Bharat Rakshak

Indian Civilization - Part 2 - Sapta Sindhu, Bhaarat, Hindutva and Secularism



India means Indian subcontinent minus Tibet and Baluchistan and regions to the east of arakanese ranges. Indian federal structures rose in this geography. The mountains of Hindukush (Known as Paariyaatra mountain by Hindus) is the natural, scientific, strategic and cultural frontier of India to north-west. Tibet is similar natural frontier of India to north. Forests of Iravaty river basin is natural frontier of India to east. The land enclosed within these geographical frontiers were called as India by outsiders and Bhaarata by the Insiders. The cultural operating system within this land is called as "Dharma" which is the unifying thread of otherwise apparently diverse cultures, communities, Jaatis (clans) residing and sharing this land with each other.

Dharma does not necessitate centralization of power. and hence since times of epics to modern day, India has always been a federation.

Let me re-emphasize: I'm not looking to engage in a discussion about territorial borders at this point. It's distracting from the point I was looking to make.

But just so that I understand you correctly... are you really saying that the worlds' nations should have their borders drawn based on where they were 2200 years ago? That seems like a rather outrageous claim, and certainly not anything remotely like what I have been discussing.

Actually that is the key problem for PRC.

PRC thinks the entire world is eastern kingdom, where as it domain is limited to Han dominated south-east China.

When lizard thinks it is dragon, all the problems start! Imagine that. A lizard is talking, walking and acting like a dragon in front of an elephant. What does/should the elephant do?

- Ignore it
- Treat it like Dragon
- Pity it
- Educate it
- Punish it

This is really a bizarre claim on every level. Not only does it have absolutely nothing to do with my point, it's just completely wrong. I don't even know where to start discussing it...

First, Wuxi isn't a province; it's a small-ish city. Second, Wuxi isn't anywhere near Beijing. It's in Jiangsu province (eastern China), and happens to be where my father was born.

Third, of the current leadership, only Hu Jintao was born in Jiangsu; he will be replaced by Xi Jinping, who was born in Beijing... but his ancestral roots are in Shaanxi (west/central China). The premier Wen Jiabao was born in Tianjin, in northern China.

If we look back at the key players in the 20th century... Mao Zedong was from Hunan. Deng Xiaoping was from Sichuan. Sun Yat-sen was Hakka/Cantonese. Chiang Kai-Shek was from Zhejiang. If you're remotely familiar with Chinese geography, and I'm guessing that Acharya really isn't, you'd realize these are really VERY different corners of the country. (And by the way, all of the above had very thick accents when speaking in the common dialect... sometimes I'm surprised they could even understand each other.)

I'm only going off of Wikipedia here... but it looks like the Mauryas lasted 140 years, and the Gupta empire lasted about 300. There was then a gap of about 1100 years until the establishment of the Mughal empire. After which, I think it could be fairly argued that the Indian subcontinent has been more united than not. 1100 years is a pretty long gap. Did the Mughals "base" the legitimacy of their dynasty off of the Maurya or Gupta empire in any way?


I think thou doth protest too much. I for one haven't made either of the above claims. I don't have a crystal ball, and I have no idea where things will lie in 10, 50, 500, or another 5000 years. And therefore, I have no reason to argue that homogeneity is a "desired goal" that Indians should be aspiring to. And I certainly don't think a diverse group will spontaneously become homogeneous. in China, it took the bloody action of many dictators + cultural strait-jacket to achieve that point.

My only point in this entire discussion has been to share *why* China has a different degree of homogeneity than India. Our histories are just extremely different. I wouldn't have even bothered to make the point, except even a poster like VikramS (who otherwise seems very informed) actually was under the impression Chinese homogeneity and unity is something as newly formed as the cultural revolution.

I'm not looking to belittle India (although many Indians here seem to be reflexively assuming that's my goal)... I'm just looking to explore the very obvious, and indisputable differences between Chinese and Indians in our outlook towards society and government. You can argue Hinduism and the Caste system represents a long tradition which has been continuous over the past 2000 years in the Indian subcontinent... that's fine, but that's still a very different animal (not necessarily a better or worse animal) from the continual stream of governments + institutions that has defined China for the past 2000 years.

