortable bedding;
• air circulation, dust levels, temperature and gas concentrations should be such that animals are not harmed;
• animals must be provided artificial lighting when natural lighting is not available;
• all automatic and mechanical equipment important for upkeep of good animal health must be inspected every day;
• animals must be provided appropriate feed and water so that all their physiological needs are satisfied;
• only certified and competent drivers are allowed to transport animals;
• a journey log has to be maintained by drivers with details of journey times, food, rest and water;
• slaughter operations can be carried out only by certified butchers;
• all animals need to be compulsorily stunned before slaughter (stunning is an intentionally induced process which causes loss of consciousness and sensibility);
• carotid arteries and blood vessels must be severed immediately so that there is maximum blood loss leading to death before the effects of stunning fade away and the animal regains consciousness;
• the only exception to stunning is for religious slaughter where animals are killed in full consciousness.

In India, even the legal framework is very weak, not to mention the enforcement. While statutes enjoin dos and don’ts, they don’t stipulate penal provisions for contravention. Consequently, there is limited deterrence. The basic institution here is The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 with an amendment in 1982.[7] In this Act, the only mention of slaughter animals is under Section 9.e. and in relation to the role of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) which is to:

advise the Government or any local authority or other person in the design of slaughter-houses or the maintenance of slaughter houses or in connection with slaughter of animals so that unnecessary pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is eliminated in the pre-slaughter stages as far as possible, and animals are killed; wherever necessary, in as humane a manner as possible;

Due to its obvious lack of specificity, in 2001 the Central Government instituted rules specific to slaughter houses known as the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Slaughter House) Rules, 2001.[8] This was a great advance as far as formal rules for legal slaughter houses were concerned. In it are enshrined a few ethical treatment guidelines, such as: no animal can be slaughtered in the sight of other animals; mandatory stunning before slaughter; compulsory veterinary inspection before culling and protection of animals from heat, cold and rain. Yet, they are not sufficient and no way close to international standards. Most of the regulations within this Act are concerned with infrastructural specifications that need to be adhered to by any slaughter house for receiving a license. Failing compliance such abattoirs can be shut down. Yet, empirical observation suggests gross non-compliance by licensed slaughter houses. And given that the number of illegal slaughterhouses is roughly ten times that of the legal ones, the scale of brutality can only be imagined.

The Ethical Quotient in Slaughter 

From the sense of government, the economic and the regulatory reasons are necessary conditions for a buoyant illegal slaughter industry, but they are not sufficient. In the ethical sense while there can be no justification or better way to legislate the business of brutality, the third and the psychological component is inevitable, which I call as displaying the NIMBY syndrome: Not in My Backyard. As long as I don’t have to witness the pain of my cattle, I will sell them; as long as my house doesn’t get stained by blood, let slaughterhouses exist; as long as I don’t have to butcher myself, let’s eat dead animals; as long as my country/state does not permit, let cattle be trafficked and genocide happen; as long as I can buy cheap milk, let the giver of the milk walk towards brutal death.  

NIMBY is an attitude ascribed to persons who object to the siting of something they regard as detrimental or hazardous in their own neighborhood, while by implication raising no such objections to similar developments elsewhere. 

(Oxford English Dictionary, 2005)

Essentially the mentality is – Adharma can exist, but Not in My Backyard!

So what is the way forward? Is it a hopeless situation given the sheer magnitude of the problem and sensitive personal food preferences? Or barring of all animal derived products (including milk) is the ultimate way out? As must be clear by now, it is a multi-pronged problem – so the solutions have to be at economic, legal and moral levels. The first step is to ensure rural livelihoods are strengthened, where the dairy value chain ensures cattle can be supported very economically even after it is past its utility. Research into products and utilities based on cow-dung and cow-urine would further strengthen the morale behind cow protection. A mechanism to compensate farmers for upkeep – such as micro-finance or community supported gaushalas, panjarpoles can help. It is high time temples make sure a certain portion of its income is mandated for setting-up and running of gaushalas. It is also important to preserve commons or designated cattle grasslands (gomala lands) in villages. Many such initiatives exist already, but they need to be scaled up.

A shift to complete milk-less diet as propounded by vegan organizations will be a stretch as there is no counterfactual to prove that a meat industry will also evaporate along with it. It is akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Milk is not a problem, neither are cows, as long as the dairy process is ethical and loving. One way is to incorporate a cleaner milk market through higher prices. Of course, expenditure saved on meat can help match up the price mark-up for the urban consumer, while a targeted price rationing can be devised for low income households to maintain their nutritional balance. Difficult but not impossible.

Those in the business of brutality should be punished severely as per the law of the land, whether they are cattle thieves or illegal slaughter house owners. Rules of ethical treatment have to be enforced with strictness and those not adhering to those should face stringent sanctions. It’s high time the Draft Animal Welfare Act, 2011 which contain more sensitive guidelines for ethical treatment, be passed by the Parliament.  Most importantly though, a dharma-based education and awareness needs to spread aggressively by all humanitarian organizations, so as to counter the Not in My Backyard attitude.

One common justification for beef-eating provided by scholars, especially in the context of India, is that ancient and pre-medieval Indians ate beef. Even if that were true, so what? Should we also promote slavery because one of the world’s ‘greatest’ nations believed in that for centuries? Let’s focus on the present day: the enemy here is extraordinary brutality, the fight is about simple, ordinary morality.  Dharma teaches us that the universe is our home and each one our family – Vasudhaiva kutumbakam – what then is Not in My Backyard?

[2] http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1818/18180380.htm

[3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-indias-sacred-cows-are-beaten-abused-and-poisoned-to-make-leather-for-high-street-shops-724696.html

[4] https://qz.com/578941/bangladeshs-nightmarish-leather-industry-makes-the-case-for-vegan-products/

[5] http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/cows/hidden-lives-cows/

[6] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/dairy-economics-a-ban-most-farmer-unfriendly/

[7] http://www.envfor.nic.in/legis/awbi/awbi01.pdf

[8] http://www.envfor.nic.in/legis/awbi/awbi17.html

The post Butcher our Cattle but not in my Backyard appeared first on Dharma Today.

