बिहार निवडणुकीचे भाष्य

बिहार निवडणुकीचे भाष्य

बिहार निवडणुकीचे निकाल येऊ लागले तसतसे भाजपाचे सरकार बनू शकत नाही
हे स्पष्ट होऊ लागले. अगदी जनसंघाच्या काळापासूनच बिहारच्या मतदाराने त्यांना प्रतिसाद दिला
नव्हता. त्यामानाने ६५ वर्षांच्या दीर्घ प्रयत्न आणि प्रतीक्षेनंतर या निवडणुकीत मिळालेले यश हे
कमी लेखता येणार नाही. त्याला मोठी उडीच म्हणावी लागेल. पण भाजपाचे सरकार बनेल किंवा
निदान "कांटे कि टक्कर" असेल असे जे सर्व एक्झिट पोलचे निष्कर्ष होते ते चुकीचे ठरले. भाजपाच्या
दृष्टीने मिळालेल्या जागा जरी पुष्कळ असल्या तरी झालेला अपेक्षाभंग ही फार मोठा होता.
तसे पाहीले तर लोकसभा निवडणुकीनंतर झालेल्या दिल्ली विधानसभा निवडणुकीत
भाजपाचा सपाटून अपेक्षाभंग झाला होता. पण ती हार भाजपाच्या अपयशापेक्षा केजरीवालना लोकांची
नस बरोबर समजल्याचे द्योतक होती. बिहार मधील अपयश हे भाजपाच्या मागील एका वर्षाच्या
कामगिरीशी निगडीत आहे.
या एका वर्षात भाजपाने देशाला काय दिले याचे उत्तर देताना टिपीकली  "अहो, अजून तर
फक्त एकच वर्ष झाले आहे, २०१९ पर्यंत तरी धीर धरा" हे उत्तर सहज पणे दिले जाते.  दुसरे हुकुमी उत्तर
म्हणजे मोदींची विदेश नीती, विदेश दौरे आणि त्यातून विश्वपटलावर भारताची प्रतिमा उंचावत असल्याचा
दावा केला जातो. ते उत्तर बरेचसे फॅक्चुअल आहे.  भारताची प्रतिमा खूप उंचावली नसली तरी भारताची नवी ओळख निर्माण होत आहे आणि इतर देशात जाऊन राहिलेल्या भारतीयांना देखील ब-याच अपेक्षा निर्माण झाल्या आहेत, हे भाजपाचे, किंबहुना मोदींचे यश निश्चितच मान्य करावे लागेल.
मात्र बिहारच्या जनतेच्या मनातील प्रश्न वेगळा होता. विदेशस्थ भारतीयांची मान कितीही
उंचावली असो, पण देशाअंतर्गत काय केले हा तो प्रश्न होता. देशात भाजपाचे सरकार आणि राज्यात
जनता दलाचे सरकार म्हटल्यावर केंद्र सरकार बिहार राज्यासाठी थेटपणे जे काम करु शकते त्यावर
मर्यादा पडतात हे कळण्याइतका मतदार सूज्ञ असतो. त्यामुळे तुम्ही  गेल्या वर्षांत बिहारमध्ये काय केलं हा
प्रश्नही लोक विचारणार नाहीत किंवा त्याचे खापर भाजपावर फोडणार नाहीत. पण देशाच्या इतर भागांत
तुमच्याकडून एका वर्षात काय दिले गेले याचा हिशोब नक्कीच लोकांच्या मनात असतो.
या एका वर्षाचा हिशोब मांडायचा म्हटला आणि भाजपाने कोणत्या बाबतीत चांगले प्रशासन
द्यायला सुरूवात केली, असे विचारले तर उत्तर देण्यासाठी विचार करावा लागतो. डाळी, तेल यांचे भाव व एकूण
महागाई वाढत चालली आहे. जोपर्यंत वाहतुक आणि त्यासाठी वापरले जाणारे डिझेल इत्यादी. महागत राहतील
तोपर्यंत महागाई वाढत राहणार. त्यातही जीवनावश्यक वस्तुंचे भाव वाढले की, त्याची झळ सर्वात अधिक सामान्य माणसाला बसते. ते सरकारला सावरता आलेले नाही.
देशाची संख्या सुमारे १३० कोटी व त्यापैकी १५ ते ३५ या वयोगटातली सुमारे ३५ कोटी लोकसंख्या
आहे. हा सर्व युवावर्ग आहे ज्या पैकी दहावीपेक्षा अधिक शिक्षण घेतलेले फक्त ५ ते ७ कोटी निघतील. उरलेले २८ ते ३० कोटी युवक- युवती हे काम करायला सक्षम, उत्सुक व काम करून चार पैसे गाठीला मिळवावेत यासाठी आसुसलेले पण त्यांना सामान्य शिक्षण नको आहे आणि कौशल्य शिक्षणाची सोय झालेली नाही. ही समस्या काही दशकापासुन सुरू आहे व तीची भयावहता वाढतच चाललेली आहे. काँग्रेस सरकारने २००४ ते २०१४ या काळात याकडे लक्ष दिले नाही. पण २०१४ मध्ये काँग्रेस पराभवाचे ते प्रमुख कारण होते आणि मोदींच्या मेक इन इंडिया कडून लोकांना फार अपेक्षा होत्या. पण गेल्या वर्षभरात या विषयावर काही केले गेले का- याचे दृश्य व दिलासाजनक उत्तर नाही. स्किल आयोग आला आहे, तो हळूहळू कामाला सुरूवात करील मग ५०-१०० वर्षांनी कधीतरी कौशल्य शिक्षणाला वेग येईल या अजेंड्यावर आता कोणीही विसंबुन राहू शकत नाही. त्यामुळे कौशल्य वाढीचे दृश्य आणि गतिशील उपाय शासनाकडे नाहीत हे महत्वाच चित्र लोकांना दिसत.
तिसरी समस्या शेतकरी वर्गाची आहे. ग्राहकाला जरी अन्नधान्य-भाजांचे भाव वाढत जाताना दिसत
असले तरी दुस-या टोकावर उभा असलेला शेतकरी मात्र त्याहून भरडला जात आहे आणि आत्महत्येकडे वळत
आहे. शेतजमीन मोठ्या प्रमाणावर उद्योगाकडे वळवून भारताचे कृषी प्रधान देश हे वर्णन पुसुन टाकावे असे
सरकारला वाटते. पण कृषी हेचं असे क्षेत्र आहे जिथे अधिकाधीक प्रमाणात कष्टकरी वर्गाला सामाऊन घेता
येते. पण कृषी क्षेत्रचं मोडीत काढायचे अशा दिशेने नव्या सरकारचे धोरण जाताना दिसते त्यामुळे ८० ते ९०
कोटी लोकसंख्येला कसेबसे का होईना सामावून घेणारे कृषी क्षेत्र - पण त्याचा अभ्यास व विचार करतांना सरकार दिसत नाही. त्यातच या वर्षी जवळ- जवळ सगळ्या देशभर पावसाचे प्रमाण कमी झाले. आधीच अडचनीत असलेला शेतकरी अणखीण अडचणीत आला. पण भाजपा सरकार मध्ये त्याच्याकडे कुणी लक्ष देते का, याचे सकारात्मक उत्तर लोकांना दिसुन आले नाही.
महागाई, कौशल्य शिक्षणाची योग्य गती आजून न गाठता आल्यामुळे युवा वर्गाची वाढती बेरोजगारी,
आणि कृषी क्षेत्राकडे दुर्लक्ष, या तीन बाबी लोकांना जाणवतात. बिहारचा मतदार म्हणतो- आमचं राहूदे बाजूला,
भाजपा सरकार जिथे आहे तिथे काय दृश्य दिसतं? किंबहूना त्याहून महत्वाचं म्हणजे भाजपाचे सरकार असलेल्या केंद्रात  काय दिसून येत? स्वतः मोदी कर्मठ आहेत, विचार करतात, नव्या आणि गरजेच्या संकल्पना मांडतात (उदा. स्वच्छ भारत) हे सगळं कबूल. पण त्यांची टीम काय करते? त्यांची सेकंड रँक, थर्ड-फोर्थ रँक, यातील मंत्री अजूनही निवडणूक जिंकल्याच्या दुस-या दिवशी ज्या उत्सवी वातावरणांत आणि हारतुरे, फटाके, पेढे घेण्याच्या मनस्थितीत होते तिथेच ते अजून दिसतात. त्यांच्या पैकी  कामाला लागले आहेत असे कोणी मंत्री दिसतात का? कृषी खाते, शिक्षण खाते, आरोग्य, व्यापार, सिंचन, वाहतुक यातील मंत्री आपल्याला खात्याचा सखोल अभ्यास व चिंतन करताना दिसतात का?
सामान्य माणूस थबकून, इतर काम टाकून हा प्रश्न विचारत बसत नाही पण मतदानाला निघालेला माणूस हा प्रश्न नक्की विचारतो.
मला इथे बिहार निवडणूकीचे विश्लेषण करायचे नसून पुढील प्रत्येक वर्षी येणा-या स्थानिक किंवा
प्रांतिक निवडणुका व शेवटी लोकसभा निवडणुका इथपर्यंतचा काळ डोळ्यासमोर दिसतो. तोपर्यंत तरी भाजपाचे मंत्री आपापल्या  खात्याचा अभ्यास, चिंतन आणि कार्यप्रवणता दाखवताना दिसणार आहेत की, हारतुरे घेण्यातच मशगुल राहणार आहेत याचे विश्लेषण करायचे आहे. भाजपाचे सरकार बनून एक वर्षभरानंतरही   ते विश्लेषण फारसे सकारात्मक झालेले नाही. हाच बिहारी मतदानाचा संदेश आहे असे मला वाटते.

