Indian Interests

[Malayappan]

Very good one! For BRFites, a bit of preaching to the converted but worth a read and for use / circulation..

http://www.dailypioneer.com/138560/Trea ... arned.html

Treason of the learned

Gautam Mukherjee

The Left-liberal intelligentsia in our country is more than happy to see the UPA regime compromise national security: For both, this means keeping Muslims at home and abroad in good humour. The bloodbath in Mumbai shows how horribly wrong they are

In the outpouring of anguish and anger, now that Islamic terrorists have struck at iconic and internationally renowned five-star hotels, restaurants, lounges and a Jewish outreach programme’s headquarters in India, a significant Left-liberal dogma has been left intact.

This is not surprising, because the same dogma has been promoted relentlessly, and been taken advantage of by, among others, Pakistani and Bangladeshi terrorist organisations and their local supporters over nearly five years of UPA rule.

When Osama bin Laden, the global grandmaster of terrorism, declared that America and its Nato allies, Israel, and India were the principal enemies of the Islamic world, it was perhaps inevitable that only India, with its innate callousness, would not take the threat seriously and stay vulnerable, even in the face of near continuous attacks.

But the key reason for this disgraceful vulnerability is not gross intelligence failure, sluggish response, logistical inadequacy, ill-equipped constabulary or a less than high-tech armed force, but that same debilitating dogma that saps our political will. And in a functioning democracy, political will is of paramount importance. It is political will and firm direction that has kept terrorist strikes in the singular-and-never-again category in the UK and the US. And it is the lack of this self-same political will that is responsible for the frequent gouging of India’s soft underbelly.

That dogma is the notion that the porous national security situation is a fair consequence of a bungled ‘heart and minds’ matter at the root. Therefore, Islamic terror is, understandably, its natural consequence. Ergo, Islamic terror cannot rightfully end until the hearts and minds of brazen and perverse killers, ignorant, near illiterate adherents of medieval madarsa-fed shibboleths and their supporters as well as the much-deprived community they belong to, are assuaged.

Thus, implies this particular Left-liberal dogma, if we, the rest of the Indian people, want to live in peace, we must appease and satisfy our tormentors. And the preferences shown and affirmative actions taken are no more than reparations for the original stack of sins of omission and commission.

And, say this dogma’s adherents, similar wrongdoings need to be made good by the international community too. That is why they have been specifically targeted in this latest instance. That is why Israeli, British, American, Japanese, Australian citizens have been killed and maimed for drawing closer to India.

But the West is not sentimental at the expense of its security. For it, one attack is more than enough. It is not confused about the difference between ordinary, law-abiding Muslims and the jihadi who must, of course, be neutralised. And to make this distinction between wheat and chaff, it does not hesitate to suspend certain civil liberties, including very strong preventive detention and interrogation practices. It does not consider aggressive monitoring of all affairs Islamic intrusive, and swiftly applies the fullest penal rigours of its laws where necessary.

But India, particularly its ruling alliance seen to be largely dependant on the Muslim votes, including those created by the infusion of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, and a country that allows Indian Muslims to live outside the embrace of a common civil law, clearly is confused when it comes to the imperatives of national security.

Nevertheless, this must be why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced with ringing clarity that India’s largest minority had the first right to the nation’s developmental resources. He did not see the irony or the unfairness of his pronouncement even if most Indian Muslims are both poor and uneducated, because, naturally, there are others too. And that must also be why the Left-liberal intelligentsia, which supports the UPA, expects, quite without basis, the new African-American President-elect of the US, born to a Muslim father, to take a soft line on the ‘root cause of terror’.

The UPA version of twisted reality demands all Indians to shoulder their responsibility towards this permanently aggrieved minority community, even as it harbours, aids, abets and cheers terrorism in mosque, chaupal and home alike. We should simply mop up the blood of innocents, bury and cremate the dead, mouth platitudes for those martyred in our defence, used up like so much cannon fodder, and then return to normality without demur. And wait for the next round of retribution from ‘justifiably angry’ jihadis.

This kind of apologia is what the French call “la trahison des clercs”, or the treason of the learned. It is a dangerous conceit that has pushed this country to the edge of the precipice. It threatens to destroy the morale of the bureaucracy and a unified military, para-military and police force. It divides us with its injustices and political calculations. We are so ill-governed that we can be roiled by less than a score of well indoctrinated and trained young men on the ground and their handlers in Karachi.

In the aftermath, scapegoats in the form of the Union Home Minister, the Maharashtra Chief Minister and his deputy are being sacrificed with an eye to the ongoing Assembly polls and the coming general election. Their successors can hardly do worse.

But as for getting tough with Pakistan, nothing the UPA does is likely to be even remotely retaliatory. Because short of conventional warfare, despite the mayhem routinely caused here by the ISI and its cohorts, India simply has no covert strike capabilities.

But we may have to lose our innocence after all. The oft quoted ‘secular’ narrative, said to be at the core of the very idea of India, needs to be updated. The Congress was formed to secure independence, but of a unified, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country. The formation of Islamist Pakistan was its first failure, acknowledged by no less a personality than Mahatma Gandhi. Later, the gratuitous liberation of Bangladesh also went badly. And now, the Congress is deliberately soft on terrorism.

It is time to end this cannon fodder raj that uses up our heroes to no purpose. It is time to hit back hard with the requisite political will. And if the UPA does not have the stomach for this fight, it will have to be replaced by those who do.

[ramana]

X-posted...

Will the Indian elite go for the jugular or just light more candles and scream at the formless/ nameless political class before TV cameras? It is going to be a long haul and may be in a decade or so, we can find a solution to our existential crisis of being attacked by barbarians from the West. We need to combine strategy and patience and completely throw to the dustbin the ‘Gujral Doctrine’ by that mumbling Prime Minister about treating younger brothers with equanimity.

The doctrine essentially suggests that if we are slapped on both the cheeks we should feel bad that we do not have a third cheek to show. He, according to security experts, seems to have dismantled our human intelligent assets inside Pakistan, which has resulted in the gory death of thousands of Indian citizens in the last few years. Such is our strategic thinking in this complex world since our political class is not adequately briefed and the elite don’t think through issues. Better to be simple in our talks and vicious in our actions rather than the other way.

Hopefully, this November attack will create a new vibrant India capable of taking care of its own interests.

An excellent article, but fundamentally flawed. What he wants is a societal transition from one viewpoint and doctrine to another - and he relies on exactly the class that allowed the situation to come to this pass. He is relying on the creamy layer in a "numbers game" democracy - where the most natural tendency of a highly fragmented society will be to form easy-going elite who are basically opportunists. These do not have stake in an identity with a nation - it doesn't exist for them. Why do you think Indian society repeatedly threw up elite who advocated collaboration with invaders or not uniting together with apparent enemies within the "nation" to defeat the invader - think of the Brahmin minister of Prithviraj III who stopped a young Prithviraj from coordinating with the Chalukyas and trap and exterminate Ghori. Same goes for Jayachand - compare this with the disparate and competitive European armies of Austria, Prussia, Russia and England uniting against Bonaparte. What made the houses of Amber/Jodhpur join the Mughals and to the extent that some Rajput clans gave their daughters in marriage to the Mughals (well same less publicised cases happened under the Sultans like the case of mother of Firuz) while others like in Mewar (mostly with a few exceptions) stuck to their guns? Siddharaj Jayasimha of Gujarat patronized, protected and allowed Muslims to flourish in Gujarat all the while the North was being ravaged, and thus prepare grounds for the success of Ulugh Khan in a land that successfully resisted the Ghori hordes? It was mainly (1) personal gain from trade/concessions/wealth (2) using the threat of foreign horde to preserve power in domestic politics (3) the stupid folly of hoping to use the foreign hordes in finishing off domestic enemies (4) the attitude that everything is a commodity - "a banyiafication of all values", loyalty, nationhood, ideology, one's people, ones family, even sons, daughters, wives - everything can be "sold" in exchange for life, limb or consumption.