Dharma tradition, one of the oldest social systems, has its own socio-political narrative. This narrative can, arguably, be identified with Indian nationalism which, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, was founded upon principles of Dharma. For instance, Sri Aurobindo[i]—in his Uttarpara speech in 1909—explained this connection:

 When you go forth, speak to your nation always this word, that it is for the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise. I am giving them freedom for the service of the world. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great… When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists. I say that it is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatan Dharma were capable of perishing, with it the nation would perish. The Sanatan Dharma, that is nationalism.

Being inspired by this narrative, the Indian leaders in the early decades of twentieth century refused to acknowledge the western worldview and insisted on “swaraj” as the political goal rather than mere independence from British rule. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a famous nationalist of those times, who is often quoted as “Swaraj is my birth-right and I shall have it”, wrote a commentary on Gita, The Gita Rahasya, that explained dharma as the key to his socio-political narrative.

“Swaraj” literally means Rule of the True Self. Dharma traditions acknowledge everyone’s True Self as self-same Pure Consciousness, often called the Atman.[ii] Generally, nationalism means devotion to one’s own motherland, acceptance of almost everything that belongs to the motherland, and at a minimum, mild rejection of everything that is foreign. However, Indic Nationalism is much deeper than this mere geographical notion of nationalism. Ram Swarup, a profound thinker of the twentieth century, expressed the essence of Indic Nationalism, which was narrated[iii] by Sita Ram Goel in his book How I Became Hindu: Swarup said, “But foreign should not be defined in geographical terms. Then it would have no meaning except territorial or tribal patriotism. To me that alone is foreign which is foreign to truth, foreign to Atman.”   

The critics of nationalism often point out that being born in a land is not a matter of choice for a person. Therefore, being proud of one’s motherland is nothing extraordinary. Indic Nationalism is love for the motherland on account of a society that upholds the socio-political narrative of the Dharma Tradition in a continuous manner. And, there is every reason to be proud of being born in a society that has a continuity for thousands of years and has exclusively upheld the rule of the True Self. This ancientness and continuity of Indic civilisation makes it imperative for the members in the society to offer their duty to their society so that the reign of the True Self remains established in their society. This duty-mindedness is the ultimate essence and meaning of Indic Nationalism.

Historically, Indic Nationalism rarely called for territorial conquest but rather focussed on founding Dharma-based societies in other lands, as opposed to European origin nationalism. Even Han nationalism that emerged as the Chinese nation, has forever aspired for territorial conquest and annexing new lands.  On the contrary, Indian kings always strived for inculcation of Dharma tradition among people of different lands without aspiring for military conquest and needless bloodshed.

In all probability, our Constitution-makers were not blind to this aspect of Dharma which is why they did not include the word “secular” in our nation’s constitution. This omission is likely on account of their understanding of the historic role of Dharma in facilitating governance and administration in India, which would be excluded on specification of the word “secular”. For instance, B. R. Ambedkar  regarded Dharma as rational and relatively free of colonial bias. He was also supportive of a fundamental differentiation between Dharma and religion:

I regard the Buddha’s Dhamma to be the best. No religion can be compared to it. If a modern man who knows science must have a religion, the only religion he can have is the Religion of the Buddha. This conviction has grown in me after thirty-five years of close study of all religions. (Preface to The Buddha and His Dhamma)

The above statement clearly shows that Ambedkar was aware of scientific nature of Dhamma—the term for Dharma in Buddhist tradition—and made an analysis of different claims of truth without limiting himself to a faith based imposition.

Not only Ambedkar, but the motifs drawn on the original copy of the Indian Constitution by Nandlal Bose and  Beohar Rammanohar Sinha, have also been heavily inspired by the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Sri Buddha apart from diverse historical figures.[iv] These motifs demonstrate that the Republic of India formed on November 26, 1949 was viewed as a civilizational continuity of our Dharma tradition rather than a new nation being forged. 

Dharma and Secularism

Things, however, took a sharply radical turn in the post-independence era. The Indian elite have swallowed socio-political understanding of the western lands. Dharma is a word in Indic languages, which is non-translatable in English. Language is often said to be a matter of convention. Therefore, a particular culture may actually understand a word very differently than another one.  For example, the word “secular” bears very different connotation to an Indian as opposed to a European. In Europe, a secular person will proactively fight for the right to criticise religious dogmas. Karl Marx said[v], “The criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.” Interestingly, an Indian secular icon may very well consider criticism of a particular religion inherently as an anti-secular exercise.

Koenraad Elst provided a fine example in his book Decolonising the Hindu Mind (2001) in the backdrop of Indian Government’s banning of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. He cited Professor S. Guhan, a noted academician and secularist, who argued that banning any book that criticises Islam, is in the interest of secularism. This position, summarily speaking, describes the worldview of many of the Indian secularists, if not most.

When the same word, secular, can mean two diametrically opposite ideas under two cultural hegemonies, we understand the gravity of the problem of translation since the word

Dharma, has no synonym in English at all[vi]. This powerlessness of the highly-enriched English dictionary is a living testimony to West’s lack of exposure to an indigenous Dharma tradition for centuries. Since the West is almost ignorant about the Dharma traditions, naturally they have no understanding regarding socio-political institutions under the Dharma traditions. 

To make matters worse, the Indian elite have followed the West in their education, in their socio-political institutions and in their narrative, thereby growing up without any knowledge about our Dharma traditions. When these elites formed their narrative about India, that narrative was devoid of any role for Dharma. The elite in India started learning about dharma in English which translated the word as “Religion”. In their colonised understanding, dharma became the primitive religion of India. 

As the cultural roots of the elite have been cut off, they have become a susceptible target for a doctrine that least emphasises the importance of culture on human aspiration and human destiny. Marxism is exactly that very doctrine.[vii] Marxist sociology considers production as the base, and religion and culture as the superstructure—the base influences the superstructure but not vice versa. In other words, man’s emphasis should only be on factors of production, usually never on culture.

