Bharat Rakshak

The more posts I see on BRF, it becomes clearer as to why when I first started posting there was such vehement demand from some quarters that "we should not live in the past", that "history" had no lessons for us in the present and the future, that it should almost be dumped because it does not determine the future.

Now if history and what supposedly happened in the past does not affect the present and the future, and since what happened in the past at a given time point - which was then the "present", and the "future" for that time point is the "present" for us - so what "Khilafat" supposedly did for the psyche of the Indian muslim should not be predictive, and should not have any influence on the behaviour or future behaviour of IM? No?

So using the conclusion of Khilafat as claimed by anyone, we cannot claim that pan-Islamism for IM has forever been ruled out. But then again, another reason we are asked not to go too deep into the past because then the past can be suitably modified to suit ideological agenda. Here the ideological agenda is to erase any possible suspicion or pointer towards continued presence or renewal of pan-Islamic tendencies in the IM.

Did Khilafat have no pan-Islamism consequence? Depends on your underlying ideological commitment towards the post-Independence Nehruvian propaganda or not.

The Khilafat fiasco by MKG brought in Abdullahahel Baqi of Dinajpur, Muniruzzaman Islamabadi of Chattagram, Mawlana Akram Khan of 24-Pargana, Shamsuddin Ahmed of Kushthia, and Ashrafuddin Ahmed Chowdhury of Tripura, into the Bangyia pRADESH Congress - and all were later prominent in the ML. Mawlana Akram Khan was key figure in the lead up to the partition from within ML.. Suhrawardy was the Secretary of the Khilafat Committee for a long time and along with the others he joined the Swaraj party bloc of Congress. They jointly shared power in Kolikata Municipal Corporation after winning the elections of 1924. CRD became the Mayor, Suhrawardy the Deputy-Mayor, and SCB the Chief Executive Officer. Suhrawardy left Congress with other leaders mentioned above to revive the ML. He was the Prime Minister of Bengal that delayed acting against Muslim rioters during Direct Action Day and only brought out the BIA when the numerical majority Hindus and Sikhs began to retaliate. The Muslim families were taken to the Park Circus Maidan under army and police protection - something that was missing for almost three days to Hindus and the Sikhs. He became the fifth Prime Minister of the undivided Pakistan. But already in 1926 he stood by and defended the Muslim rioters who were arrested during the great Calcutta riot of that year, including personally intervening to secure bail of a notorious "goonda" Mina Peshawari, murderer of several Hindu slum- dwellers [Mina Peshwari's "para" and location is still famous -for spawning others of his ilk later].

For a start we can take this from Hamza Alawi [impeccable background from the "secularist" line - because who says and where - matters more than what he says - this was in EPW]

The Khilafat movement(1918-1924), in the hands of Mahatma Gandhi, torpedoed the new
political dynamic of the joint struggle of the Muslim League and the Congress against the colonial rule that was set in motion by the Lucknow Pact. It also undermined the secular leadership of the Muslim League. Instead, it helped to mobilise one section of the Sunni ulama the hardliner Deobandis,on the namely, basis of some false assumptions about the
post-war' hostility' of the British towards the Ottoman sultan, their khalifa. The
movement capitalised on the pan-Islamic sentiments amongst the Indian Deoband Muslims.These sentiments were centred on the role of the Ottoman Sultan as the 'Universal Khalifa'. It ignored the fact that the Ottoman Sultan was not recognised as the Khalifa by the populist Barelvi tradition of the Indian Sunni Islam (arguably, the majorityof Indian Muslims). The Barelvis, like the Arab nationalists, rejected the claims of the Ottoman Sultan to be the Khalifa on the doctrinal ground that he was not of Quraysh descent.19 The Khilafat movement got off the ground after Gandhi decided to take it over,becoming, in his own words,the 'dictator of the movement. Leaders of the movement, like Abdul Bari of Firangi Mahal, Ansari Shaukat Ali and Mohammd Ali, sought guidance from him for every action.2 It is difficult to discuss critically the role' of Mahatma Gandhi,a man who became a saint. But until the end of first world war, Gandhi had yet to establish himself as a major Indian political leader His early moves can best be understood in the context of his attempts to achieve that end.He became the undisputed leader of the Indian nationalist movement by the time he had finished with the Khilafat and the movements. Gandhi's movement undermined the secular leadership of the Muslim League, and for the time being ,established the mullahs in that place. Gandhi even helped the mullahs to set up a political organisation of their own (in 1919), namely the Jamiat-i-Ulama Hind,which was reincarnated in Pakistan as the Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Islam, the extreme hardliner fundamentalists who were instrumental in the rise of the Taliban in
Afghanistan. Thanks to Gandhi,the Khilafat movement implanted the religious idiom in the modern Indian Muslim politics for the first time. A-key moment in that was when Ansari organised an invasion of the Delhi Session of the All Indian Muslim League in 1918 by the mullahs.
[...]
Directly, as a reaction to the Khilafat movement and the politicisation of religion, there followed in the 1920s a long period of the worst communal rioting that India had ever known.

