Why is "Hindu Nationalism" spoken of in a pejorative sense?

[Pulikeshi]

<deleted duplicate>

[Prem]

Dated but as relevant. Two Indian thinkers, who IMO, have largely got it right. Ashis Nandy and T.N. Madan. The author is as critical of our westernized elites.
Hinduism Versus Hindutva: The Inevitability Of A Confrontationthin-kers my foot!

(S)Tinker Ashish Nandy is Christian talking about Hindu Dharma. Madan is Ant-hro-apologist I.E white man's way of studying the others. On Sep 21 , last year NDTV Big Fight, it was Nady who was most angry at SSwami for working on Uniting Hindus as Vote Bank.

[shiv]

Dated but as relevant. Two Indian thinkers, who IMO, have largely got it right. Ashis Nandy and T.N. Madan. The author is as critical of our westernized elites.
Hinduism Versus Hindutva: The Inevitability Of A Confrontation

The article unfortunately is mostly meaningless aside from polemic.

There is a problem passage that I will quote:

Hindutva on this plane is the ideology of a section of the lower-middle class, living with the burning ambition of breaking into the upper echelons of modern India and yet fearful that they may be pushed into the ranks of the urban proletariat by the upper classes, not on ground substance, but of "style". For the believers in Hindutva , the pseudo - secularists represent those who have the style and now doing the pushing

The author/s characterized Hindutva as a sort of wannabe tendency among the less "stylish". Clearly the writer/s are themselves from what they think is a more "stylish" class and are unable to see anything among Hindutva vadis outside of style and jealousy.

If you read Edward Said and Balu, you find that European and later American attitudes towards the Orient were based on a sense that they were naturally superior and the others are simply wannabes who just don't get it. I recall a BBC commentary from the late 1990s/early 2000s about Indian female newsreaders in western attire as being wannabes, copycats without the "real thing" with no explanation about what the real thing might be.

So the attitude displayed in that paragraph is similar - a kind of snooty nosed dismissal of a lower, less stylish class aspiring to some unspecified higher goals. Great English, but no real substance. People are taught to write like this and nowadays I find a lot of articles in the Western press in this genre - a lot of words, little meaning to take away.

However one bit stuck me - and that is recognizing that Hinduvta is in danger of doing a copycat of western religions.

Hindutva is built on the tenets of re-formed Hinduism of the nineteenth century. Reformed according to the reading of those who saw Hinduism as inferior to the Semitic creeds, in turn seen as well-bounded, monolithic, well-organized, masculine, and capable of sustaining the ideology of an imperial state.
<snip>
..ideal Indian is the brown- skinned version of the colonial police sergeant, reading the Gita instead of the Bible.

That is simply the effect of Hindus being forced to see their own culture as a "religion" like Christianity or Islam and cooking up similarities and then trying to make those cooked up similarities true. The tendency for some Hindutva-vadis to copy-cat western religions is, in my view, also a loss of links with the past and a creation of new "Hinduism" moulded on Christianity and Islam

One of the biggest problems as I see it is as follows, and no one seems to have said it: Hindutva and Hindu nationalism has been branded by sickularists as being restricted to a few wannabes who are jealous of the style of the modern sickulars, and who are trying to convert Hindu-ism into a monotheistic top-down religion. Unfortunately this excludes a lot of Hindu nationalists who come from within the English speaking "stylish" classes and not just the "lower middle class" that Nandy and co treat with crinkly nosed disdain. The khaki chaddi is always a "below the belt" comment. The fact is that Khaki chaddis are the most hideous looking garment I have seen in my life and the sooner the RSS changes that the better its image will be. However not all Hindu nationalists love the Khaki chaddi, not all Hindutva vadis are hankering for the style of the Nandy classes - they are already there, and not all Hindu nationalists are willing to sit back and see Hindus taking a hit from the "also-colonized" minds of the sickulars.

[Arjun]

Dated but as relevant. Two Indian thinkers, who IMO, have largely got it right. Ashis Nandy and T.N. Madan. The author is as critical of our westernized elites.
Hinduism Versus Hindutva: The Inevitability Of A Confrontation

Dated and definitely nowhere relevant today - as opposed to when it was written a couple of decades ago. I am sure Ashis Nandy would be the first person to admit the complete irrelevance of this article to today's Hindutva.

Just to touch upon the most obvious error - the Hindutva of 2014 is largely an "upper middle class" & "middle class" phenomenon as opposed to being the "lower middle class" movement of 1991.

[Pulikeshi]

^^^ I know several "lower middle class" people from 1991 who thought they were part of a revolution... disbanded to complete college and join a job and make money... several of them have done well for themselves and now "upper middle class" - In the meanwhile, the flush of 'Hindutva' has now mainstreamed and grown its base.

My two cents, this too shall pass

[ShauryaT]

So the attitude displayed in that paragraph is similar - a kind of snooty nosed dismissal of a lower, less stylish class aspiring to some unspecified higher goals. Great English, but no real substance. People are taught to write like this and nowadays I find a lot of articles in the Western press in this genre - a lot of words, little meaning to take away.

The article is dated and a reflection of the conditions of those times - 1991. Also, if you read the author is expressing how "pseudo-secularists" view the Hindutva crowd in India. There is an element of snobbishry and the author is capturing it and stating it. Nandy has spent his lifetime on the study of contemporary Indian society and a MAJOR part of his work is actually on the effects of colonialism and is most critical of the chattering classes. You will be surprised to know how much you have in common with his views. But, much of this is in book form The intricate enemy is a classic and new one is called Exiled at home. His work on how the issue of Sati, largely deemed to be the "first" western reform of Indian social practices was refreshing and surprising to me, on how it was the British that invariably played a hand in the rise of Sati incidences in Bengal, before the ban!

