Future Strategic Scenario for the Indian Subcontinent -II

[Prem]

Knowingly or unknowingly ,subcociously almost all, even secularists understand and ackjnowledge that islamist is an alien dogma and goes against the ethos of indic land and simply this is the basis of all wrongs as well remedies , rest of the pro/con arguments are just part of the nitty gritty to work ot the proper solution, adjustment etc. What is required is to bring this to open and cut the chase and remove the dark shadow of inimical elements eatng up Indic foundation. India needs and Indians longed and expected after 47 was fundamental Change which has not occured because of burden brought upon them by this so callad Secularism. Issue is not how Hindu Kingdom defined themselves or preceived by outsider, the essential issue is what and Who in the name of Pink Panther gave the right to aliens to define and decide the issue as we all know Dhimmis and Ganga Deens are not us.

[brihaspati]

Carl_T wrote
If we fix and label the identity of "Hindu" to pre-Islamic Indian rulers, the key point is in pre-Islamic India did rulers identify their regimes as specifically "Hindu"? Is a regime run by Hindus a Hindu regime?? Your labeling of "Hindu rulers and regime of pre-Islamic..." and a "non-secular Hindu regime" are quite inconsistent.

According to Thaparites, the modern "post colonial" reconstruction of "Hinduism" by the "Hindu Right" never existed before. They were a motley collection of sects [with or without any commonality - not to be ever cleared] who were however uniformly labeled "Hindu" by the extremely and literally myopic Turko-Afghan-Arabics. Somehow these formidable warriors who could shoot targets at hundreds of paces without spectacles still continued to be unable to see any difference in sects even after a 1000 years of close contact up to the Mughals. So what is your problem in adopting the terminology of these peaceful and immense contributors to Indian civilization - who maintained the category for all Indians not belonging to the revealed traditions, consistently from the ancient into the modern period?

Now hypothetically, to go OT, if we have an instance of a regime declaring itself as a "Hindu regime", what was the particular connotation of the word "Hindu" in pre-Islamic or even early-Islamic India? As you know "Hindi" was a label of people in general from Al Hind! (Incidentally I have met Arabs named Hindi although I don't know if it means the same)...but that is another tangent nonetheless!

The word "Hindi" can appear in Arabic as being either born in "Hind" (originated/hailing originally from) or as a descendant of someone who extended the pure-belief into India. There are many examples in historical periods.

If you do want to continue this discussion, do take it to "Distorted History..." thread in GDF. I will happily join you there. I will not repsond to this here anymore, and request others not to join in. Because of the sensitivity of the subtopic on religious demographics, it is perhaps prudent to take that discussion too into GDF.

For strategic purposes, even if we know that two enemical forces are out to take over our land on behalf of their imperial masters under the cloak of "faith", we should learn from the tactics of their backers. Such backers always back the weaker in number of the groups in society they do not trust to support their own personal power. So it is important to have the smaller in number group on-board and offered protection if they turn their attention to diminishing the numbers of the other bigger group. After that we know how to absorb the swollen single group.

[Karan M]

An interesting article I found from the Delhi-based think-thank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS). The author calls for a complete change in the strategy book on the Naxalite menace.
"India needs new manual on Naxals" by Rohit Singh

The approach mentioned is somewhat similar to that used by a "winning side" namely the British administration versus the communist insurgency in Malaysia.

[Carl_T]

According to Thaparites, the modern "post colonial" reconstruction of "Hinduism" by the "Hindu Right" never existed before. They were a motley collection of sects [with or without any commonality - not to be ever cleared] who were however uniformly labeled "Hindu" by the extremely and literally myopic Turko-Afghan-Arabics. Somehow these formidable warriors who could shoot targets at hundreds of paces without spectacles still continued to be unable to see any difference in sects even after a 1000 years of close contact up to the Mughals. So what is your problem in adopting the terminology of these peaceful and immense contributors to Indian civilization - who maintained the category for all Indians not belonging to the revealed traditions, consistently from the ancient into the modern period?
.

I have no problem in accepting Turko-Afghan-Arabic-Persian terminology (rather it is already accepted!) as long as it is defined and consistent. You can label people however you want, the point I wanted you to realize was you're confusing "rule by Hindus" with "Hindu regime" and then doing an ==. Do clear that up.

Now who is "they"? Romila Thapar's argument is on a completely different tangent!

[naren]

the bolded part is the real problem. If you pose a similar question to one of these "faith" members, they will never ever say something in parallel to what I have bolded. You will never hear "Not that I am against Hinduism" - because these faiths have everything to do with being against "Hinduism".

Why do equal equal B ji ? Christianity and Islam also have the "most genocidal, most culture destroying, most enslaving, most intellectually devoid" tag attached to them, whether they like it or not. Why respond in kind and take that tag upon us too ? I have interacted with Christians in the West - genuine, philanthropic, open minded Christians. They certainly were appreciative to engage in an open minded Hindu style spiritual discussion. I had enjoyed quite a many. What I'm getting at is the problem is not Christianity itself or the genuine Christians. The problem is the politically motivated elements. No need to worry too much about them encroaching into our turf. What have they grabbed, poor abduls ? Indian spirituality has been constantly encroaching into Western turf . Its not politically motivated, so its not very visible. We've got top intellectuals like Nikola Tesla, Oppenheimer in our fold . Mark my words, the educated science-loving Westerners will flush all the "God created universe in 7 days & the earth is 4000 yr old" theory down the toilet & embrace Hinduism/Buddhism. I've heard Americans taking up monkhood in Buddhist temples in the West. There is a brand of "American Buddhism" evolving now. Many Hindu spiritual leaders are also very popular (unfortunately rotten apples like Swami Nutsananda too ). So its kind of closed loop, no need to lose too much sleep.

If the non-proselytizers consolidate and simplify (they basically have to rediscover rather than invent) their system - providing an uniform and homogeneous identity of pride for every member, that immense unity and strength will stop these essentially imperialist tools from progressing any further.

Violence or any form of "us vs them" is counter productive. It will only validate the "imaginary ghosts" the missionaries are projecting & further their goals. One of the greatest, under appreciated political feat in India is Adi Shankara's elimination of Buddhism. He went back to the Vedic roots, harmonized Buddhist philosophy, embraced all the goodies of Buddhism and created a new system. Buddhist identity was totally dissolved in Hinduism. (Islam only killed the soulless deady body of Buddhism). This is the best way to defeat any threats to Hinduism. Hinduism is an ocean. Hinduism has the entire range - whatever ideology you can find in any other part of the world exists in Hinduism. Any system can be dissolved and made irrelevant.

How do we dissolve Christianity in Hinduism ? Recognize JC as an Avatar. Open a shrine to Him in our temples. Explain that JC is a reincarnated Buddhist Master. The "wise men from the East" are actually search party trying to find the reincarnation (as it happens in Tibetan Buddhism). During His lost years, JC came to India and studied Buddhism. We can reclaim the "Yuz Asaf" shrine in Kashmir and recognize it as the burial site of JC. Whats the proof for all this ? You're dealing with Christians, why proof ? . Ofcourse, none of this is against our philosophy. Do this and aggressive missionarism will be shaken to the core.

In fact Yuz Asaf shrine is the key trump card. Unfortunately the GOI is bending too much to appease the Kashmiri Muslims who claim it as their own. Just do a scientific study mumbo jumbo and claim it as burial site of JC. See what happens

Chk out this documentary Jesus in India

[brihaspati]

naren ji,
it is not a wise thing in rashtryia thinking, to lose our home and cherish being honoured guests in another's home. We need to retain our original home and on top of that gain acceptance as honoured guests. Having said that, I also subscribe to nation residing in people rather than any fixed territory. But the so-called acceptance and growth of "Hinduism" in the west is deceptive and rather more complex than monkhood and gurus. That is of course an OT discussion. But there are several obstacles to acceptance of "Hinduism" in the way Sanatani's take it to be - in the west, and in reality - where it actually matters, in political moves behind which all the forces of western nations collect or coinicide - Christianity dominates and is the ultimate determining factor. In many debates I have had with church personalities as well as lay populations, even sympathetic westerners ultimately choose to act from "European - Christian" viewpoint over and above any understanding they have of "Hinduism" or Buddhism. Even the greater popularity of Buddhist motif come from a reconstruction and dubbing of Buddhism from the "Christian" viewpoint. There are fundamnetal doctrinal/social/historical problems in adoption of Hinduism among "western" societies - but that is an OT line of discussion here.