Dharma was, therefore, relegated to a very tertiary factor of the human civilisation, in that worldview. Moreover, Marxism, in particular its dialectics on Class Struggle, presents a linear history. Therefore, the contemporary technological inferiority of India was translated as perpetual technological backwardness of India. And, since factors of production essentially shape culture and religion under the Marxist paradigm, technological backwardness of India is translated into cultural inferiority of India. Dharma has become, to the colonised elite, India’s primitive religion whose demise per se would ensure India’s rejuvenation!

This linearity is utterly flawed as historically India was one of the most technologically advanced countries, till the first millennium AD, when the Dharma Tradition was strong in India. The reader may observe the European scientists’ recognition of Indian technological superiority by referring to Dharampal’s Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century. History of Indian Science and Technology (HIST) project by Rajiv Malhotra’s Infinity Foundation documented  ancient Indian science and technology through many volumes.[viii]

Even though, a part of the elite—who are particularly not driven by any leftist ideological zeal against religion—acknowledge people’s right to practise dharma without being mocked, they consider it at best an exercise of personal freedom without any scope for socio-political narrative-making by dharma tradition. Consequently, Dharma tradition was left neglected dying a slow death.  

Historically however, Indic education system, was centred around dharma: every Indian child used to start his writing in a temple a hundred years ago. But the Indian elite pursued separation of education and dharma as an ‘agenda’. Within a span of two to three generations, Indians forgot their own social and political institutions that have been sustained by dharma. 

Decolonisation and Dharma Tradition

Decolonisation of India is yet to happen[ix]; but slowly and surely the colonised elite are being challenged in the realm of intellectual discourse. Post economic liberalisation, India has a sizeable English-educated middle class who are professionally successful. They are neither afraid of intellectual discourses in English (as was the case for many one or two generations ago) nor suffer from lack of information thanks to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution. Some of these people are challenging the hegemony. Unless economic liberalisation is reversed, their voices can, no way, go down.  Although most of the energy is being spent to call out only the ideological bankruptcy of the existing elite, eventually the focus will be on discovering Indic nationalism that is the Dharma tradition. Therefore, at this rate, the dharma tradition and its worldview will naturally be relevant again to Indian polity. 

[1] The difference between Indian and Indic: The word Indian specifies something that belongs to the geographical boundary of India; Indic represents something that originated in India.

Ideas generally have no geographical boundary; hence many ideas that originate elsewhere in the world can find resonance among the Indians. For example, Nationalism is essentially a western concept but it appealed to a section of the Indian elite in the nineteenth century and twentieth century, which is why it is called Indian Nationalism.

Indic Nationalism means the notion of nationalism that originated in India and somewhat in variance with the western notion of nationalism.

[i]             Aurobindo, Sri. Sanatan Dharma: Uttarpara Speech. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram (1983). Also available at http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415485432/24.asp.

[ii]          Buddhist traditions often consider everything as Anatma that is nullity as one’s True Self. Such a notion does not jeopardise the idea that everyone’s True Self is one and the same.

[iii] http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hibh/ch7.htm

[iv] http://www.opindia.com/2016/01/the-hidden-beauty-within-the-indian-constitution/

[v] A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm

[vi] Ram Swarup discussed the specific meaning of Indic words that goes beyond intellectual domain in his monumental work, The Word as Revelation . The problem of non-translatable Indic words is also elaborated well by Rajiv Malhotra in the fifth chapter of Being Different.

[vii] For a clear exposition of the Marxist arguments, one may consult A journey from the Volga to the Ganges, a fantastic story-telling by Rahul Sankrityayan.

[viii] http://rajivmalhotra.com/books/buy-infinity-books-india/.

[ix] Koenraad Elst’s Decolonising Hindu Mind discusses Indian elite’s cultural colonisation.

The post The Indic Socio-Political Thinking appeared first on Dharma Today.

The post Press Release: False case against Paramahamsa Nithyananda quashed appeared first on Dharma Today.

In a major victory for Swami Nithyananda, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on 6 February 2017 stayed the start of trial proceedings in the false case filed by Lenin Karuppan in 2010 against Swami Nithyananda.

Delivering the judgment in a packed Court hall, the Hon’ble Court said that it arrived at this extreme step noting that a number of significant documents favouring Swami Nithyananda had been wantonly suppressed by the investigating authorities and that proceeding with the trial without these critical evidences would be unjust.

As a part of a major conspiracy against Swami Nithyananda, Lenin Karuppan abetted by his associates had filed the false case against Swami Nithyananda in 2010.

This ruling marks a series of judgments in favour of Swami Nithyananda by various Courts of India. The Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka had earlier quashed the cases filed against Swami Nithyananda in 2012 by some vested elements. A few weeks ago, the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka further ordered the investigating authorities to submit all the evidences found favoring Swami Nithyananda in their investigations.

These evidences include the medical reports of the alleged rape victim Ms. Arathi Rao from 2004 to 2009 showing she has had 4 highly contagious and incurable STDs some of which are transmitted by mere touch, her own email admission in mid-2009 six months after her last alleged instance of rape that she never had any kind of sexual relationship with Swami Nithyananda, multiple proofs of discrepancies in the dates and locations of the alleged rape incidents, Swami Nithyananda’s medical reports showing he has never had any STDs and has a yogic body and not capable of a sexual act.

Lenin Karuppan and Arathi Rao are currently facing prosecution for the blackmail, extortion and criminal conspiracy by them against Swami Nithyananda in the trial Court in Chennai.

Original: http://nithyananda.org/news/supreme-court-stays-start-trial-proceedings-against-swami-nithyananda#gsc.tab=0

The post Press Release: Supreme Court stays start of trial proceedings against Swami Nithyananda appeared first on Dharma Today.

India is under-represented in American academia compared to China, Islam/Middle East and Japan, among others. Even the study of Tibet is stronger than that of India. Worse than the quantitative under-representation is the qualitative one: While other major countries positively influence the content of the discourse about them, pro-India forces rarely have much say in India Studies.