No, it's the other way around - it's YOU who conflates the notion of a series of small geographically and demographically limited unitary states located in a particular region to define the history of 'China'. From my perspective that's somewhat ridiculous - it's merely a historical continuum of limited Yellow River dynasties. I suggested you do the same for India - the Gangetic plain is the nerve center of Hindu and Indian civilization, has always had a clear continuum of nation-states, dating back to probably a millenium before the Qin (see Vikram's reference to the Mahajanapadas).

Where you see lack of unity is in fact merely confusion over unitary vs federal structure; significant parts of Indian territory have a substantial history of strong non-central regional development. Like someone else stated, that's merely a question of viewpoint - China views unity as based around central rule + homogenity. India does not. Never has. It's always had a distributed federal structure, in between significant periods of unitary rule under several large dynasties.

Yet, even 2 millenia ago, people identified the entire current landmass as their land - they were obliged to travel in pilgrimage around various religious and cultural centers around the current territorial extent. There are pre-Christian area texts from Tamil Nadu in the south celebrating the Kedarnath temple up north near the Chinese border.

Perhaps there's some dissonance in both directions. You see our long federal structure as a sign of disunity. That's ok. I see the same in China's history. I don't really implicitly see the unity in a land that has continuously needed near-despotic central rule to keep it together, and has a long history of limited duration dynasties that were swept out of power, purged, and their histories summarily rewritten. If anything, that sounds like a land of continued discontent and strife. But that's my view of what you term the 'united political history' of your land.

In China, the way to control the country was to take Beijing (or whatever the then capital was). In India, there was no capital to take. Its heart was its temples, and the Mughals did their best to try and raze those, but failed. You should read about Somnath temple, one of the 12 holy temples I mentioned earlier. It was destroyed not once or twice, but seven times. One of the first things independent India did in 1947 was to rebuild it one more time, partly to restore its sanctity, and partly as a middle finger to all those who destroyed it before with a very clear intent in mind.

Suraj,

I don't know that we really disagree at all on the main points, despite your voracious efforts in insisting that I'm wrong.


I'm still trying to understand the substance of the "federal" structure. What does this mean in practice? Was there an actual layer of federal government, with administrative power over all? I'm not trying to make a rhetorical point, I legitimately have no idea what you're referring to when you talk about a federal "structure".

Trying to parse the rest of your statement... let me try to recast/interpret your point. Are you stating essentially that the people of the Indian subcontinent have continuously, since 2000 years ago, had a shared spiritual/religious/cultural view of "their land" or heritage?

I will talk with my chinese friend who is a distantly related to Mao. I will ask him to verify what you claim. I will report this matter to him.

Administrative rule ran together with support of religion - Hinduism, or for a period, Buddhism. The clergy by themselves did not rule, but interacted and advised all rulers. Strictly speaking though, the definition of religion here is not the same as the modern one - the formal name of Hinduism literally translates to 'way of life' and does not specify a creed or prophet.

As I mentioned previously, I don't really see 'political unity' in Chinese history as such. What I do see is periods of political development that had coercively enforced compliance, separated by bouts of traumatic upheaval. Having seen what it entailed during the Cultural Revolution, it's impossible to believe that the continuous rewriting of history was a friendly book writing session over tea and dumplings. From my perspective it seems absurd to celebrate unity arising from a political entity that enforced compliance in this manner. What kind of unity is that - a collective desire to avoid being decapitated ?

Correct, and quite a bit before the common era, for that matter. The Ramayana, which dates back to ~1500BC, depicts a story beginning in the Gangetic plain (probably an early Mahajanapada), and extending far south across the land bridge into Sri Lanka, where the climactic battle occurs. A number of the holy temples mentioned previously trace its path, including the one at the peninsular tip at Rameswaram.