I will just urge you to read more before making up your mind, of course 100% agreement is rare. But amongst the various academics that I have read on matters of India, I have found the works of these two to be the most agreeable.

They draw the most critics amongst other academics in India, who charge these two with providing succor to the Hindu Nationalism cause in their works. I guess they get it from both sides, so must be doing something right.

Added: I have seen Balu, reference the works of these two in his works.

[A_Gupta]

Ashish Nandy on Sati:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/61127632/Ashi ... nd-Protest

[member_22733]

Since I am always curious about how "ways of thinking" evolved in Europe and India, I just happened to get a tubelight moment, and I am sure some of the learned gurus here would probably have already realized what I am about to say (it has to do with cognitive dissonance):

What is the psychology of a person who belongs to a community that has brought into a lie and invested itself in it , whether it be a lie about a story that happened 5000 years ago or yesterday? When they have doubts about the lie in their minds, they will seek one thing: Rationalization. They will build a house of cards on the lie, they will kill the unbelievers. They will do whatever they can to keep the lie going, for if the lie gets exposed their entire "past" becomes a joke for people killing, raping, burning others for not believing in that lie.

Now when this person comes across a society that behaves like a rational, moral and ethical society but has no "lies" that unite them. What is he going to do? It is deep cognitive dissonance that will shake his reality. How can these people not believe in the "lie"? How can they be a society? They will then set upon the societies culture like vultures, trying to prove that the society they have come across is also built on lies.

In fighting the Hindus, they are fighting for themselves, and their existence and oddly enough it wont be over because of the Hindus, it will be over because of their own internal inconsistencies. The Hindu never really cared for these things and this attitude. He hasn't to this day.

We keep wondering why the Germans are so interested in Indian works, and why Indian scholars aren't working on this like crazy. Hindus dont need to Rationalize, period.

Added later:

There is a negative side effect to this: As a result of this quest to justify, Europe could advance in science and tech much faster than societies that did not have the "rationalize-the-lie" bug up their musharraf.

[shiv]

Shaurya - I am in complete agreement with Nandy in the way he has viewed "poverty" and how "the lovely state of poverty" is essential for an entire superstructure built around that. His work is a brilliant one that exposes abstract concepts in much the same way that Balu has done and evokes opposition from people who have never seen things from this perspective.

But this article. perhaps a reflection of those times - contains very little meaning to me. Perhaps its my fault but no one ever admits that anything is his own fault. I was an observer of India in 1991 and I have changed since then - so maybe Nandy's view too have evolved.

[Vayutuvan]

But true to tradition any Sanskrit I know has been learned by recitation only and not written.

Touche sir, touche.

[shiv]

Since I am always curious about how "ways of thinking" evolved in Europe and India, I just happened to get a tubelight moment, and I am sure some of the learned gurus here would probably have already realized what I am about to say (it has to do with cognitive dissonance):

Let me bite. I think there are two separate things here. I will attempt to deal with them separately

What is the psychology of a person who belongs to a community that has brought into a lie and invested itself in it , whether it be a lie about a story that happened 5000 years ago or yesterday? When they have doubts about the lie in their minds, they will seek one thing: Rationalization. They will build a house of cards on the lie, they will kill the unbelievers.

This part is correct. You are referring to cognitive dissonance. I have a theory - not one that I have read anywhere. Cognitive dissonance occurs because the first "learning" for any organism is survival learned from mother or family. Ignoring that learning can lead to danger - eg a child being warned not to wade onto the beach waves or not to play near a fire. It might be a survival mechanism to disbelieve any contrary information and react with anger/ fear+anger because the contrary information could be a threat to life

They will do whatever they can to keep the lie going, for if the lie gets exposed their entire "past" becomes a joke for people killing, raping, burning others for not believing in that lie.

I am not sure that raping and killing would be an automatic reaction that follows from being asked to reject what they believe is not a lie. The raping and killing is a "learned/actively indoctrinated phenomenon" instituted by the founders of the religions who were acutely aware that cognitive dissonance by itself is not enough to keep people believing a lie. Coercion is required. If you notice - the coercion is initially always within the originating society. Christianity was coercing unbelievers within their own society and Islam still does that. Once you have eliminated all opposition, then you get a fascist society that will kill others in support of the original lie. That would be step 2 in evolution.

Actually the west has evolved one step further. They evolved "secular governments" in which God was removed and replaced by "government", but the government functions exactly like the top-down structure of religion. In religion, God is THE sovereign and has "rights" over everything. The human has NO rights save what God gives him. In top down "lawful nation states", the sovereign is the government and again your rights are not natural rights that you are born with but only the rights which you can have allowed by national laws. You are hardly totally free. You are entrapped, but you believe that you are free - by a process of indoctrination tells you that "The rights you enjoy within our laws are more rights than uncivilized nations enjoy". Hence the blabla we hear about "freedom"

Now when this person comes across a society that behaves like a rational, moral and ethical society but has no "lies" that unite them. What is he going to do? It is deep cognitive dissonance that will shake his reality. How can these people not believe in the "lie"? How can they be a society? They will then set upon the societies culture like vultures, trying to prove that the society they have come across is also built on lies.

