The invention by foreigners of Indian identities, paradigms and mental constructs is something that should be studied.
The "Dalit" identity for example.
Another dubious mental construct is the Dravidian identity and the Aryan invasion/migration theory.
There are two or three generations of Indian "intellectuals" who have bought into the Leftist paradigm.
While such mental constructs have to have some kind of plausibility, the main goal is to create useful idiots in large numbers.
Feelings of victimization, superiority complexes, religious, liguistic and caste identities - all of these are excellent fodder for colonialist strategies.
Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
Re: Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
Ha ha! "Not a spontaneous "Bharatiya occurence". I suppose the existence of an underclass of people who would be attracted by alternate Colorado church inducements was also "not a spontaneous Bharatiya occurrence"?Jarita wrote:Point one is trying to make with references to the Colorado churches is that the creation of the Dalit identity is not a spontaneous Bharatiya occurance. .
This is hypocritical. "Dalits" were created to cater to a bunch of disgruntled people who were ready made to be induced into some ideology that promised them things they wanted but were unable to get. Indeed. So that is clearly a weakness of a Bharatiya origin way of thought isn't it? If there is a weakness of Bharatiya origin what is to be gained by cursing someone else's strong points? This earth loving heterogenity business did not stop any of us wealthy and educated Indians from gathering all the trappings of the West, of which we now seek to give up only the "Christian influences" while we continue to hold dear everything else that came with it. That is completely hypocritical IMO. Why should any hungry and ill fed person follow any earth loving heterogenous philosophy out of sentiment when:Jarita wrote:Dalits becoming christian is an interim outcome. The goal is to transition a sizeable population to an amenable monolithic group. It could very well be religion "come jump into the well". The earth loving heterogeniety of dharmic traditions or even for that matter the ancient religion of Francis Assisi is not a suitable homogeneoous ideology.
a) It does not fill his stomach
b) All people with full stomachs appear exactly like those Colorado churchgoers who do not subscribe to any earth loving heterogenous philosophies but can at least recognise an empty stomach when they see one. Unlike us hypocrites.
When a person is asked to choose between remedying and empty stomach or remedying an empty philosophy, stomach wins any day and balls to all this heterogeneity.
One only has to come and live in India (as a rich observer if you like) to see that India is chock full of bullsh1t people eking out bullsh1t lives. What use is great philosophy and heterogeniety? That is good only after your stomach is full and your kids can get an education. We must be the biggest hypocrites on earth, Great philosophy my ass. Fill some stomachs first.
Re: Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
Countries like South Korea and China have seen this kind of social reengineering in the last 50-70 years.
http://www.mombu.com/religion/religion/ ... 40039.html
With the defeat of Japan in August
1945, Korea was divided into North
and South. Then came the Korean War
(1950-1953). The entire country was
in ruins and the people were
demoralized. The country needed
foreign aid and the United States
poured in money to rebuild South
Korea as a bulwark against communism.
In the process the US government used
Christian missionaries to administer
aid because they had been in the
country for nearly a hundred years
and understood the local customs and
language. The missionaries became to
be seen as saviors of the Korean
people. The local people began to
associate Christianity with
development, self-help, advanced
Western technology and medicine. They
also provided scholarships and
empowered women and the poor. At the
same time the Buddhist monastic
community was largely uneducated and
fragmented, and there was no strong
and organized lay Buddhist
leadership. Buddhism began to lose
followers to the Christian
missionaries who were able to
capitalize on these weaknesses and
offer rice and hope for the future.
China
That Christianity might be its guiding ideology -- allying China with the United States and Israel in opposing radical Islam -- is not a conclusion many observers of the Chinese scene are likely to have reached. But that is indeed the startling thesis of DAVID AIKMAN in JESUS IN BEIJING: HOW CHRISTIANITY IS TRANSFORMING CHINA AND CHANGING THE GLOBAL BALANCE OF POWER.
Aikman argues that China's remarkable economic transformation over the past quarter century has been accompanied by an unreported story that is potentially as revolutionary. Fleeing first the moral bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism and then the spiritual ills of a particularly brutal form of market capitalism, up to 80 million Chinese may now have embraced Christianity (from less than 4 million at the time of the Communist victory in 1949). At current growth rates, another 300 million may be added to the Christian fold over the next three decades, making China one of the largest Christian countries in the world. Moreover, many of these believers, some convinced of the essentiality of Christianity to the rise of the West, may already be holding influential positions in the political, cultural and military establishment, with profound implications for the nation's domestic and foreign affairs.