This is the fundamental cancer and needs a long hard, but uncompromising ideological struggle, and the best point is not to look at the "elder elite" - look at youth across all sections to try an recreate these values and identities for them while it still has some hope of being successful.

I worked academically with someone from Israel, who described his early life at the Kibbutzs, and about how the Sabras took vows of not going for trinkets/dolling up until the nation survived - this is the stuff, that makes nations.

In the movie "Jodha Akbar", Raja Bharmal justifies 'giving' his daughter to Akbar in the same vein- an exchang eot preserve his dynasty and kingdom. Late news paper reports said that exchange allowed that dynasty last to present day.

I think poster brishapati is a good addition to the forum if he continues to add value.

[Manny]

A country that doesn't care if we fight back or not to something like what happened in Bombay...then..the country deserves to..... (fill in the blanks)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 314311.ece

They also said that India’s government was under less pressure to react militarily to the Mumbai attacks after a poor showing by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in state elections.

[ramana]

Op-Ed in Pioneer, 10 Dec 2008

The elite’s naïveté

Shailaja Chandra

It is not enough to berate politicians and blame them for all our problems. The solution lies in engaging senior leaders in serious debates and force them to take a public stand on a slew of reforms. Then hold them to their commitment and make them accountable

A spate of editorials and articles has been warning us against spearheading hate campaigns against politicians. Mr S Gurumurthy writing for the New Indian Express admonished channels for championing ‘Page 3’ protesters as representatives of public reaction. He cautioned against targeting politicians as a class thereby shifting accountability from those directly answerable for the 26/11 intelligence and security failures. Second, by demanding Army rule the very foundation on which democracy rests is being questioned — a dangerous trend indeed.

In a similar vein Mr Shekhar Gupta ran a leader in which he cautioned the upper crust (of which he admits being a part) that only because it has successfully managed its own private health care, schooling, electricity, water and what not, to think carefully before attempting to manage law and order which is an altogether different story. He harks back to South Africa where the Whites despite being armed with automatic weapons and the authority to shoot (Blacks) at sight, only ended up becoming detainees in their own homes.

Mr Vir Sanghvi was more direct when he said that he was appalled by the emerging rubbish from the ‘Frangipani-Vetro set’ — “don’t pay taxes; give up democracy; hand the country over to the Army; refuse to vote”.

There is near universal unhappiness with the ‘Page 3’ chatteratti having been given an outsized platform to expose their naïveté and elitist solidarity. Until the shootout of 26/11 this mollycoddled set had enjoyed charmed lives which they constantly remind the world they had earned or inherited and are now free to enjoy. They had pretty much escaped contact with human bodies in smelly polyester glued together in suburban trains — the obvious targets for terror attacks. It was inconceivable that pristine Taj and Oberoi snuggling next to the Arabian Sea would ever become targets, leave alone harbour terrorist desperados. Butchery inside those aristocratic interiors that had hosted the most memorable weddings, celebrations and rendezvous was unthinkable. Therefore, when the attacks did occur in those seemingly impregnable social fortresses, the rich and famous sprang back like injured leopards using the idiot box to bare their teeth.

In the ensuing public purging of emotion, the extent of ignorance about basic tenets of the Constitution of India became shockingly clear. Complex issues involved in fighting terrorism in a federal system of Government were ignored as the English-speaking glitterati ranted on. Without an iota of understanding about the nature of the Indian polity, the seeds of unrest were scattered over impressionable viewers. The result? Digression from the core concerns of fixing responsibility and extracting a commitment on drastic reforms that have long been overdue.

So what can now be done? To begin with hasten investigation, identify and punish those that despite having access to information (which could have made the difference between life and death) fiddled away. Today after more than a fortnight there is no news on that front. Apologising is just not enough. It is expected that security concerns must be placed above buddy rights and visible punishment meted out not just to vindicate those who need not have died but because this alone would ensure that things are better if this happens again.

At the same time democracy must be strengthened rather than scrapped. Unless we improve the quality of our leadership, lapses in governance such as those that marked the debacle in Mumbai will not end. At the same time, all politicians must not be clubbed with a handful of jerks whose conduct has been crass. By overplaying the misdeeds and individual shenanigans of a few, the electoral system should not be castigated unfairly. That is India’s biggest USP and no one — least of all ignoramuses — should be allowed to belittle it. Maximum concentration should be placed on removing the root cause of bad governance not on dumping the political process itself.

With Lok Sabha elections upon us, this is also an opportunity for the voters to demand change. Should MPs that represent only 20 to 30 per cent of voter share and often half that be considered as having the mandate to represent over a million people in a constituency? Should coalition politics be allowed to hold governance to ransom? The existing provisions of the Constitution and election laws have catapulted most parliamentarians where they are today. As direct beneficiaries of such a system they will hardly be persuaded to bring change. Incumbent Governments can do it if political parties reach an understanding, but who is to motivate them?

Since all political parties are bothered about how they look on television and get reported in print, instead of giving space to the enervated voices and predictable arguments of party spokesmen, why not engage senior party leaders in serious debates and force them to take a public stand on a slew of reforms? Let the public see what each party stands for on vital issues that impact negatively on elections, governance and security. Ask the leader of every important party to explain his party’s stand on specific reforms. We need leaders of political parties, including regional ones to be publicly confronted with the urgency with which change is needed. On handling internal security, on financing elections, on letting party MPs vote on critical national issues by conscience, on prescribing minimum standards of education for candidates and a minimum threshold of voter representation to get elected.

The tipping point has come. Monday’s assembly results have demolished all forecasts. There is evidence now that people want good governance. Sheila Dikshit has won not simply because of her personal warmth, but because the effect of what she was doing was visible with each passing day. Voters did not want progress to be disrupted. Uma Bharati, despite her formidable record as a vote-getter, lost because her ideas and passion for cows do not denote progress.

Both women’s agendas were well-known. One won, another lost. In both cases the voter knew in advance what the aspirants intended to do on things that affected them. Today only TV channels have the power to extract commitments from political leaders on major issues displayed on millions of screens. The time to confront the leaders is now.

[ramana]

X-posted..

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the Mughal dynasty, created by Muslims from Central Asia, governed a sprawling empire encompassing northern and central India, almost all of Pakistan and much of Afghanistan — even as Hindu Maratha warriors in India’s south held out against Mughal armies.

This is factually incorrect - there were pockets of areas even within this so-called sprawling empire where the Mughal writ did not run. The Chandelas of Khajuraho, Mewar, regions to the west of the Indus were mostly indpendent. Even Kabul was lost from time to time.