Us and them awareness is not necessarily a pointer to violence. It is more about consciousness and confidence in our own identity. Such an awareness has a significant effect on the running of the rashtra and the strategies it adopts as policies. Religion in the public domain has everything to do with politics, in fact it is an integral part of politics - whether that religion is one of the revealed traditions or communism or the Indic systems or even the pretension of not being guided by "any religion" which usually covers up for tital deniability of acting covertly in favour of particular faiths.

[brihaspati]

Carl_T.
I have taken your question to GDF into the Distorted history thread.

[sum]

X-post:

Very interesting article:
New Triangle Of Power

A Fulbright scholar,external affairs minister S M Krishna has doubtless read Niccolo Machiavellis Art of War and Chanakyas Arthashastra.Together,the two treatises define the dark science of diplomacy.In todays fraught geostrategic environment,they also teach useful lessons in the conduct of foreign policy.
Indias two defining international relationships are with the US and China.The US sees India as a natural counterweight to China.But Americas realpolitik is Machiavellian.It wants India to play the role of a permanent junior partner much as Britain has done from the 1950s to the present while it pursues its own global objectives.
However,if it leverages its economic and demographic strengths with Chanakyas finesse,India can rapidly emerge as Americas most important global partner instead of a perennially anxious supplicant.US GDP is $14.70 trillion.Indias GDP (by purchasing power parity) is nearly $4 trillion.Assuming an average annual growth rate of 7.25 per cent between 2010 and 2040 (a reasonable trendline-based extrapolation),Indias GDP will increase eightfold to $32 trillion within 30 years.Assuming,further,an average annual growth rate of 2.40 per cent (an equally reasonable trendline extrapolation given a low American savings rate of 4 per cent and a high budget deficit of over $1 trillion),US GDP will double to $29 trillion during the same period.Thus in 30 years,Indias economy using a mathematical model that factors in several economic and demographic variables will be larger than Americas.
This is not fiction but cold,hard fact.US think tanks have come to the same broad conclusion.So has the Obama administration.Few in South Block though recognise its far-reaching implications on the rapidly changing balance of global power.Chinese strategists,in contrast,fully recognise these implications.Similar extrapolations,assuming average annual Chinese GDP growth at a slower average annual trendline rate of 6 per cent,place Chinas GDP at $48 trillion in 2040 50 per cent larger than both the US and India.China is clearly the elephant in the room and already behaves like one.
Chinas principal global objective is to regain its 16-century Middle Kingdom status as the worlds pre-eminent world power an era in which the US did not even exist.From this broad aim flow several others.One,military parity with the US.Two,economic superiority over the US.Three,reintegration with Taiwan.Four,settlement of Tibet.And five,proving to the world that its alternative non-Anglo-Saxon political model can bring sustained economic prosperity to one-and-a-half billion people.
As the third angle in the isosceles triangle of Great Powers in 2040,Indias foreign policy must be at once more sublime and more muscular.India,like China,represents the future,America the present,Europe the past.
Americas history provides many clues to its current behaviour.It was founded by working class families escaping religious persecution from newly-Protestant England 425 years ago.These English settlers (Britain as a nation had not yet been formed) liquidated indigenous Indians,appropriated their land and shipped slave labour from Africa to work the fields.
As the US won independence and grew more powerful,it invaded Mexico and by 1848 had annexed what are today California,Texas,Arizona,Colorado,Nevada,Utah,Wyoming and New Mexico.By the 1890s,it had colonised the Philippines and built a silent empire arching from the Pacific to the Atlantic.After World War II it invaded Korea,Vietnam and Grenada and propped up dictators and puppet-monarchs in Latin America and the Middle East (including the early Saddam Hussein and the sybaritic Shah of Iran).It made a pact with the Sheikhs of the post-Ottoman Middle East to deny Arab citizens voting rights in return for US military protection ostensibly against Israel but in reality against popular democratic movements in their own countries.
With such a colourful past,it is hardly surprising that the US continues to follow a ruthlessly self-interested foreign policy in South Asia to secure its geopolitical goals.But both the US and China have an Achilles heel.The US is a declining power.By 2040,it will not only be relegated to the status of the worlds third largest economy (after China and India) but it will also for the first time in its history become a blackmajority country.African-Americans,Latinos and Asians comprise 34 per cent of Americas population today.By 2040,that figure will rise to 51 per cent.The implications of this demographic shift will resonate across social,ethnic,economic and cultural boundaries.
As Indias own demographic dividend kicks in,New Delhis bargaining power with a declining US and a communist China sitting on a tinderbox of suppressed peoples freedoms will grow if South Block gets its strategy right.That strategy involves deepening Indias economic and diplomatic engagement with Africa and (Brazil-led ) Latin America,influencing the course of the Arab-Israeli dialogue over Palestine and using old military and economic ties with Russia to our advantage in tackling the post-US Af-Pak world with its scattered terrorist threats.
All of this requires a ministry of external affairs with intellectual depth and strategic vision and the ability to project both globally.Sadly,the current MEA falls short.In an emerging tripolar world,the stewardship of Indias foreign policy needs firmer hands and clearer minds.

[Abhi_G]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/253303/Fore ... in-LS.html

Foreign university bill introduced in LS

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday introduced the foreign university bill, which aims to allow foreign institutions set up campuses in India, in the Lok Sabha amid strong protests by Left MPs.

By allowing foreign institutions to set up a campus in the country, the Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry And Operations) Bill, 2010, is expected to facilitate quality education in India itself and reduce the flow of Indian students abroad.

Thousands of Indian students annually go to the US, Britain and Australia among other countries to study in foreign universities.

Sibal said the bill has provisions to regulate the entry and operation of foreign institutions, which will set up a campus and offer degrees in India.

"The enactment of a legislation regulating entry and operation of all the foreign educational institutions is necessary to maintain the standards of higher education within the country as well to protect the interest of the students and in public interest," he said in a statement of the bill's objects and reasons.

The bill is part of the government's continued focus on education reform.

The bill provides that "the central government may refuse{why the sense of ambivalence in the tone??} to recognise and notify a foreign educational institution as foreign education provider if it is not in the interest of sovereignty, integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or sensitivity of location of the foreign educational institutions".

Among the foreign universities likely to set up shop in India are Boston University, Harvard and Yale University from the US.

[brihaspati]

Abhi_G has given a timely pointer. Hopefully MIT is not incuded in the list!!!

Here goes something we should all look into: http://truthaboutmitindiaworkshop.wordpress.com/

The conference is this weekend at MIT is Organized by Omar Khalidi who is staff at MIT. Information about Omar Khalidi can be found in the book ‘Defeating Political Islam’ by Moorthy Muthuswamy that received good reviews from Washington Review. ( In that book the author wrote about 2 pages on Omar Khalidi). The conference is selective in its speakers and topics to paint a given picture.

Mr. Omar Khalidi advocates different laws for Muslims such as Polygamy etc, different constituencies for Muslims to elect Muslim lawmakers, would have issues with Christian nature of USA and is known even by Muslims as someone who selects his data to paint a picture that suits Islamic agenda. Some people are of opinion he is what you call ‘soft’ jihadi.

In addition, one of the speakers Mr. Mukul Sinha has apparently written with a welcoming tone on terror attack on World Trade Center. Other speaker Anjana Chatterjee said sending money to help families of firefighters at World Trade Center attack was anti-Muslim.