the Indian intellectual diaspora

http://www.swapan55.com/2015/08/when-anti-modi-transforms-itself-into.html

India's intellectual diaspora: When anti-Modi transforms itself into anti-India

By Swapan Dasgupta

The election of the Narendra Modi government in May 2014 has seen many changes in governance, the economy and even society. The question often asked is: how much?

Those who believe that the mandate was revolutionary—a vote to effect a radical break with the past—have often complained that the government is too wedded to continuity. There has, for example, been an interesting debate on whether the government should have opted for ‘big bang’ economic reforms—including the dismantling of the public sector and massive subsidy cuts—or pursued incremental changes that can be managed by an essentially status quo-loving bureaucracy. 

Likewise, there are Left-inclined individuals and those affected by the curbs on the foreign-funding of NGOs who feel that the India of 2015 is different from the one bequeathed to his successor by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Some have described the shifts as moves towards authoritarianism or even fascism, while still others have detected a creeping erosion of state secularism. 

The debate has inevitably spilled over into foreign policy where Modi’s aggressive global outreach with a strong economic underpinning has been favourably juxtaposed with the unending muddle over the nuisance along the western borders. That Modi is determined to use India’s economic potential to emerge as a major regional power (with a global footprint) has been obvious. This despite the cussed comments his foreign visits have invited from courtiers of the former durbar for who the history of Independent India is the history of one family. 

One feature of Modi’s global outreach has been India’s deepening engagement with its diaspora and a conscious bid to make Overseas Indians co-partners in the larger mission of nation reconstruction. Whether in New York, Toronto, Sydney and Dubai, the Prime Minister has spoken to packed gatherings of Indians elated by the knowledge that the Prime Minister acknowledges their importance. For many Overseas Indians, detached from home, Modi has created an environment that permits a deep emotional bonding with the cultural motherland. 

The response to the Prime Minister has been nothing short of overwhelming. After the Dubai event that touched a chord among Indian workers accustomed to being shabbily treated both by their employers and the country that benefits immeasurably from their remittances, it will be the turn of San Francisco and London. Modi will speak to the large, prosperous and influential Indian diaspora in the Silicon Valley on September 27. Then, just after Diwali, he will address Overseas Indians (including a large contingent of Gujaratis who came to Britain from East Africa but still maintain their India connections) at the iconic Wembley Stadium that can accommodate nearly 80,000 people. Both occasions will be an opportunity to simultaneously demonstrate the political clout of the diaspora in California and the United Kingdom. 