Misreading Partition Road Signs, Hamza Alavi, 4515-4517, EPW, Nov 2-9, 2002.

Those interested can look up assessments of who really "withdrew" the Khilafat movement, from the very favourable Gopal Krishna, published in several CUP journals and the many papers that have worked on the consequences of the Khilafat adventure. It may be quite revealing as to links for subsequent mullhaization and international identification of IM in post independence India.

By the way, I think we have now to think of Palestine as an internal and domestic issue of India, and same goes for Salman Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen - against all of whom there has been purely intra-Indian concerns of "aggressive" demonstrations. [riots or mob violence only happens from other communities]

By the way, Gandhi ji never "withdrew" the non-cooperation movement, he only "suspended" it. This was the formal resolution at the Bordoli meeting on 11-12th February. He was arrested in the middle of March. But what were the issues at this stage?

In 1920, he had begun with the the Khilafatist and then the Punjab grievances: later in the year "Swaraj in one year" had become his chief slogan. There followed the emphasis on the renunciation of titles; then on the triple boycott of councils, colleges and courts; then on the collection of a crore of rupees for the Tilak memorial fund, the crore of members for the Indian National Congress, and the establishment of two lakhs of spinning wheels in Indian homes across the countryside. But between July and September 1921 the emphasis had switched to swadeshi; and thereafter to civil disobedience and the non-payment of land revenue. The Chari-chaura issue was unconnected to Khilafat.

By this time the Moplah depredations had happened - sparking off almost complete breakdown of relations between the Khilfatists and the "Hindu" population in general. Moreover, Reading and his complex tactical footwork - with mediation by the "moderates" and a talk of a "round table" conference which never took off thanks to the opposition of the BIA and provincial governors, should also be explored as having any possible impact on his decisions. But it was a suspension and not a withdrawal.

Rajesh A ji,
as for continued and post-independence "overlap" or confusion over identities of IM, and their potential future trend, the Barelvi illuminati could be a starting point to explore. They have a vague reputation for being less-pan-Islamic than the Deobandis, and supposedly championing an "autonomous Indian Islam". The leading light to study would be the statements about future strategic directions by Sayyid Abu'l-Hasan Ali Nadwi. Significantly he is from Rae Baraeli.

As late as the 70's Nadwi had most interesting statements to make about Arabic, Arabism, and the ideological position of IM with respect to those two items. What he writes or talks about should dispel any doubts as to continuing confusion which is very much there. Moreover, it may actually point to the role of theocracy and theocratic institutions and networks in operating under this cover of confusion.

somnath wrote:Abhishek-ji, If the point is about IMF and its less-than-optimum role in dispensing "advice", then its a very different discussion...As I said before, no reason why IMF should behave differently to the strategic imperatives of its major "shareholders"...All those who have approached IMF in the past, from Latam to Asia to Africa, did that with their eyes open..A couple of corrections to your thesis:

That is your problem. You should probably read IMF's own website:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

I can't see "strategic imperatives" in the statement shown above. Moreover, IMF repeatedly said that those policies would help the economies of East Asian countries. It is fairly certain (even IMF has accepted) that many recommendations were wrongheaded to say the least. They surely did not improve financial stability or promote high employment. It is difficult to argue that poverty has been reduced when there are food-riots in your country.

somnath wrote: 1. The Chinese objections to the AP loan is in ADB, not IMF - IMF does not do project financing..