Such speakers may not be Jihadi’s but they are “Jihadi enablers” by espousing the causes of Jihadis through selective use of data, lies and deception that provides fodder for jihadi recruitment and their acts. Today there are talking about countries outside USA (in this case India), but when the forces are stronger, they will turn against US from within.

Note the speakers : Each siugnificant for their output which clearly goes in favour of Islamism.
* Paul Brass [This one has written several books on Hinduism whihc has been accepted as standard texts on Hinduism by many western unis. A close collaborator and fello-traveller of the Thaparites - is one of the leading academic activists to paint comparative pictures of Hindus vs Muslims in Indian context. He is supposed to be an authority on Hindu-Muslim violence. His books show an uncanny association of the word "Hindu/Hinduism" automatically with "right wing/extremists/nationalist". Read them and you will be inspired!]
* Angana Chatterji
* Meenakshi Ganguly
* Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi
* Chinnaiah Jangam
* Ratna Kapur
* Omar Khalidi
* Shafeeq R. Mahajir
* Manoj Mitta
* R.K. Raghavan
* Balakrishnan Rajagopal
* Haimanti Roy
* Srirupa Roy
* Bish Sanyal
* Ornit Shani
* Mukul Sinha
* Nirjhari Sinha
* Arvind Verma

Identify these intellectuals and study up on their output and spread such reading as much as possible in groups and debate over what they write. They serve ironically as great catalysts for "Hindu consolidation" and acceleration towards "right".

Speakers like Mr. Mukul Sinha and his wife Mrs. Nirjhari Sinha who are open supporters of radical extremist Muslims as distinct from moderate Muslims and who may also be linked to communist propagandist groups in India. Mr. Sinha has written apparently with a welcoming tone about the terror attack on the World Trade Center: “… the Soviet Union alone stood in the path of the Western Capitalist mode of production and the “free market” having a different ideal… Globalization bulldozed all that under the hypocritical slogan of freedom and democracy… The resistance however came from the Islamic militants [emphasis ours] who on February 26, 1993, tried to destroy the World Trade Center,..“War against terrorism” thereafter became a convenient slogan to hit at all those who opposed capitalist globalization..”

Another speaker Angana Chatterjee, who is associated with radical communists, such as the Forum for Inquilabi (revolutionary) Leftists (FOIL) and supporter of Maoist terror groups in India has publicly stated that sending money to help families of firefighters who died in the World Trade Center attack was anti-Muslim. She is also one of the promoters of the view that 911 attacks were an “inside job,” engineered by the Bush Administration.

Moorthy Muthuswamy raises an important pointer of connection between in this case, MIT - which supports Kahlidi, his political influence on minority policy of the Cingress and within India, and his obvious objectives of creating a new base for expansion for Islam using non-Muslim resources from within India after the Pakistan experiment is failing to provide the resources.

Omar Khalidi – the man driving India’s policy toward its Muslim minorities

By Moorthy Muthuswamy PhD

Omar Khalidi is the lead organizer of the much-anticipated India workshop (

http://indiaworkshopmit.com/) to be held at MIT on April 9-10, 2010. The workshop is titled “Group Violence, Terrorism, and Impunity — Challenges to Secularism and Rule of Law in India.”

In my recent book Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War (Prometheus Books, 2009) I have analyzed Dr. Khalidi’s writings on Indian Muslims. My book gives an unprecedented look at jihad in India. It was favorably reviewed in the Washington Times. My website: http://www.moorthymuthuswamy.com.

Omar Khalidi has the job title of Reference Librarian at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. He grew up in India, and was brought up in a Muslim family. Omar Khalidi obtained his doctorate in 1994 from the University of Wales in Islamic studies. He has published a number of books on Indian Muslims through Indian publishing houses.

In my view, the thrust of Omar Khalidi’s writings appear to advance the jihadist agenda in India without addressing the root cause of Muslim radicalism and backwardness. The forthcoming workshop too, I am afraid, is suggestive of promoting this nefarious agenda.

Dr. Khalidi’s sectarian history, contentious scholarship and his prominent role ought to handicap how the MIT workshop will be received.

In my book I point out the following about Dr. Khalidi: “[H]is one-sided portrayal and selective use of data to favor his [Indian] Muslim community at the expense of others is notable for a scholar.”

Even prominent Indian Muslims have reservations on Dr. Khalidi’s scholarship. In critiquing Dr. Khalidi’s essay titled “Why India is NOT a Secular Country,” Mohib Ahmad finds that “[Dr. Khalidi]He selectively pick and choose dots to create an ugly picture and then present it as the reality.”

Colonel Anil Athale, a distinguished retired officer of Indian armed forces who heads a Pune-based Think Tank says that “seeing [Dr. Khalidi’s]his intention, I and my colleagues refused any cooperation. But he obviously has won over Sachar [Committee -- established at the behest of Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Sonia Gandhi, to provide reservation and other preferences for Indian Muslims] and [Congress] party. We ought to smell a rat when the Sachar Committee approvingly quotes from Khalidi’s book and makes it as the basis for its ‘work.’

From pages 109 through 111 of my book, I have discussed Dr. Khalidi’s work in detail:

In his writings, [Khalidi]he has consistently portrayed Indian Muslims as being victimized, attacked, and discriminated, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing jihad in South Asia — which includes massive non-Muslim ethnic cleansing conducted with the active support of Muslims. Khalidi clearly understands the need to reach out to non-Muslim Indians and to create a feeling of guilt about the dismal state of Indian Muslims in order to extract unfair concessions that would eventually doom these non-Muslims.

Khalidi is a proponent of reconfiguring districts in many Indian states to create “compact Muslim zones” where Muslim culture and rights could be “safeguarded.” It doesn’t matter to him, as some have pointed out, that India has more than safeguarded Muslim interests at a constitutional level, even at the expense of social cohesiveness and national security. Looking at this suggestion from a jihadist angle is revealing: Khalidi is devising new ways by which Muslims can achieve political power within certain areas in a secular and democratic India. This is a clever ploy. As pointed out earlier, in every Muslim-majority area of South Asia, including ones within India, non-Muslims have been marginalized and ethnically cleansed in a massive way. Also, once Muslims in these regions achieve power, the regions have become jihad bases for further destabilizing India.

Khalidi published a book in 2005 titled Muslims in Indian Economy. This book discusses the shortcomings of Muslims in India — the lack of proportional representation in government, private jobs, law enforcement agencies, the armed forces, and education, as well as the prevalence of poverty and illiteracy. The blame was squarely placed on the majority Hindu community and the government. An objective analysis would have concluded otherwise: most Indian Muslim problems, including the ones under discussion, are self-inflicted. Besides, most Indian Muslims appear to be under the spell of extremists. Since India is currently being targeted by neighboring Islamic nations for conquest, and as these nations are finding ready recruits among Indian Muslims, no sane government could afford the luxury of proportional representation of Muslims in law enforcement and in the armed forces.

The ruling [Manmohan Singh-led] regime established a committee headed by retired justice Rajinder Sachar to produce a report largely based upon Khalidi’s work. Not surprisingly, the Sachar Committee, stocked with Muslims and led by Rajinder Sachar, who has supported the ceding of Muslim-majority Kashmir from India through “self-determination,” called for a sweeping and far-reaching system of giveaways allotted to Muslims, from preferred student admissions in Indian elite schools to job allotments. The committee called for allotting an increased number of loans to Muslims and for evaluating the contents of schools texts, presumably to ensure that Muslims and Islam are portrayed in the best manner possible and to make the unbelievers least prepared to counter jihad. On one of the most important national interest issues, that of Kashmir, Sachar’s views are similar to that of Pakistan’s and many other Indian Islamists. That the ruling Singh regime would convene a commission consisting of individuals who may neither have national interests at heart nor are likely to have neutral (and therefore, objective) outlook toward Muslims should be noted.