The linkage made between India’s economy and culture with a diaspora that, for a change, feels proud to be linked to India, is important in the larger diplomatic game. By making it clear to the world that it regards the diaspora as an extension of its soul, it is assuming some moral responsibility for their larger well-being. This, in turn, will enhance the stature of the Indian diaspora in their respective countries, not least because India now counts as a force for the good and a rising economic power. The image problem faced by Pakistan in the non-Islamic world doesn’t extend to India. 

The engagement with the diaspora has an additional dimension. By facilitating the emotional connect with India and, not least, the Prime Minister, India is preparing the ground for elevating the diaspora to the status of a permanent India lobby. It was Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government that first utilised the diaspora to offset some of the sustained pressure on India after the Pokran-II tests in 1998. The story of how the US sanctions were neutralised using the good offices of Overseas Indians is a story that needs to be documented and narrated. It is reassuring that Modi is building on this legacy and, indeed, enlarging its scope. 

It is in this context that a petition signed by various US-based academics to many Silicon Valley technology companies assumes some significance. Ever since the likelihood of Modi winning the 2014 general election sunk in, various petitions by the Left-liberal lobby to like-minded newspapers painting him as the Indian incarnation of Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler did the rounds. Earlier, some academics at the University of Pennsylvania forced the cancellation of a video talk by Modi to students. What marked these interventions was that the attacks were directed against Modi the individual. It was their visceral hatred of him that was paramount. 

This time it is different. The galaxy of historians, post-modernists, gender studies experts and sociologists—I didn’t detect physicists or other ‘science types’ in the long list—have basically called upon IT companies in the Silicon Valley to opt out of any engagement with the ‘Digital India’ programme of the Indian government. These guys are unhappy with the developments in Nalanda University, with the ICHR appointment and “constriction of the space of civic engagement, ongoing violations of religious freedom and a steady impingement on the independence of the judiciary.” Therefore, “these alarming trends require that we, as educators, remain vigilant not only about the modes of e-governance in India but about the political future of the country.” Their solution: US companies must shun business links with the Indian state. 

The academics-imposed sanctions on India will in all likelihood not even be seriously considered. But that is not the point. What we are witnessing is the willingness of an intellectual diaspora to actually wage war on India’s development. From political opposition to Modi they have moved to sabotaging India in the world. 

If I didn’t think their paranoia suggest a deep disconnect with Indian realities, I would have called them treacherous. In any case, it is always worth remembering the names of all those who are ready to subvert India because they didn’t like the way Indians voted. 

Sunday Pioneer, August 30, 2015

Kannan and Ragini sharma on Rajiv Malhotra

Kannan and Ragini sharma on Rajiv Malhotra

“Sling mud; even if the mud does not stick, the stain will stay for long.”

asatyam api dur-vachanam chiram tishthati = Vilification, even if groundless, lasts long.

These are but some of the maxims being deployed by the vituperative attackers of Sri Rajiv Malhotra on the false allegations of plagiarism.

Rajiv Malhotra has been consistently and systematically working for over two decades on but one theme: preparing antidotes against the continued supercilious intellectual colonialism by the West over India.

For the West, it is the White Man’s Burden – to enlighten the East – bearing kinship to the saying, “Whenever a politician decides to commit a crime, he declares it first as his duty.”

The brazen attacks on, and exploitation of other civilisations by the West constitute a steady and ceaseless creed, for centuries, of the “more equal”  Big Brother, the veritable master of  the Orwellian doublespeak.

The Sanatana civilization, which never had imperial aspirations against other civilisations has been a steady and steadfast producer of ennobling knowledge for millennia. The Mahabhaashya of Patanjali (1st Century BCE) spoke of the pursuit of knowledge for no specific worldly gain (nishkaarana).

Knowledge-Engineering

Knowledge was pursued in gurukula-s, in the simple and quiet hamlets, thousands of them, throughout the length and breadth of Bharata without any great burden on the royal exchequer, apart from vast conclaves of forest-dwellers on the one hand, and world-class universities on the other.

The spirit of free but disciplined enquiry buttressed by a continuous evaluation of knowledge produced in the past, and revisions and reformulations as also alternative formulations of the same, non-production of knowledge as a danger to society, free and open dispersal of such knowledge as is healthy and beneficial to the society (without being obsessed by “ownership” of ideas) were its hallmarks, none of which has ever had a worthy parallel in the world.

Greek thinkers rose to great heights, too, but their civilizational vigour and intellectual rigour did not last for more than a few centuries.

Riches and Rogues

Ananda Coomaraswamy

Against the charge of “mere other-worldliness” projected by the dishonest critics against the culture of India, or the charge that religion has been the cause of the country’s backwardness, Dharampal has laid bare, in great detail, how India was a top economic power in the world even up till the 17th century, which is what made the hordes of the colonizing barbarians of the West set their  eyes on this rich country with their single agenda of plunder and loot, with full sanction from the Vatican.

To cite a quotation of Newcomb (no date) from Malhotra’s Being Different (2011: 164-165),

“Christian nations had a divine right, based on the Bible, to claim absolute title to and ultimate authority over any newly ‘discovered’ Non-Christian inhabitants and their lands. Over the next several centuries, these beliefs gave rise to the Doctrine of Discovery used by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland – all Christian nations.”

More juicy details can be gleaned from Romanus Pontifex of Pope Nicholas V.

Indeed, they were only following the footsteps of their other imperialist kinsmen of the Abrahamic faith, the brutal perpetuators of the sole religion of peace, which is in no way opposed to the burning of libraries apart from perpetrating unspeakable atrocities – past perfect as well as present continuous.

Cultural genocide is incontrovertibly, the common cult of these two fellow faiths.

Cultural Genocide

Of the two, the West, which is all sophistication in its methods, can be likened to perfect duplicity: orphan a bright child first and then declare yourself to be its sole, and benevolent, guardian.

What the Westerners did to Africans and Native Americans are cases that suffice to drive home the point.

Ananda Coomaraswamy was among the early writers to see through, in his early writings especially, this game of Western Indological scholarship, and to expose its hollowness and hypocrisy.