The operative word here is "may". Aikman, a former Beijing bureau chief for TIME, displays impressive reporting skills in attempting to discern the shape of the largely underground Christian elephant behind the Chinese curtain. And his comprehensive account of Chinese Christianity past and present, with an emphasis on the Communist era, provides convincing evidence that Christianity of all kinds -- but particularly the charismatic-evangelical brand of prophetic visions, faith healing, and tongue speaking -- is indeed on the rise.
http://www.mombu.com/religion/religion/ ... 40039.html
With the defeat of Japan in August
1945, Korea was divided into North
and South. Then came the Korean War
(1950-1953). The entire country was
in ruins and the people were
demoralized. The country needed
foreign aid and the United States
poured in money to rebuild South
Korea as a bulwark against communism.
In the process the US government used
Christian missionaries to administer
aid because they had been in the
country for nearly a hundred years
and understood the local customs and
language. The missionaries became to
be seen as saviors of the Korean
people. The local people began to
associate Christianity with
development, self-help, advanced
Western technology and medicine. They
also provided scholarships and
empowered women and the poor. At the
same time the Buddhist monastic
community was largely uneducated and
fragmented, and there was no strong
and organized lay Buddhist
leadership. Buddhism began to lose
followers to the Christian
missionaries who were able to
capitalize on these weaknesses and
offer rice and hope for the future.
China
That Christianity might be its guiding ideology -- allying China with the United States and Israel in opposing radical Islam -- is not a conclusion many observers of the Chinese scene are likely to have reached. But that is indeed the startling thesis of DAVID AIKMAN in JESUS IN BEIJING: HOW CHRISTIANITY IS TRANSFORMING CHINA AND CHANGING THE GLOBAL BALANCE OF POWER.
Aikman argues that China's remarkable economic transformation over the past quarter century has been accompanied by an unreported story that is potentially as revolutionary. Fleeing first the moral bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism and then the spiritual ills of a particularly brutal form of market capitalism, up to 80 million Chinese may now have embraced Christianity (from less than 4 million at the time of the Communist victory in 1949). At current growth rates, another 300 million may be added to the Christian fold over the next three decades, making China one of the largest Christian countries in the world. Moreover, many of these believers, some convinced of the essentiality of Christianity to the rise of the West, may already be holding influential positions in the political, cultural and military establishment, with profound implications for the nation's domestic and foreign affairs.
The operative word here is "may". Aikman, a former Beijing bureau chief for TIME, displays impressive reporting skills in attempting to discern the shape of the largely underground Christian elephant behind the Chinese curtain. And his comprehensive account of Chinese Christianity past and present, with an emphasis on the Communist era, provides convincing evidence that Christianity of all kinds -- but particularly the charismatic-evangelical brand of prophetic visions, faith healing, and tongue speaking -- is indeed on the rise.
Re: Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
Anyone who chooses to live in India and study Indians will find that India has its own narrative and its own view of the world. That view is guided by the experiences of a vast mass of people who judge the world according to what they see of their day to day lives.
In order to achieve some semblance of scholarship on the topic of this thread it is first necessary to write a soicological study of India from an Indian viewpoint. That can be done by multiple honest observations of Indian society and a recognition of the huge numbers of Indian and their individual histories.
I see the quest in these BRF threads as a completely dumb/ignorant attempt to take the faulty existing Western sociological studies and diss them uniformly without having an alternative Indian view ready for comparison. The Indian view exists even if western scholars have not recognised it and even if people who diss those Western scholars are themselves unable to write down any significant material about the Indian view of the world. That is because Indian scholars suffer from the disease described by Balagangadhara. They attempt to use Western terminology and Western techniques to diss Western scholars when by definition the Western scholars are on very firm ground when they look at India from their viewpoint.
One of the cliches that I have heard from Western sources is that Indians are "Poor but happy". This is taken as praise and as a firangi endorsement of the spirituality of the Indian and the mental toughness that spirituality gives him against adversity. However a happy but poor Indian wants to be happy and rich. It is hypocritical to say that spiritual happiness is all that counts and material happiness is no good and that "We should learn from mango man of how to be spiritually happy in the absence of material wealth" That is totally stupid. mango man wants material wealth. If he is happy and poor it is probably because he has no other choice and can't spend his life crying.