India’s whole history — what has created its rich syncretic civilization of Turko-Persian gems like the Taj Mahal and the elaborate Hindu temples of Orissa — is a story of waves of Muslim invaders in turn killing, interacting with and ultimately being influenced by indigenous Hindus.

There is no proof of Muslim invaders being influenced by indigenous Hindus. What appears to be syncretic tendencies is simply the retention of pre-Islamic cultural and philosophical elements in deeply embedded layers of social psyche in those Hindus who were converted. Kaplan seems to be unaware of the claims of the Ashrafis - the so-called "pure" Muslims who can claim to be descended from the invaders, and deem themselves to be distinct and "better" than the native converts. Kaplan should study, Maulan Zia-uddin Barani, Amir Khusrau, Ibn Batuta, Syed Amir Ali to get the wind blowing within the psyche of Islamic elite in India.

There is even a name for the kind of enchanting architecture that punctuates India and blends Islamic and Hindu styles: Indo-Saracenic, a reference to the Saracens, the term by which Arabs were known to Europeans of the Middle Ages.

Saracenic is a common very negative connotation in Graeco-Roman and medieval European literature. It did not specifically mean Arabs, as for most of history, Saracen was explicitly distinguished from "Arabes". Moreover, it was not Arabic influence in architecture but more of Persian, and copies of Byzantine (there is not much of Arabic architecture in any case - it was always adaptation of Graeco-Roman, Levantine, Persian styles) in India.

Democracy has so far kept the lid on an ethnic and religious divide that, while its roots run centuries back, has in recent years essentially become a reinvented modern hostility.

Wrong - what kept the lid on was the trauma of a society decimated by the Partition and a population forced to be on the move. Uprooted Hindus, and Sikhs were more absorbed in simply surviving. These would have been the most radical of social and political groups that could have taken it out on the Muslims. Added to this was intense pressure from the establishment with the help of upper echelons in the civilian and military admin who had been nurtured under the British to preserve Islam within India. No need here to go into factors that made this necessary for both the British and the Congress leadership.

The culprit has been globalization. The secular Indian nationalism of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Congress Party, built around a rejection of Western colonialism, is more and more a thing of the past.

Nehru's CP was not built around a rejection of Western colonialism - but around the replacement of the colonial personnel in the colonial state apparatus with some of the Indian elite, without any change whatsoever in the colonial state machinery established by the British. Exploitatibe capital extraction process, such as the India debt were continued surrpetitiously.

As the dynamic Indian economy merges with that of the wider world, Hindus and Muslims have begun separate searches for roots to anchor them inside a bland global civilization. Mass communications have produced a uniform and severe Hinduism from a host of local variants, even as the country’s economically disenfranchised Muslims are increasingly part of an Islamic world community.

Who disenfranchised the Muslims? Were they already economically disenfranchised before the birth of Republican India? Then it would become the responsibility of the British. Suppose not - then it has to have happened under Nehru and the Congress! If none of these two did it - then did they allow the Hindus to do it? Were they so ineffective as rulers? If none of these are plausible - then was it the Muslims themselves? Kaplan makes a mockery of serious sociological studies on the deliberate disjunction of Muslim society from modern education by its feudal and theological leadership - because of obvious reasons - loss of military power would have meant the loss of coercive power to extract surplus from non-Muslims, and loss of non-productive parasitic Muslim classes to reconversion and European influence through education.

The Muslim reaction to this Hindu nationalism has been less anger and violence than simple psychological withdrawal: into beards, skull caps and burkas in some cases; self-segregating into Muslim ghettos in others.

What reaction to which Hindu nationalism started the Kashmiri Jihad in the 80's? BJP was a fledgling - the scene was dominated by "secular" giants. What about the Kashmiri Jihad and the realization through the experiences of the BD war, that Islam on the subcontinent has not changed a single bit in its Jihadi agenda of 1947 - that apparently "peaceful" non-rioting cohabitant Muslim communities can turn suddenly violently Jihadi - looting, raping, abducting non-Muslims living around them when the opportunities arise or an Islamic regime decides to support such Jihad - that ultimately started "Hindu nationalism"?

The rest of Kaplan's article is not worth even trashing. We have discussed all his subsequent arguments threadbare in our various threads.

[brihaspati]

Shailaja Chandra
It is not enough to berate politicians and blame them for all our problems. The solution lies in engaging senior leaders in serious debates and force them to take a public stand on a slew of reforms. Then hold them to their commitment and make them accountable

I do not think this is a comment coming from someone who has really participated in the political organizations. There is no mechanism for holding senior politicians to their commiments. This is a serious lapse in understanding the basis of political power in India. In India, the apparatus of state power is dependent on the apparatus of personal power - which is the essential structure of a proper dictatorship. The Roman example of Gaius Julius Caesar is very pertinent. Caesar lost because he failed to make the apparatus of state power dependent on his apparatus of personal power - in spite of being formally elected a Roman dictator. Stalin succeeded because he could do this. In India this is what sustains the most stable and persistent regimes. Someone who has been able to make the apparatus of state power dependent on his/her apparatus of personal power does have no need to hold on to commitments. The fundamental flaw here is in looking at the face of political power but not loooking at the real source of this political power. This campaign to delegitimize criticism of politicians comes from the worry that popular focus could shift to unravelling this face - the so called elected representatives, governmental figures, to begin to look at the real sources of power - the structure of the apparatus of personal power. The BJP is yet to reach this critical understanding because it, like the "so called chateratti", confuses this apparatus of state power as the real basis of power, and fights to change it, or control it, or gain it for themselves - all the while real power lies in the hands of those at the centre of the apparatus of personal power.

The key to dismantling this apparatus of personal power, ironically, lies in redcuing the number of "faces" in power, and fixing responsibility on as small a number of individuals as possible, so that it becomes extremely difficult for the "real" sources of power to hide behind convenient scapegoats - as this apparently inncocent search for "those responsible for not acting on info" indicates. The reality of such inaction stems exactly from this dependence of state power on personal power - for state apparatus "forgets" to take initiative and "waits" out of enforced habit for the "wishes" of the apparatus of personal power. The more such faces in power can be made directly dependent on popular will or vote, without having to go through groups, the weaker is the base of the apparatus of personal power.

At the same time democracy must be strengthened rather than scrapped. Unless we improve the quality of our leadership, lapses in governance such as those that marked the debacle in Mumbai will not end. At the same time, all politicians must not be clubbed with a handful of jerks whose conduct has been crass. By overplaying the misdeeds and individual shenanigans of a few, the electoral system should not be castigated unfairly. That is India’s biggest USP and no one — least of all ignoramuses — should be allowed to belittle it. Maximum concentration should be placed on removing the root cause of bad governance not on dumping the political process itself.

An almost Marxian inversion. Why such a fear of ignoramuses - if they really are, they will have no effect! The democracy that allows layers and layers of groups, factions, caucuses between the people and centre of power, allows a diffusion of focus - a diffusion of authority and what is most damaging -a diffusion in responsibility.

[ramana]

Most Indian elite even if they are trying to become unDIEd, are still hung/wrapped up in Marxist dialectic from JNU mentoring.

She is a former administrator.

[ramana]

brishaspati, Some folks would like you to visit India - Forum

They would have participated here but are in temporary vanvas and have to complete their term.