[svinayak]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/253303/Fore ... in-LS.html

Foreign university bill introduced in LS

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday introduced the foreign university bill, which aims to allow foreign institutions set up campuses in India, in the Lok Sabha amid strong protests by Left MPs.

The bill provides that "the central government may refuse{why the sense of ambivalence in the tone??} to recognise and notify a foreign educational institution as foreign education provider if it is not in the interest of sovereignty, integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or sensitivity of location of the foreign educational institutions".

Among the foreign universities likely to set up shop in India are Boston University, Harvard and Yale University from the US.

Check out how all these universities are the center for CIA

http://www.cia-on-campus.org/

CIA on Campus

General articles
CounterPunch, 2003-04-07: "The CIA is Back on Campus"
Los Angeles Times op-ed, January 2001: "Academics and Spies: The Silence that Roars"

An article from Lingua Franca on the state of the CIA-on-campus issue in year 2000

Another general overview of CIA on campus (1989)

Excerpts from the Church Committee on the CIA in academia (1976)

CIA skips Church -- Harvard and all the rest can go to hell (1979)

A statue of Nathan Hale stands in front of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. It's paradoxical -- though quite appropriate to a profession whose reputation far exceeds its accomplishments -- that the man now remembered as our first spy has achieved this status through failure. As Robin Winks says in Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War 1939-1961 (Morrow), "Hale was ill-prepared for his mission, accomplished no intelligence objective, and . . . in the words of a later director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, 'quite possibly was the wrong sort of man' to be in the business."
The Hale statue is a replica of one on the campus of Yale University. Yale alumni have figured heavily in the history of American espionage, starting with three members of the Culpeper spy ring who graduated with Hale in the class of 1773. But unlike the British, we had no independent intelligence agency for most of our history; spying was a rather informal affair, confined to the wartime military. With the outbreak of the Second World War it became clear that we needed a large-scale operation in a hurry. What better place to turn than to academe? Winks's book is the story of these academics-turned-spies, with a particular emphasis on the crowd from Yale, where Winks is a professor of history.

As everyone knows, the Office of Strategic Services was founded in 1942 and its first director was "Wild Bill" Donovan. The heart of OSS, and the home of most of its academics, was the Research and Analysis branch, or R&A; other branches handled the nastier, novelistic end of the business, like counterintelligence, black propaganda and sabotage. It was agreed from the outset that R&A's mandate was broad and long-term; the academics in R&A -- social scientists, historians, linguists and even literary critics were instructed to study friends and enemies, real and potential, present and future. OSS researchers began to turn their attention to the Soviet Union well before the war was over, though, as Winks notes, some of the leftish academics performed this new task with a decided lack of enthusiasm.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/how-the-cia ... puses.html

How the CIA is Welcoming Itself Back Onto American University Campuses
DAVID PRICE
Counterpunch
April 11, 2010
Throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, independent grassroots movements to keep the Central Intelligence Agency off American university campuses were broadly supported by students, professors and community members. The ethos of this movement was captured in Ami Chen Mills’ 1990 book, C.I.A. Off Campus. Mills’ book gave voice to the multiple reasons why so many academics opposed the presence of the CIA on university campuses: reasons that ranged from the recognition of secrecy’s antithetical relationship to academic freedom, to political objections to the CIA’s use of torture and assassination, to efforts on campuses to recruit professors and students, and the CIA’s longstanding role in undermining democratic movements around the world.
For those who lived through the dramatic revelations of the congressional inquiries in the 1970s, documenting the CIA’s routine involvement in global and domestic atrocities, it made sense to construct institutional firewalls between an agency so deeply linked with these actions and educational institutions dedicated to at least the promise of free inquiry and truth. But the last dozen years have seen retirements and deaths among academics who had lived through this history and had been vigilant about keeping the CIA off campus; furthermore, with the attacks of 9/11 came new campaigns to bring the CIA back onto American campuses.
Henry Giroux’s 2007 book, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial Academic Complex, details how two decades of shifts in university funding brought increased intrusions by corporate and military forces onto university. After 9/11, the intelligence agencies pushed campuses to see the CIA and campus secrecy in a new light, and, as traditional funding sources for social science research declined, the intelligence community gained footholds on campuses.
Post-9/11 scholarship programs like the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP) and the Intelligence Community Scholarship Programs today sneak unidentified students with undisclosed links to intelligence agencies into university classrooms (both were first exposed by this author here in CounterPunch in 2005). A new generation of so-called flagship programs have quietly taken root on campuses, and, with each new flagship, our universities are transformed into vessels of the mi tarized state, as academics learn to sub limate unease.

The programs most significantly linking the CIA with university campuses are the “Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence” (ICCAE, pro nounced “Icky”) and the “Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity”. Both programs use universities to train intelligence personnel by piggybacking onto existing educational programs. Campuses that agree to see these outsourced programs as nonthreatening to their open educational and research missions are rewarded with funds and useful contacts with the intelligence agencies and other less tangible benefits.
Even amid the militarization prevailing in America today, the silence surrounding this quiet installation and spread of programs like ICCAE is extraordinary. In the last four years, ICCAE has gone further in bringing government intelligence organizations openly to American university campuses than any previous intelligence initiative since World War Two. Yet, the program spreads with little public notice, media coverage, or coordinated multi-campus resistance.
When the New Infiltration Began
In 2004, a $250,000 grant was awarded to Trinity Washington University by the Intelligence Community for the establishment of a pilot “Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence” program. Trinity was, in many ways, an ideal campus for a pilot program. For a vulnerable, tuition-driven, struggling financial institution in the D.C. area, the promise of desperately needed funds and a regionally assured potential student base, linked with or seeking connections to the D.C. intel ligence world, made the program financially attractive.
In 2005, the first ICCAE centers were installed at ten campuses: California State University San Bernardino, Clark Atlanta University, Florida International University, Norfolk State University, Tennessee State University, Trinity Washington University, University of Texas El Paso, University of Texas-Pan American, University of Washington, and Wayne State University. Between 2008-2010, a second wave of expansion brought ICCAE programs to another twelve campuses: Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, North Carolina A&T State, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Florida A&M, Miles College, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Nebraska, University of New Mexico, Pennsylvania State University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Despite a lack of critical media cov erage of ICCAE programs, traces of campus dissent can be found online in faculty senate records. When Dean Van Reidhead at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) brought a proposal for ICCAE to establish a center on cam pus, some faculty and graduate students spoke out against the damage to academic freedom that the program would likely bring. Senate minutes record that faculty “representatives spoke against and for UTPA submitting a proposal to compete for federal money to establish an Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence.” At this meeting, graduate students “listed the following demands: 1) inform the community via press release about the possible ICCAE proposal, 2) release the proposal draft for public review, 3) establish a commu nity forum on ICCAE, and 4) abolish the process of applying for ICCAE funds.” At Texas-Pan American, as at other ICCAE campuses, administrators noted these concerns but continued with plans to bring the intelligence agencies to campus, as if hearing and ignoring concerns constituted shared governance.
The minutes of the University of Washington’s Faculty Senate and Faculty Council on Research record shadows of dissent that are so vaguely referenced that they are easily missed. The minutes for the December 4, 2008, meeting gloss over the issues raised when the American Association of University Professors, University of Washington chapter, had issued a strongly worded statement by Executive Board representative Christoph Giebel, requesting information concerning UW’s INSER contacts with the Intelligence Community. The minutes simply read: “… both Giebel and Jeffry Kim [INSER director] answered a series of good questions that resulted in a fair, tough and serious conversation.” What these “good questions” were and the nature of this “tough and serious conversation” are not mentioned in the minutes, as if “good questions” were not important enough to enter into a public record. Similarly, the nature of faculty objections to INSER are glossed over in the 1/29/09 UW Senate minutes, which simply listed the findings of the Faculty Council on Research that “a number of email communications have come through the faculty senate that reflect a range in attitude toward the INSER program.”