There is a wide gulf of lies and deceit between the assertion that India gives people spiritual happiness and that one can do away with material wealth and lead a simple life of an earth loving ascetic. That is simply not true. Most Indians want a better material life, not a better spiritual life. Writing the sociology of India honestly would recognise this fact. Recognising this fact unfortunately makes Western scholars say "Nya ha ha we were right and you were wrong! he West is correct, the East is wrong" and that is what irritates Indian scholars.
The fact is both are wrong. But the fault IMO lies with the Indian scholar for trying to get into a lungi-dance with the Western scholar on his terms. If the Indian scholar had any scholarship he would be able to make an honest appraisal of what Indian society was and how it has changed without carrying any specific agenda of blaming someone or the other. But that does not appear to be a strength that Indian scholars have.
Naipaul is a very keen observer of the curious "unaware" nature of Indian society and he was able to write about it in the early sixties when it had changed less. India philosophy catered to all of life's needs and gave explanations of the afterlife in such convincing terms that Indians as a culture have a defect, a lacuna in which the need to put in a great effort to improve things in this life is not seen as something urgent. In terms of the modern world this is a defect that Indians must acknowledge and remedy.
I was taught a lesson by a 21 year old classmate of my daughter a month ago. They had visited a granite slab cutting factory and I asked him about the machines there and whether they were Indian made or Italian. He said they were German. The boy himself comes from a family that owns a similar business. I asked if there was a problem with Indian machinery and he said that basically Indians as manufacturers do not put into their workmanship the kind of love and attention that the Germans do. For those Germans sitting in their workshops and factories in Germany - making good and reliable machines is a family tradition- almost like a cottage industry. They have nothing else - their dharma (my word) is to be do that. So the higher prices paid are made up in less downtime and quality.
Indian attitudes are far more lackadaisical. The lackadaisical attitude comes from a fundamental lack of urgency to make things good in this life for fellow man. We have a problem in India and that problem is not going to get better by failing to accept that we have a problem. India society does not need to go back to some utopian past. It needs to move forward and that requires major changes. Those changes are seen by some as an assault on India tradition. Clearly some Indian traditions need to be discarded.
India society is not geared up to produce honest workers of the sort of efficiency that one seems to find in the far east. We are an agrarian society with season linked agrarian holidays and festivals and a lunar cycle based view on what is auspicious and not auspicious. All these things affect our productivity and competitiveness. We are completely unique as a society - fact that is totally lost on people who live away and imagine that Indian society is like any other society on earth. But some of that uniqueness must be discarded. We will still have plenty of uniqueness left to remain outstandingly different. I only ask that we do not remain outstandingly stupid and blind. We need to make an honest appraisal of our own sociology and that has not been done even as we fight foreign sociological stories.
In order to achieve some semblance of scholarship on the topic of this thread it is first necessary to write a soicological study of India from an Indian viewpoint. That can be done by multiple honest observations of Indian society and a recognition of the huge numbers of Indian and their individual histories.
I see the quest in these BRF threads as a completely dumb/ignorant attempt to take the faulty existing Western sociological studies and diss them uniformly without having an alternative Indian view ready for comparison. The Indian view exists even if western scholars have not recognised it and even if people who diss those Western scholars are themselves unable to write down any significant material about the Indian view of the world. That is because Indian scholars suffer from the disease described by Balagangadhara. They attempt to use Western terminology and Western techniques to diss Western scholars when by definition the Western scholars are on very firm ground when they look at India from their viewpoint.
One of the cliches that I have heard from Western sources is that Indians are "Poor but happy". This is taken as praise and as a firangi endorsement of the spirituality of the Indian and the mental toughness that spirituality gives him against adversity. However a happy but poor Indian wants to be happy and rich. It is hypocritical to say that spiritual happiness is all that counts and material happiness is no good and that "We should learn from mango man of how to be spiritually happy in the absence of material wealth" That is totally stupid. mango man wants material wealth. If he is happy and poor it is probably because he has no other choice and can't spend his life crying.