To cite another author, but only illustratively on what the West did to Africa, we have this by Alain Danielou (1969):

“Although today colonialism has abandoned, in Africa as in the other countries of the ‘Third World’, its most brutal forms of genocide and slavery, the concepts of cultural and racial superiority by which it justified itself have not been honestly revised. The appearances and above all the methods have changed, but the fundamental attitude not in the slightest. A cultural colonialism that conditions economic aid has today become a more subtle arm of domination. The importation of a foreign culture into small population groups, in exchange for special privileges and a semi-assimilation to the West, permits the formation of a false elite made up of elements that are entirely dependent on external connections and are the perfect mediators of cultural domination…” [Emphasis added]

Already in 1761, William Law asked men to

“look at all European Christendom sailing round the globe with fire and sword and every murdering art of war to seize the possessors and kill the inhabitants of both the Indies. What natural right of man, what supernatural virtue, which Christ brought down from Heaven, was not here trodden under foot?” (p180)

Sir George Birdwood wrote in Industrial Arts of India (1880), of what British education did for India.

“Our education has destroyed their love of their own literature… their delight in their own arts and, worst of all, their repose in their own traditional and national religion. It has disgusted them with their own home – their parents, their sisters, their very wives. It has brought discontent into every family so far as its baneful influences have reached.” [Emphasis added]

Ultimately, what the British did to India culturally was to dislodge the traditional learning system from thepaathashaalaa-s and gurukula-s, usurp the knowledge therein for a pittance (if indeed that), and declare themselves to be the sole guardians/interpreters of this age-old treasure house of knowledge.

Rajiv Malhotra’s Exposes

The singular contribution of Rajiv Malhotra has been to lay bare the machinations of these Machiavellians, and even more importantly, place things in a global perspective.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” said Upton Sinclair.

This explains why the Youngs, the Foxes, and the Goldmans cannot digest what Malhotra says, much less the sepoys under the pay of the likes of Ford Foundation, or the NGOs they fund and patronize.

It is this that inspires them to make the charge of plagiarism because they have begun to realize that, if the present course of Malhotra’s polemic continues, their intellectual ivory tower may well one day be detonated.

Rajiv Malhotra

Given this background, the question that arises is this: does Rajiv Malhotra need to plagiarise? If yes, why?

His Indra’s Net (2014) cites from over 150 sources, and Being Different (2011) from over 225 sources (and some of them, multiple times). Even Andrew Nicholson has been cited over 30 times in a single book.

Certainly, if there is a lapse in attribution in half a dozen places, the same can be politely pointed out, and corrections can be introduced in future editions. Doubtless, Malhotra would be more than willing to make his books more error-free: I have myself pointed out nearly a century of minor lapses and corrections to his Being Different, and they have been duly incorporated in the paperback edition.

Stigmatise to Discard

However, if the whole stratagem is to give him a bad name so that it may provide the censorious academicians a plank to ignore his ideas, this is nothing but chicanery.

Indeed, the ganging up of the Western academic against Rajiv Malhotra is the height of unfairness, to cast dubious allegations on the intellectual integrity of a person who has been quite dignified in countering his opponents purely academically.

Notes

• Birdwood, Sir George (1880) Industrial Arts of India. Committee of Council on Education. London.
• Daniélou, Alain (1969) “Cultural Genocide” African Music 4, No. 3, pp. 19-21.
• Dharampal (2000) Indian Science & Technology in the Eigteenth Century. .(Ed.) Alvares, Claude. Other India Press. Mapusa.
• Law, William (1761) An Humble, Earnest, and Affectionate Address, to the Clergy.

The latest attack on Rajiv Malhotra on Twitter is an attempt to silence and discredit him and thereby interfere with the publication and promotion of his new book on Sanskrit that further exposes anti-Dharma forces.

In July 2015 Rajiv Malhotra, a well-respected American-Indian Dharmic scholar who has devoted 20 years to decolonizing Indology, was viciously attacked on Twitter and social media, using feeble and dubious allegations of plagiarism. This attack was a part of the ongoing war being waged on Dharma by “Breaking India” forces that use Judeo-Christian, Marxist and psychoanalysis ideologies for the purpose of “Invading the Sacred” (titles of Malhotra’s books) to denigrate and digest Dharmic knowledge, language and culture.   In this article I apply Evelyn Kallen’s conceptual framework of invalidation ideology, which is grounded in the principles of human rights, to explain the mindset used to justifies and fuel such intellectual violence.

The latest attack on Twitter was an attempt to silence and discredit Malhotra and thereby interfere with the publication and promotion of his new book on Sanskrit that further exposes anti-Dharma forces. I explain these developments in the context of racism, with its components of prejudice and discrimination, which is based on colonialism and paternalism. In the 21st century this racism manifests itself as western universalism, a movement that Malhotra’s purva paksh forcefully challenges in his various books, particularly in his book, Being Different:
An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (2011).

In an article titled “Hate on the net: A Question of Rights / A question of Power” Evelyn Kallen (1998) explained how “cyberhate messages promoted on the Internet by organized political and religious hate groups incite hatred and promote harmful actions against racial, ethonocultural, religious and same-sex orientated minorities.” Kallen based her arguments on Article 20.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the UN that provides protection against ‘Incitement to Hate and Group Defamation’ (p. 2). While Kallen’s analysis refers to the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens from cyberhate, the conceptual framework she proposed can be similarly applied to analyze the bullying and exclusion of other persecuted individuals or groups, for example Dharmic practitioner-scholars, by politically driven academics. In the case of Hinduphobia (a phrase coined by Malhotra), the instigators of hate are Western-trained, mainly US-based academics and the Christian evangelical and Marxist ideologues they inspire and co-conspire with.

Collectively, their writings incite hatred towards Dharmic Gurus, deities, rituals, practices and philosophy. However, because they present their work in the guise of academic research, they have been able to claim protection under academic freedom.   Kallen’s thesis is that “by manipulating deeply held invalidation myths to provide ‘evidence’ for their arguments, high tech hate mongers incite virulent hatred of and harmful actions towards targeted minorities…By so doing, high tech hate-mongering violates minority member’s human rights to dignity and equality by denying their fundamental freedom from group defamation and harassment”(p.1).