In fighting the Hindus, they are fighting for themselves, and their existence and oddly enough it wont be over because of the Hindus, it will be over because of their own internal inconsistencies. The Hindu never really cared for these things and this attitude. He hasn't to this day.

Lokesh in general the average westerner is brought up from birth to believe that his nation gives him freedom but he must abide by its laws. That is the trick. the laws actually remove most freedoms and the citizen believes that his freedom is the greatest and does not even understand that his society is nowhere near "freedom". When he sees a society like India he sees it as a society without laws. He does not understand that this is a "free" society. And as per his rules a society which does not follow laws must be subjugated and made to follow his laws.

For humans the only thing that affects our freedom is laws. The more the laws and the greater the enforcement of laws by a huge law enforcement apparatus, the greater the fascist uniformity of society. People become more free as you reduce the number of laws. (Laws of course are enforced, or they are not laws)

Is it possible to have society without "laws" in the top down sense? I will not attempt this question. But I will point out that in the Hindu scheme of things all humans are accepted as being born totally free to do anything. They do not automatically come under laws created by a government or human-like God. But Hindus are taught from day 1 about duties and obligations because the only law is the law of nature, of birth, of survival and procreation, and death. Your duties ask you to follow the universal laws of nature. That leaves a lot of freedom to worship what you want, wear what you want and do what you want as long as you follow the duties of dharma.

[Arjun]

There is a negative side effect to this: As a result of this quest to justify, Europe could advance in science and tech much faster than societies that did not have the "rationalize-the-lie" bug up their musharraf.

Have often debated this in my mind as well.

The conclusion I've reached is that human advancement is indeed maximized when there is intense desire that is shared by a large group of people, and efforts to fulfill the desire are pursued in an institutional setup. This desire in itself does not have to be anything rational - can be something quite kooky as a matter of fact, as long as it is not impulse-driven or one based on base instinct. Its the combination of the intense desire pursued in an organized institutional setup that has the potential to create revolutionary spinoff benefits - in many cases quite unrelated to the original desire.

Note that there are a couple of key words in this definition that don't align well with some of the key concepts traditionally emphasized in Hinduism: desire and institutional setup.

Westerners like to think they industrialized first because they entered the Age of Reason early. I don't agree. They advanced first because they did not view Desire in negative or fatalistic terms and entered the Age of Institutionalism earlier than the other great civilizations of India and China, AND because Northern Europe was lucky enough to escape the baneful influence of Islam.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ Arjun, to me what was lacking in India for a thousand years is institutional setup. The intense dedication to a goal, the ability to acquire expertise and the desire were not lacking. The institutional set-up is the "force multiplier".

[member_20317]

Oh! and for all these years I thought it was merely their 'ability' to get new resources from Americas and Asians. Coupled with Indian transfer of knowledge to west, because of misguided altruism. A stupidity committed prior to the newfound 'ability' of the west.

But what do I know, a mere tamsic .

[csaurabh]

I just finished a book titled 'No full stops in India' by Mark Tully.

It is extremely good. The writer despite being a 'foreigner' sees the issues as it is, not through the mask of colonialism. The failure of socialism , secularism and top down nature of congress and bureaucracy. And the distancing of the Westernized 'elite' Indians.

This book was written in 1991, but much of it is still relevant today.

Another book that I intend to read is 'Durbaar' by Talween singh. Already some of the excerpts are very interesting.

[Arjun]

Oh! and for all these years I thought it was merely their 'ability' to get new resources from Americas and Asians. Coupled with Indian transfer of knowledge to west, because of misguided altruism. A stupidity committed prior to the newfound 'ability' of the west.

But what do I know, a mere tamsic .

All of what you say is correct.

But why did Indians not discover the direct sea-route to Europe and leverage it to cut out the Arab middle-men - rather than the other way around ? Did they not have the desire to maximize trade profits ? Did they not have the institutional setup to build large ships and navigate the oceans ? Was Indian society tired from constant fighting with Islamist hordes ? These latter questions are also worth thinking about.

[A_Gupta]

Debates about Hindutva

1. There are certain ideas that, if adopted broadly, would damage[*] the vitality of our traditions.
2. Some of these attitudes may be more common among Hindutvavaadis than among regular people.
3. Pointing at Hindutva merely leads to unproductive discussions about what Hindutva is or is not.
4. Regardless of who holds these opinions, they are damaging.

[*] Damage: damage or benefit is a matter of opinion (in the short run). Only in the long run when the effects are visible can damage or benefit be really assessed. All that I as a person can do is point something out and provide my reasons for why I think so.

The truth in the Ramayana

E.g., in a criticism of Sheldon Pollock, the Sanskritist from Columbia University, someone wrote in Rajiv Malhotra's egroup, as of the points:

"His {Pollock's} Problem with Traditional belief of Everything happened in Ramayana is absolute truth."

We need to examine

1. The evidence that a traditional belief existed that everything in the Ramayana is absolute truth;
2. What the "truth" means?

If I succeed in convincing you about my point of view about the above two points, then there is a third one to consider:

3. What is the origin of the modern belief about the "traditional belief of the absolute truth of the Ramayana", and why is it damaging?

My reasons

I am no scholar, so I can't make arguments with the confidence that I have read all the relevant work and so can make an authoritative argument. So all I can give you is a plausibility argument.

I will argue that there is no traditional belief that "everything in the Ramayana is the absolute truth" as historical events, but that the meaning of the truth of the Ramayana is more like that of the truth of a law of nature.

a. The first argument is that there are innumerable versions of the Ramayana; this many versioned Ramayana is not the way any culture preserves its historical, absolute truths.