[Prem]

The most disturbing thing is Khalidi type having access to India PM. I am afraid that they have better appreciation of Congressi power politics and might succeed n destroying, unermining our National Security /soul keeprs. IMHO, if vote politics, Congressi corrurpt culture do damage the national security institutions with reservations etc then it will be undoing of india as we know and then onlee way to save her will be through danda parade followed by comfortable retirement for current crop of DIE elites in location like Banagalore, Kerala.

[Nair]

I find the pie chart quite interesting. Aren't Muslims supposed to make up at least 15% of the population? If so, have they also witnessed a decrease? I have many Muslim and Christian Indian friends and funny thing is they're not religious at all. They all smoke marijuana, drink, eat pork, etc. It's actually a struggle for their parents to keep them in line. Many of them have become agnostic and even go to Hindu cultural and religious events. What I've noticed is that the abrahamic faiths spread fast but they die fast as well with every subsequent generation. I also wonder if the economic collapse of the West is going to slow down proselytization and whether the secularization of the Indian State has acted as a catalyst for their spread. The United States technically isn't secular because the process of religious labeling and affording rights based on those labels is actually quite limited at the moment. If converting to Christianity or Islam wont get you seats in a school, extra monetary aid from the state, etc wouldn't there be drastically less incentive to convert? I feel like the moment the state tries to secularize itself religious groups tend to become more assertive in imposing their social and political frameworks upon others. When secularism (active tolerance) is absent, I've noticed that religious syncretism becomes far more prevalent and so does mutual respect.

I don't wonder that the no of muslims have decreased....come to think of it.Why on earth would you remain a muslim. You are looked upon with suspicion by others at home and in case you think of migrating to the West you are denied visas,made to jump thro all kinds of hurdles.

I completely believe that the no of Christans has increased by this amount...all the factors I put against Muslims count for Christians....but Christians are not a fifth column by any means. Less said about the Muslims the better on that respect.

[RamaY]

By the way, the process can be reversed. And the first step towards this very strategic move for Indians can be taken individually. If the non-proselytizers consolidate and simplify (they basically have to rediscover rather than invent) their system - providing an uniform and homogeneous identity of pride for every member, that immense unity and strength will stop these essentially imperialist tools from progressing any further. Islamism, Christianism of the new missionaries and Communism are all prosleytizing imperialist tools of the Mediterranean. They have to be understood clearly as such and firmly rejected. We have every reason to be against "them" in their imperialist form. And we should mark those who still follow them or are sympathetic to them as not belonging to India and ourselves. They are not us.

Edited two terms as an afterthought - as I do hope to chnage the root philosphies into something more acceptable for co-existence , but I have no hope for the active forms. Still I should distinguish between the two phases.

Catching up with the discussion.

Now the bolded part is a good thought! We not only have a reason to be against "them" in their imperialist form, we also have the RIGHT to be against "them" and have our own imperial ambitions. It is as secular as OIC and Anglo-Saxon political block.

Would be good to discuss the vision, and strategies to develop that coherence.

[Masaru]

-self delete-

[Manish_Sharma]

I met a Christian SoKo guy and he was a Buddhist before. I asked him why he gave up Buddhism. He told me "Buddha Himself said that He cannot rescue me. Then I asked the question who could and found Jesus Christ to be the answer"

Yes those were the last words of Buddha "Appa deepo Bhav" "Sammasati" meaning "Be a light unto yourself" meaning everyone has to realise their enlightenment on their own.

[RamaY]

Buddham Saranam Gachchaami

{self deleted}

[Prem]

RamYa,
Even Swami Vivekanda said theat Great Buddha made the greatest mistake of disarming India thus subjected her to the millenium long torture.
Some one mentioned the coincident of Ashoka/ Buddhist discarding the warfare/weapons in Patliputra and Guru Gobind Singh ji taking birth there to rectify this Buddhist mistake by reinitiating and revitalizing the the Dharm Yudh tradition .

[brihaspati]

Turning it slightly back as to "future" we should consider two things :

(a) Imperialists always search for and use any religion/ideology that can be used to soften up people to be conquered and people who are already under rule. In the process they may actually remodel, reshape, edit the pre-existing ideology or even reinvent it so as to emascualte potential enemeies and threats to continued imeprialist dominance.

This is what happened with Christianity under the Romans. Muhammad is not unique because he is also doing the same process with pre-eisting Christian and Judaic beliefs that he found prevalent in northern Arabia at the time.

Why not consider Ashoka Maurya as an earlier example of this same pattern? He could have "processed" the relevant Buddha's thoughts/cult to suit his imperialist needs!

(b) From a practical viewpoint, Buddhism does not seem to have prevented warfare or bloodshed as and when Buddhist "rulers" felt it necessary. The Palas of Bengal were supposed to chiefly patronizing Buddhism and were quite well known as Imperialists constantly engaged in warfare. Same goes for sectarian and other violent movs in China after the advent of Buddhism there. Tibetans did not give up defending their territory after Buddhism reached it. Various kingdoms in SE Asia follow the same route.

What characteristically happens is that if the ruling imperialist Buddhists somehow fall in battle or war, then the Buddhist-ized common population under the previous regime is no longer able to resist proselytizing onslaught.

For the future strategic viewpoint, too much Buddha bashing is perhaps not a good idea. The Sri Lankans have shown that Buddhism is no great conscience induced obstacle to ethnic cleansing as and when necessary. And we need to preserve the Buddhist remnants in Myanmar and Thailand.

We may just have to gently remind them of the precedence and possible future necessity of bloodshed and "himsha" in Buddhism to prevent the "ME" brand prosleytizers from expanding and completing the pan-Asian IOR circuit.

[rkirankr]

With all his actions, philosophies and non-violence bhagavan buddha f*ked Bharat nicely. Bharatiya society has been reaping the karma (consequences) from it's excessive focus on Karma (action) especially animal and human sacrifices.
That solves one puzzle though. Gautama the Buddha is the Buddha in dasavataras

Can you please explain how the bolded part solves the puzzle and the . To me it is surprising that the previous Avatar (Shri Krishna) who could shed so much blood and wean away Arjun from a pacifist argument would profess budhist concept. I still believe they are different , I mean the dasavathara budha who professed a philosophy which had meaning which were hidden. The superficial meanings were supposed to wean away evil men. The Gautama takes mostly the superficial ones and hence we have Buddhism. Ok it is OT here.

Pacifism , showing other cheek has not been a part of sanathana dharma. Buddhist kingdoms may not have given up warfare but the large populations which were buddhists in our frontiers became ripe for shoving other philosophies. Some time back I had asked why east Bengal has muslim majority and west has Hindu whereas if you observe all the regions in the path of invaders, the western region has gone over to the invading philosophy and eastern region resisted. The answer to that came from a poster who said that all those regions which were Buddhist had converted to the invading philosophy.

[brihaspati]

I think the first consistent stronghold of the Muslims in India, around Multan was based around the conversion of sun-worshippers, and not Buddhists. It is partly a Thaparite story of Buddhists falling whole scale for pure-landers and the refrain is echoed in POWI textbooks. However the two main sources of earlly narratives from the Muslim side on the conquests of Western Punjab and Sind, do not specifically mention this. They describe uniform treatment of "but-prasts+atish-prasts+Hindoos" where head-chopping, abducting, enslaving is concerned.

Islamization of East Bengal and Islamization of western India took different routes. Buddhism is perhaps just one explaining factor. Within the limits of this thread, lets just be satisfied with the possibility that once the rulers fall in a Buddhist state, the common followers could have been kept sufficiently emasculated by the rulers with a version of Buddhism that made it easier for them to rule - that they did not find ideological motivation to resist the onslaught.

Crucial thing to note is that Buddhism expanded with the beginnings of imperialist ambitions in the Indian kingdoms in the ancient period, beginning with Magadha - and was probably adopted for reasons similar to that in Constantine's adopton of Christianity. This goes for Ashoka too. It is this imperialist hidden hand that could have weakened the larger settlements that obviously would be settled more at the flood plains and deltas of Indus and Ganges - therefore western India and eastern Bengal.