China

China is fortunate that its thinkers are mostly positive ambassadors promoting its brand. Chinese scholars have worked for decades to create a coherent and cohesive Chinese Grand Narrative that shows both continuity and advancement from within. This gives the Chinese people a common identity based on the sense of a shared past — one that maps their future destiny as a world power. Pride in One Unifying Notion of the National Identity and Culture is a form of capital, providing an internal bond and a defense against external (or internal) subversions that threaten the whole nation. Scholars play an important role in this construction.

China’s Grand Narrative is a strong, centripetal force bringing all Chinese together, whereas many Indian intellectuals are slavishly adopting ideologies that act as centrifugal forces pulling Indians apart.

The China Institute’s New York mission is to influence public opinion on China. It holds art shows, language classes, lectures, films, and history lessons. Unlike the India-bashing films and lectures on many American campuses these day (selected by self-flagellating Indian professors), the Chinese project a positive image of China. The key difference is that China’s scholars are not trying to go public with China’s dirty laundry — they are not trying to use international forums to fix domestic problems.

In sharp contrast, Indian academics often lack self-confidence and pride in India, and use every opportunity to demean India internationally, and to justify this as a way of helping India’s human rights problems. These Indians seem too desperate to join the Grand Narrative of the West, in whatever role they are granted admission, whereas Chinese scholars have not sold out to the same extent.

The China Institute also has many pro-China programs for Chinese parents and kids, K-12 curriculum development, teacher training, student scholarships, and seminars for corporate executives and journalists. The Institute has a successful program to teach Chinese-Americans to project a hyphenated identity that combines both American and Chinese cultures, and they call this ‘leadership training,’ while South Asian scholar often labor to undermine the Indian-ness of our children’s identities, by equating Indian-ness with chauvinism.

Pakistan

A good analysis would also scrutinize the Pakistani government funded Quaid-e-Azam Chairs of Pakistan Studies at Berkeley and Columbia. The appointments to these chairs are under the control of the Pakistani government, and are rotated every few years. Note that this is accepted as normal and has not attracted any criticism from academia. It is little wonder that the American media has interviewed more pro-Pakistan scholars than pro-India scholars.

Pakistani scholars have established their leadership over South Asian Muslims’ campus activism in the US, and claim to represent Indian Muslims. Many Indian academicians have joined their bandwagon to denigrate Indian culture in the name of human rights activism and South Asian unity. These scholars hold great influence over young impressionable Indian kids in college. It seems that the Pakistani government has adopted a corporate-style strategic planning process, while many Indian-American donors have not approached this as competitive brand management.

Tibet

Another good example of how soft power can be developed and projected via academic intervention is the case of Tibet. Twenty five years ago, H H the Dalai Lama asked his Western disciples to get PhDs from top Western universities, and to become Buddhism professors in colleges. Today, almost every major US campus has practicing Buddhists on the faculty, who project their spiritual identities very publicly and confidently.

Even though Buddhism shares most of its meditation techniques with other Indic traditions, Buddhism has become positioned as a valid research methodology for neuroscience, whereas Hinduism is plagued with the caste, cows and curry images. Buddhism is explained intellectually and sympathetically, not via an exotic/erotic lens. Buddhist scholars have a powerful impact on students, and serve as media experts and public intellectuals. Buddhism has major Hollywood endorsements. India has nothing even remotely comparable to the influence of Tibet House in building its cultural capital.

Japan and Korea

The Japan Foundation and Korea Foundation are also great institutions worthy of study by NRI donors. The Japanese have funded over fifty academic chairs in USA.  Pro-Japan scholars occupy these chairs, and they have close ties with scholars based in Japan; they are loyal to the Japanese identity and culture. An ambitious teacher training program has certified thousands of Americans to ‘Teach Japan’ in schools. The Japanese drive the Americans’ study of Japan, and not vice versa as in India’s case.

The Korea Foundation has sponsored a series of books on a variety of subjects on Korea and donates/subsidizes these books to libraries worldwide.

Repositioning India’s brand

As a priority, India’s image in American academia needs a corporate type analysis of the market/competition and current status. This would lead to the diagnosis and identification of key problems needing correction. Only then could a viable strategy emerge. This brand repositioning is necessary for more Indian-Americans to succeed on their own terms in management and political arenas. It is also necessary for an independent profile of India.

The strategy for influencing India Studies could begin with looking at India’s technology developments and opportunities, and the resulting geopolitical implications. This could build on the recent positive Indian image in corporate America and American business schools. Donors may want to think aboutinitially working with business schools instead of South Asian Studies Departments, especially since Indian-American donors have better experience in evaluating business scholars than humanities scholars. Many of the contentious issues listed at the end of this article would not apply because of greater convergence between India’s interests and the mindset of business schools.

At the same time, culture is an important form of capital and must be positively positioned as a part of any brand management. Cultural branding should not be allowed to become a liability under the control of anti-India forces. Yoga and Ayurveda are examples of positive cultural areas that are now in the mainstream and deserve to be brought back under the India brand. Two illustrations will show the economic cost of not managing cultural capital:

Yoga

Yoga is a multi-billion dollar industry in the USA, with 18 million American practitioners, $27 billion/year revenues (from classes, videos, books, conferences, retreats), over 10,000 studios/teachers, and 700,000 subscribers to Yoga Journal. However, cultural shame has kept Indians out of this field, and over 98% of yoga teachers and students in USA are non-Indians.

Clearly, the economic potential here could be as big as India’s software exports, especially if yoga were included in India’s proposed initiative to export health care services. America’s yoga centres are potential retail outlets for Indian culture and brand marketing.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is a $2 billion/year industry and a part of the high growth international market for plant medicines. The popular consumer brand, Aveda, was started by an American devotee of Indian gurus to bring Ayurveda to the West. (Aveda is short for Ayurveda.) He later sold it to Estee Lauder: Now, Estee Lauder sources herbs from countries other than India, and there has been no royalty to Kerala’s farmers who are being displaced from their traditional industry. Nor is there any recognition of this loss in the Indian intellectual’s mind. Contrast this with the way the Chinese government has turned Chinese medicine into a multi-billion dollar vehicle for Brand China, or with the way the French wine and cosmetic industries have endowed their products with a mystique that protects French jobs.