Thanks, ramana

[Rahul M]

I'm not sure what would be the right thread for this.

some people may remember n^3ji's comments about Swami Ranganathananda, President of RamKrishna Mission who died in harness.

a really great thinker and one of the last giants of our time.

in recognition of His contribution to Indic thought, a stamp has been brought out in His name.


I really urge BRFites to go through His works and also ask your friends and relatives to do the same.
Ardent followers of His works included people like indira gandhi and APJ Abdul Kalam.

http://www.ncte-in.org/pub/other/swami/author.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Ranganathananda

[ShauryaT]

When it comes to Arun Shourie, it is safe to put it in this thread.



[youtube]QohimlLFWwM&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]sj9Jvbp7-yU&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]lhoNUs1PgLk&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]lhoNUs1PgLk&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]PD1gOTopkTA&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]jDaaCeQMMPY&feature=related[/youtube]

[brihaspati]

Ramanaji,
I will visit "this" forum. Thanks. A little irregular this week for professional reasons, but will be back with a "vengeance" this weekend. Just a little curious about the reasons for "enforced vanavas". I am slightly worried at a general tendency in BR of a certain school of opinion - that appears to follow the Leftist apologetics formula - if followers of a certain ideology cause outrages, then it is an aberration and over-enthusiasm or misinterpretation of the ideology - it is always people/individuals who are responsible for things negative - and never the ideology. The ideology is always "good". I find such apologetics typically in defence of ideologies that explicitly talk of "liquidation" of "enemies" - be it "class" or "unbelievers/Kaffirs". For me it is tactical deception aimed at preventing consolidation of "enemies" and the "enemy's" recognition of the fundamental persistence of core features in the ideology that will continue to attract the sadists and continue until the last of one or the other of the contesters are no more. I am disturbed at the open invitation by some in the admin to "bash up" "Pakis" - the individuals - whom I mostly consider victims of various forms of social manipulation, but simultaneous insistence on ruthlessly "protecting" the "ideology" which is the root source of the problem. The human mind is malleable, only a very few hardcore-hardset individual leaders are probably fit for "liquidation", but it is the ideological meme that survives and much harder to "liquidate". It is the ideology that has to be "trashed up", be it the Jihadi or Commie one, but focusing on individuals projected as aberrations is strategically disastrous. And can the admin themselves have a discussion on banning use of abusive words by themselves - (this is in context of deletion of Durgesh's posts in another forum). I am requesting this specially to you, as I think you are quite balanced and restrained in your criticisms.

[ramana]

No fears ont that count. Within certain minimal boundaries anything goes. But no ad hominem attacks, no disruption. And then there is the Admin discretion.

The enforced vanvas is due to members becoming intemperate and pursuing verboten subjects. A thing to ponder is the propensity to get banned repeatedly and thus lose your voice and give the podium to others. I guess they dont believe in Michel Foucault's dictum that "Of all powers the power to discourse is the most valuable."

We have very simple rules yet they get broken repeatedly. Members are warned three times and then they get banned for one month. Even the warnings are not adminstered diligently. People get cautioned before getting warned. And other Admins reinstate the banned members in most cases.

But like lemmings they rush to get banned and send bleatings to get re-instated. Do they learn after their reinstatement? No sir. The next ban comes quicker!

[R Vaidya]

Government Gifts Rs. 23 crore to Harvard
When Indian Institutions are starved

http://www.dnaindia.com/dnaprint.asp?newsid=1214632

R.vaidya

[SaiK]

when we befriend chinese, we say hindu-chini bhai bhai. when it comes to pakis, we say hindu-muslime bhai bhai. why? doesn't this reflect certain interests though inadvertant?

[JwalaMukhi]

Government Gifts Rs. 23 crore to Harvard
When Indian Institutions are starved

http://www.dnaindia.com/dnaprint.asp?newsid=1214632
Due to our distorted Nehruvian socialistic thinking, we believe that government is the embodiment of wisdom since
it can tax and provide subsidies. We still live in the era of Kings where the whims and fancies of the Chakravarthi
could get huge gifts to the courtiers and other foreign poets/ scholars. All one need do is stand in the queue and
sing praises — particularly in this Dhanur month. Of course, if your colour is white, then just stand, not
necessarily in the queue. Gifts will be bestowed and you will be profusely thanked for your presence and acceptance
of the same.
R.vaidya

http://indiaedunews.net/International/I ... hips_6784/

He expressed confidence that the fund will further deepen the strong bonds between Harvard University and
India, expand the university's impressive scholarship on India, especially at the university's
South Asia Initiative, and open new opportunities for gifted scholars from India to study at one of the
world's premier universities.
In 2007, Harvard president Drew Faust authorised the raising of endowed funds of $20 million for a South Asia
Institute and $16 million for endowed Chairs. In 2007-2008, there were 288 South Asian students at Harvard
University, of which 216 were from India.

If it was just money that was thrown away it could be attributed to foolishness on the part of paean singers and
dismissed. This is much more sinister in its design. It is directed to generate more gunga-dins onlee.
Ostensibly, this money will provide scholarship to students specializing in "south asia" studies and affairs. Why
this fund is not utilized to provide scholarship for students specializing in economics, the area in which the
exalted professor has made a mark, or other sundry purely technical subjects pertaining to economics.
Nay, this will be for south asian studies to generate more rascals who will carry the burden to enlighten the
unwashed natives. Time to brace for more types of Harvardappa Witzel's and Wendy's Children.

[vera_k]

Looks like this government is trying to boost institutions aligned with its ideology in reaction to Penn & JHU's engagement of the RSS.

Harvard South Asia Initiative

Center for Advanced Study of India

Read the top three links here - Link

[Div]

When it comes to Arun Shourie, it is safe to put it in this thread.

Thanks for sharing...though frustrating, this is a must watch and conveys a lot of messages that have been discussed thousands of times on BR.

[sonabh]

as you can see this is my first post on BRF. i have been "following" the forums for years now, but never had anything to add - still dont actually.

but i do want to ask something, and perhaps this is the best thread to ask it in.
i keep reading/skimming through similar sites of other countries, like PDF, BDSDF etc. but what i do not get is, why are people so hateful of india?

even bangladeshis hate us? why? i mean if they love pak so much, why not reunite with them? i suspect even nepal and SL do not love us a whole lot.

if any of you can enlighten me on this, then please do so.
also, please do not try to dismiss the haters as a "small minority", even if its small, why should it hate us? please try to elaborate the reasons behind this and help me better understand our recent history.

thanks

[samuel.chandra]

Heard all the videos posted. Like most politicians he is talking about all the problems but not commiting to what the BJP would do in this situation. Given the kind of proof we have against TSP, BJP should be able to clarify its stand. BJP is just trying to fool the citizens. I think people have seen what the BJP did during its rule. Without saying what they would do if they were in power instead of the UPA, I dont think they have any chance of getting more votes.

Please read the petition and demand action from our politicians.
http://www.petitiononline.com/MUMx2611/petition.html


btw, the 5th video seems to be a duplicate.

Interesting connection between Arun Shourie and Anthulay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arun_Shourie
Shourie started a one-man crusade in 1981 against Abdul Rehman Antulay, the chief minister of Maharashtra State, who allegedly extorted millions of dollars from businesses dependent on state resources and put the money in a private trust named after Indira Gandhi. The story caused the eventual resignation of the chief minister , the highest-ranking official in India ever forced from office by newspaper reporting, and great embarrassment to Gandhi and her ruling Congress Party.