In this article I show that this conceptual analysis also applies those victims who are not officially classified as “minorities”. In particular, I explain the ways in which Hinduphobia is being used in social media, as well as in Western academia, to target Hindu scholars like Malhotra, who are working to protect Sanskrit and Sanskriti, the basis of Indian civilization.  Kallen explains that the hate propaganda has been debated in the context of rights in conflict and, using a social science approach, she analyses this conflict by examining the difference between prejudice and discrimination.  Regarding prejudice, Kallen argues that that the liberal view is that, “When hate propaganda and its dissemination are conceptualized as prejudice (negative ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings toward the target of hate) it can be argued that it does not violate human rights” (Kallen, p. 4). This line of argument, based on right to freedom of speech and expression, was recently taken by Wendy Doniger, a prominent author of books on Hinduism, in her comment to a journalist interviewing her about allegations against Malhotra.

While summarily accusing Malhotra, Doniger conveyed that she “believes ancient Indian texts are open to interpretation by experts around the world” and she “decried any effort to stop the free flow of ideas,” (Dutt, 2015).  However, the journalist has failed to mention in her article why Malhotra has criticized Doniger’s work. The reason is that Doniger has used Freudian psychoanalysis to impose offensive sexual perversion motives onto Hindu gurus, deities and rituals and, that Hindus find her interpretation of Hindu texts to be hateful and hurtful. Kallen offers an explanation that validates the negative response from Hindus. She refers to a Canadian Government study on Hate Propaganda that found that, “hate-mongering can inflict profound psychological and spiritual damage on members of target groups through defamatory messages which violate that right to dignity of the group as a whole” (p. 4).

Regarding discrimination, Kallen explains that, in contrast to the above view on prejudice, the egalitarian view is that, “When hate promotion activities are conceptualized as discrimination (acts or practices which deny target groups their individual and collective human right to dignity), the promotion of hatred indisputably violates human rights” (Kallen, p. 4) Again I refer back to the Doniger interview to provide an example. Doniger’s previously stated comment referred to her 2009 book, The Hindus An Alternative History, which was pulled off the shelf by her publisher as Indian law prohibited “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the feelings of any religious community” (Dutt, 2015).

While Doniger’s book was seen as an activity that promoted hate, Doniger remains unmoved and unrelenting. Still “smarting from that attack” Doniger maintained that “Western scholars can’t damage the texts they interpret, no matter how wrong their ideas about them may be” and that, “Indians can air their view at any time” (Dutt, 2015). In the book “Invading the Sacred” Krishnan Ramaswamy has pointed out the hypocrisy of this statement by exposing the Hinduphobic academic cartel Doniger and her cohorts control to exclude alternate views to be studied or presented (Chapter 26).   The book, Invading the Sacred (2007) provides a detailed critique of Doniger’s Hinduphobic writings, as well of her “children’s” (her protégés) writings. For example, Paul Courtright’s book on Ganesha caricatures the beloved Hindu God’s trunk as a limp phallus (Chapter 5). One wonders about the reasons why Doniger and her ‘children’ have chosen to write such filth only on Hindu religious figures and not on Islamic, Christian or Jewish religious figures.

How about applying psychoanalysis to Jesus, his apostles, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene? How about the epidemic of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests? The public is well aware of the dire consequences to those who chose to make caricatures of Prophet Mohammad; the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his Satanic Verses and the bombing deaths of cartoon artists at Charlie Hebdo are cautionary reminders.  Is it because Hindus have historically been benevolent towards other religions and were viewed as docile?  The latest attack on Malhotra is by Richard Fox Young (RFY), a New Jersey based Christian evangelical who promotes the very divisive Afro-Dalit campaign, as described in Malhotra’s book, “Breaking India” (2011A, Chapter 12). RFY has a history of harassing Malhotra on Twitter, with over 50% of his Tweets aimed at Malhotra. RFY trolls Twitter in order to respond to any positive posts made on Malhotra’s site with negative comments about Malhotra. I had personal experience of this.

In March 2015 when I posted a message to say that I had read Being Different and it had shocked and inspired me, I immediately got a tweet from RFY to state that Malhotra writings do not address oppression of women in India and therefore his work is discredited. When I tried to engage with him using the content of Malhotra’s books, RFY became belligerent and I had to finally block him to prevent being harassed by him. He is clearly an Internet bully.  Briefly, RFY’s current attack on Malhotra used a ‘shoot and scoot’ strategy in which he sacrificed academic integrity in favor of hatemongering through a cheap Twitter based smear-campaign.

He dramatically posted his allegation of plagiarism in a series of sensationalized tweets starting July 1, 2015. Specifically he alleged that in his book, Indra’s Net, Malhotra had not properly cited references to Andrew Nicholson’s book titled, Unifying Hinduism. Malhotra’s response was quick and to the point; while denying any intention to plagiarize he acknowledged some minor editing errors that the new edition of the book would correct; he also pointed out the 30 references he had made to Nicholson’s book as an indication of his full acknowledgement of Nicholson’s book.

During the days and weeks that followed, numerous articles and comments posted in social media expressed support for Malhotra along with a few articles and comments that were either neutral or antagonistic. There was an on-line petition on Change.org asking Malhotra’s publisher to withdraw his books. Its noteworthy that while the RFY sponsored petition against Malhotra was signed by less than 250 people, Malhotra’s counter petition, sponsored by Madhu Kishwar, an Indian journalist, had quickly garnered over 5, 000 signatures (was at over 10,000 by end of July, 2015). When RFY sensed his campaign was petering out, he ostensibly coaxed Nicholson himself to write an article on line to reiterate the allegation of plagiarism. Interestingly, in his article Nicholson mentions his allegiance to Sheldon Pollock, an American Sanskrit scholar, who Malhotra’s new book on Sanskrit seeks to expose as being anti-Dharma and anti-India.  Malhotra responded by giving a strong rejoinder to Nicholson, challenging Nicholson to acknowledge the names of all the indigenous Sanskrit scholars that provided him with assistance with Sanskrit translation or face allegations of plagiarism himself.

Overall, the cyber attack on Malhotra by RFY and the support provided by Doniger, Nicholson, Mihir Sharma and others who accuse Malhotra of not measuring up to western academic standards have themselves displayed shallow and unethical conduct that is unbecoming of those standards. How else can one interpret the fact that the feeble and dubious allegations of plagiarism are being carried out through Twitter and other social media campaigns? Instead of using the normal appropriate channel of writing directly and privately to the author and/or publisher of the books to seek a resolution of the minor editing errors, RFY chose to undertake a public smear campaign.