The usual counter to this is that the Valmiki Ramayana is the original, historical narrative; all the others are embroidered versions that arose for various reasons. This is a modern view as far as I know, is there any evidence for this view in the traditional literature?

I'm no scholar, as I said, so I can't answer it. I'll just point out that the familiar "Lakshman Rekha" as far as I could tell, does not occur in Valmiki Ramayana. Is it an absolute truth as a historical event or not? If not, are we willing to discard it and tell people "Lakshmana Rekha" is mythology?

As a peripheral point, nor does it occur, as far as I can tell, in the Tulasi Ramayana.

b. Examining the literature for the "traditional belief about the Ramayana as the absolute truth" is also a task beyond my power. I will ask though, does Tulasidas embody the traditional belief about the Ramayana? My answer would be - yes, very likely; apart from the beauty of his work, it is (likely) the reaffirmation of tradition that makes his Ramcharitmanas popular.

In Tulasi Ramayana, the sage Kakbhusanda narrates how he passed through many worlds in many universes, some with humans, some with differences, some with variations in the other characters, but all had an Ayodhya and a Rama.

I take Tulasidas to be saying that Ramayana is a truth in all worlds. Not a truth where the denizens of those worlds say, such and such historical events took place on a world far away, the Earth (as it would be for the stories of Jesus or Muhammad); it happened/happens/will happen on their world, too. (As far as I know, the leela of Ramayana happens every Treta Yuga.)

How is this possible? When something happens as a historical truth, it happens at a specific place at a specific time. It does not happen time and again.

However, when something happens as a law of nature[*] (e.g., gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc., ), it happens all the time, everywhere, on every world without exception. Thus so with the Ramayana. Sometimes it can happen with Lakshmana Rekha, sometimes without. The particular events are not the "truth of the Ramayana". The truth of the Ramayana is an inner meaning of the story, that applies everywhere, everywhen.

To me, Tulasidas is expressing, in traditional language, a view of the Ramayana tradition about itself.

[*] I offer this a a modern metaphor; I do not know if Tulasidas had anything close to this view; I want to point out at least one way in which a story can be true without being historical.

The mistake.

There may be many reasons to be against Sheldon Pollock, justified or not. I don't want to get into that. The insistence of the absolute truth of the Ramayana as a narration of historical events is what is poison to the tradition. Especially people who have read Rajiv Malhotra should understand the danger of becoming "History-centric".

Rama and Ramayana no longer transcend space and time, they are brought to a mundane material plane, and their existence is predicated now on the existence of suitable archaeological artifacts, typically sherds of clay pots, because those are the human artifacts that survive the long passage of time, found in excavations in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

If the Rama Sethu -- the line of shoals between Sri Lanka and southern India - turns out to have existed before the presence in India of the ancestors of the current people, the Ramayana is falsified (or extensive apologia will be written to rationalize this).

Whether or not the incident of the Lakshmana Rekha happened becomes a contested historical claim. The "contest" between modern Hindus and modern Muslims and Christians becomes "who documented their religious history better?" and not "which one leads you to Dharma?".

People with an axe to grind will find their ancestry among Rakshasas or Vaanaras, and make their current grievances into long-standing historical ones.

The origin of the modern belief about the traditional belief

The modern belief about the historicity of the Ramayana arises from the Indian encounter with the British colonial rule. Do note that Tulasidas did not find it necessary to assert the historicity of the Ramayana in competition with the Muslims; indeed one lament of the modern movement is that there is at most a hint in Tulasidas's writings of what would have been the contemporary event of the demolition of the Janmabhoomi temple by Babur's minions. History-centric Tulasidas was not! In the traditional view, the competition, if it existed, between Rama and Rahim was not of historical truth-claims.

S.N. Balagangadhara, Jakob de Roover and others have tried to explain how this "history-centrism" (though they don't use this term) entered Hindu consciousness in modern times. If you are convinced by my plausibility arguments, you will want to read these.

[A_Gupta]

Oh! and for all these years I thought it was merely their 'ability' to get new resources from Americas and Asians. Coupled with Indian transfer of knowledge to west, because of misguided altruism. A stupidity committed prior to the newfound 'ability' of the west.

But what do I know, a mere tamsic .

1. Don't put yourself down.

2. The "ability" to get resources is not the root cause.

3. We just need consider military organization. The cause of military defeats of Hindus & of the Muslim rulers of India (at any time before the Industrial Revolution) was not because of lack of courage, expertise, devotion to the cause, lack of good weapons, etc.; it lay in the institution of the army itself. The European armies in India used the same people, and used Indian resources of horses, swords, etc; Indian armies used hired European officers. So the vital distinction was in the organization and discipline of the institution.

YMMV.

[Arjun]

From a historicity standpoint it is enough that Rama, Krishna, Arjuna and others are accepted as ancestral heroes of India - and that these heroes are worthy of veneration by ALL Indians, irrespective of 'religion'.

Beyond that - it is useful for there to exist a strong academic lobby that tries to derive our pre-history from our mythology (like Nilesh Oak has done), but I wouldn't recommend Hindu religious leaders, Hindutva champions or the general public get too exercised over proving the historicity of our Itihasa.

[ShauryaT]

^^^ Arjun, to me what was lacking in India for a thousand years is institutional setup. The intense dedication to a goal, the ability to acquire expertise and the desire were not lacking. The institutional set-up is the "force multiplier".

