Bharat Rakshak

Actually in 1931, most of the christian population of kerala was confined to Travancore state. Most of the christians in malabar migrated in the last 40-50 years from Travacore. Cochin was a relatively small kingdom in size compared to travancore. Even today, most of the christian population in kerala is south of thrissur

But do you admit that your calculation was plain wrong ?


Are you now going to take the impotence plea - i.e. Maharaja was a rubber-stamp controlled by Viceroy and Brits ? Just like muslim and british rule imposed caste system in India ?


Have fun!! Happy Vishu!!

I'm sorry Shiv, will edit out that part.

Shiv,

I will cast in my lot in the 'mods openly disagreeing with each other' bit.

Much worse was said on other threads as well as this thread elsewhere than the words "You are desperate" - . I am sure members will take care of themselves without requiring Admin intervention - atleast at this level of discussion.

Also, Just as we mentioned to Calvin earlier, admins having a degree of involvement in this thread should stay away from warning and banning other members with whose opinions they dont agree.

Jagan

Following was a comment from shiv in an earlier thread

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... &start=200



May be he was checking if it was deep enough!!

A request to Mods, to keep this thread alive at any cost. With/Without myself the "OT/Troll".

:Up for self deletion:

ok, so I ain't an Admin, so what do I care ... I can say what I want and the worst fate is a ban ... been there, done that, let's get past ...

as I see it, this thread has been highly successful in getting folks to post what is near and dear to their hearts ... as such, it has been a great success ... the path of the future lies in expression and not suppression of free thought ...

having said all that, I wish to review Sajan's contributions ...

Sajan, do you have a premise? ... it could be simple and non-assuming, but do you care to state it? ...

are your posts supporting said hypothetical premise, or are you intent on scoring points out of context? ...

if you wish to indulge in points score, are you willing to have mud slung at you? ... this last point is very inportant because the "freedom" involved in speech gets modified by Machiavillean criterion of "universalization" ...

you should expect that your posts will receive responses that are solely aimed at trashing your belief system ...

if such an outcome is acceptable. please post the contours of your "belief system" ...

if not, please learn the boundaries of this debate ... Cheers.

It is a reality already

@ Alok_N



You have failed to provide me with any good reason to change my narrative – which has been centered around but one central belief that religious scriptures do not have any scientific value until demonstrated otherwise. If I need to understand quantum mechanics to reveal the scientific knowledge encoded in Hindu scriptural motifs, I will take my chances and wait for the sanskrit scholars and physicists of your ilk to reveal it to the world. Hopefully it will have a little more than conjectures about the nature of time and tales of talking apes as evidence of understanding of evolutionary theory.

I also guaged you quite well reading your condescending posts with nothing but entrenched and unsubstantiated position on the topic above. Additionally, you exhibit a degree of “Physics chauvinismâ€

Greg, admittedly, I had said that I will post no more ... I will stick to that as far as reasoned posts go ... your rise and fall in the instance of "don't make me post extracts from Hindu scriptures" has been demonstrated to be chest-thumping bravado ...

however, I do have a response to this part:

[quote="Greg"]Additionally, you exhibit a degree of “Physics chauvinismâ€

Great! I am glad you can take it in the right spirit.

Abhishekcc said, on the 8th running of this thread Religion Thread 8




My question is this, "How do we get agreement on what constitutes Universal Values?" On this thread and its predecessors, we have seen numerous expostulations on the diversity of what comprises Dharma, so, is this a "common minimum program" that everyone agrees to? Is this agreement by vote? Is this agreement by the elders in the religious communities?

When I have raised the idea of "individual rights", it always seems to get painted as "minority appeasement", so one may make the case that these basic inalienable rights to sustaining one's life, to one's life work, and to one's liberty may themselves not be perceived as "universal values" depending what one's peculiar experiences are.

So many questions - so little understanding...

The nature of this thread is that all categories of people get free rein to vent.

Personal insults should be avoided.

A person who believes in some religious dogma may have to dislike other belief systems. There is a small jump from disliking another belief system to disliking a person who follows that other belief system or speaks on its behalf. Religion has been spread in that way.

I am saying that it is fair to disagree with a belief system as long as people keep off each other personally and do not indicate (in public) the personal dislike for each other they may feel, it is OK to have a no holds barred discussion of belief systems.

Personal attacks will occur and I am asking that people try and avoid that. You and I, who are not immune from taking sides on this issue, and who hold the sticks should not ban anyone because of his belief or because he gets angry. That is like killing for not agreeing. But we must warn him not to get personal.