To explain why educated Indians are amongst the best knowledge workers in the world, the common reason given is that the British taught us English, science and governance. But under this theory, all former colonies, such as Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Zaire, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Myanmar should be suppliers of knowledge workers on par with India. Few Indians have the courage to articulate that the reason is partly because of India’s long cultural traditions that emphasize learning and inquiry, including the openness fostered by its pluralistic worldviews.

In fact, Indians were exporters of knowledge systems and knowledge workers throughout the Middle East and Pan-Asia for centuries prior to colonialism. Arab/Persian records indicate that many hospitals in the Middle East were run by Indian doctors and that Indian scholars ran their universities. Indians were chief accountants in many Persian courts. Indian mathematics went via Persian/Arab translations to influence European mathematics.

Furthermore, Buddhists took Indian knowledge systems to East and Southeast Asia, including medicine, linguistics, metallurgy, philosophy, astronomy, arts, martial arts, etc. Indian universities (such as Nalanda) attracted students from all parts of Asia, and were patronized by foreign rulers. All this is well appreciated by scholars in East and Southeast Asian countries but is hardly known to Indians.

Indian corporate executives are playing a key role in charting India’s future through knowledge based industries. Therefore, it should be important for them to sponsor an honest account of India’s long history of exporting both its knowledge workers and complete knowledge systems. This historical account is important in reinventing India’s non-innovative education system and repositioning its brand. Hence, Indian-Americans must question the colonial discourse which promotes the view that ‘anything positive about India was imported from elsewhere.’ The impact of such skewed discourse on Indian children is pertinent and must be examined.

I have found that American audiences are very open and even eager to learn about India’s contributions to American culture. But most professors of India Studies in American universities consider such themes irrelevant or, worse still, chauvinistic. In doing so, they apply a different standard to India as compared to other non-Western civilizations. This has a lot to do with the cultural shame that many Indians in academe feel burdened with – in contrast with successful Indian executives who project positive identities.

Consider the following examples that are usually not emphasized in the academic research/teaching in India Studies, when equivalent items concerning China, Islam, Japan, etc are emphasized:

• America’s ‘Discovery’ was the result of venture capital from the Queen of Spain to explore new trade routes to India, because Indian goods were highly sought after. Most persons find it hard to believe that India could have had such prized export items, and some find such suggestions troubling given their preconceived images of India’s culturally linked poverty. Any genuine exploration of India’s economic history is nipped in the bud.
• The New Age Movement is neo-Hindu, with 18 million Americans doing yoga, meditation, and adopting vegetarianism,  animal rights and other Indian values. Eco-Feminism was brought to America by Vandana Shiva, who explained to Americans the philosophies of the sacredness of the environment. American Pop Culture owes a great deal to Indian music (via the Beatles and others), film, art, fashions and cuisine.
• Icons of American Literature, such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Eliot, the Beats, among others, were deeply involved in the study and practice of Indian philosophy and spiritual traditions. While they are widely read and admired, the Indian wellsprings of their inspiration is often downplayed, to the detriment of all students. Modern Psychology, since the work of Jung and others, has assimilated many theories from India, and this has impacted mind-body healing and neurosciences.
• American Religion has adopted many Indian theological ideas transmitted via Teilhard de Chardin’s study of Ramanuja. Transcendental Meditation was learnt in the 1970s by monks in Massachusetts and repackaged into the popular ‘Christian Centering Prayer.’ The study of the Hindu Goddess became a source of empowerment for many American Christian women.
• American Civil Rights drew inspiration from Gandhi: Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and others wrote about satyagraha as their guiding principle with great reverence in the 1960s, but this has faded from the memory of African-American history as taught today. How many Indians know that Indian social theories influenced J S Mill, who is regarded as the founder of modern Western liberalism, and that many Enlightenment ideas also originated in India and China? The Natural Law Party is considered a pioneer in American political liberalism, but it is generally unknown that it was started by, and is run by, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Western followers.

Such positive themes are rarely reflected in the humanities curricula concerning India. The disciplines are populated by scholars who typically entered the US after the Soviet collapse, when funding by Soviet-sponsored sources ended. They still continue to espouse sociological models that have been discarded for decades, thereby hindered India’s progress in the global economy. They continue to promote divisive scholarship about India. One wonders why the West legitimizes such persons and positions them as representatives of India. Now they have reproduced their mindsets in a whole new generation of confused Indian-Americans with PhDs in the humanities.

Challenging the India-Bashing Club

While India’s positive image is not adequately projected in US academia, the many negative stereotypes abound, devaluing India’s brand into fragments and chaos. These include:

Anti-progress: Indian culture is depicted as primitive, obsolete, and frozen until outsiders come and push it forward. Hence, the implication seems to suggest, we must invite outsiders to come and fix our problems for us.

Unethical: Indian culture is essentialized by images of abusive caste, sati, dowry deaths, and other human rights atrocities, including aggressive charges of fascism, violation of minority rights and violence. Indian scholars often lead these parades that overemphasize public tirades against India in the West, while failing to understand the implications of brand damage in a global capitalist system.

Unscientific: Indians are shown as mystical people lacking Western style rationality.

Everything good about India is assumed to have been imported: The British gave us a sense of nation. There was no worthy Indian culture prior to the Mughals. The Greek brought philosophy and mathematics to India. The “Aryans” brought Sanskrit. By implication, Indians are doomed to dependency, which contradicts the vision of India’s future trajectory being based on knowledge-based industries.

Many Indian scholars in the humanities, journalists, and ‘intellectuals’ in Non-Government Organizations depend on Western funding, Western sponsored foreign travel, acquiring legitimacy in the eyes of Western institutions, the ability to parrot canned Western ‘theories,’ and even identifying as a member of the Western Grand Narrative – not as options but as necessary conditions for success. Clearly, such loyalties, identities and ideologies must resonate with their sponsors.

Unlike China Studies and Islam Studies, India Studies is controlled by the West, often with the help of Indian mercenaries. The frequent bombardment of negative imagery of Indian society is devastating its soft power. The globalization of India’s ‘human rights’ issues is not solving any social problems in India. It has become a cottage industry for many Indians – whose role may be seen as analogous to the sepoys who helped the British rule over the rest of their brethren. Many Indian scholars are, at best, apologetic about Indian culture. They go about with great aplomb ‘exposing’ internal problems of India at international forums, for which their careers are well rewarded.