When it comes to Arun Shourie, it is safe to put it in this thread.



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[youtube]lhoNUs1PgLk&feature=related[/youtube]

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[youtube]jDaaCeQMMPY&feature=related[/youtube]

[brihaspati]

i keep reading/skimming through similar sites of other countries, like PDF, BDSDF etc. but what i do not get is, why are people so hateful of india?

even bangladeshis hate us? why? i mean if they love pak so much, why not reunite with them? i suspect even nepal and SL do not love us a whole lot.

if any of you can enlighten me on this, then please do so.
also, please do not try to dismiss the haters as a "small minority", even if its small, why should it hate us? please try to elaborate the reasons behind this and help me better understand our recent history.

There are several factors behind such impressions of "hatred" :

(1) first, the reality of the "hatred" need not be as reflected in the "media". The common people of these neighbouring countries may not exactly, and clearly, think in terms of the media - which usually reflect the various "pressure groups" in the domestic politics of the country concerned.

(2) Having said (1) - there is the reality of "hatred" from interested groups vying for political diominance or for elite status within the national power structures, and which could not have come as viable political tools unless there were some perceptions in the general public that could provide the base for making such "hatred tools" attractive. These are typically in order of importance (a) economic jealousy (b) fear of losing out in trade and commercial development (c) religio-cultural prejudices (d) invention of a "foreign devil" as unifying focus and overcoming domestic unrest/fractures/incompetence -sometimes physical proximity between two identities not much different from each other actually sharpens the "divide" (d) manipulation by "third parties"

You can find all four factors mentioned in (2) in all the countries you refer to. I think detailed analyis for each country cannot fit within a single post.

[sonabh]

thanks for the response brihaspati, always loved reading your posts.

its always expected, coming from paki sites. but the other day i was surprised to see the same from bangla sites as well, i thought they'd hate pakistan, not us.

also, nepal, they dont seem to love us much, why cant they hate china, instead of india. since we share similar culture and language?

[brihaspati]

Sonabh,

here is something I wrote in another context :belongs more to the BD thread perhaps, but perhaps can be treated as a case study in the context of your questions -

BD - I see no reasons to change my estimate, that forces of modernization and Bengali nationalism is slightly weaker than Islamic retrogression. The 1971 war against Pakistan was an anomaly in the sense, that apparently this weaker force managed to get rid of Pakistan’s grip on Bangladesh. However, we can see, that this tilting the balance in favour of the nationalists and modernizers was essentially due to the long covert and finally short overt support given by India. The two forces within Bangladesh fought under their respective leadership which however as in most Asian nationalist struggles, were mostly derived from the same social elite class networks. Factions within the elite fight it out for their personal ambitions and look for support among potential social groups whom they can manipulate to bolster their personal claims for state power. Thus, at the upper levels of this political contest, dividing lines of ideology tend to get blurred. As members of elite have the same social networks tugging on their sentiments, leanings and deep hidden inclinations.

It is critical to understand and identify this distinction between supporting social groups and their leadership to understand the evolution of subcontinental politics. In Bangladesh for example, the “nationalist” faction leadership originally evolved out of the Indian Muslim League (both radicalized under and radicalizing Jinnah), and contained leaders like Suhrawardy (a great hero of “nationalist” Bangladesh) whose role in the Calcutta riots has remained questionable. The core elite leadership around Mujibur Rehman, managed to retain elements like Khondokar Mushtaq, and representatives of the strong force of Islamic fundamentalism which in the case of Pakistan or Bangladesh is usually only expressed in ethnic cleansing of Hindus or Buddhists, or abduction, rape and forced marriages of non-Muslim women, and grabbing non-Muslim property. Mushtaq later turned out to be the figurehead of a coup by officers of the Bangladesh Army that assassinated Mujibur and his entire family then present, in classic Islamic style reminding us of the great traditions of Caliphate - wipe out even the toddlers, so that no male descendants can turn up later to become focus and claim for political power (another sign of the medieval Islamic thought patterns of the Bangladesh elite that dominated the Army).

Subsequent history of Bangladesh has shown clearly that its armed forces are dominated by an Islam leaning leadership. The Army managed to liquidate “left leaning” army officers and members, (like Col. Taher) but brought to power commanders with overt, distinct, and explicitly Islamic agenda - like Gens Jiaur Rahman and his successor H.M.Ershad. These army regimes protected, and revived the Islamic fundamentalists represented and regrouped under the Jamaat e Islami, an organization openly against the nationalist liberation movement and many of whose leadership are also implicated in genocide, organized rape, and torture of people they considered “pro-India”, Hindu, and anti-Pakistan or anti-Islamic. The military regimes saw to it that war-crimes accusations were never seriously taken up, promoted Islamic education and propaganda machinery primarily through the madrassahs, and began to steer the country back towards the Islamic axis of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and fostered a deliberate anti-India stance as a consequence.

Popular discontent with the political and military regimes have erupted from time to time, which were most likely to have been prompted and utilized by elite factions desperate in their “prolonged” lack of access to state power. But the character of the social elite that thrived on Islam, in their early land-grabbing from Hindus under the Sultans or the Mughals (or conversion of Hindu elite to preserve their land), and Islam sanctioned Jihads or Ghazwas to loot women and property of non-muslims, never changed. This elite is obsessed with possession of land, (the only country in the subcontinent that maintained and justified looting of non-Muslim land and property under an “enemy property act” was Pakistan, and Bangladesh continued to enjoy this law long after its independence from Pakistan - a clue to the mindset of the Bangladeshi elite) and they need Islam to complement and maintain the semi-feudal rural social structures that ensure elite control (just as in Pakistan).

The latest feather in the cap of the Bangladesh army is what is popularly mentioned in the Bangladeshi media as “1/11″ (1/11/2007) in that the army engineered what can only be seen as a coup - with possibly active involvement and covert support from a host of Western powers - a formal replacement of the “caretaker” government with a group that quite ruthlessly moved towards dismantling the established political power centres. The military elite quietly and quickly eliminated the captured alleged leaders of extremist Islamic outfits, in total secrecy from the media - possibly to suppress any potentially damaging leaks of connections to the elite itself, and we cannot completely rule out the possibility of covert connections between military intelligence and the so-called Islamic extremist as part of a much broader pattern of connections and support of the military of Islamic countries provided to hardline Islamic militant organizations like that of the ISI in Pakistan.

The military continues to be extremely shy of appearing to be “hard” on the Jamaat, or any Islamic organization - the latest parody being the “inability” of the police to arrest the secretary general of the Jamaat, who freely roams the country and the capital giving speeches or meeting politicians from the Right side of the political spectrum.

The army had managed to chastize the existing politicians under corruption charges, and given the history and record of Islamic armies or secret services, it is safe to assume that substantial doses of torture and ruthless psychological manipulation was liberally applied to neutralize the leadership or make them sufficiently pliable - the favourite method of dealing with those whom the Bangladesh Army finds unpleasant was recently illustrated by the fate of an expat Bangladeshi barrister from London by Air Force personnel. What the army is aiming for is quite clear : it wants the ruling social-military elite’s interests protected. Given the close alliance the Bangladesh army has developed over the years with the Islamic axis, this also means forwarding the agenda of Islamic absolute control over the subcontinent.