The common history and shared cultural foundation is why every Indian empire - including the present republic - essentially reconstituted itself to the same geographical and demographic extent as the very first one - the Mauryan Empire.

Yes and no. Yes because we know irrespective of where in India we came from broadly what geographical limits Bharat implies too. No because we know this last 7000 years..not 2000. To that effect the Vedas have been quoted and a millenia back the Shankaracharyas spelt it out clearly through there maths. Dharma has been very exclusive to this land. It was meant to be a preserve of it.

You can characterize the "kind" of unity as "coercively enforced compliance", but the fact remains the same. China was unified in fact.

As far as the rewriting of history... Communism is a strange creature, since it's an ideology that required it to be the *end* of history. There is supposed to be nothing beyond Communism, while everything that came before had to be re-perceived in terms of class warfare. So, the historical rewriting of the cultural revolution is distinct in that way.

The earlier histories don't look anything like that. The Mongol Yuan intentionally described themselves as successors of previous Chinese emperors. And I was just glancing through the "History of the Yuan" today, commissioned/published by the Ming court in 1369. For those who keep wanting to focus on the ethnic portions of things... keep in mind this is the Han Chinese dynasty that overthrew the "racist" Mongol dynasty, and built the Great Wall in order to keep out the nomads. But the "History of the Yuan" doesn't read anything like a racial treatise, or criticism of the Yuan... it's simply a history of the Yuan. And afterwards, the Han emperors of the Ming dynasty and the Manchu emperors of the Qing dynasty both worshipped at the same temple, where plaques were setup for *every* Chinese emperor in series starting from the near-mythical era of 500+ BC.


In a somewhat similar sense, I'd say much of the "Western World" have a shared cultural and religious tradition as well. Even nearly 2000 years after the fall of the roman empire, that remains the reason many of the nations of the western world retain a cultural / philosophical (and even religious) affinity. And it also seems there are similarities here to Confucianism, which has also been variously described as a religion or philosophy. And Confucianism extends well beyond the borders of China, defining societies throughout east Asia.

Even so, this Indian religious/cultural heritage that is still qualitatively distinct from the political tradition that has defined China over the same time frame. I don't really care to what you attribute the motives or forces behind that unified political tradition, just don't deny that it exists.

It's you who seems to find it convenient to narrowly define unity on the basis of a sequence of unitary rule by local kingdoms that mostly encompassed only part of Chinese geographical and demographic extent even at that time. I can use that same criteria to claim that India has been politically united in a similar manner based on the history of the Gangetic plain alone. It would be more reasonable to argue that (to pick from my hazy knowledge of Chinese provincial geography) say, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and umm, Hebei collectively have a history of long unitary rule.

India has no history of 'falling apart' without a strong central ruler, unlike China, nor any history of internecine internal warfare like either China or Europe. That's because unlike a unitary state it does not have a single point of failure. In fact India has frequently prospered under weak or nonexistent central political control, with vibrant trade and cultural development within its extent, and with the rest of the world. China only knows unity when imposed upon it through force; it's natural state is to revert to a collection of constituents that have a history of conflict with each other.

Heech ji

Putting below from last year 'rewritten' by Xinhua as an example. Please clarify what happened here? Do you believe 'this' was not in the narration of Chinese history by PRC? 

thanks

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 854920.htm

heech:

It would be nice if you could go into more detail about how different dynasties which ruled China were similar and different, and how the basic notion of the Chinese state has stayed pretty much the same over time. I understand that your focus is not on the current physical boundaries of PRC, and I am glad that we are not taking the discussion in that direction.

One way to better understand India, is that in the dharmic system, the role of the ruling class the kshatriyas, was to rule justly; everyone else accepted who ever the victorious kshatriya was. For a long time, to the common person it did not matter who was the ruler. The kshatriya's would battle, negotiate etc., and get or lose territory. However for the rest of the society the victory or loss of their current ruler in battle made little difference, since the individual rulers governed and ruled by using a similar philosophy.