In his August 1, 2015 follow-up article, RFY provides the lame excuse that he took the Twitter route because Malhotra is not affiliated with any academic institution that would provide a route for the allegations to be addressed. RFY has continued the cyber attack despite Malhotra’s appropriate and civilized responses to the allegations and a concrete plan to resolve the issues. Using Kallen’s conceptual frameworks I will show how RFY’s malevolent intentions, to tarnish Malhotra’s scholarly reputation, can be described as hatemongering.

Kallen’s conceptual framework of invalidation ideology can be applied to critically analyze RFY’s cyber attack on Malhotra. Kallen explains that, “organized hate groups rely on and promote invalidation myths and ideologies through which they attempt to invalidate, in essence, to dehumanize, identified minorities and thus to legitimize violation of their human rights” (Kallen, p. 5). She defined invalidation myths as, “falsified statements which allege that identified human populations are innately inferior or invalid (defective) with regard to particular human attributes” (Kallen, p. 5).   In the case of Hinduphobia, Malhotra has identified several myths which together promote a viewpoint that Hindu texts and narratives are, and have historically been used as, tools of oppression of women, poor and minorities and therefore need to be challenged, through violent protest, if necessary.

Malhotra has extensively discussed these problematic and negative myths, giving examples, in his books, Invading the Sacred (Chapter 25) and Indra’s Net (Chapter 1).  These myths further perpetuate the notion that Hindu deities, gurus and rituals represent gross sexual perversity and need to be discarded and replaced with Euro-Christian values or Marxist social systems. Malhotra has described these divisive movements in detail in his book, Breaking India. Kallen explains how such problematic and false myths are used as grounds for inferiorization and to project these societies as dangerous and threatening. Using this process, “hate propaganda urges its audience to take steps to eliminate the purported threat.” (p. 5).

In the case of Malhotra, RFY urges people to sign a petition he created on Change.org in which he asked the publishers of Malhotra’s books, HarperCollins India, to withdraw all of Malhotra’s books, and in effect not publish his new book on Sanskrit. The cyber attack was therefore an attempt to humiliate and silence Malhotra and to stop him from further publicly challenging the Pollock-Doniger-Rambachan cartel’s hegemony over studies on Sanskrit and Sanskriti. Its goal is to deny Malhotra and other practicing Dharmic scholars like him a seat at the table of Indian Studies.  Kallen presents her concept of invalidation as a process that takes place in a sequence of the following three main stages: Invalidation myth (prejudice): definition of target group as inferior and dangerous Invalidation ideology: development of theory of vilification and provision of arguments and “evidence” to “justify” denial of fundamental rights Platform for action: incitement to hatred and harm (discriminatory action), denial of human rights (Kallen, p. 5).

Kallen provides the following example of racism against blacks to show how the processes of invalidation are used to justify discrimination. “Blacks are classified in racist myths as racially, culturally and morally inferior sub-human beings – criminally inclined dope-peddlers, wife-beaters and murderers” (p. 5).  Kallen cautions that, “the repetition of racist falsehoods and pseudo-facts can leave behind a residue of prejudice and hate among non-target recipients – a seed bed from which more widespread incitement to hate and harm can flourish” (p. 4). It is this kind of racist ideology that fed White Supremacy and led to slavery of Black people; the violence it fuels still continues in the US today. The incredibly high rates of incarceration of Black males have been called a modern form of slavery. A similar racist, paternal and colonial ideology led to the cultural genocide of millions of Aboriginal communities across North America, South America, Australia and Africa. After 300 years of oppression, the Aboriginal communities still face discrimination and criminalization of their people. The same ideology led to the colonization of India and many other countries – colonization not only of the lands, labour and resources but also of the minds, that persists today, like a cancer within.

Following the above examples, I apply the three processes involved in invalidation proposed by Kallen to Malhotra and his work: Invalidation myth (prejudice): Malhotra is not an academic scholar; he plagiarizes the work of western academics and he tries to stop the free flow of ideas in the work of western academics. He accuses westerners of appropriating Indian texts and wants only Indian writers to write on Hindu texts.  Invalidation ideology: Malhotra is a representative of the violent Hindutva forces that seek to continue the historical oppression of women, dalits and other minorities. His books defame western authors and his work against western academic interests in South Asian Studies threatens academic freedom. In short, he is an obstructionist. He also poses a dangerous threat to freeing millions of Indians from oppression which the Hindu religious culture and its leaders impose.

Platform for action: Urge people to boycott his books and publishers to withdrawn them; prevent his new book on Sanskrit from being published. In short, the call is to silence Malhotra and shut down his advocacy and literary work by all means possible, including continued exclusion from mainstream academia and, vilification through media and cyberspace campaigns.

A similar application of Kallen’s conceptual framework on invalidation to Hinduphobia helps to explain how RFY and other justify hatemongering: Invalidation myth (prejudice): Neo-Hinduism, like its predecessor, is an evil, war-mongering, ignorant, superstitious and politically oppressive religion that is against social harmony and equality.  Invalidation ideology: All those who support Hinduism are part of “Hindutva” -a political organization rooted in violence and the oppression of minorities. As religious extremists, Hindutva forces pose a serious threat to safely not only to India but to the world.  Platform for action: Urge people and NGOs to organize the disempowerment and overthrow of Hindutva beliefs, scholars and organizations, by violent socialist, Christian evangelical and political and social activities, as needed.

The foregoing analysis demonstrates how invalidation ideologies have and are being used to denigrate Hindu Dharma and to discredit and disempower Malhotra is his efforts to protect Dharma. In a recent article Malhotra poses this gut-wrenching rhetorical question: Is it safe to be a Hindu intellectual? Kallen’s provides an answer.