Certainly, there is legitimacy and urgency to human rights concerns. But the academic treatment of this subject is asymmetric vis-à-vis India as compared to other countries. More importantly, American campuses are not the place to resolve them. Students are being brainwashed into thinking of India as a quagmire.

Proposed Mission Statement for NRI Philanthropists

Prior to supporting India Studies, Indian-American philanthropists must, first, establish their mission statement. I submit the following statement for their consideration, at least as a starting point:

The mission is to bring objectivity and fair balance to India Studies so as to:

1. Strengthen and enrich America’s multiculturalism at home
2. Empower Indian-American kids’ hyphenated identities
3. Improve US-India cooperation as cultural equals
4. Improve India’s cultural brand in the globalization process

It is important to note that this mission statement does not include using American classrooms or media as platforms to cure Indian society of its problems. This is the point over which there is a serious conflict of interest between Indian-American donors and many ‘South Asian’ academicians in the humanities who are deeply entrenched in anti-India activism. To put it bluntly, some oppose the very notion of a strong Indian nation state, calling that chauvinism, and would like a balkanized India consisting of weak sub-nationalities. Many have taken the position that to expose India’s ‘human rights atrocities’ is central to their mandate. This is usually done without giving equal time (or any time) to India’s many positive accomplishments in social development and pluralism. Naively putting such individuals in charge of one’s well-intended donations would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Questions that donors must address

Since Indian-Americans have already earned the highest levels of success and self-esteem, they should not be overly impressed by the prestige of academic institutions. They must utilize their best negotiation skills and not get bulldozed into accepting ‘standard’ terms from the universities. Indian-Americans have no reason to be over-awed by the Western-centric approaches to social sciences and liberal arts, whose very validity and effectiveness are being challenged by serious thinkers in the West. Indian-Americans should bring to these discussions their own reference points from the corporate world, such as the following questions and issues suggest.

A strategic choice must be made between promoting India Studies (which would be a centripetal force helping India’s unity as a nation state without compromising its diversity) and South Asian Studies (which is a centrifugal force pushing India towards balkanization).

Should the overarching theme support mutual understanding between cultures through exploring India’s vast cultural capital, or support political activism against India? What is the brand damage currently being done by Indians engaged in one-sided public tirades, who exaggerate India’s internal problems in front of audiences that are ill-equipped to make balanced judgments? How should one approach Indian scholars who have become mercenaries? What is the connection between such scholars and Marxism and its derivatives?

To address the above issues, Indian-American donors first need to clearly articulate what they consider to be their own vision of India. Next, they need to examine the degree to which their vision is compatible with that of various humanities scholars. India’s brand must not be outsourced to people whose ideologies are subversive of India’s integrity.

How is India’s brand positioned relative to other civilizations? Who are the major competitors, and what are their strategies, strengths and weaknesses? A comparison between India Studies and China Studies, among others, is very important. What are the major brand problems that India faces today?

What is the relationship between India’s cultural capital and its brand equity? For example, if India can supply world class professionals in so many fields, then why does India have less than two percent of the market share in the massive American industry of yoga, meditation and related areas? Why are there no world class Indian institutions in this field producing the equivalent of IIT graduates to go and capture world markets – given that the trend in holistic living is increasing worldwide and India has unmatched brand equity that could also boost its health care export industry? Furthermore, the positioning of Indian Classics in academe, as compared to Greek Classics and Chinese Classics, must be examined in relation to cultural capital formation.

What are the distribution channels that control the production and dissemination of ideas about India’s brand? Who are the key players in control over each stage and what are their critical success factors? In particular, who funds the production and distribution, and who controls the intellectual platforms to think about India? The critical bottlenecks, especially those that tend to be monopolistic, should be identified.

What were the key trends over the past 25 years in India Studies? Why has India failed to enter India Studies as a serious player and, by default, allowed Indians to be reduced to consumers who lack their own intellectual capital to drive the field?

Why is there no funding for India Studies within India, to empower a new generation of ‘insiders of the tradition’ to enter the global field of India Studies; to contest old paradigms about India; and to shift the center of gravity of India Studies back to India, in the same way that most other major civilizations are controlling their own intellectual discourse?

Donors need to examine the consequences of these brand problems — such as Indian students’ identity crises, and the marginalization of India’s soft power.

There are valuable lessons in the successes of other American minority cultures that have taken control over their own brand management — Jews, blacks, women and gays being prominent examples.

Based on this type of research, donors should establish targets for the future. They should also establish the criteria for evaluation and the mechanisms to monitor the progress.

Undoubtedly, there will be those in India Studies departments who feel threatened by enlightened Indian-American donors entering the discourse as equal partners. One strategy to ‘buy out’ Indian-American donors is to admit them to prestigious committees where they can hobnob with dignitaries and send picture home.

Recommendations for Academic Funding

• Continue pushing the US to upgrade India on par with China in its discourse, and to decouple India from the South Asian grouping. Furthermore, expose the entrenched academic forces that are subversive of India’s stability, which would be very dangerous for US interests.
• Establish a clear mission statement for India Studies. This should include a position on whether it should remain positioned as a ‘ghetto’ separate from mainstream humanities, or if, as in the case of Western civilization, India should be in the mainstream curriculum of various departments, such as history, philosophy, music, dance, science, medicine, psychology, politics, and so forth.
• Keep the Indian-American endowment with a trust/foundation that is in the hands of the Diaspora, and do not give the corpus away to any university. Give an annual budget to selected universities under a 2-year or 3-year contract, subject to evaluation and renewal. Universities do accept these terms.
• Appoint a knowledgeable Diaspora evaluation and monitoring committee to oversee what goes on in each program, and don’t just leave it to the university scholars to send you status reports. The committee should attend classes, read the publications of the department and participate in the events organized. Many problems of shoddy or biased scholarship disappear when the scholars know that they are being watched by the funding sources – as it is done by Western funding sources routinely.
• Keep the appointment durations no longer than 2 or 3 years in the beginning, until there is enough experience. Tenured appointments are very counter-productive in case an India-hater gets in.
• Require the program to be India Studies and not South Asia Studies. There is no point in including anti-India scholars on committees and having deadlocks in the decision-making. Examine the program details, and avoid funding scholars and topics that are counter to your vision.
• Do annual surveys and publish reports on what the effect of the sponsored work is on students and the American public at large.