Yes. I said that "Repayment of loans is not a huge factor at all." It is true for many financial institutions (IMF, ADB, World Bank, ...).

somnath wrote: 2. All so-called "bailouts" are always to "banks"...after all, when a sovereign has been "profligate", it has borrowed that money from some financial institution, right? So when it is being "bailed out", what is meant is that its lenders are repaid,...

But if a bad decision was made then both the lender and borrower should pay the price. After all, the lender too made the wrong decision to enter the game. I wonder why the rules of capitalism are suspended for American banks.

^^^I dont think anyone is naive enought to think any multilateral organsiations is saintly exemplar of virtue...In fact no organsiation can be...Naivete cannot be a post facto excuse...And I dont think anyone's made an defence of IMF here, certainly not me..In any case, the discussion on IMF is moot - its relevance for India (or much of Asia) is is quite small today, and in fact its moving the other way in any case...

abhishek_sharma wrote:But if a bad decision was made then both the lender and borrower should pay the price. After all, the lender too made the wrong decision to enter the game. I wonder why the rules of capitalism are suspended for American banks

Not "just" American banks..European banks too...The reason is that they have been the biggest creditors to the defaulting sovereigns - whether Latam or East Asia or PIIGS today...Its a moral hazard issue...In an ideal world, senior unsecured bond-holders should take the hit, at least some of it....But large scale failure of banks can wreck the economic systems - we saw what happened when one (relatviely) small bank - Lehman - was allowed to fail...So its a tough call to make for any government/regulator...dont think any Asian govt/regulator would behave differently when faced with the saem situation, ceteris paribus...The solution is in better regulation and capital norms..Its already underway - things like COCOs, enhanced Basel III capital norms, restrictions on tradng activities...But I guess OT here...

RajeshA wrote:There are many colors of Pan-Islamism. Not every color has to do with Al Qaeda

Perhaps...But there isnt any evidence that Indian muslims, post independence have sought a "pan islamic" bloc for themselves....Not in a substantial manner or form in any case...Certainly not in terms of market access/economy...

Of course, we can always have pop-sociology dovetail into pop-statistics and declared 33.3% of IMs are like that, just as it was grandly announced that 50% of bangladeshis (oops, no 2/3rd, corrected later!) are jihadis

somnath wrote:^^^I dont think anyone is naive enought to think any multilateral organsiations is saintly exemplar of virtue...In fact no organsiation can be...Naivete cannot be a post facto excuse...And I dont think anyone's made an defence of IMF here, certainly not me...

I am glad you are not defending IMF here. There was a discussion on IMF's policies (and US sponsored globalization) here in response to devesh's posts.

abhishek_sharma wrote:I am glad you are not defending IMF here. There was a discussion on IMF's policies (and US sponsored globalization) here in response to devesh's posts

Well, Devesh's point was different, ie, there is a US-sponsored conspiracy on to destroy India's economy, and IMF is a tool to do that...Anyways, doesnt seem like it was a thought-out hypothesis...

BTW, discussing the future role of IMF can be an independent topic of discussion...Maybe in the "global economy" thread - its a fascinating case study...

brihaspati wrote:Rajesh A ji,
as for continued and post-independence "overlap" or confusion over identities of IM, and their potential future trend, the Barelvi illuminati could be a starting point to explore. They have a vague reputation for being less-pan-Islamic than the Deobandis, and supposedly championing an "autonomous Indian Islam". The leading light to study would be the statements about future strategic directions by Sayyid Abu'l-Hasan Ali Nadwi. Significantly he is from Rae Baraeli.