The kshatriya's themselves had a code of battle; the battles of ancient India were more like modern day sports, with rules, regulations, time when battled could be fought etc. It was perhaps quite unique. One reason the initial Islamic conquests were so traumatic to the population at large, is that the concept of pillage and looting by the victorious army was foreign to the masses.

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/War_in_Ancient_India.htm

Even among the ruling classes, there were different thoughts. Emperor Ashoka, whose chakra adorns the Indian flag, and whose four lion seal is the official seal of the Government of India, gave up conquest based on war, after witnessing the loss of life during one his campaign. He is credited with spreading the more pacifist version of Dharma, Buddhism, all over Bharat and beyond the borders of Bharat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka

So even though one might argue that a strong central ruler existed only in small periods, the basic essence of the India is not defined by the ruler. It is defined by the way people live, interact, travel, trade and carry on the business of life. It is characterized by shared cultural, religious, and social values.

You question of Western civilization having a lot on common, is a very pertinent one. The current crisis in Europe is perhaps a great example of how in spite of having a lot in common, they are so many cultural, political and social differences that they are finding it hard to find a common ground. Contrast that with modern India, a nation left penniless, hungry and bloody after the partition, but still able to coalesce together into a single political entity. Most Westerners do not get it and were ripe with predictions of the breakup of India; many still dont but a majority are now eating crow.

I really have no idea what this means, or what you're asking me. It sounds to me like Xinhua reposted an article based on a Pakistani TV report... what's the question here?

I'm not sure I could do the topic justice... not sure I'm qualified for such a broad summary. I'll do my best, just go easy on me if I muddle through this.

In the near-mythical past, the Chinese trace our history back to a number of smaller tribes/kingdoms in what is now central China. But in actual recorded history, we have to look to Qin Shihuang at around 220 BC... he's really the father of the Chinese imperial system. He effectively unified all of China, and set into place intellectual traditions that have defined every dynasty since. He decided that he had surpassed the "huang" and "di" kings of the past, and therefore declared himself the first "huangdi" (emperor). Huangdi have the "mandate from heaven", the pseudo-religious right to do anything they wish as absolute dictator. A very complicated bureaucracy of court officials was formed around him. Emperors had absolute administrative power, and appointed officials at every level.

Every dynasty that has followed the Qin Shihuang has taken on the same form, calling themselves huangdi and adopting the exact same structure as the original emperor. For the past 1000 years, there has been a steady trend of "foreign" invasion as nomads invaded the central plains from northern Asia: the Jurchen, the Mongols, and finally the Manchu. It took the Jurchen and the Mongol a couple generations before they were "sinized", but their kings inevitably all declared themselves huangdi, and adopted the same traditional + intellectual court structure that existed before their arrival. The Manchu were even more anxious, they declared themselves huangdi and joined themselves to the imperial tradition almost immediately upon crossing the border. (Perhaps China was fortunate in a way that the Indians weren't... in that none of our immediate neighbors were empires with a lasting tradition/culture like the Muslims or Greeks. To our "barbarian" neighbors, adopting Chinese civilization/culture was very desirable, and the only thing that made sense.)

Note that Qin Shihuang was not a believer in Confucian philosophy; the state 'religion' was instead legalism... which you might even call a cousin to modern facism. A well defined set of firm laws defined the responsibility of every citizen, in service of the state, and anyone who disobeyed would be harshly punished. He attacked and attempted to destroy all opposing philosophies, including Confucianism. After his death, Confucianism quickly surged back to the surface... but the ultimate result was something that's a mixture of legalism and Confucianism. Confucianism essentially states that a man, a family, and a society will thrive if we constantly strive to self-improve, and behave according to certain ethical rules. I would say, legalism resembles something like a top-down, trickle-down view of society; Confucianism is sort of the bottom-up, trickle-up view of the same. Emperors used both to complement each other: obey my laws absolutely, because it's the ethical thing to do.