Here is a cross post from the Islamism thread:

url


Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.


There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.

The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools.

It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'.

It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils.

"But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."

A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'.

The report concluded: "In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."

But Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."

The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'.

Lessons in difficult topics were too often 'bland, simplistic and unproblematic' and bored pupils.

The Jewish narrative has been one of persecution with hatred towards Jews both implicit and expressed.

Is a Jew wrong today for having been born a Jew?

If he is not wrong, then should he not have a right to have his story told without resorting to a cover up?

Thank you. I hope one day that indian students will have access to their own history too. That they are told the truth (note: i did not say Indian perspective BUT the truth. They are one and the same).

On the bright side, i find the recent generation of indians coming to the US to be a pleasant surprise. A rather assertive bunch they are. Really makes me glad to see that.

Why are hindus shocked?? This christian "charity" is a direct consequence of their (EVJ and their supporters in india and even here on BRF) belief that a non-christian (even Gandhi or an Einstein) will go directly to hell for refusing to follow christianism.

I had postulated a "slippery slope" before on the religion thread. This is exactly that slippery slope in action. Next, deny them say life-saving medicines unless they convert. And it does not take much imagination to go from there to see the fate that the hindu would suffer now, does it?

Err, dont say that at a GOP convention. Else, you might have an up close and personal experience with a phenomenon known as lynching.

PS. The above comment was not aimed at Mr. AshokS.

No, it does not equate to anti-semitism. As long as the criticism is valid. A lot of jews/israelis/americans on IDF criticized the Lebanon action of the IDF. They did not question the decision itself (which to my mind could not be questioned in the light of events that happened) but the manner in which it was conducted. Tactics, strategy (blunders), underestimating the hezbis and palis etc.

But, when the critics of Israel ignore all pali atrocities and single out israel as the sole culprit while ignoring one terrorist bombing after another, then one can well expect the target of the israeli "critic" to defend the criticism or withstand the charge of anti-semitism.

I'll ignore the gratuitous "antics" remarks for now.

Calvin.. I know Tamil Nadu very well. There is a massive ongoing fight between "upper caste" and "dalit" christians for the past decade and a half now, especially in the southern districts with good concentrations of Christian population, Tuticorin, Palaymkottai etc.. The separate pews for dalit christians and others is/was a reality until very recently. There was a huge stink raised over that and probably now you dont have that..

But notice how the Church despite all it's professions of how thye are actually out to fight against "inequality" simply dont fail to recognize this fact.

In fact, the earliest missionary activity in Tamil Nadu was by an Italian /Roman missionary called Roberto Di Nobili .. Going by the tried and tested strategy of spreading religion by getting to the decision makers , ruling elite and other entrenched power groups (again, same way every religion spreads) , Roberto Di Nobili adopted a full "Brahmin" lifestyle in Madurai.. right from dress code, to social practices, eating habits.. etc..etc.. including of course "untouchability" against dalits..

Remember.. There has been tremendous progress in the real sense in India in the past 50 - 60 years. What other countries in the west went through after massive amount of struggle over the centuries, we jumped straight there in many respects.

Keep in mind that the leaders and the freedom struggle was not just a one point agenda of just getting rid of the Brits.. It was more broad based and led by truly forward looking folks.. Just look up the kind of people who led and participated in it.. The best that India produced.. probably ever.. Maybe India's most incredible generation ever.

The result : the state established after 1947 was truly emacipatory. We jumped from little to no rights to full universal sufferage and civil,political and other rights for everyone in one swoop..

Many parts of Europe didn't allow women to vote at that time and full civil rights came to all people only in the 1960s in the US. Think about that..

The first generation after independence were still scarred by the colonial experience and inherited a "wounded civilization" .. I consider V.S Naipaul one of the greatest narrators , who says things as they are , unencumbered by political correctness. Now the wounds are healing , India is more self confident and the narratives are changing.

The massive success of Congress and the Nehruvian legacy is in creating a democratic, liberal polity.. Not his economics, which needed to be mended post reforms.. The general direction of the Nehruvian & the reformist impulses of the freedom movement were correct.. There have been some "Marixst social engineering monkey " driven distortions that crept in post 70s.. That needs to be challenged and fixed, and it will ..

The rest is business as usual and the huge inclusive and assimilative nature of India society and the people will do the rest , if these hare brained.."India is a country of million nationalities (as if they are frozen specimens in an antropology dig" lunatics are kicked out for good from the mind ..