Looking to the future, encouraging the Buddhists is tactically crucial for Tibet, and SE Asia. The Thais are resisting strongly the Islamists trying to expand from the south with obvious bases in Islamist Malaysia. Sri Lnakans have finished off temporarily the EJist seed within the VP group. (But they also show the other weakness of having Buddhist "rulers" - who as before seem to be unable to resist Islamic charms - then Caliph during Dahirs time and now Pak and BD from time to time. But honestly we cannot blame them when "Hindu" rulers have done even better in appeasing!). Japan has a strong Buddhist core. Cultural threads are important for strategy.

[ramana]

Buddhism bashing is based on not understand the greater good that he brought to the world. One cant blame him if his lessons/teachings are imperfectly and more over inappropriately implemented. Its not for noting that he was elevated as one of the avataras of MahaVishnu.

[RamaY]

My apologies for bashing Buddha (I will delete my post). I was just summarizing my thought on the impact of Buddha on Rashtra in a satiric manner.

I also agree (I posted so in some post) that Buddhist rulers were not as passive rulers as the ideology appears to be. Even in the early days Buddhists used deception, wars, and even black magic as tools to extend their influence and even proselytize. In one of the books I remember reading Buddhist kings/monks applying black magic on Gautami Putra Satakarni.

rkirankr ji - I was implying that by denouncing karmic sacrifices (right reason), and presenting complete pacifism as the solution (good solution at individual level? and bad solution at social level?) Buddha prepared the ground for the karmic implications to set in. I am equipoised about it.

[ramana]

Hudson Institute a New York think tank has a Center on Islam, Democracy and Future of Islamic World.

http://www.currenttrends.org/research/ctID.5/ctrend.asp

Please be updated on the journal annual issues in the left sidebar.

And:
http://www.currenttrends.org/

[Atri]

(a) Imperialists always search for and use any religion/ideology that can be used to soften up people to be conquered and people who are already under rule. In the process they may actually remodel, reshape, edit the pre-existing ideology or even reinvent it so as to emascualte potential enemeies and threats to continued imeprialist dominance.

This is what happened with Christianity under the Romans. Muhammad is not unique because he is also doing the same process with pre-eisting Christian and Judaic beliefs that he found prevalent in northern Arabia at the time.

Why not consider Ashoka Maurya as an earlier example of this same pattern? He could have "processed" the relevant Buddha's thoughts/cult to suit his imperialist needs!

(b) From a practical viewpoint, Buddhism does not seem to have prevented warfare or bloodshed as and when Buddhist "rulers" felt it necessary. The Palas of Bengal were supposed to chiefly patronizing Buddhism and were quite well known as Imperialists constantly engaged in warfare. Same goes for sectarian and other violent movs in China after the advent of Buddhism there. Tibetans did not give up defending their territory after Buddhism reached it. Various kingdoms in SE Asia follow the same route.

What characteristically happens is that if the ruling imperialist Buddhists somehow fall in battle or war, then the Buddhist-ized common population under the previous regime is no longer able to resist proselytizing onslaught.

For the future strategic viewpoint, too much Buddha bashing is perhaps not a good idea. The Sri Lankans have shown that Buddhism is no great conscience induced obstacle to ethnic cleansing as and when necessary. And we need to preserve the Buddhist remnants in Myanmar and Thailand.

We may just have to gently remind them of the precedence and possible future necessity of bloodshed and "himsha" in Buddhism to prevent the "ME" brand prosleytizers from expanding and completing the pan-Asian IOR circuit.

True.. Philosophers come up with all sorts of philosophies they feel like. We have whole range of them. They are originators of memes.

The blame for misuse of ideologies and subsequent massacre of people lie on the head of kings and policy makers who utilize the suitable meme from available set of memes for gaining political mileage. Just like Constantine for life time was massacring Christians and on his death bed, accepted Christianity and started massacring Pagans. Constantine made Jesus as popular as he is today. Ashok made Buddha as popular. Without Constantine and Ashok, Jesus and Buddha were just another philosophers.

Muhammad was one of the very few originators of religious memes who patronized himself to become so successful. He did not depend upon some king. This shows that he was a successful human being. He became an authentic policy-maker of his kingdom and as I said, political policy-makers are the ones to blame primarily for misuse of the ideological memes. Muhammad being originator and implementor of Islam, gets both the accolades for being so immensely successful and criticisms for using his own philosophy for gaining political mileage.The character of Adolf Hitler showed slightly similar trajectory. He came up with philosophy, he got power, he implemented his philosophy and became immensely popular. And later, infamous !!!

This is where Buddha, Christ and Moses differ from Muhammad exactly. The main reason for phuck-up by Buddhist Janata in NWFP and eastern Bengal was not the Ahimsa but lack of varnashrama penetration. As B-ji have stated, one of the biggest imperial conquests of all times, Kanishka's conquest of Khotan and Central asia happened under Buddhist banner. Palas took their army into Afghanistan as Buddhist kings. Buddha's teachings were suitable for these guys to usurp and project power, hence they are buddhists. Buddha's Dhamma is the "export version" of Indian civilization.. it has worked quite well for different durations in different places at different times outside India.

The irony is that bulk of the army of these kings was traditional "aastika" army following the Varnashrama vyavastha. Buddhism as a system is extremely liberal when it comes to individual pursuit of moksha. Furthermore, Buddhism has a organized monasteries which were funded by these buddhist kings. Thus, it led large part of population to become idlers (read Bhikkhus) and live off the donations of state and others. When the "puritanical army" falls to a foreign invasion (in this case Islam), the liberated people (buddhists) have no roots to hold on to.. this is what led to their deracination, IMHO.. nothing to do with Ahimsa.

[RamaY]

Muhammad was one of the very few originators of religious memes who patronized himself to become so successful. He did not depend upon some king. This shows that he was a successful human being. He became an authentic policy-maker of his kingdom and as I said, political policy-makers are the ones to blame primarily for misuse of the ideological memes. Muhammad being originator and implementor of Islam, gets both the accolades for being so immensely successful and criticisms for using his own philosophy for gaining political mileage.The character was Adolf Hitler showed slightly similar trajectory. He came up with philosophy, he got power, he implemented his philosophy and became immensely popular. And later, infamous !!!

Atri-mahasay!

You stole my thunder with this. I wanted to summarize the entire Chanakya story in these lines Good to know that I am not that off.

The irony is that bulk of the army of these kings was traditional "aastika" army following the Varnashrama vyavastha. Buddhism as a system is extremely liberal when it comes to individual pursuit of moksha. Furthermore, Buddhism has a organized monasteries which were funded by these buddhist kings. Thus, it led large part of population to become idlers (read Bhikkhus) and live off the donations of state and others. When the "puritanical army" falls to a foreign invasion (in this case Islam), the liberated people (buddhists) have no roots to hold on to.. this is what led to their deracination, IMHO.. nothing to do with Ahimsa.

SD varnasrama also had this component. Ramayana and MahaBharata are two sources. While Buddhism adopted this structure, the proper hinduism lost it in modern times.

[Atri]

Atri-mahasay!

You stole my thunder with this. I wanted to summarize the entire Chanakya story in these lines Good to know that I am not that off.

I actually copy-pasted these lines from one of the old blog articles.

Yes, Chanakya is one more character like this.

Here are my two paisas..

there are three types of policy makers - Krishna family, Raama family and Muhammad family.

Krishna, Chanakya, Savarkar, Gandhi et al train and patronize a group of individuals who help them execute their policies. Krishna - Pandavas, Chanakya - Chandragupta, savarkar - Whole bunch of revolutionaries, Gandi - nehru and his coterie.. Their ability and strength lies in playing a complementary and secondary, yet vital role in the process of their policy implementations.. usually they are single-minded in their approach and sometimes tend to neglect other aspects of the game and their own life. However, this single-minded character is what helps them in achieving what they achieved.