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The recent terror attacks in Europe have collapsed questions on public policy, strategic affairs and social integration to a rare common standstill: how to curb dogmatic religious influence and yet protect civil liberties? It is evident that today’s is a confrontational world. Newer and bolder forms of violent fundamentalism tear across both the Muslim and non-Muslim societies. In response, backlash from civil society has also been intense. When I was walking through the Christmas markets of Brussels the past December, it was like walking into a war-zone. After Paris terror attacks in November and Charlie Hebdo massacre in early 2015, there was heightened security to guard against potential threats in all major European capitals, especially Brussels. Yet, it was attacked. Will tightening security, imposing stricter border controls and deporting migrants solve the problems? Can political extremism counter religious extremism? I would disagree, unless an important distinction is made: what divides the world of ‘rationality’ and that of ‘beliefs’?

This was a central theme in the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism, especially the branch led by William James in late 19^th and early 20^th century. James saw the worlds of science and beliefs as a ‘clash of human temperaments’ between the ‘tough minded empiricist’ and the ‘tender minded religionist’. While the loyalty of the tough-minded is to facts, the tender-minded places more confidence in human values; while the tough-minded is more suited to skepticism, the tender-minded is more prone to romanticism. Pragmatism conceded that society like a human body is not only made up of a mind but also thrives on a heart; that there is a need to accommodate both the temperaments and not to necessarily see science, religion and morality in competition. A favorite example of William James was the syllogism of a human trying to get sight of a squirrel running around a tree which runs just fast enough to always keep the tree between itself and the human witness. The answer to the metaphysical question of ‘does the man go around the squirrel or not’, according to James depends on what is ‘practically’ meant by ‘going around’. So if it means passing from north of it to east to south and then to west, then the answer would be ‘yes’ the man goes around the squirrel. If it means going in front of it, to behind it and then coming back to its front, then it is ‘no’. This is a typical pragmatic resolution of disputes.

Modernity and Co-existence

Modernity, unfortunately, in its over-enthusiasm to overcome the thick clouds of religious oppression in medieval-Europe marginalized, if not ignored, this need of the society. What this has led to today is another form of social inequality where control over information, social opinion and public policy are concentrated with a small proportion of the tough-minded creating a sense of mainstream alienation by the tender-minded. If we have to move forward, those who wield power over information cannot afford to be victims of a modernistic fallacy that scientific temper is the only way to design the contours of public space. It has to acknowledge that there is no ‘ruling’ epistemology and real liberalism is to find the reconciliation between these temperaments. What such a pragmatic approach will do is to bring believers that ‘reason’ into the mainstream. In other words, it will increase the critical mass of liberals in public and intellectual space. This will go a long distance in not only reducing the feeling of alienation and mortification  by the tender-minded but also make them responsible for detecting spiteful elements who only wear the mask of tenderness and victimhood. Unless mutual respect and reconciliation becomes the grain of new thinking, liberalism founded on science and rationality will remain elitist and religions will tend towards fanaticism. For a pragmatist, more than hysteria, this would counter extremism more effectively.

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He wrote: “Despite their lower incomes, households and businesses in developing countries save a greater share of their income than do households and businesses in developed countries. Developed countries have vast financial networks that lend to consumers and businesses; most often backed collateral, enabling a significant fraction to spend beyond their current incomes. Far fewer such financial networks exist in developing nations to entice people to spend beyond their current incomes. Moreover, most developing nations are still so close to bare subsistence that households need to secure against future contingencies. They seek buffer against feared destitution, and since few of these countries have government safety nets adequate to protect against adversity, the only way for the households to do so is to set money aside. People are forced to save for a rainy day and retirement.”

GREENSPAN’S THEORY

It was Greenspan’s theory that directed the very course of the US economy, and of the globe, for two decades, till the 2008 crisis questioned it. See how the social security programmes celebrated by Greenspan as sparing the Americans from the need to save, and enticing them to spend instead, did the US economy in.

The ever-expanding US social security schemes, theoretically framed to protect families, practically ended up breaking them, besides bankrupting public finances of US. Even as far back as 1970, the perverted effect of social security and welfare schemes on families didn’t escape watchful eyes. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the US brought out a book titled “The US Economy in transition”, in 1980.

It contained prophetic views of experts, including Milton Friedman, on US social security. Martin S. Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and President of NBER, wrote, in his introduction to the NBER work, that ‘welfare programmes introduced and expanded to help poor families might weaken the family structures’; that ‘in more subtle ways, government programmes that substitute the state for the family, cause behaviour that weakens the development of future population; fewer births, more unmarried individuals, more unmarried couples and more divorced parents; that medicare and medicaid introduced to help the elderly and poor might lead to an explosion in health care costs.’

Milton Friedman declared that ‘as children stopped contributing voluntarily to the support of their parents and began contributing through a system of government fiat, a serious erosion of family values became inevitable’ and saw ‘social security system as a detrimental influence on social patterns’. The NBER work also pointed out how ‘family functions such as production of food, clothing and fuel and some other staple items were taken over by business firms, and responsibilities such as education, childcare, and social insurance have been assumed by the state.’ What the NBER meant here is that business firms and the state had, together, robbed the families of their functions, leaving them functionless, therefore, dysfunctional.

Conceding that ‘the market system is the most efficient, and most conducive to individual freedom yet devised’, NBER pointed out that the market itself ‘doesn’t provide for the organisation of the society’ but its ‘success during the last 200 years is attributable in good part to the existence of strong non-market institutions such as the family; also adding that the ‘decline of the family and the growth of the government will jeopardise the market system and associated social, political and cultural freedoms.’

It concluded: ‘In the long run, a healthy economy requires a healthy society.’