There is a cultural continuity here, sort of similar to what India experienced. In the case of China, this cultural continuity eventually converted foreign invaders... and that helped maintain the underlying, fundamental political continuity, which is different to what India experienced. Even if a new dynasty came into place... the new imperial court had similar ranks for their officials that the old one had; government had similar "departments"; officials were appointed to rule simliar geographic areas; taxes were collected in the same way; petitions were passed up the same way; documents were written in the same language and structure. And with the Confucian influence here, of course every emperor performed similar rituals. That's not to say details didn't reform along the way over the past 2200 years, but the overall structure remained static. For example, the Qin emperor in 200 BC had six official seals (called xi); after the Sui dynasty in 600 AD, all subsequent emperors had eight official seals... but the these official seals were used in basically the same way.

Ever since 200 BC, China has either had only one emperor (deciding everything), or was in the process of trying to figure out who could claim the title of the next emperor (in order to decide everything). This is clearly very different from the Indian experience. In terms of actual policy, of course every emperor/dynasty was different. Some were militant, some were passive. Some were alcoholics, some were intellectuals. But the system remained in place around them. This makes the events of the 20th century pretty interesting... some, of course, think it represents the end of history, and imperial China has forever disappeared. Others think the Communist Party represents yet another (perhaps short-lived dynasty).

Heech ji

Do you trust this narrative reposted by Xinhua or not?

Do I trust that Pakistani TV first reported Osama Bin-Ladin was killed by Pakistani forces? Yes, yes I do.

Do I believe that OBL was actually killed by Pakistani forces? Of course not, because Xinhua brain-washed me with this article (linked as an update from the same page):
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 854883.htm

Thanks for pointing that out. What (and Why) Xinhua was pushing in a span of 30 minutes ? (and let's not pretend Xinhua is holding some high bar in journalism)

Point is, what makes you think that narrative of Chinese history (and even of the Cultural Revolution) has not been sanitized by the Chinese Communists to a one favourable to them?


===========================
Added for reference, This is the on you referred and looks like a kind of breaking news.


(The one above has more 'detail' so to say and the time stamp of 2011-05-02 11:52:58)

I mean, you have to understand as Chinese, we are *raised* to know that propaganda exists. It's not like our eyes are secretly covered, and propaganda is a foreign concept. In the Soviet/Communist system, propaganda is something the government publicly engages in, and takes pride in. It's all about "guiding public opinion". We know when we watch "xinwen lianbo" (the central governments' nightly news program) or read the People's Daily, we are fully aware the stories are picked and crafted to send a message. So, when non-Chinese sort of dance around the bush and sort of hint that the Chinese state media might be biased; the reaction of most Chinese would be a roll of the eyes... really, no shit?

You know, there's a very Western concept which is the equivalent of Chinese propaganda: public relations. Any time a Western corporation issues a press release, you're well aware of the fact it's going to be filled with positive quotes that focus on the optimistic future and ignore the negative reality. In other words, I read the People's Daily the same way I read press releases issued by Apple.

Now, some people assume this means Chinese knowledge of history is therefore fatally flawed, and therefore irrelevant. That's really an ignorant point of view. If you think any remotely interested Chinese college student doesn't know what happened on Tiananmen on 6/4, then you're wrong; any Chinese college student remotely interested in the matter has watched "secret" foreign documentaries... probably by their first year in college. If you think anyone doesn't know what happened during the Cultural Revolution, then you're *completely* wrong... we don't even need history books for that, the vast majority of Chinese (especially intellectuals) lived through the Cultural Revolution. You can't find one urban family that didn't have a close relative attacked, and very often killed, during the Cultural Revolution; and at the same time, you can't find one urban family that didn't have a close relative which *participated* in the GPCR. Literally hundreds of millions of Chinese have traveled overseas in the past 20 years.... 20 million mainland Chinese visit Hong Kong *every year*. How closed off do you think China really is? As far as knowledge of imperial history... after 2000 years of cultural tradition in which we obsessively recorded historical accounts of what just occurred, do you really think that could be wiped out?

And as far as whether OBL was actually killed by the Pakistanis or Americans.... are you kidding me? Even asking this question makes me wonder (no disrespect intended) what planet you're logging on from.