Second is Raama family. Most of the rulers fall under this category. Including, Ashok, Kanishk, Samudra-Chandra2-Kumara-Skanda guptas, Harsha, later vijaynagar kings, Akbar, Aurangzeb, Ranjit singh, Constantine, Frederick et al. All of them are sort of "good Rajas" who followed their "raja-Dharma" appropriately. They do not have their own world-view. However they usually select the best available world-views from the available set in their space-time and use their acumen to implement it perfectly which leads to overall evolution of the king and the followers of that particular world-view. If the world-view which is selected is broad enough, then large spectrum of public is benefitted and king becomes "Raajarshi - a sage king". Otherwise he becomes aurangzeb and Muhammmad tughlaq. But both of them were good administrators and followed their "yuga-Dharma" rather well.

Third family is Muhammad family. Muhammad, Harihara-Bukka, Shivaji, Napoleon, Hitler fall in this category. These people cause a paradigm shift not only in the polity of their geographical vicinity but also in the entire world-view of the entire population along with it. They come up with an idea, and then actually live and attain power to propagate that idea as per their wishes. Thus, they ensure that only the approved "variants" of their original idea is propagated, thus giving the idea a headstart. I would place the character of "Don Vito Corleone" from Godfather novel in this league as well.

I am sorry if I have left out the names of certain figures in the flow of typing.

[brihaspati]

Thanks to destiny of Bharat that Muhammad-types did not really arise in India!

There is perhaps a very subtle distinction between Muhammad and Hukka-Bukka, Shivaji. The latter, deliberately or otherwise maintained the "diarchy" of a "ideological guru+political implementor". Both had signifcant "gurujis"! The model that comes closest is that of some of the Sikh Gurus, but even here they did not deviate ultimately from the much more longer term planning of SD - by separating out the politcal from the theological through placing the Granth Sahib as a permanent "guru".

The reason I think we should start to look at political philosophy for future from within the SD rather than anywhere else, is because it bears the stamp of having been around for a much longer period compared to any other "social philosophy". SD's core wisely avoids micromanagement.

Muhammad, Hitler etc land up with their peculiar phislophies because in trying to make themselves the most powerful man for all past and all future, they have to base their philosophy firmly in their present and concurrent times. Which means in the future, their followers cannot move from the times of their founder. To maintain their supreme power in their lifetime they have to represent each of their actions as a necessary part of their philosophy, and their fundamental thrust cannot be maintained unless the same enemies, devils, opponents, threats, and social conditions cannot be reproduced for all times into the future.

This limits the applicability of Muhammadian ideologies. They have to and try to impose what worked for a certain people in their daily lives at that particular historical period at that particular place - for all people, at all tiems and all places. This is typically done by trying to replace existing social conditions by what existed around their founders, because only then will the founder philosophy be applicable.

The "guru+implementor" framework of SD bypasses this problem because it separates the ideology from practical implementation. It saves both the ideology from contamination due to implementation, and saves implementation from inappropriate idealistic targets rooted in the ideology.

Notice that this model is absent in Indian politics and futurist thinking since the demise of MKG. This has been 60 years of attempting to approximate the Muhammadian model gradually (fusion of ideological and implementation characters in the same mind and body) in the form of dynasty. And it is not working.

[Atri]

Thanks to destiny of Bharat that Muhammad-types did not really arise in India!

There is perhaps a very subtle distinction between Muhammad and Hukka-Bukka, Shivaji. The latter, deliberately or otherwise maintained the "diarchy" of a "ideological guru+political implementor". Both had signifcant "gurujis"! The model that comes closest is that of some of the Sikh Gurus, but even here they did not deviate ultimately from the much more longer term planning of SD - by separating out the politcal from the theological through placing the Granth Sahib as a permanent "guru".

I guess, this is owing to the inherent segregation between Dharma-Artha-Kaama-Moksha of Indian system.

The ideological "guru" of Shivaji is interesting factor. Contrary to popular understanding, Samartha Ramdas came into Shivaji's life in 1673, one year before his coronation and 7 years before his death. He had been known to patronize saints of various faiths (certain Baba Yakut was also called by Shivaji as his guru). His Anugraha was from a pandit from Nashik when he was young.

The ideological "Guru" of Shivaji was his father and the people planted by his father to train him in his childhood. His father had dreamt of exactly similar dream, but could not succeed thoroughly. He however managed to create a huge pool of men who believed in this idea of "Deccani Swaraajya". In this theory of Shahaji (Shivaji's father), Deccan power-centres should politically unite to face the impending Mughal invasion from north. The actions and letters of Shivaji show this understanding. However, what differentiates Shivaji from his father and anyone of his times is that he did not stop at Deccan-Confederacy, but dreamt of "Hindavi Swarajya" at the age of 15 when he took the oath at Shiva's temple.

The origin of this prerana is difficult to trace. Probably his mother, who was descendent of Yadavas of devagiri. The contemporary Indian society was too oppressed for quite some time to come up with intellectuals who had this vision of Hindu dominion of India. Although his mother might have been the dreamer, I don't think she too was capable of instilling in the mind of this teenager the idea of Indian-self rule. The concept of "india" was at its nadir at this time.

I am so fond of this character that the more I read and write about him, the more I understand him. When he was 6 years old, he made a trip from Pune to Bengaluru to visit his father and stay with him for 2 years. That's when his father showed him all the ruins of Vijaynagara empire, and Chalukya empires in Karnataka. I guess, it was this tourism which made the initial sanskaras on his mind that a powerful Hindu-Polity is not only possible but is also essential.

Similar is the case with Harihara and Bukka raya. The sanskaras of conversion and defeat at the hands of Tughlaq were more influential which were channelized by Vidyaranya swami. They usurped all the Hoysala territories conquered by Tughlaq and Sultan of Madurai and thereafter established a dynasty. In their journey to Delhi, they saw what has happened to the nation under the rule of Sultans. Tourism and seeing one's own country ignited Gandhi as well. That is when these leader connected with the inherent cultural unity of India, its people and their destiny.

There is so much of knowledge in the reservoir of Indic civilization, that one really does not need to try as hard as Muhammad and Hitler to justify all the actions by them and their ideology in all spaces and times, all in one life-span. That is simply too much to do in one life-span and for cultures who do not believe in reincarnation, the haste which sets in to achieve the implementation of the half-baked theories before the death marks the downfall and the drawback of ideology.

This is the subtle difference between Shivaji, Hakka-Bukka and Muhammad, Hitler.

The reason I think we should start to look at political philosophy for future from within the SD rather than anywhere else, is because it bears the stamp of having been around for a much longer period compared to any other "social philosophy". SD's core wisely avoids micromanagement.

Notice that this model is absent in Indian politics and futurist thinking since the demise of MKG. This has been 60 years of attempting to approximate the Muhammadian model gradually (fusion of ideological and implementation characters in the same mind and body) in the form of dynasty. And it is not working.

RSS-BJP is one of the examples of this Guru-kula system. But, it is under enormous duress owing the demands of westernized system which prefers fusion of ideological and executive faculties of a meme-complex in one individual.

[ramana]

Bji,
It wont work in India unless they get normatized under Islam or Christanity. Secularism is not enough of a normatizing milieu because its fake.

Guru+Implementor is the Indic way. Even Mayawati is an example of it.

[ramana]

Atri, Can you point to a readable and authentic bio of Shivaji Chatrapati?

[brihaspati]

Atri ji,
I include Jijabai and Dadoji Konddeva as Shivaji's guru's including his father. Of course the character elements have to be there. But only through the struggle between ideology and pragmatic implementations in two different minds united by a common purpose is a balanced and long term rashtryia target made achievable.