Does your religion definition include "marxism" whose followers exhibit the exact same characteristics you seem to abhor.. herd-like mentality, "strength in numbers".. and because of blind faith in certain prophets (Marx ,Engels, Lenin, Stalin , Mao etc) and their pantheon, they are forced to defend meaningless beliefs (such as eventual triumph of socialism.. now how is that very different from the prophesized millenarian saying of many religious groups ?) and putting a cover of "science" (why does everything in every commie publication brings up the term "scientific" ..in every area from spirituality to religion to why "planned " economy " ) and associated dogmas and purification ceremonies (like the embalming of lenin and making people go around that.. isnt that "religious" .. something like visiting a Sufi tomb:?) ..

From Dharampal's The Beautiful Tree (page 27)..

Calvin, since you have decided to take up the cudgels on behalf of sajan. let me address this to you. The question is not loaded and certainly not equivalent to a 'have you stopped beating your wife' kind of question. The simple answer would be :
If sajan DOES hate hindus and especially upper castes, to state the reasons why he does so.
if sajan doesn't, he can simply state that my premise is incorrect and in fact he does not hate Hindus or upper castes.
In one of his posts he laments that the hindus (and implied upper castes) on this forum hate him (are abusive towards him)while he is on their side.

When he commented on possible casteist policies of the Peshawas I acknowledged that if there were such policies then they were obviously wrong but the contributions of the Peshawas in stemming and turning the tide of alien islamic oppressors could not be doubted.
Till this point I had not made an opinion about sajan's hatred of Hindus or upper castes. But his response to my post was straight from a paki madrassa curriculum. I will reproduce it below:

This is like saying that Mahabharat as just a war between some warring princes over a woman and some piece of property, demonizing one party(kauravas), rather comical not objective.
IMO this defense of alien islamic invaders and an == between native resistance to these invaders is exactly the view taken by pakis. Pakis have always glorified the islamic invaders starting from qasim all the way to abdali. sajan's post suggesting a moral equivalence between peshawas and islamic invaders clearly points to a thought process that belittles the Hindu resistance to the Islamic onslaught. Ergo I am justified in making an inference that sajan hates Hindus and especially upper castes (peshawas being one).
Calvin I missed your post If i had seen it earlier, you taking up the cudgels on behalf of sajan, I would have responded earlier.
So my questions still stands. Sajan/calvin why do you hate Hindus, especially upper castes so much?
added later: does sajan believe that Hindus (of any caste) will seriously take his assertion that he (sajan) is on their side with opinions that equate the peshawas and the abdali/mughals?

Vsudhir,

Us admins are human beings only, and we may disagree on perspectives. It is a delusion on BRF that we are a monolithic group with similar viewpoints on all matters...

You should see some of our internal mails

Yes, yes, like India onleee

Menon Saar,

Thank you for educating me.

By the way, today is Easter Sunday.
Happy Easter to all..!
May God Bless All..!!!

Whatever the conflict of opinion, where is the harm in having a thousand Hindu narratives that have not yet been aired, in addition to the few that people choose to air time and time again, either positive or negative?

There are a huge number of Hindu narratives that never see the light of day. To be fair, they need to be aired. It is only now that opportunities are arising for existing, but previously private narratives to be aired. Those must come out, both for a long term reconciliation as well as for documention of History as seen by a huge, previously silent segment of India's population.

Happy Easter!!!

Good post vina.

People who harp on the caste issue will certainly find plenty to harp about, but they may not realise just to what degree caste discrimination has already been sidelined by huge segments of educated Indians.

It is easy to refute this argument (I have done it myself) by pointing out the very real discrimination that still exists.

But those who do not recognize (or deliberately ignore) the changes that have occurred in Hindu society are heading for a clash with a confident and wealthy new Hindu society for whom caste does not have the strong meaning that it used to have, and who have no intention of being pinned down as having to repent forever for being Hindus and thereby perpetrators of an unequal caste system.

The cliche=Hindu - caste will be removed by empowering lower castes to the extent that the argument becomes meaningless. Till that happns, accusations will remain, and to an extent those accusations are useful to Hindus in two ways.

The first is that it encourages them to shed what they are blamed for; they have no dogma to hold on to any such position, and the second is that it keeps accusers blind to dynamic changes in the system where old heirarchies have been broken to produce new allies sharing a common heritage.

I consider that good news that should, in future, become part of the Hindu narrative.