As late as the 70's Nadwi had most interesting statements to make about Arabic, Arabism, and the ideological position of IM with respect to those two items. What he writes or talks about should dispel any doubts as to continuing confusion which is very much there. Moreover, it may actually point to the role of theocracy and theocratic institutions and networks in operating under this cover of confusion.

brihaspati garu,

I looked up Sayyid Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi on Wikipedia. He is categorized there as Deobandi even as his place of birth is given as Rae Barelly. There was a list of his works, but not much written about his views. He is considered a "scholar of Arabic" and wrote mostly in Arabic.

somnath wrote:

AKalam wrote:The US at the end of world war II had a fairly egalitarian society with a far more equitable distribution of wealth. War torn Europe, helped by the Marshall plan rebuilt in the image of the US, with strong labor unions. Many European countries, specially in Nordic areas, today have stronger middle class, better labor union participation in management, higher tax bracket for the rich, govt. run health care, almost free education etc. while the US has declined in all these areas, in the name of privatization and small govt. Thankfully with the recent attacks on the govt. workers collective bargaining rights, there is a rising tide of general public mood that the Republicans and their corporate masters have over reached. How well it turns into a movement to remove this unhealthy influence of corporate and financial sectors in both political parties, is still too early to tell, but by 2012 election, we may have some good idea.

Briefly, the US does not need to have a plan to destroy India, but if the players that destroyed US middle class and in turn its future prospect as a great power, are given a free run in the Indian space, where the check and balances and civil society is much weaker than in the US, then it is not impossible that they will wreak havoc

Akalam-ji, not sure whether globalisation of international finance is the right topic on this thread, but quite frankly some of the axioms regarding the US are overstated..Why? Because it is the US, the totem pole for most things in life...

One, the kind of high tax, cradle-to-grave welfare states that Europe has engendered has actually made most European countries sclerotic and incapable to pulling themselves up for the new millennium...Barrign Germany, every single Western European state is in trouble..

Two, the whole pitch of US "inequality" is grossly overstated..US has a Gini of ~45, China's is 41...Not much different, right? Now compare US percapita income (45000 dollars) and Chinese PCI (4000 dollars) - the avg John Doe is better off where? Even in terms of median income, the avg John Doe in the US is better off compared to his counterpart in most West European countries...

Anyhow, not sure how the whole narrative is relavant for a grand American plan to destroy India - in case financial globalisation was part of the scheme, well, if anything it has backfired on the US more than anyone else!

Somnath ji, I clearly stated that I do not believe that there is any such plan:

US may not have been hostile to India, but from reading various posters here, one would get the impression that the US have hurt Indian interest in many of its dealings in the neighborhood. Many here probably think that the US has deliberate neo-colonial design against India, but they border on conspiracy theory IMVHO, as US is not a person or a monolith, the democracy in the US has an army of competing groups vying for their own dominance in policy matters, including foreign policy, while EJ's blaze their own path following their more extreme religious views. A more plausible explanation is that the US has not been mindful of Indian sensibilities and interest, while pursuing its own interest in India's neighborhood.

My point was that Financial sector is not enjoying a star status in the US at the moment and one should be wary of this entire class of people who pose as Financial experts and then go in for the kill, at the expense of whole countries and their population. More details on Nordic Model:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
http://jotman.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-n ... ating.html

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=UN_DEN

Clicking on 2009 down arrow to sort the table shows that the Nordic countries are at the top in Trade Union Density.

I am no economist or finance major, just a curious layman, professional economists on BRF can elaborate more.

What I understand is that these countries are investing on their people (education, training, health, welfare, labor union rights etc.) and as a result the economies are performing better than other countries where the investment on people is lower.

^^^AKalam-ji,

On the nordic model, it is a good case study..Unfortunately, the nordic experience with cradle-to-grave welfare state with high taxes and high HDI is based on a number of factors very very peculiar to the nordic countries..In most ways not really replicable, not even in most countries of Western Europe...Its a good topic for discussion, but would be way OT for this thread...