The army needs the two main factions within the ruling class to converge to this overall agenda, and for this it is prepared to sacrifice or coerce individuals from among its own class who have become more a liability than an advantage - as it eliminated Jia or sent Ershad to jail, and turned the “next generation of political inheritors” either “physical wrecks” like Jia’s sons or ensure Haseena’s son’s virtual exile in the USA. Political legitimacy independent of Islamic control and dependent on charismatic tradition is an obstacle in the army’s overall plans, and it appears that the army is desperate to ensure subservience of the two elite factions into a national “consensus” framework, and in this a key role will be played by the hardcore Islamic faction led at least superficially by the Jamaat. The Jamaat’s involvement in crucial “dark episodes” of Bangladesh’s history ensures its continued influence within the elite including perhaps even the core driving the military - with mutual dependence and “sensitive knowledge” about each other. The Jamaat is the hidden trump card to “soften up” one faction and “threaten” the other, and will be used by the military to enhance its agenda for Bangladesh.

The promised elections in December will not be held unless concrete commitments are obtained from both elite factions to follow and toe the line given by the army, and this will involve the strengthening of the Jamaat’s role in Bangladeshi politics, as well as overall gradual manifestation of the agenda of Islam for the subcontinent. In its turn it means continued sheltering of Islamic militants for infiltration into India through the border state of West Bengal ruled at present by a sympathetic “Left”, continued protection and enhancement of the madrassah system of education, continued attacks on cultural items deemed “un-Islamic”, and providing a second base for the flourishing and operations of the Islamic theologians hell-bent on returning the world to the looting, raping, genocidic, ethnic cleansing ideology of 7th century Arabic Islam.

The media has had a field day in blaming the politicians for this situation. But in reality the politicians were never strong enough to override the military, and the nationalists who emotionally fought for a “Bengali culture” as distinct from the “Urdu-Pakistani” Islamic state were of necessity too humane to match the cunning, ruthlessness and pathologically Sadistic upbringing of the Islamic elite of Bangladesh. It was only a matter of time, before the Islamic leadership panicked sufficiently that if they delayed any further they might never recoup their agenda at all.

[sonabh]

thanks for the response, was nice reading it all.

basically what it says is, islam is the root cause of most of india's problems with regards to BD and pak.

but what about nepal? they arent muslim, why dont they align with us?

[ramana]

thanks for the response, was nice reading it all.

basically what it says is, islam is the root cause of most of india's problems with regards to BD and pak.

but what about nepal? they arent muslim, why dont they align with us?

The Nepal royal family was worried they would get annexed or assimilated into India and went on overdfrive to get PRC support. Look where that led them - dead.

The US has played up the fears in the neighborhood that unless they get US support they will all become greater India- Sri lanka, Malaysia, Bhutan etc.

[brihaspati]

sonabh wrote:
thanks for the response, was nice reading it all.

basically what it says is, islam is the root cause of most of india's problems with regards to BD and pak.

but what about nepal? they arent muslim, why dont they align with us?


The Nepal royal family was worried they would get annexed or assimilated into India and went on overdfrive to get PRC support. Look where that led them - dead.

The US has played up the fears in the neighborhood that unless they get US support they will all become greater India- Sri lanka, Malaysia, Bhutan etc.

This is true indeed. In all the neigbours, the elite is scared of losing their power if India swallows their "nation" up like Sikkim. The elite keeps up the fear of India in the populations through the media. With increasing penetration of the media in these societies this means greater mass opinion mobilizations as per wishes of the elite.

Nepal's case is complicated: there are several factors playing here
(1) UK's close relations and continued recruitment into the Gorkha regiment
(2) The complicated dynamic of the "Hindu" dynasty, its reliance and playing off India, UK, USA and PRC - the general coordinated attack on "Hindutva" on the subcontinent and its effects on the "cultural basis" of the "nation"
(3) prolonged feudal exploitation of the populace, and failure to modernize ala Bhutan's royalty which transitioned peacefully into constitutional monarchy - and therefore playing up the negative role of Indian big/small businesses aligned with the ruling elite
(4) dependence on Indian imports (just as in BD this creates extreme anger in the sense of humiliation)
(5) Indian Left's including extreme communists backing up of Nepalese communists and shoring up the hatred against the "Indian state" which according to the communists is a "comprador bourgeois neo-colonialist neo-imperialst's running dog" (just should have heard the WB left begging for business collaboration/investment from the "extremely violent" - thats the name in Sanskrit -leader of Nepalese communists when he visited)
(6) PRC's need to make Nepal inaccessible to India and reduce the frontage into Tibet from India, and hence massive bribes for "development" if only Nepal turned a hard nut to India (probably they started by shooting poor elephants having no sense of political boundaries)

Creation of an independent Tibet with long term military pacts with India would nicely cure this mild headache in Nepal.

I am a bit shy of writing about Sri-Lanka here. This is tricky - we need to have all Indians on the same boat, and writing honestly about the Sri-Lankan problem could create divsions within ourselves that are not necessary at this stage of our development.

[negi]

^^ Perhaps I know what you are hinting at, however I would still say please post your thoughts folks over here are very accomodating onlee.

[brihaspati]

Negiji,
just visit the Sri Lanka thread please to understand what I am afraid of
It is a matter of time before this particular question will be militarily solved, if India manages to keep out the dirty noses of the Nordics and their arms/military skills trade away from the waters around SL. The real problems are the extremely tricky question of similarity and dissimilarity between Kashmir and Jaffna, and how India can appear to be honest and consistent in both. However, a new basis of the nation for India, which supercedes ethnicity in a reformulation of the pre-Islamic Bharatyia view should be able to override the created categories of Aryan-Dravidian divide, and also provide a greater coherence and clarity of purpose to the "Tamil" question. Such an Indian nation can impose equal treatment and non-ethnic considerations to all aspects of SL life, solving the ethnic conflict problem for ever.

There can also be offers of becoming "associate nations" in a pseudo super-nation with common EU like soft borders and common currency/parliament/laws/economic region - should be quite attractive for the Jaffna Tamils - but all these "nations" of course needs lots of "cleaning up" before. This should be the central long-term target, and also to "sell it" properly to these potential "associates".

[sonabh]

so far what i get is: most of the hatred is cultivated through propoganda by the ruling elite so as not to maintain their grip on power.

but what i dont get is, why hasnt our government(s) done anything to counter it? perhaps encourage our media to make BD/nepal specific channels to further pro-india propoganda? it is feasible isnt it? you dont even need the permission of that country's government, just set up free to air channels like DD or zee tv (of the old, when it was free to air outside of india via sats)

or making movies, im sure bollywood producers always want fresh scripts, so why doesnt the govt encourage that, maybe make a movie on the liberation of BD, with special focus on how they were treated by the pakis.

all this propoganda can help encourage the locals to stand up against the govt, and hence maybe used as a threat to the govt sometime in the future? or is none of this actually possible?

[brihaspati]

Sonabhji,
Yes propaganda has been neglected by the GOI in this area. But here also the lack of political will and vision, as part of a comprehensive plan for the entire subcontinent shows through and creates confusion. GOI doesnt know what to do with the entire region..so its policies are piecemeal and ineffective. It is constantly under the fear of being dubbed "imperialist" which without doing anything it is already dubbed so by the Islamic neighbours.

The key to winning over the populations and isolating their elite is to show what the population stands to gain if they "join" India. This again needs a comprehensive plan, and a long term one, which GOI doesnt have now.