PROPHECY FULFILLED

Each one of these warnings came true sooner than later. Here is a look at US families before the expansion of social security in 1960s and after. US homes had an average of 4.5 persons in 1930; this came down to 3.5 per home in 1950, and now to 2.6. This alone cost 88 million additional houses, valued at $16 trillion at current prices!

In 1940, the marriage rate was 24.2 per 1000; it declined to 21.2 in 1970; 19.6 in 1990; 14.4 in 2009. The divorce rate per 1000 rose from 9.2 in 1970 to 16.9 in 2008, though less than the peak of 22.6 in 1980. Between 1970 and 2008, the US marriage rate declined from 63.4 to 37.4 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women. As compared to 1960, in 2008, households with children less than 18 declined from 49 per cent to 31 per cent; children living with single parents rose from 9 per cent to 26 per cent; unwed motherhood rose from 5 per cent in 1960 to 40 per cent.

Whatever NBER had prophesied 30 years ago — less marriages, more divorces, more unmarried women, more unwed mothers, more single parent homes — has come true. While social security programmes caused the decline of families first, later, such decline in turn led to more and more social welfare spend to support the weakening families, thus feeding each other.

US families reel under debt. The home loans of households top $10 trillion. More than a third of these loans weren’t incurred to buy houses. According to studies by Greenspan himself, households borrowed $3.2 trillion against the security of appreciation in their home values (called ‘home equity cashed out’) during 2002 to 2007, and splurged it on consumption! Further, the 111 million US households use 1.2 billion credit cards, on which they owe $2.5 trillion. So, not just families, their finances too are broke, thanks to the financial networks of the US praised by Greenspan, having ‘enticed’ and made the US families profligate.

SOCIAL SECURITY

The state-provided social security that has replaced the families and made them state-dependent is stressed and potentially bankrupt. Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, has estimated the present value of future social security obligations at close to $100 trillion unrepresented by assets — meaning that the government will have no money to pay them when they fall due in future.

Tailpiece: Here is the Indian equivalent of Greenspan’s economics — the economics of Bahuka. Bahuka figures in the Bhagawata Purana, and was the advisor of Jarasandha, who was Kamsa’s father-in-law. Kamsa, who regarded Sri Krishna as his enemy, asked Bahuka’s advice on how to make his subjects state-dependent. Bahuka told him: “Open your treasury to the people. Make the people eat, drink and enjoy themselves. Bring up children to look upon parents as old and useless. That will make them laugh at those who talk of duty, love and compassion. Like well-fed cattle at the mercy of the cowherd, the people will be completely dependent on you.”

Rejecting the sage advice of the likes of Milton Friedman and Martin Feldstein, decades ago, the US opted to follow the economics of the likes of Greenspan. The result: Half of American families are state-dependent. But fortunately, Bahuka’s economics, close to Greenspan’s, was ignored by Indians thousands of years ago, though, of late, some Indian politicians seem influenced by Bahuka’s economics.

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An interesting report in Scientific American says

Most of us are aware that our cars, our coal-generated electric power and even our cement factories adversely affect the environment. Until recently, however, the foods we eat had gotten a pass in the discussion. Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry. (Greenhouse gases trap solar energy, thereby warming the earth’s surface. Because gases vary in greenhouse potency, every greenhouse gas is usually expressed as an amount of CO2 with the same global-warming potential.)

Further it is suggested that

Curbing the world’s huge and increasing appetite for meat is essential to avoid devastating climate change, according to a new report. But governments and green campaigners are doing nothing to tackle the issue due to fears of a consumer backlash, warns the analysis from the think-tank Chatham House.

The global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined, but a worldwide survey by Ipsos MORI in the report finds twice as many people think transport is the bigger contributor to global warming.

More importantly it is to be noted that the study shows red meat or beef dwarfs others for environmental impact, using 28 times more land and 11 times water for pork or chicken.

Beef’s environmental impact dwarfs that of other meat including chicken and pork, new research reveals, with one expert saying that eating less red meat would be a better way for people to cut carbon emissions than giving up their cars.

The heavy impact on the environment of meat production was known but the research shows a new scale and scope of damage, particularly for beef. The popular red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions. When compared to staples like potatoes, wheat, and rice, the impact of beef per calorie is even more extreme, requiring 160 times more land and producing 11 times more greenhouse gases.

“The biggest intervention people could make towards reducing their carbon footprints would not be to abandon cars, but to eat significantly less red meat,” Benton said. “Another recent study implies the single biggest intervention to free up calories that could be used to feed people would be not to use grains for beef production in the US.” However, he said the subject was always controversial: “This opens a real can of worms.”

Prof Mark Sutton, at the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: “Governments should consider these messages carefully if they want to improve overall production efficiency and reduce the environmental impacts. But the message for the consumer is even stronger. Avoiding excessive meat consumption, especially beef, is good for the environment.”

Why is rearing meat so bad for the environment?

• Livestock production accounts for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse emissions, the same amount produced by all the cars, planes, boats and trains in the world. “A single cow can belch up to 500 litres of methane every day”, writes the BBC’s Dr Michael Mosley, a gas that is 25 times more potent than a carbon dioxide. “Multiply that by the 1.5 billion cattle we have on our planet and that’s a lot of gas.”
• It is inefficient. It takes, on average, 3kg of grain to produce 1kg of meat and two thirds of all agricultural land is used to grow feed for livestock, whereas only eight per cent is used to grow food directly for human consumption. These are “basic laws of biophysics that we cannot evade,” says the study’s lead researcher, Bojana Bajzelj from the University of Cambridge.
• It places pressure on dwindling freshwater supplies and destroys forest and grasslands, which are turned over for grazing. Soil erosion, soil and water pollution from fertilisers and animal waste are other ways the meat industry impacts the environment.
• Scientists also argue that we need to stop wasting so much food, as on average, 7.2 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK each year.

In conclusion, we should put forward arguments and turn the debate on its head by asking the West toclose down steak houses and consume less red-meat/ beef rather than meekly accepting their arm twisting.

(reposted from http://rvaidya2000.com/2016/01/30/give-up-beef-and-save-the-planet/)

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