If I may, it might be more useful to expand on the concept Indian work permit for BD workers that I wrote about earlier...Looking across South Asia, one of the distinguishing features of the politiccal landscape is the fact that keeping aside Pakistan, most cuontries are seeing a near unprecedented amount of political "peace", and also an unprecedented amount of "ease" with India...Bangladesh is seeing a very new dimension to its often frought relations with India... Sri Lanka, coming out of its bruising war with LTTE, is poised for greater things and clearly wants India to facilitate that...the new Maldivian President has less hang-ups and is a far more pragmatic person...Bhutan is seeing one of the most peaceful transitions from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy - with the guiding hand of India...One can cavil over the situation in Nepal, but the scenario is surely many times better than what was there with the erstwhile Royals playing malicious Indo-china games all the time...There is a large constitutency of "pragmatic India supporters" now in the ruling dispensation...

All of which makes it possible for India to strike out a new deal for the entire subcontinent, excluding Pakistan....I would take SAFTA as a start...Extend SAFTA to cover services, and then further ahead to include free mobility of labour across borders...On the latter, India already has similar arrangements with Nepal and Bhutan...Socially, a Nepal-type arrangment will be difficult to replicate, especially given the situation with BD and India's NE, but a workl permit based system can work...It will reduce incentives for illegal immigration, raise the stakes for all govts to crack down on it, and enable better monitoring...Along with a "freer" movement of labour, a Comprehensive Economic Architecture can encompass a pan-South Asia trasnport grid that facilitates free movement of goods across borders...

At some stage, the entire architecture can morph into a Common South Asian (ex-Pak) market..With India implementing GST (hopefully) in a year's time, it is less implausible than before....

For India, the immediate benefit will be a rapid integration of NE with India's mainland..and also reduce costs for Indian manufacturering sector in localised areas where labour costs are spiralling because of general prosperity and schemes like NREGA...For the rest of SA, it will mean a rapid integration of SA with the India growth story...A large market of 1.4-1.5 billion people, powered by Indian capital and entrepreneurship - A South Asian Common Market can be a stunning success equal to the rise of India...

At som stage, the economic bloc can give rise to its own security architectures...Barring a few remaining enclaves with BD (which India and BD are in the process of cleaning up), there are really no major territorial issues that India has with any of its neighbours (save Pak of course)....while most countries see India as an overbearing "big brother", China would be an even bigger brother with less benign intent - BD is already realising that or all its past rhetoric on "trade imbalance" with India, the same with China is far larger! A NATO-type architecture would be a far cry, not possible...But a cooperative arrangement of using each other's facilities, training (India already does a lot of that), a collaboative approach to border policing - all of this can happen....

By getting South Asia firmly in an Indian "spehere of influence", India can project power elsewhere a lot more confidently...And the nice thing is, circumstances have never been as propitious as they are today!

As usual, "bold and brave" liers who cover their own lies by blaming others' lack of "comprehension" also try to put words in others' mouths! I guess sole monopolists of Queen's English comprehension are defining new syntactical rules that define "pro-die-hard-Islamism" and "not-pro-die-hard-Islamism" as "Jihadist" and "not-Jihadist" respectively. It shows that even in uber-pseudo-secularists - deep inside, "Islamism"=="Jihad", but which by their fundamentally deceptive character they never acknowledge formally.

This is not surprising for me, since usually uber-pseudo-secularists typically are aligned to the Congress-Left ideological position. My proposition has long been that this Centre-Left position essentially hides a deep hatred of the "Muslim".

The discussion about 50-50 split was elaborated a long time ago in a discussion between Akalam bhai and me, and was based on electoral tendencies as well as an analysis of forces during the '71 war. Only the supremely naive or supremely malicious would project specific formal cultural events and take them out of their context to get a "pop-sicular" estimate of ideological inclinations in the population. Cultural focus in official functions or multi-country joint events change colour with regimes and governments in BD. Ignoring that long term well-established feature is unpardonable.

RajeshA wrote:

brihaspati wrote:Rajesh A ji,
as for continued and post-independence "overlap" or confusion over identities of IM, and their potential future trend, the Barelvi illuminati could be a starting point to explore. They have a vague reputation for being less-pan-Islamic than the Deobandis, and supposedly championing an "autonomous Indian Islam". The leading light to study would be the statements about future strategic directions by Sayyid Abu'l-Hasan Ali Nadwi. Significantly he is from Rae Baraeli.