[sonabh]

so basically what we need is the same person, or the same set of people at the helm of the nation.

or in other words - a dictatorship?

cause i do not think we can ever follow the american model where no matter who is the pres, their policies are more or less the same.

[brihaspati]

so basically what we need is the same person, or the same set of people at the helm of the nation.
or in other words - a dictatorship?
cause i do not think we can ever follow the american model where no matter who is the pres, their policies are more or less the same.

What makes you think a dictatorship doesn't exist in India now? Whenever the apparatus of state power is dependent on the apparatus of personal power, the ultimate dictatorship exists. In India this is very much true.
We do not need to have a dictatorship per se. But what we need is reducing the number of "decision makers" and make them directly elected. A single person at the executive head, yes like the US model, is much more accountable - whereas in the Indian systems it is a sickening reworking of the Communist/Islamic apologetics - the system is good/the party is good/the ideology is good/only the individual is bad/individuals actions are bad/whatever goes wrong has nothing to dowith the overall ideology/party/group but mere failure or aberration or lapse of the individual - people don't you ever dare eject all of us out of our dominant status!

It is also true, that it is the social will which gets reflected in the political system - more so out of apathy or alienation of the majority from the process. It is also possible that the majority may not have any conscious dreams or hopes for the future or even clarity of such hopes or dreams. No one for a long time has cared to broadcast those dreams as ideas for the people to chew on, play on, imagine on, crystallize on - everyone has forgotten that ideas shake and shape nations - they are like seeds with determination - persisting through droughts and floods and waiting patiently for the time when they can raise their heads and spread their roots. Our people do not know what to dream about, do not even dare to dream perhaps. Once a confluence of such dreams are reached in the majority we have a programme for the future political leadership - the people should then measure their dreams against the concrete actual realizations and implementations achieved by those deputed to achieve them - and it is this confluent convergent streams of dreams that will keep the course of political leadership in track - giving it persistence and the long term nature expected of actual dictatorships.

It is better not to commit to any particular form of political organization forever into the future - that is the blunder of micromanaging religions like Islam - for at any given time point if we do try to microspecify forever into the future, we would be talking in the language of the present and the past we know about and therefore that past and the present will restrict our vision. What is needed is a homogenization and unification of the "Bharatyia", a set of concrete targets to be achieved for the "Bharatyia" nation, and keeping sufficiently strategically flexible to adopt whatever political form is necessary to achieve those targets - and be prepared to go through a multigenerational path of struggle.

[ShauryaT]

samuel.chandra: AS is an appointed RS member of the BJP. As such, he speaks for himself more and less for the BJP. If you are familiar with his works, one would clearly understand, what he meant and what he would like his government to do.

How many main stream politicians do we know of, who have called for a dissolution of the Durand line? His criticisms (and mark the time lines, they include the NDA rule) are not entirely partisan. He is pointing to a deeper rot. A rot in the entire system. Read his works on the relevant matters "Can an Iron fence save a tree, hollowed by termites?", "Governance" The sclerosis that has set in" and his book on Parliamentary Democracy (forget the name now).

As for as your broad stroke against the BJP, you are certainly entitled to hold your views, understand the anger, but painting ALL as evil, does not get us anywhere and this includes the other parties and other institutions.

IMO: The BJP's biggest failure is the lack of its top most leaders to act on their own convictions regardless of other opinion. They have been hesitant to swim against the current on certain issues.

[ramana]

The two centuries of Truco-Afghan rule after defeat of Prithivraj Chauhan, were a disaster for North India for there was no real stability. It was in this time that baniafication of values started and developed to preserve self and survive. The Turco-Afghan brought in hudbaya as a way of doing business and could ever be trusted to not break any agreement.

We see the effects of this type of social behavior even to this day.

[brihaspati]

The two centuries of Truco-Afghan rule after defeat of Prithivraj Chauhan, were a disaster for North India for there was no real stability. It was in this time that baniafication of values started and developed to preserve self and survive. The Turco-Afghan brought in hudbaya as a way of doing business and could ever be trusted to not break any agreement.

We see the effects of this type of social behavior even to this day.

Full agreement. But I guess some here in India were actually "learning" from even before Prithviraj III. Siddharaja Jayasimha definitely extended protection to Islam's network only for commercial profit. I think the typical attrition process in revolutions or national defence were at play - it is said that revolutions/freedom movements/national defence are best avoided if possible because it always takes away the most dedicated, the most "pure" in conflict - these are the people who come to the forefront of these conflicts out of commitment, and therefore suffer more casualties. This leaves the society, victorious or defeated, with a lesser proportion of the "dedicated". We know that the Shahyias, the Chahamans, were wiped out. Many probably made the compromises like "Shadi Dev" of Ajmer fame - allowing the -cow-slaughter-in-temple-boasting and night-attack-bride-lifting glory of Sufism to illuminate the land until a Thaparite could come and paint it all rosy and white. The poor artisans, who provided the backbone of India's exports and were concentrated for professional reasons in the cities were at the mercy of the invaders - their leaders either eliminated or converted, their intellectuals and spiritual leaders either eliminated or fled, their army decimated or retreated and dispersed or regrouping in the interior - I do not see many alternatives to what they could do to survive. This is why we have so many converts from the urban artisan class.

It is time that these descendants of almost surely Indian mothers, and mostly Indian fathers from pre-Islamic periods - should be made to face the true history, and asked to discard this interlude of "darkness" - "basangsi Jirnani".

[Singha]

This is why we have so many converts from the urban artisan class.

yes I have wondered about this. seen in south indian metros like blr and
hyd as well.

[SaiK]

why do we do this?

[brihaspati]

why do we do this?

In anthropology, it is well know that many of the "primitive" tribes even now ritually make "war gestures/go away/we are ready to bash you up" when strangers or visitors from outside their territory came in (I have seen recent documentaries on tribes in Papua-New Guinea) - even if the visitors will be ultimately welcomed. It is supposed to be a show of strength to insure for future "misbehaviour" on the part of the guests - or that they do not abuse hospitality (like the Europeans in their early colonies). I think it is primarily seen in ape populations (seriously! ) as per scientific studies. But don't we maintain such similar colourful rituals - for example at the RPB - which I have long dreamed of converting into a national museum of the freedom struggle, and getting the Honbl. RPji into a more modest, better protected, building in tune with the ideal of Indian "head of state- ship" - plain living, high thinking, and effective sharing of the life of the common citizen. It would be most fitting to house a freedom-museum and memorial in this iconic building built by the British when they themeselves had not even drreamt of ever leaving India. I hope dreaming of such a future is not a treasonable offence.

[A_Gupta]

Until the modern era we have little evidence of any sustained systematic study of by Indians of outside peoples and ideologies. E.g., compared to the critiques of Vedics and Buddhists of each other, where is the Hindu critique of Islam? Without knowledge, everything is reactive and on an ad hoc basis. You do not know when some ideology may pose a threat, you only know it when the army begins marching. You do not know the nature of the threat - e.g., is this equivalent to the squabbles with the neighboring raja, or is this an existential threat? You cannot compete if you do not know what you're competing against.

[brihaspati]

Until the modern era we have little evidence of any sustained systematic study of by Indians of outside peoples and ideologies. E.g., compared to the critiques of Vedics and Buddhists of each other, where is the Hindu critique of Islam?