I have been harping on the fact that people complain of some loss, Few people have actually said what this feeling of loss is that is felt by Hindus - but I believe the major loss, the major defect that causes a feeling of loss is the loss of Hindu narrative.

It is likely that the Hindu narrative will be bigger and richer in volume and information than anyone would have imagined. I believe that the mere documentation and publication of the narrative will set right a lot of the pent up feelings - because those feelings stem from the traditional family memories and that run in families that have never ever come out. There is a lot of suffering and experience yet that needs to be brought out in the open before Hindus can start accepting all the suffering that they have been blamed for among Hindus and others.

I believe that I can play a small part in opening what I hope will be the floodgates of this narrative. I will start with a couple of documents I have. One is merely an article that speaks of the Hoysala Karnatakas.

The other document is actually a 199 page MSWord file that is a the most amazing social documentation of a Madhwa Brahmin community in Karnataka from about 1870 onwards through the early 20th century in Karnataka. This is the first and only firsthand document (written in English) that I have seen - written as an autobiography by an ancestor on my wife's side. I am not fee to publish the entire document, but I think I can post some excerpts of life in those days and what history did to those people and what their life, their likes, their dislikes and even their bigotry was all about.

Will do by and by.

There is a lot of history that never gets told in the history books. There is too much to be told. But unless the narrative is recorded, it will be lost forever.

Happy easter to you Sir !



Plz!

my apologies. "lies and diclikes" has been changed to "likes and dislikes"

Abhijit:

Your question was "why do you hate Hindus, especially upper castes so much? "

This presupposes that Sajan hates Hindus, and one is merely looking for a reason. This is identical to the premise behind "when did you stop beating your wife?" where the presupposition is that you have been beating your wife and one is looking for a timeline as to when this fact stopped. As This is a fallacy, and is the equivalent of flame bait.

From your post it appears that you are deriving the conclusion that Sajan hates Hindus (and upper castes in particular) from the following excerpt:



Which you then interpret from your view of history:


For one, I am not sure where he defended Islamic Invaders. Are you taking the "demonizing one party" to suggest a defense of Islamic Invaders? My reading of this is that Sajan is suggesting that glorification of Peshwa actions because they fought the Invaders does not supercede their other actions.

Secondly, reading his post suggests that he believes that viewing the actions of the peshwas from the perspective of a defender against Islam results in a subjective perspective, and not an objective one. Again, it is hard to see this as being an example of hate towards "hindus espectially upper castes."

One may make the case, that your allegations towards Sajan, are more revealing of your personal beliefs, than his (at least given a reading of the excerpts posted).

Yes, sir. Do pls start the process!

Interesting that you should mention the loss of narrative as the core of the Hindu sense of loss (insecurity?). The demands of modernity that are changing family structure and thereby one central element in the cultural meme transmission process is another.

Perhaps Hindus watched and fawned over ramayana and mahabharata on DD to compensate this sense of loss. I remember streets going empty on sundays when the serials would run.

One way or the other Hndus would seek to compensate their lack of systematic meme transmission institutions (sunday schools of sorts). Can our temples grow to fill the void? The popularity of 'Art of living' and other spiritual discourses etc among urbanites, both old and young points to a sizeable latent demand for such a mechanism. The demand is not finding adequate expression, though.

I remember churches moving their service times to accomodate the interest in watching Ramayan. I am not sure what this means, though.

Do we really need the "Happy Easter" greetings on this thread, or even this forum?

I am certain it is - and that is why my US based brother had no problems buying a hajaar tapes (or was it DVDs) of the serial while I was busy watching (and liking) Peter Brooks (??) stylized, spartan televised 8 hour dramatization of the Mahabharata.

Those who want greetings are free to have them. There are frequently threads started for Diwali or Christmas and New Year - so I guess a blanket rule that people should not post greetings is unnecessary.

Although I personally stopped posting greetings some years ago...

Ah, this would explain it, as my experiences in TN churches is limited to Madras. Sajan's matrimonial ads make it quite clear that "dalit" christians are choosing to hob-nob with each other, so there must be some implicit (if not explicit) tensions.

I wonder if there are matrimonials from these "upper caste" christians calling for alliances only from people of the same "caste"?

I am not sure what "caste" I belong to.

I think it is in the spirit of this thread ! Even after so much acrimony, the spirit of accommodation & coexistence is omnipresent, this needs to be reaffirmed. Why be defensive about it ?

Hoysala Karnatakas
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cy ... yskar1.jpg
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http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cy ... yskar3.jpg
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