There is a wide gulf of lies and deceit between the assertion that India gives people spiritual happiness and that one can do away with material wealth and lead a simple life of an earth loving ascetic. That is simply not true. Most Indians want a better material life, not a better spiritual life. Writing the sociology of India honestly would recognise this fact. Recognising this fact unfortunately makes Western scholars say "Nya ha ha we were right and you were wrong! he West is correct, the East is wrong" and that is what irritates Indian scholars.
The fact is both are wrong. But the fault IMO lies with the Indian scholar for trying to get into a lungi-dance with the Western scholar on his terms. If the Indian scholar had any scholarship he would be able to make an honest appraisal of what Indian society was and how it has changed without carrying any specific agenda of blaming someone or the other. But that does not appear to be a strength that Indian scholars have.
Naipaul is a very keen observer of the curious "unaware" nature of Indian society and he was able to write about it in the early sixties when it had changed less. India philosophy catered to all of life's needs and gave explanations of the afterlife in such convincing terms that Indians as a culture have a defect, a lacuna in which the need to put in a great effort to improve things in this life is not seen as something urgent. In terms of the modern world this is a defect that Indians must acknowledge and remedy.
I was taught a lesson by a 21 year old classmate of my daughter a month ago. They had visited a granite slab cutting factory and I asked him about the machines there and whether they were Indian made or Italian. He said they were German. The boy himself comes from a family that owns a similar business. I asked if there was a problem with Indian machinery and he said that basically Indians as manufacturers do not put into their workmanship the kind of love and attention that the Germans do. For those Germans sitting in their workshops and factories in Germany - making good and reliable machines is a family tradition- almost like a cottage industry. They have nothing else - their dharma (my word) is to be do that. So the higher prices paid are made up in less downtime and quality.
Indian attitudes are far more lackadaisical. The lackadaisical attitude comes from a fundamental lack of urgency to make things good in this life for fellow man. We have a problem in India and that problem is not going to get better by failing to accept that we have a problem. India society does not need to go back to some utopian past. It needs to move forward and that requires major changes. Those changes are seen by some as an assault on India tradition. Clearly some Indian traditions need to be discarded.
India society is not geared up to produce honest workers of the sort of efficiency that one seems to find in the far east. We are an agrarian society with season linked agrarian holidays and festivals and a lunar cycle based view on what is auspicious and not auspicious. All these things affect our productivity and competitiveness. We are completely unique as a society - fact that is totally lost on people who live away and imagine that Indian society is like any other society on earth. But some of that uniqueness must be discarded. We will still have plenty of uniqueness left to remain outstandingly different. I only ask that we do not remain outstandingly stupid and blind. We need to make an honest appraisal of our own sociology and that has not been done even as we fight foreign sociological stories.
Re: Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
The same "bhakti" towards work will be seen in large numbers of Indian craftsmen - weavers, wood-workers, etc.shiv wrote: I was taught a lesson by a 21 year old classmate of my daughter a month ago. They had visited a granite slab cutting factory and I asked him about the machines there and whether they were Indian made or Italian. He said they were German. The boy himself comes from a family that owns a similar business. I asked if there was a problem with Indian machinery and he said that basically Indians as manufacturers do not put into their workmanship the kind of love and attention that the Germans do. For those Germans sitting in their workshops and factories in Germany - making good and reliable machines is a family tradition- almost like a cottage industry. They have nothing else - their dharma (my word) is to be do that. So the higher prices paid are made up in less downtime and quality.
Indian attitudes are far more lackadaisical. The lackadaisical attitude comes from a fundamental lack of urgency to make things good in this life for fellow man.
The difference is that the colonial powers destroyed native industry. Millions were pushed into starvation and destitution. When sociey goes through trauma like that, it takes many generations to recover. The native educational systems were destroyed and the western systems were accessible to only a few elites. Therefore integration of modern science and technology into the work-flow remains poor.
Cultivation by colonial powers of dishonest local elites, who are ruling us today, has ensured that the debilitating corruption remains with us. Unfortunately we were stuck with a midget like Jawaharlal Nehru, not a giant like Lee Kuan Yew (or Vallabhbhai Patel).
Re: Social Reengineering in India during and post British Rule
All right, I hope it has been a great discussion. BRF does not, in my opinion, like to be involved in discussions like these a lot. There may be 1 or 2 threads that are not necessarily Strategic, Military or Economy related (except GD forum) but I don't believe every other thread should be of this kind. There are other fora on the internet that may be more suitable for this.