+1. PS: Arjun: Also the onslaught of Islam in mainland Europe was not a luck, it was thwarted due to institutionalize resistance organized by the Church at the battle of Vienna against the Turks.

[shiv]

But why did Indians not discover the direct sea-route to Europe and leverage it to cut out the Arab middle-men - rather than the other way around ?

England had nothing to offer. Europeans needed to come to India for spices because their food was often fish that was slightly decomposed and needed garnishing with spices. They had no veggies worth much. I would recomment a book called the "Salt: A world History"
http://www.amazon.in/Salt-World-History ... tory++salt

The question you are asking is from Western History, which as you know is written and well recorded. Indian trade routes - as evidenced by artefacts going back to Harappan times seen in the middle east and Central Asia and later the Indian methods of steel production, mills and Indian ship building are not "recorded history" and so they have been discarded as insignificant. You have read the former and you are asking questions out of that. This sort of mental clouding of our past, and discarding the Indian past as worthless and the western past as significant is a feature of colonization.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, if X comes to your town and offers silver and gold in return for some goods, the thought will definitely occur, why don't I carry these goods to X's town, I can make more silver and gold in that market than I make selling it to X here.

I don't know about India; but about China, it seems there was a struggle between the merchants and the aristocracy; the aristocracy won and put an end to Chinese exploration of the seas. It is not clear whether some such thing constrained Indian naval power as well.

One thing from my limited reading is that it appears the Central Asian origin Mughals did not understand the value of sea power, and neglected to cultivate it. I don't know about the Marathas, someone here will undoubtedly know it and inform us.

[shiv]

Shiv, if X comes to your town and offers silver and gold in return for some goods, the thought will definitely occur, why don't I carry these goods to X's town, I can make more silver and gold in that market than I make selling it to X here.

Were Indians growing spices to "make more and more gold and silver"? Europe actually had nothing to offer to India initially. Africa and Arabia and China had goods that Indians wanted.

The Arabs/Muslims shut off the land route to Europe but continued to import spices - and Indian ships and traders continued to go out east and west. They lost no business because the Europeans were simply buying from middlemen. It was the Europeans who felt the pinch and actively wanted to find a sea route to India. Indians had no reason to find a sea route to Europe.

But it was the development of European navies that brought the Portuguese first and then the Brits.

Why did they develop good navies?
1. Reformation that overthrew the church
2. The printing press that allowed maps etc to be printed and shared
3. The magnetic compass - that came from China via Arabia I think that aided navigation
4. Gunpowder
5. Better ships meant more fishing. More fish needed to to be salted to stay fresh. Or spiced up to remain edible
6. The sea trade expanded European trading centers who needed to go further and further for goods to be traded while competing with other European nations.

[ShauryaT]

The Arabs/Muslims shut off the land route but continued to import spices - and Indian ships and traders continued to go out. They lost no business because the Europeans were simply buying from middlemen. It was the Europeans who felt the pinch.

But it was the development of European navies that brought the Portuguese first and then the Brits.

Why did they develop good navies?
1. Reformation that overthrew the church
2. The printing press that allowed maps etc to be printed and shared
3. The magnetic compass - that came from China via Arabia I think that aided navigation
4. Gunpowder

Another reason is they had the top-down structure where the monarch demanded more glories for their realm and in order to find these riches, the smaller and coastal countries, who were most organized (UK, Spain, Portugal, France) sought to expand.

Also, the trade influence of Indian merchants is fairly well documented, including a recent work by Robert Kaplan. It is said that Vasco Dagama's journey from east Africa to the Indian coast was escorted by Indian merchants, not sure of veracity.

[shiv]

Another reason is they had the top-down structure where the monarch demanded more glories for their realm and in order to find these riches, the smaller and coastal countries, who were most organized (UK, Spain, Portugal, France) sought to expand.

Also, the trade influence of Indian merchants is fairly well documented, including a recent work by Robert Kaplan. It is said that Vasco Dagama's journey from east Africa to the Indian coast was escorted by Indian merchants, not sure of veracity.

Ultimately it was the organization of "organized top-down" religion that took most of the world out of the hands of pagans/kafirs. Organized religion and its ofshoots in European nation states went everywhere and pushed religions other than Christianity and Islam into little corners and mostly wiped them out. Only Eastern cultural values and some religions survived the "organization" onslaught.

The question is should Hindus organize like Christianity and Islam using the excuse that they conquered the world, so we need to copy them to do that?

Here comes another thought. Is Hinduvta feared because the Hindutvavadis heave learned the way of the religions and pose a more formidable threat than the un organized Hindus. Would western and Islamic opposition to Hindutva be based on the fact that Hindutva talks of doing to Islam and Christianity what those religions did to India?

Are Hindutva-vadis wrong in doing that? If so, why are they wrong? Should we all not be cheering violent copy-cat Hindutva to kick some butt rather than this wishy washy seculodharma that many of us preach.

[Arjun]

England had nothing to offer. Europeans needed to come to India for spices because their food was often fish that was slightly decomposed and needed garnishing with spices. They had no veggies worth much. I would recomment a book called the "Salt: A world History"
http://www.amazon.in/Salt-World-History ... tory++salt

The question you are asking is from Western History, which as you know is written and well recorded. Indian trade routes - as evidenced by artefacts going back to Harappan times seen in the middle east and Central Asia and later the Indian methods of steel production, mills and Indian ship building are not "recorded history" and so they have been discarded as insignificant. You have read the former and you are asking questions out of that. This sort of mental clouding of our past, and discarding the Indian past as worthless and the western past as significant is a feature of colonization.