And by the way, just so you guys are up to date to the most recent news...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/stor ... 53008264/1

This the real deal. This is a *huge* story, with *huge* implications for China's political landscape for years, maybe even decades, to come. China's political system has been pretty static for the last 15 years. This is going to be a big year.

heech:

Thank you for that post about different Chinese dynasties.

Can I phrase it as "an honest analysis recent history (since Chinese-Communist (ChinCom) take over) is yet to happen in China."

What you have written would point to an underground and under currents at Universities is fine, but see it from another side, it doesn't matter as it doesn't have a voice.

It is like the 'alcohol drinking' in tea cups certain cultures indulge in so as not to lose credentials of being 'faithfools'. It is a sentiment but not something one cannot take to the bank.

(For example, one can say that Kim the IIIrd in NK has been educated overseas, but in a way, it doesn't count for much, NK is still the same till it CAN change its behaviour)

(Also, there is a real chance that the vast majority of the students who watch those things later become bricks in the wall)

Dear heech,

Thanks for your thoughtful outline of Chinese historical iterations. Much appreciated.

The East Asian ethos taken as a whole crystallized the following natural values under fundamental attributes of consciousness:

- Notion of Non-illusion -- was crystallized in terms of the absoluteness of Ritual;
- Demonstration of Love -- as dutiful Loyalty;
- Reward -- as Contemplation;
- Social equality -- in terms of Harmony;
- From these, a particular integral Effect emerges -- as Community (as opposed to the Individual).

Taken together, these comprise an important tier of the cultural iterations of human history. Other cultures have produced their own crystallizations based on their churning and resultant stable crystallizations.

However, one sees that the different cultures tend to be moving in circles with their isolated iterations, dissolving and re-crystallizing the same cardinal values in different technological forms. In a globalized and interconnected system, this moving-in-circles may be just about over. Only those civilizatons that have the capacity to absorb and integrate the cardinal values of all other cultural iterations into their own current iteration will come out on top. Others will break down to some extent or another.

Heech, I don't follow why this is such big news...on the face of it, it just seems to be a popular police officer who fell afoul of CPC bigwigs and is defecting.

Are you implying this might be a catalyst for more dissent? The inside information that he can share with the West is probably very localized and short-medium term.

By the way, thanks for your insightful posts.

Playing down irritants, India & China call for 'new flexible approach to ties' - Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu


SM Krishna is naive (to be charitable to him). He need not have affirmed in such strong terms India's support for Beijing on Tibet or the 'One China' policy. Chinese foreign minister, when he comes to India, does not hold out similar promises for India. In fact, China deftly avoids mentioning J&K.

During the old days during and before Mauryan empire, India was divided into padas and jan padas, but whenever the question of Rashtra came it was always 'Bharata'. Rather people had equal rights from Tamil Nadu till Afghanistan (Kanmboja). These rights were enshrined in the common law of every pada and Janpada. Rather Chanakya writes that even criminal justice cannot be applied differently between a citizen of one pada or jan pada.

Similarly education system was equal opportunity system for all irrespective of padas and janpadas. Numerous such examples are there. Chanakya himself was student and then professor of economics and politics in taxila whereas he hailed from Magadh. Similarly Aryabhatta was from Kerela but was student at Taxila and later a professor. Adi Sancara studied in Maharashtra.

This is not true for people who came from outside Bharatha. Numerous travelers and intellectuals from Persia and China visited these universities (Kashi and Nalanda being others) but were given an observer status and never enrolled as students. Rather they were not able to interact in a wholesome way with professors either. Arthashastra distinguish between people hailing from Bhartha (diffrent padas and janpadas) and people hailing from other countries. Rather i believe the Bhudhism traveled easily to China because established Hindu hierarchy never full engaged itself with the Chinese intellectuals. Only the Bhudhist did it in a meaningful way.

Bharath Putras have claim to all of India. This not just because the constitution of the Republic of India says so but because it is a right enshrined in our collective history. No one can either give to you or take it away from you legally. Indics are India...