The answer is ‘No’. Hinduphobic academic cartels controlled by academic heavyweights such as Sheldon Pollock, Wendy Doniger and Ananatananda Rambachan largely prevent the views of practicing Hindu scholars, who have opposing views to that of the cartels, from entering the field of academia, media and think tanks. Malhotra provided details of these cartels in his book Breaking India (Chapters 13 and 14) and in Invading the Sacred. Through their immense influence on academia, the immense financial resources of Christian missionaries and the control of media by leftist organizations and individuals, the cartels have succeeded in hugely influencing public policy and public opinion. Those who oppose the views of the various cartels face strong opposition, as we have seen in the case of Malhotra.

Indeed, the malevolent intentions of the July 2015 cyber-attack on Malhotra were acknowledged by RFY, the perpetrator of the attack. In an online article titled, “Time For a ‘Diagnostic Test’ On Rajiv Malhotra’s Books” RFY refers to a recent book by Jon Ronson titled “So you have been publicly shamed” to reiterate Ronson’s observation that, “Twitter has been every digital terrorist’s favorite weapon of ‘mass online destruction.” RFY then publicly acknowledged that he attempted this attack on Malhotra with “trepidation” and he was careful what he wrote in order to prevent his own “nosedive into obloquy.”  So clearly RFY, by his own admission, was involved in digital terrorism against Malhotra. “Hate on the Net” against Hindus is alive and well.

References:

Courtright, P. (1985) Ganesha, Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings. New York: Oxford University Press.

Doniger, W. (1976) The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dutt, E. (2015) Indologist Wendy Doniger Comments on Rajiv Malhotra’s Plagiarism Controversy. New India Times. Retrieved on line @http://www.newsindiatimes.com/indologist-wendy-doniger-comments-on-rajiv-malhotras-plagiarism-controversy

Kallen, E. (1998) Hate on Net: A Question of Rights / A Question of Power. Retrieved on line on August 3, 2015 @http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.002/kallen.html

Kishwar, M. (2015) Petition in Change.org. Retrieved online @https://www.change.org/p/publishers-of-rajiv-malhotra-s-books-do-not-yield-to-mafia-pressure-tactics-that-seek-to-compromise-intellectual-freedom

Malhotra, R. & Neelakandan, A. (2011-A) Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines. New Delhi, India: AMARYLLIS

Malhotra, R. (2011) Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism. New Delhi, India: HaperCollins

Malhotra, R. (2014). Indra’s Net: Defending Hinduism’s Philosophical Unity.  New Delhi, India: HarperCollins

Ramaswamy, K., de Nicolas, A. & Bannerjee, A. (2007) Invading the Sacred: An analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, New Delhi, India: Rupa and Co

Young, R. F. (2015) Time For a “Diagnostic Test” on Rajiv Malhotra’s Books, Caravan Magazine, August 1, 2015. Retrieved online on August 3, 2015 @http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/richard-fox-young-rajiv-malhotra-plagiarism-books

What has happened to Indians-- Dr. Abdul Kalam and Dr. David Frawley

Dr. Abdul Kalam's ‪#‎Letter‬ to Every Indian 

Why is the media here so negative? 

Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? 

We are such a Great NATION. 

We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? 

We are the first in milk production. 

We are number one in Remote sensing satellites. 

We are the second largest producer of wheat. 

We are the second largest producer of rice. 

Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.. 

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. 

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.
Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? 

We want foreign T.Vs,
We want foreign shirts.
We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. 

Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? 

I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is..
She replied: I want to live in a developed India. 

For her, you and I will have to build this developed India.

You must proclaim.
India is not an under-developed nation;
it is a highly developed nation...

YOU say that our government is inefficient.

YOU say that our laws are too old.

YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. 

Y OU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say.. 

What do YOU do about it? 

Take a person on his way to Singapore.
Give him a name - 'YOURS'. Give him a face - 'YOURS'. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. 

In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. 

YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. 

YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity…
In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? 

YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .. 

YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs..650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.' 

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand ..

Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? 

Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ???
We are still talking of the same YOU. 

YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. 

YOU who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground.

If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country,
Why cannot you be the same here in India ? 

In America every dog owne r has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan ..

Will the Indian citizen do that here?

We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. 

We expect   the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin.

We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others what do we do?
We make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.
OUR EXCUSE?
'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' 

So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of?
Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government.
But definitely not ME & YOU. 

When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.CLEAN to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government.
Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country.

Nobody thinks of feeding the system. 

Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too….. 

I am echoing J. F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..'
ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.
Forward this letter to each Indian for a change instead of sending JUST JOKES.

Thank you …
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

The Colonial Native Vs The Hindu

Dr. David Frawley, 

(American Institute of Vedic Studies, New Mexico)

A defeatist tendency

Exists in the psyche of modern Indians perhaps unparalleled in any other country today. An inner conflict bordering on a civil war rages in the minds of the country’s elite. The main effort of its cultural leaders appears to be to pull the country down or remake it in a foreign image, as if little Indian and certainly nothing Hindu was worthy of preserving or even reforming.The elite of India

Suffers from a fundamental alienation from the traditions and culture of the land that would not be less poignant had they been born and raised in a hostile country. The ruling elite appears to be little more than a native incarnation of the old colonial rulers who haughtily lived in their separate cantonments, neither mingling with the people nor seeking to understand their customs. This new English-speaking aristocracy prides itself in being disconnected from the very soil and people that gave it birth.There is probably no other country where

It has become a national pastime among its educated class to denigrate its own culture and history, however great that has been over the many millennia of its existence. When great archaeological discoveries of India’s past are found, for example, they are not a subject for national pride but are ridiculed as an exaggeration, if not an invention, as if they represent only the imagination of backward chauvinistic elements within the culture.

There is probably no other country where

The majority religion, however enlightened, mystical or spiritual, is ridiculed, while minority religions, however fundamentalist or even militant, are doted upon. The majority religion and its institutions are taxed and regulated while minority religions receive tax benefits and have no regulation or even monitoring. While the majority religion is carefully monitored and limited as to what it can teach, minority religions can teach what they want, even if anti-national or backward in nature. Books are banned that offend minority religious sentiments but praised if they cast insults on majority beliefs.