On the contrary, I am very much aware of historical Indian trading prowess. I've read widely regarding ancient and medieval Indian trading communities and it is clear to me that Indian Vaishya communities were among the best in the world - if not THE best.

And that is precisely the reason for my question. A significant part of Indian spice and textile trade was always with Europe. It started with Rome in the pre-Christian era. Indian ships were directly reaching Roman ports (through Arsinoe, a precurser canal of Suez). All of this stopped around 3rd Century AD. The Arabs took over as intermediaries and established themselves as primary power-brokers in India-Europe trade. So Indians would sell to the Arabs for say 30, Arabs would sell to the Europeans for 70 or higher. Both Indians and Europeans were losing out...

Indian traders could have tried to discover a direct sea-route to bypass the Arabs and sell at much higher rates directly to the Europeans. But they did not. Possible reasons:

1. Fear is always a better motivator than Greed. In the Europe - India case, Europe was motivated by fear of losing their gold to India, while Indian traders were already making good profits which they could have bettered if they had tried to circumvent the Arabs.

2. In India - the Vaishyas and Kshatriyas seem to have never gotten together and acted in unison. The East India Company on the other hand is the prime example of merchants and rulers acting together in the interests of that country. India and China on the other hand seem to have been ruled by aristocrats who looked down upon merchants (true for China; need to validate for India).

3. Dharma was too much of a constraint in a world where trading prowess increasingly depended on the Might is Right principle.

[member_20317]

Chalo bhailog bahut ho gaya serious stuff.

1. Don't put yourself down.

Thanks. And I am not.

3. Dharma was too much of a constraint in a world where trading prowess increasingly depended on the Might is Right principle.

Objection raised (Since the whole thread is about Hindu Nationalism etc. I think it would pertinent to object here).

You must have read in your child-time how easily Mahadev and with some greater difficulty Bhagwaan Vishnu and Brahmadev would give boons to even the wrong sort of guy if he did enough Tap (penance). Also you must have noticed how the Devatas lead by Indra would always be fearful that these wrong sort of guys would end up seeking things that are actually the right of a Devata. Usually Tridevas would also give the Devas an assurance also that in time things would sort themselves out for the Devas and through them for the Manushyas and these wrong sort of people too.

For something to be regarded as a constraint or a power we have to account for innate/exnate nature of people involved in the decision too.

Allow me to reiterate Indian business communities always always and always had the notion of Shubh-Labh exactly like the other three varnas who too had remained comfortable in their own skins clearly able to discern what was worth picking up and what was dangerous for them overall. These practices and concepts have remained with these respective communities despite the 1000 years of dark ages, having come to them from much before that period.

[A_Gupta]

Are Hindutva-vadis wrong in doing that? If so, why are they wrong? Should we all not be cheering violent copy-cat Hindutva to kick some butt rather than this wishy washy seculodharma that many of us preach.

Given a choice between a copy and the original, people may temporarily choose the copy, but will eventually choose the original.

i.e., you want to be Islam-like, then convert to Islam; creating a Hindu-ized version of Islam is a stop-gap measure only, a waystation to becoming Islamized. (Many would argue that Sufism is just that!).

Likewise with Christianity.

The "seculo-dharma" and "violent copy-cat Hindutva" by the way, are Siamese twins - inseparable partners, two sides of the same coin.

[shiv]

Indian traders could have tried to discover a direct sea-route to bypass the Arabs and sell at much higher rates directly to the Europeans. But they did not. Possible reasons:

I have a problem with this because
1. Did Indians even know that Europe wanted spices badly? What were Indians getting from Europe from AD 500 to AD 1500 that made an Indian think of Europe for even 1 minute? What information exists that Europe would offer "higher prices" for Indian spices that would make a quest for a sea route sensible?

2. Traders will trade with those who are interested in buying and selling and this was along the African and Arabian coasts and the far east aside from overland routes. Where does Europe impinge on Indian consciousness as a place to do "trade" with. I do not recall one single note telling me that Europe was a source of gold and silver for anyone, let alone India but I am willing to be corrected here.


Look at the irony. Germany did not conquer India. Italy diod not conquer India. Neithe of them developed great "blue water" navies.

It was nations that were separated by vast tracts of land from Africa and India or surrounded on 3 or 4 sides by water that became the greatest European sea powers. And these were Portugal, Spain and Britain. They had teh greatest incentive and the least chance of getting anything fro India or Arabia. What gold and silver did these nations have before the loot maar period, to make them attractive trading partners?

[panduranghari]

But it was the development of European navies that brought the Portuguese first and then the Brits.

Why did they develop good navies?
1. Reformation that overthrew the church
2. The printing press that allowed maps etc to be printed and shared
3. The magnetic compass - that came from China via Arabia I think that aided navigation
4. Gunpowder
5. Better ships meant more fishing. More fish needed to to be salted to stay fresh. Or spiced up to remain edible
6. The sea trade expanded European trading centers who needed to go further and further for goods to be traded while competing with other European nations.

The main reason for establishing navies in Europe was the Bank of St. George had established a de jure gold standard in Europe. And the need to get more gold was felt the most by the Spanish who over time had enough subjugation from the other European powers. Portugal is a nation state now. It however was just a part of Spain under Aragorn and Isabella.

[panduranghari]

A significant part of Indian spice and textile trade was always with Europe.