Sri Ji, some good points, but Kambhoja is Cambodia. Another there was nothing called Hindu then. Buddhism was not some separate entity. All fell within the scope of Dharma. The religion of India is Dharma whether India was under the influence of a King that followed Vaishnav, Shaivite or Buddhist tradition. All major canons of Buddhism were developed by Brahmin scholars from all parts of India. Dhammapada Chapter 26 on Brahmins: "Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures. He neither kills nor helps others to kill."
Dharma encouraged religious debate and finding ones equation to God, personal or via a Guru. That's why within the Dharmic fold we have many streams of thought. These unite India. These defined the framework where the concept of Bharat was prevalent, irrespective of notional Kingdoms and tribute borders. And that concept spread beyond Bharat to beyond..to Kamhoja, China, Korea, Japan...

harbans ji, cambodia was called khamboja (of the east) by Indian merchants after the original khamboja in what is now pakistan/afghanistan, the region around the hindukush mountains.

in the same way the names east london or new york came along.

Thanks Rahul Ji. My bad. My take on Bharat was it was always that Dharma united India. The concepts on equanimity, Truth, humility, Compassion run through all strands of thought. Divisions of Dharmic thought are foreign creations. The attempted hijacking of Buddhist thought as separate from the Dharma of India is a massive fraud on the scale of the Divide and Rule policy perpetuated by the British. That has led consequentially to all sorts of claims on Yoga, our distance from Tibet, our FM/ PM and confused politicians accepting a distorted One China policy perpetuated by the CPC. Our inability to unify under a Dharmic banner leads to this fall out and consequential claims of what India really is or not. We will get our knickers in a twist till we get that aspect of thinking correct.

The Western press is starting to get caught up on stuff now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi ... story.html

I will just add... 1989 was a water-shed event in Chinese history. After Tiananmen... the Chinese political system became extremely stable (or maybe 'static' is a better word). Deng Xiaoping took the reins, and as by far the most senior person in the Party, was able to gather enough political support by 1992 to lay out EXACTLY what was going to happen over the next 20 years:

1) Massive economic and social reform, but almost no political reform.
2) Jiang Zemin would form the next leadership group for 10 years, to be followed by Hu Jintao for 10 years.

That was the consensus everyone in the political system bought into, which is what made some of the amazing changes over the past two decades possible. All of the bickering that normally defines any country, as I'm sure Indians are well aware, was obscured. Well... now the honeymoon might be over. Hu Jintao's leadership team leaves office this year. No one of Deng Xiaoping's stature is left in the Party, and no one can dictate China's future path with authority. On the one hand, most of us assumed things would remain pretty stable... the next leadership team seemed largely in place, and what China has been doing over the last 20 years has been working pretty well. I think even most people here wouldn't dispute that.

(Before Tiananmen, Chinese politics was unbelievably dark. Do you guys realize how many of our presidents + most senior officials were purged, persecuted, killed and in some cases rehabilitated from 1949-1989? Everyone other than Mao, pretty much.)

But now, this puts all of that stability / consensus in question. This *might* be the most pivotal moment in Chinese politics for the past 20 years. And more importantly to me... if a senior official widely touted as being just and fair doesn't trust the Party will provide him justice, and instead has to turn to the Americans... then what hope do the rest of us have? The other possibility (almost as distasteful) is that this widely touted "hero" was actually corrupt, and he offered to sell state secrets in order to gain protection from justice.

Chinese Official Met U.S. Diplomats Before Taking Treatment

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... tment.html
( Whole lot of shake up going on )

Disaffection with corruption amongst the rich and powerful is not unique to China at this point of time. So while there will be some push and pull, aren't you exaggerating the "instability" aspect?

India is also in the grip of an anti-corruption movement that sometimes spills out onto the streets, and sometimes seems to fizzle out. We don't have any leader of great stature in active electoral politics to be a Prime Ministerial candidate either. In comparison with his Indian counterpart, I wonder whether the Chinese commoners will be less or more actively involved in the socio-political transition towards less corruption and more transparency.