There is probably no other country where

Regional, caste and family loyalties are more important than the national interest, even among those who claim to be democratic, socialist or caste reformers. Political parties exist not to promote a national agenda but to sustain one region or group of people in the country at the expense of the whole. Each group wants as big a piece of the national pie as it can get, not realizing that the advantages it gains mean deprivation for other groups. Yet when those who were previously deprived gain power, they too seek the same unequal advantages that causes further inequality and discontent.India’s affirmative action code is

By far the most extreme in the world, trying to raise up certain segments of the population regardless of merit, and prevent others from gaining positions however qualified they may be. In the guise of removing caste, a new castism has arisen where one’s caste is more important than one’s qualifications either in gaining entrance into a school or in finding a job when one graduates. Anti-Brahminism has often become the most virulent form of castist thinking. People view the government not as their own creation but as a welfare state from they should take the maximum personal benefit, regardless of the consequences for the country as a whole.Outside people need not pull Indians down

Indians are already quite busy keeping any of their people and the country as a whole from rising up. They would rather see their neighbors or the nation fail if they are not given the top position. It is only outside of India that Indians succeed, often remarkably well, because their native talents are not stifled by the dominant cultural self-negativity and rabid divisiveness that exists in the country today.

Political parties

In India see gaining power as a means of amassing personal wealth and robbing the nation. Political leaders include gangsters, charlatans and buffoons who would stop short at nothing to gain power for themselves and their coteries. Even so-called modern or liberal parties resemble more the courts of kings, where personal loyalty is more important than any democratic participation. Once they gain power politicians routinely do little but cheat the people for their own advantage. Even honest politicians find that they cannot function without some deference to the more numerous corrupt leaders who often have a stranglehold on the bureaucracy.Politicians divide the country

Into warring vote banks and place one community against another. They offer favors to communities like bribes to make sure that they are elected or stay in power. They campaign on slogans that appeal to community fears and suspicions rather than create any national consensus or harmony.They hold power based upon blame and hatred rather than on any positive programs for social change. They inflame the uneducated masses with propaganda rather than work to make people aware of real social problems like overpopulation, poor infrastructure or lack of education.

Should a decent government come to power

The opposition pursues pulling it down as its main goal, so that they can gain power for themselves. The idea of a constructive or supportive opposition is hard to find. The goal  is to gain power for oneself and to not allow anyone else to succeed.To further their ambitions

Indian politicians will manipulate the foreign press to denigrate their opponents, even if it means spreading lies and rumors and making the country an anathema in the eyes of the outside world. Petty  conflicts in India are blown out of proportion in the foreign media, not by foreign journalists but by Indians seeking to use the media to score points against their own opponents in the country. The Indians who are responsible for the news of India in the foreign press spread venom and distortion about their own country, perhaps better than any foreigner who dislikes the culture ever could.The killing of one Christian missionary

Becomes a national media event of anti-Christian attacks while the murder of hundreds of Hindus is taken casually as without any real importance, as if only the deaths of white-skinned people mattered, not the slaughter of the natives. Missionary aggression is extolled as social upliftment, while Hindu efforts at self-defense against the conversion onslaught are portrayed as rabid fundamentalism. One Indian journalist even lamented that western armies would not come to India to chastise the political groups he was opposed to, as if he was still looking for the colonial powers to save him!Let us look at the type of leaders

That India has had with its Laloo Prasad Yadav ( ex CM Bihar), Mulayam Singh Yadav ( ex CM UP) or Jayalalita to mention but a few. Such individuals are little more than warlords who surround themselves with sycophants. Modern Indian politicians appear more like colonial rulers looting their own country, following a divide and rule policy, to keep the people so weak that their power cannot be challenged.Corruption exists

Almost everywhere and bribery is the main way to do business in nearly all fields. India has an entrenched bureaucracy that resists change and stifles development, just out of sheer obstinacy and not wanting to give up any control.The Congress Party

The oldest in this predominantly Hindu nation, has given its leadership to an Italian Catholic woman simply because as the widow of the last Gandhi prime minister, she carries the family torch, as if family loyalty were still the main basis of political credibility in the country. And such a leader and a party are deemed progressive!The strange thing is

That India is not a banana republic of recent vintage but one of the oldest and most venerable civilizations in the world. Its culture is not trumpeting a militant and fundamentalist religion trying to conquer the world for the one true faith but represents a vaster and more cosmic vision. India has given birth to the main religions that have dominated East Asia historically, the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh, which are noted for tolerance and spiritualityIt has produced Sanskrit:

Perhaps the world’s greatest language. It has given us the incredible spiritual systems of Yoga and its great traditions of meditation and Self-realization. As the world looks forward to a more universal model of spirituality and a world view defined by consciousness rather than by religious dogma these traditions are perhaps the most important legacy to draw upon for creating a future enlightened civilization.The irony:

Is that rather than embracing its own great traditions, the modern Indian psyche prefers to slavishly imitate worn out trends in western intellectual thought like Marxism or even to write apologetics for Christian and Islamic missionary aggression. Though living in India, in proximity to temples, yogis and great festivals, most modern Indian intellectuals are oblivious to the soul of the land. They might as well be living in England or China for all they know of their own country
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   Reflections on India. - by Sean Paul Kelley

Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist,in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America .

 If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you.  

These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala,Goa and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India , except as I mentioned before Goa and Kerala.  

Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.  

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India ’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones.  

First pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered.  At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump.  

Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi , Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infections, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India . Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight.

  

Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far too few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. 

The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum –the capital of Kerala–and Calicut . I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India ’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India ’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)

The second is infrastructure- which can be divided into four subcategories: 

 The electrical grid,  ports, roads and the railways.

The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India . Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for.  Without regular electricity, productivity, again, falls.  

The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like.  Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand , much less Western Europe or America .  And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit.  

The roads. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three.  A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. 

The rails. Everyone in India , or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish! It’s awful.

Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses.

 Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. 

At least 50 million people use the trains a day in India. Fifty million people! Not surprising that wait lists of 500 or more people are common now.  

The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit.  

Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel, the US - I guess.  

The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption.  

It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies, one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service.  

Government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job.  

Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.  

I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem.

India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.  

Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia –and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!  

One would expect a certain amount of . . . (yes, I am going to use this word) backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing! 

The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime. 

Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that.  But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does.

  

The bottom line is - I don’t think India really cares.

Too complacent and too conservative.

Sean Paul Kelley.

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