In modern settings, the "purely religious" gurujis that abound are the not the "gurus" I have in mind. I have people like Vidyaranya in mind - who are very much activists but perhaps we should characterize them as ideologues who turn their hand at implementation. They realize clearly their own ranges and thrusts, and therefore give up the main thrust of implementation to people who have that appropriate mindset. I guess generational gap is also a practical factor that pushes this. The "guru" could have struggled beginning at a period when socieo-economic conditions were not ripe enough and therefore focused on identifying the root causes. This forces thinking on ideology. By the time he comes to definite visions and routes, he can no longer hope to do this in his own lifetime or at his age. Typically implementors are juinior in age in Indian history with rare exceptions.

So it is not the typical "saffron clad" guruji, or leaders in yoga. It is tactically important that such a face of "SD" remains separate - so that in case the more political attempt sufferes a setback, the whole philosophy does not come under attack. But at the same time if they are doing the other so-called purely "spiritual" stuff, they should not nose into the more political/organizational framework. Because some of the imagery now confirmed in public mind as created by these type of guruji's which paints SD as oh-so-philosophical-only-relief work-social relief work thingie. It cannot have any political concerns, cannot assert its right to claim to define the rashtryia purpose, in essence should sweep the ground clean for EJist and Islamist or Communist theologians however tp practise their very political work.

ramana ji,
authentic bio about Shivaji's early life, from Indic viewpoint, is missing in substantial numbers. We can try to gather a reference list. There is a lot to study in his tactical moves.

[Atri]

Atri, Can you point to a readable and authentic bio of Shivaji Chatrapati?

Ramana ji,

New History of Marathas by G.S.Sardesai aka Riyaasatkaar Sardesai. Marathi Riyasat in Marathi.

he covers in his 6 volumes, everything about Marathas from Shivaji's grandfather to 1818 (demise of Maratha empire). Concise, yet extremely scholarly.

Others are Shivaji and his times by Sir Jadunath Sarkar,

history of Marathas by Grant duff and

History of Maratha people by Charles Kincaid.

Marathi Novel - Shrimaan Yogi by Ranjit Desai is the best grasp of the personality of Shivaji. This novel is historically accurate and somehow touches the soul of Chhatrapati.

Shivaji the great is an English translation of this novel by Ranjit desai. Click for the book

Others are - Raja Shiva-chhatrapati by B M Purandare, which is quite factual but a bit jingoistic in tone.

Best resources are his original letters and "Bakhars (stories)". English and Dutch resources are qualitatively better than these bards since they tend to be factual and remove all the hyperbolous descriptions.

[RamaY]

My observation

In all this guru-implementer model; the psecs/modern-historians bad mouth the guru whenever the implementer kicked the external ideologies out. And vice-versa when it happened internally.

In modern times
Guru - Implementer
x - Indira
x - Rajiv G
PVNR - PVNR
PVNR - MMS
x - ABV
SG/? - MMS

[Prem]

Atri has rightly pointed out the effect of Shiva Ji / Hukka Bukka's Journey across India on Aryaputras : Sikh Gurus made excursions into all the regions of India to revitalize the Indian spirit. On My last short visit to India, i went to South for the first time and it was heartning to see many North Indians doing pilgrimage there . Similarily i have seen many Southies at Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar. Now With air transportation becoming availabale and getting popular at affordable rate ( Indian airports are begining to resemble Europea ones) I have this feeling that Indic's long awaited integration is now realistically possible and well nigh on the way. Just like US got united by Highways , India is following the same path. My hunch is something good positive wonderul gonna happen soon as more the roadblocks are being put in the path more the events are movings toward further consolidation, at subconsicous level. May be we are blind sided and cant perceive the shift yet but the awakening , sweet sense is there.
What you think Doc, possible return of the Indic or we are doomed to brood onlee?

[naren]

Guru Implementer model is the same as Academia-Industry model. Equal equal only. This evolved because evil ancient hindus clearly identified the four strata of society - intelligentsia, aristocracy, bourgeois, proletariat and gave intelligentsia the highest place. Other societies had structure like aristocracy > bourgeois > intelligentsia > proletariat. ("Intelligentsia is not the 'brain of the nation', it is the 'feces of the nation'" - Lenin)

Even within intelligentsia, there is a guru-implementer model. Guru here is the Sannyasin, implementer is the Brahmin. Sannyasin, regardless of social status, commands highest respect. India has always bowed before the Sannyasin. Sannyasin is survived by the charity of people. His charity in return is to save India !

[naren]

I met a Christian SoKo guy and he was a Buddhist before. I asked him why he gave up Buddhism. He told me "Buddha Himself said that He cannot rescue me. Then I asked the question who could and found Jesus Christ to be the answer"

Yes those were the last words of Buddha "Appa deepo Bhav" "Sammasati" meaning "Be a light unto yourself" meaning everyone has to realise their enlightenment on their own.

Yes Manish ji. See how the missionaries have distorted it & exploit vulnerable abduls. In SoKo, Christianity is associated with being urban, modern, progressive, cool-Western etc whereas Buddhism is perceived as outdated, backward, low-Asian identity. People convert more for fitting in with other "elite" Christians. I can only feel sorry for the abduls who give up Buddhism for Christianity.

Christianity & Islam deserve each other. When they get ready for showdown, grab your beer and popcorn !

[naren]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/253303/Fore ... in-LS.html

Foreign university bill introduced in LS

Kinda reminds me of "American Gangster" where he goes all the way to the "source" & eliminates the middle men for his drug business Harvest the TFTA Indian academic crop right before it reaches anybody else

[brihaspati]

RamaY wrote
My observation

In all this guru-implementer model; the psecs/modern-historians bad mouth the guru whenever the implementer kicked the external ideologies out. And vice-versa when it happened internally.

In modern times
Guru - Implementer
x - Indira
x - Rajiv G
PVNR - PVNR
PVNR - MMS
x - ABV
SG/? - MMS

RamaY ji, problem is that perhaps none of those mentioned had a "guru". After the eliminastion of MKG, the system of sycophancy around JLN (and perhaps with a helping hand from the British networks) ensured that no "separate" Indic interest guru had a pull on Indian moves - and both functions usurped by the dynastic head.

Individuals who attempt this as leaders of their societies - like Muhammad or Hitler or JLN or Stalin perhaps all show certain common characteristics in their early life (no need to go into that here!) which produces a deep vulnerability and sense of deprivation which they compensate for by an inordinately high self-image and megalomania. Typically they are scared to let any strand of personal power go out of hand, and they will all show a tendency not to serve as partner in the national venture with their mentors over the long run. Either they eliminate their "gurus" of earlier rising part, or the guru dies and they emerge out of the shadow. However they do not trust even their own disciples and periodically purge them or rotate - because they are aware that what they themselves had done could be done upon them.

In the list you mention, it is possible that the role of the "guru" was played in proxy by external sources - all the while stoking the ego of the concerned leader that he was himself/herself also the guru.

what could be the first step? Probably get gurus - ideologues/spirituals who have a political vision and therefore a common language to communicate with implementors -men of action who have spiritual and ideological understanding. Thus the political vision and ability to see realizable targets of the idealist guru based on a firm spiritual understanding, can interact with the ability to organize and concretize, of the man-of-action/implementor who is based on a firm understanding of spiritual/ideological.

The separation of the two partners in this partnership as two different groups of minds actually ensure that neither the vision nor its implementation is jeopardized because of excessive stress on one to the exclusion of the other. This has been a consistent problem of Indian history for a long time since Independence.

[Pranav]

The origin of this prerana is difficult to trace. Probably his mother, who was descendent of Yadavas of devagiri. The contemporary Indian society was too oppressed for quite some time to come up with intellectuals who had this vision of Hindu dominion of India. Although his mother might have been the dreamer, I don't think she too was capable of instilling in the mind of this teenager the idea of Indian-self rule. The concept of "india" was at its nadir at this time.

Atri ji, I believe his mother Jija bai was an eye-witness to her sister (or cousin, perhaps) getting abducted from a river-bank by warriors from some Islamic army.

Going through that sort of incident tends to clarify the situation far better than any intellectual discussion.