I might be exaggerating the aspect. Very few people in all of China know exactly what's happening with Wang Lijun and his former boss Bo Xilai, and I'm definitely not in the loop. This is all a very bizarre series of events. There are reports he's been depressed / dealing with insomnia... so maybe there's even mental health issues here, we will just have to wait and see.

In any case, I don't think this instability will come from the "common man"; the vast majority of Chinese are happy with the status quo, and what's been achieved over the past two decades. There aren't very many common people in China interested in putting politics above every-day life.

But China remains very much a government ruled by edict, with few checks and balances. Instability, if it comes, will come from the top. This is one of the great weaknesses of the current Chinese political system. And if you look at Chinese history over the past 100 years, instability has been much more common than political stability. So this all depends on how deep this issue goes... if it's just limited to problems with one man, or if a broader political struggle between left/right is coming to the surface. If it's the latter, serious instability is definitely possible.

heech: Was Hu Jintao (and uncle Wen) also groomed for succession after Jiang Zemin/Zhu Rongji by Deng himself ? Source please ?

I think the only senior political persona who escaped persecution at some point in the first 40 years (besides Mao himself) was Zhou Enlai, though even he walked a tightrope trying to curtail Mao's excesses and trying to support Deng while the latter was being persecuted during the GPCR.

Hu Jintao was named to the standing committee of the CPC Politburo in 1992, the first (and only) member of his "generation" to be assigned to the top. The standing committee is the highest leadership, containing the 7 (and now 9) most powerful people in China. Deng Xiaoping called all of the shots at the time, and it was clear Hu Jintao was expected to take charge after Jiang Zemin retired. They did the same thing in 2007, when Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang (expected to be the new leadership in 8 months) were brought into the standing committee. (By the way, Wen Jiabao is officially not even *second* in the CPC hierarchy. He's actually third behind the more senior Wu Bangguo.) Other than Hu, the rest of the team was really more constructed by consensus... but Hu and Wu were also very early promotions.

Very different than the Indian system, am I right? The current system works like this... the political leadership is groomed generation by generation. Every candidate is expected to work in different geographic areas, take on different roles, and they are watched to see how they react. And then people make deals, beg, borrow, threaten, blackmail, or whatever to get their candidates promoted at the next party congress.

heech:
Thanks again for your insightful posts. Very few Indians understand Mandarin or have access to China sourced articles. Is there a blog or authors who you recommend for English speaking people, to get a better understanding of the internal dynamics of the Chinese system.

On a different note, I wanted to get your sense about something which is of critical importance. There is a school of thought that China will try to "cut India to size" or "teach India a lesson" within the next few years. Part of the reason is supposed to be due to internal compulsions forcing the CPC leadership to take drastic actions either to establish their nationalist credentials or to divert the attention of the masses or in one bizarre school of thought, to help fix the sex ratio, which is lop-sided in China thanks to the one-child policy (there is a precedence to that from Mao's time...).

What are you thoughts about something like that happening? Do you think that within China the war-mongers can garner enough support to wage wars? What are the circumstances which can drive power contenders to seek external military glory to bolster their own power base? Or do you feel that any force projection will be done via the proxytute (Pakistan), where the Chinese military itself will not be the face of the war.

Unrest has spread from Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to Western Sichuan (known as Kham in Tibetan). This region is critical in PLA logistics connecting Chengdu to TAR (part of No. 318 National Trunk Highway).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16908985


Of course China wants to erase cultural identities of Tibetans which are more in sync with India. This cultural assimilation is classical 19th century colonial education practice.



Classic - Chinese are using colonial terminology in China. The white man's burden is now the CPC comrade's burden.




Communist China is even more nervous because any unrest in this strategic West Sichuan region will unhinge all the communication infrastructure that is used to keep Tibet under it's oppressive boots as well as supply the PLA forces it has deployed against Arunachal Frontier.


(replaced the map: thanks Aditya)