First of all, historically we do not have "hinduism" or the word "Hindu" used by the Indians themselves at the time of Islam's advent. Al Beruni complains that Indian scholars appeared to think that they had nothing more to learn from "outside" or "others" - this could be a reason, as we can see similar attitudes in current "economically successful" cultures. If the Islamic chroniclers can be relied on, we see several practical reasons why there did not arise any "Hindu" critique of "Islam" :

(1) we hear of specific targeting of the "literate" class for liquidation during raids, so much so that we hear of anecdotes after destruction of Buddhist university townships that manuscripts could not be deciphered because the last person capable of reading it had been executed
(2) evidence of lack of knowledge of Quranic Arabic -Qureshi Arabic- on the Indian side (The Veravela inscription of dedication by a Muslim merchant in Arabic that explicitly states Islam's objective for India was allowed to be put up in parallel with a much tamer Sanskrit version for the benefit of the Indians)
(3) evidence that the "full force" of the Quranic/Hadithic blasts were withheld from the common Indian, even Indian converts, specifically under a doctrine of withholding "information" to the non-Ashrafi's. This has been demanded by eminents like Amir Khusrau, Badauni etc.
(4) Buddhist and Jaina moralistic thinking that probably prevented the Indian scholarly mind from even imagining that an entire religion could be based on justifying biological greed whereas the Indian philosophies had already refined the "religious" to "renunciation" - the more the better.
(5) active suppression and disruption of Indian non-Muslim scholarship, by Islamic regimes
(6) the resistance groups were mostly busy in survival, or regrouping, many becoming uprooted refugees in remote forest regions morphing into various so-called "Aryanized/Hinduized" tribes/principalities - focusing their hatred and revenge on everything "Islamic" rather than trying to understand their ideology. You can see all the resurgence movements target all followers of Islam without distinction - this is an alternative way of dealing with the ideology - when all Muslims are uniformly targeted it implies that their common characteristic, the fact that they share a common ideology - shows that actually that ideology is being targeted.

Without knowledge, everything is reactive and on an ad hoc basis. You do not know when some ideology may pose a threat, you only know it when the army begins marching. You do not know the nature of the threat - e.g., is this equivalent to the squabbles with the neighboring raja, or is this an existential threat? You cannot compete if you do not know what you're competing against.

No, the inquisitive mind will always seek out knowledge and what is happening around it. This lack of inquisitiveness, the sense of exploration, the constant surveillance of one's surroundings even out of curiosity should have led the Indians to seek out the reasons and processes that were changing the attitudes/practices/behaviour of the Arab/Central Asian traders visiting western/northern India.

It is possible that natural calamities like persistent droughts, prevented support of scholars by the aristocracy at this period. It is possible and most likely that, an important source of information about Islam, Indian non-Muslim merchants - were increasingly being prevented from going into Islamic heartlands (there are Chinese and other records about Islamic attitude towards penetration of non-Muslims into their area even as traders - in spite of the highly propagandized presence of "agents" of Indian merchants). Naval warfare appears to have been neglected probably out of resource constraints or ethical attitudes in general against persistent militarism - Chinese, and Arab sources write of the poorer quality of Indian ships at this period. A powerful navy would have countered Arab dominance of Arabian sea and sea-trade, and could have even allowed a concerted Alexander type campaign to take out the Islamic powerhouses along the gulf, or at least allowed sufficient dominance to extract knowledge of Islam.

[ramana]

I am pretty certain that the Mumbai attack was planned well ahead of time as soon as Gen. Kayani took over from Musharraf. Immediately thereafter, he said the PA had done everything it could and a political solution must be found in FATA. In April, various peace deals were struck with the Taliban. In May, Kayani said that his troops were needed more on the India border than on the Afghan border. He refused to assign PA for COIN ops and asked the US to train and equip the FC instead. There was some shelling in the Indian border. This was immediately followed by the audacious Sarposa prison attack leading to the release of a few hundred hardened Taliban and escape into Pakistan. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of helping this attack. This strengthened the local Taliban in Pakistan. In July, the PA was more directly involved in the Kabul embassy attack. The ISI didn't even cover its track which was in reality a deliberate ploy to provoke India into some action at the border to justify moving the PA from NWFP. Once that failed to achieve the desired results, the next major attack was Mumbai originally planned for September.

Thus, PA has effectively developed a conducive atmosphere for the Taliban to expand in NWFP.

I have no doubt that TSPA/ISI conducted the Mumbai outrage. But among many many questions I have, here are some for which I appreciate your insight:

1) Even someone like me sitting far away in NJ is aware and would have predicted that TSP/Kiyani will come up with some hanky panky against India to relieve himself from Unkil. How is it possible that if RAW were even half way efficient, could have been so easily outsmarted by ISI resulting in such a svagae attack in the heart of India?

2) Unkil I am sure knows/knew this gameplan. Why was he sitting by and let this happen.

3) As is is the most tragic part, apart from loss of life, after every succesfful TSP terror attack, India is shamefully left with some bean counting on who 'won' and who 'lost'. Question is has TSP gameplan succedded to the last dot?

Please ask policy questions in this thread.

1) ISI is a military intelligence agency based on MI-6 and MI5 rolled into one. After that it was nurtured by CIA. RAW on other hand is a splitof the old IB which is a police agenccy created for internal security of sundry nature- disaffected poltical movements, cross-voting partymen etc. So its a zameen asman ka farak between the two. To add to the problem the police origins of RAW which works on building dossiers for action but has no mandate to take action as the polticians will not let it. The annual farcas over who will be RAW chief is most silly and its based not on talent but who will bend to the poltical class. And the guy promptly works to reduce its effectiveness and lets his flats out as safe house to recoup the bribe money.

The current polticial class is an alien class in mind. They are all WOGS/Dark Knights at ease in Western capitals and uncomfortable in India. That is why I said a new intelligence agency is needed as RAW is totally useless. For those who think this is extreme the current CIA is the third organiztion- prior to WWII they had military orgs doing the intel and that led to Pearl harbor surprise, then came OSS and then came the CIA.
2) Even with nuke deal the US/West is not happy with the size of India. let me expalin. the nuke deal was to limit Indian potential to challenge US as its far away. However with the economic crisis gripping the industrial world and PRC in their pocket they need to constrain India. The problem is it was not ment to be like this. the job of the INC was to keep the Indians bound per the "Hindu" rate of growth and be a captive market supplying modern coolies for the West. Unfortunately the 1991 crisis came and PVNR unleashed the economic reforms. More thatn anything he did was to tell Indians they were free to do what they want. before that Sarkar was mai baap/motehr and father.
In ten years India came to the forefront of econmic powers even with partial reforms. So that si another threat that has to be taken up by West. I am sure deep at the heart Thackery type goondas are Western creations.

3) That is inevitable, as the ruling dispensation was not formed in India but after Anil Ambani met with Mulyam Singh yadav and told him to stuff it and support INC/UPA. And who controls AA I dont know? Am sure tis not Indian interests. He was told this way he will mkae a lot of money.

And MMS has already said he wants to make India an economic power. So bean counting is what is left.

By the way his statement is false and egoistical. India will be a power despite folks lke MMS and other mislead savants.

The entire economic reforms were planned and implemented by PVNR. I have the statement from his personal staff.