Actually no. It was with Arabs

[Arjun]

A significant part of Indian spice and textile trade was always with Europe.

Actually no. It was with Arabs

Who were acting primarily as intermediaries for on-sale to Rome and richer parts of Europe.

[member_20317]

The main reason for establishing navies in Europe was the Bank of St. George had established a de jure gold standard in Europe. And the need to get more gold was felt the most by the Spanish who over time had enough subjugation from the other European powers. Portugal is a nation state now. It however was just a part of Spain under Aragorn and Isabella.

This bank I had heard in the context of Crimean history. So gold could have been a reason. To get a navy or hire a few to search for riches that can then be 'claimed'.

[member_22733]

Are Hindutva-vadis wrong in doing that? If so, why are they wrong? Should we all not be cheering violent copy-cat Hindutva to kick some butt rather than this wishy washy seculodharma that many of us preach.

Given a choice between a copy and the original, people may temporarily choose the copy, but will eventually choose the original.

i.e., you want to be Islam-like, then convert to Islam; creating a Hindu-ized version of Islam is a stop-gap measure only, a waystation to becoming Islamized. (Many would argue that Sufism is just that!).

Likewise with Christianity.

The "seculo-dharma" and "violent copy-cat Hindutva" by the way, are Siamese twins - inseparable partners, two sides of the same coin.

The problem with exclusivist-universalisms is that they present a game in which the opponent has no choice but to adapt the same position or get eaten up. And when the non-exclusivists set up such defensive structures, even when they are not colonized, the exclusivists will cry foul and call the non-exclusivists hypocrites for excluding the exclusivists .

That has been the SOP of the two greatest and the bestest religions to ever have graced this planet.

[member_22733]

I am not sure that raping and killing would be an automatic reaction that follows from being asked to reject what they believe is not a lie. The raping and killing is a "learned/actively indoctrinated phenomenon" instituted by the founders of the religions who were acutely aware that cognitive dissonance by itself is not enough to keep people believing a lie. Coercion is required. If you notice - the coercion is initially always within the originating society. Christianity was coercing unbelievers within their own society and Islam still does that. Once you have eliminated all opposition, then you get a fascist society that will kill others in support of the original lie. That would be step 2 in evolution.

Big Moe was like that, but he was really not concerned about Malsi or its followers. The bible has pretty evil parts, but I have never heard a story that Jesus was anywhere close to Big Moe as far as violence goes. I might be wrong.

Lokesh in general the average westerner is brought up from birth to believe that his nation gives him freedom but he must abide by its laws. That is the trick. the laws actually remove most freedoms and the citizen believes that his freedom is the greatest and does not even understand that his society is nowhere near "freedom". When he sees a society like India he sees it as a society without laws. He does not understand that this is a "free" society. And as per his rules a society which does not follow laws must be subjugated and made to follow his laws.

For humans the only thing that affects our freedom is laws. The more the laws and the greater the enforcement of laws by a huge law enforcement apparatus, the greater the fascist uniformity of society. People become more free as you reduce the number of laws. (Laws of course are enforced, or they are not laws)

Is it possible to have society without "laws" in the top down sense? I will not attempt this question. But I will point out that in the Hindu scheme of things all humans are accepted as being born totally free to do anything. They do not automatically come under laws created by a government or human-like God. But Hindus are taught from day 1 about duties and obligations because the only law is the law of nature, of birth, of survival and procreation, and death. Your duties ask you to follow the universal laws of nature. That leaves a lot of freedom to worship what you want, wear what you want and do what you want as long as you follow the duties of dharma.

Agreed. I did not think about it like this. Gives me a much better perspective of India

[shiv]

Are Hindutva-vadis wrong in doing that? If so, why are they wrong? Should we all not be cheering violent copy-cat Hindutva to kick some butt rather than this wishy washy seculodharma that many of us preach.

Given a choice between a copy and the original, people may temporarily choose the copy, but will eventually choose the original.

i.e., you want to be Islam-like, then convert to Islam; creating a Hindu-ized version of Islam is a stop-gap measure only, a waystation to becoming Islamized. (Many would argue that Sufism is just that!).

Likewise with Christianity.

The "seculo-dharma" and "violent copy-cat Hindutva" by the way, are Siamese twins - inseparable partners, two sides of the same coin.

Let me post a series of thoughts (postulates) based on recent exchanges on here

1. Arjun suggested the Indian colonization was "lack of organization"
2. I say that the "organization" that colonized India was simply "organized religion, Islam or Christianity, or "top-down governed nation states" based on Christianity. These organizations found their way into India relatively easily. It was their military organization that was what ultimately turned the tables in India. It seems to me that religions like Islam and Christianity are good for organizing a top-down hierarchical set up which is good for armies. All top down hierarchies look like armies. If the RSS organizes itself in that way, it looks like an army
3. If we are to argue that organization in a top-down sense is good for power projection and we hold up the ability to project power as something to be admired, then we too should be looking at some form of hierarchical top-down organization.
4. Hindu dharma is not a top down hierarchical organization and its widespread presence among Indians explains the lack of organization that India had, which allowed colonization in the first place Hindu dharma is unsuitable as a system to organize a under a restricted bunch of "laws" that do not conform to dharma. Dharma (the cosmic law) comes first, human laws next. To that extent dharma is nothing like a top down religion.
5. However all monarchies are top down organizations and Hindus have consistently tolerated monarchies - with the best remembered ones being the ones where dharma was upheld
6. A top down system in India such as the Republic of India is tolerable if it is dharmic
7. But dharma typically does not call for war to be waged for blind conquest and looting. This is exactly how Indian democracy behaves.
8. If the "international order" that we face today is "loot or be looted", then it becomes imperative for us to reach choices that we feel are dharmic, given the pressures we face.
9. If there is nothing fundamentally wrong in stating a "Hindu view of the world" by saying things like "We believe in peace and cooperation", "We believe in settling disputes amicably by talks", "we believe in curtailing destructive forces" - which are all statements that arise from dharma, there should be no problem at all in equally being protective of our people by inflicting punishment on those who harm us and openly pointing out things said and done by other religions to hurt us.
10. A militant "organization" of Hindus is a natural outcome of constant mockery of Hindu sentiment along with blaming Hindus for all ills in the world so that other religions can be held up as squeaky clean examples to follow. Gandhis big success was in realizing this and thwarting militant organization of Hindus. But Gandhi did that by giving dignity to Hindus and not by allowing mockery and making Hindus take the blame for all social ills in the country as if they are all related to a Hindu religion.
11. Militant Hinduism is not a cure for anything, but it certainly scares the crap out of others. For that simple reason it has an attraction - after all did we not accept that the conquest of India came from the "organization" and military strength of others, and any Hindu organization and strength should likewise have the same effect on others as they had on India. If organized religion has been good to India, there is no need to fear Hindu organization. If organized religion has been used to rape India, well you can imagine what Hindus organizing themselves could do.

[ShauryaT]

3. Pointing at Hindutva merely leads to unproductive discussions about what Hindutva is or is not.
4. Regardless of who holds these opinions, they are damaging.

The thread context is such that without discussion on Hindutva, one would only scuttle the issue on what brings Hindu Nationalism a bad name. There are two torch bearers, if you may on what Hindutva means. One is held by Savarkar and another by the Supreme Court through its 2002 verdict - which IMO is amorphous yet traditional on the lines of how MKG would have defined it. The RSS/BJP accept both and emphasize one or the other based on context and time. The RSS has been chastened by the three bans on them, the constitution and the supreme court. Indeed, the BJP's official ideology is "Gandhian Socialism". At the end of the day, Hindutva would be judged based on the actions of those speaking in its name. These actions are all over the board from extreme idiotic and pejorative to the most patriotic and honorable ones that any Indian would be proud of. Only if there was way to filter one end of it, things will look a lot better.

On the other end of the spectrum there is an entire group of bodies that have developed an anathema to the word nationalism, either due to colonial mindsets or narrow parochial and feudal interests in a localized region. This cannot be a healthy state of affairs. One will not hear the word "hindutva" by anyone outside the sangh fold or bodies to the right of it. Many members of the BJP will not voluntarily say that word in public and this is due to the popular reputation the word enjoys, as associated with bigoted views and carrying some type of a religious watchdog tag on its sleeve. All this despite the very agreeable supreme court verdict on the definitional issue. Ideally, the Hindutva concept under the supreme court's definition should be matter of debate and refinement to extract its best meanings to further the nation's cause by all bodies concerned political, social, academic and the larger public. However instead what you have is polarization on the word and probably the reason for your caution message. India looses under this polarized state of affairs.

I will respond the Shiv ji's question later on why is Hindutva feared?

[Arjun]

1. Did Indians even know that Europe wanted spices badly? What were Indians getting from Europe from AD 500 to AD 1500 that made an Indian think of Europe for even 1 minute?

There was direct trade with Rome prior to the period you mention (500 AD). After the fall of Rome, Indians dominated the maritime trade route for some time - but then soon the domination of maritime trade routes passed to the Arabs. In trade, the party that establishes an outpost in the other's region is always at an advantage compared to the party that receives the outpost - because the former has all information about the latter's markets while the latter has no similar information regarding the former. This is a known fact. Therefore, Indian traders went into disadvantage mode the moment the maritime trade routes were first dominated by the Arabs and then later by the Europeans -and they setup trading posts in India. Its not just trade disadvantage - its also demographic disadvantage. The current Muslim presence in Kerala is only because Arabs were allowed to dominate the spice trade and maritime trade routes, taking over from the Indians.

The simple fact is that competition on the seas was probably too brutal and quite literally 'cut-throat' in the seas - which obviously was a core competency for the Arab forefathers of the ISIS - and not for the more Dharmic Indians.

Look at the irony. Germany did not conquer India. Italy diod not conquer India. Neithe of them developed great "blue water" navies.

It was nations that were separated by vast tracts of land from Africa and India or surrounded on 3 or 4 sides by water that became the greatest European sea powers. And these were Portugal, Spain and Britain.

All the relatively better-off coastal European nations were in the act - Spain (with Portugal) France, Britain, Netherlands. Italy is the only exception - don't know for what reason. Germany was not yet a single imperial power - but was broken up into several small nation-states.

[ShauryaT]

Italy is the only exception - don't know for what reason.

Italy was not a unitary nation-state, until 19th century.

[ShauryaT]

Indian traders could have tried to discover a direct sea-route to bypass the Arabs and sell at much higher rates directly to the Europeans. But they did not. Possible reasons:

There is an ROI and risk:reward principle in play here but the biggest reason for the time periods in question requires scale, which in turn requires organization. The organizational forces to undertake such expeditionary and exploration missions was lacking in a fragmented polity already under pressure from better organized forces of the period in question. We failed to organize is the root cause.