As late as the 70's Nadwi had most interesting statements to make about Arabic, Arabism, and the ideological position of IM with respect to those two items. What he writes or talks about should dispel any doubts as to continuing confusion which is very much there. Moreover, it may actually point to the role of theocracy and theocratic institutions and networks in operating under this cover of confusion.

brihaspati garu,

I looked up Sayyid Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi on Wikipedia. He is categorized there as Deobandi even as his place of birth is given as Rae Barelly. There was a list of his works, but not much written about his views. He is considered a "scholar of Arabic" and wrote mostly in Arabic.

RajeshA ji,

No, he is in the Barelvi tradition. His family history is also firmly connected to that thread. I am waiting for more unresearched bombastic claims on the erasure and non-existence of pan-Islamism in post independence India. More abusive hyper-ventilation that shows complete lack of knowledge on topics, covered for by supreme arrogance and ridicule of others - is highly entertaining!

Its amusing to see pop-sociology dovetail into pop-statistics...Electoral tendencies in BD reveal a 50:50 split between die-hard Islamists and non-die-hard islamists!? And then 2/3:1/3! And "analysis of forces" as well! the same sort of analysis that gets currencies mixed up I guess!!! It would be interesting to note which "election" in BD can reveal any data like that, pre-71 or post, or for that matter definitions of "die hard islamists" and the difference between that and the jihadis, given the nature of elections there until recently...But of course, such analyses will be restricted to a closed group fo academics who would be loathe to revealing their identities!

It is the formal military violent stage or section within die-hard-Islamism that is termed Jihadi. Indonesian Islamism would be considered die-hard Islamism because of the tendency to strict imposition of sharia within the Muslim community, but they do not take to violent military jihad on non-Muslims at a society-wide level.

As for exchange rate baskets - as with sterling balances - it is difficult to carry on any academic discussion when the person on the other side constantly shifts goal-posts, never concretely spells out what he means -s o that he can claim later that "I never said that said..." type of sliminess. When asked for doing calculations on their own, such people cannot do them. When asked to produce original documents that spell out actual terms and conditions of international financial agreements they cannot produce them or do not even know about them. They make one statement at the beginning - like "anytime you can go and encash a cheque for XXX billions to a country's national bank" and then when shown the reality of such agreements have the gumption of passing it off - "oh - any such statement of encashing cheques actually mean those concrete conditions which do not mean any such actual encashing of cheques..." and even use that to ridicule.

Those who cannot reproduce claimed methods applied to arrive at conclusions on their own, cannot run the estimation process on exchange data for the period concerned, those who do not have access to data and original documents, are usually deemed academically incompetent and dishonest if they try to ridicule others based on such flimsy foundations. What is the point wasting time on such "bold and brave liers"? How do you discuss anything with someone who always says he never meant what he meant ? Rabindra-sangeet predominating in a joint function with India is not proof of "pop-sicular" estimation of relative strengths but electoral results based guesses are "pop-sicular"? Almost complete delusion and megalo-mania can be the only explanation!

Reverting to the concept of the South Asian Common Market, some baby stpes have already been taken....

The South Asia University is a great concept IMO...I hope they manage to get it off the ground quickly....India is the civilisational and intellectual nerve centre of South Asia, and nothing better than having a South Asia Uni, focussing on the liberal arts to start working on a compelling narrative...

I wish they finalise the RTA/FTAs with Sri Lanka and BD quickly as well...At times, the devil of Idnia's bureauscracy scuttlees political objectives...In this issue at least, we need a "Gujral approach" - give a bit more away than we get to finanlise the deal..Wih India's size, we will always get a bigger share of the incremental pie...

If formal media or cultural events representation is a good indicator religious and ideological trends within the population - then it should be studied based on a much larger sample than one particula event. Long running serials on BD channels, plays, musical events should be better indicators because they are not necessarily focused on an international audience or audiences that need to be carefully manipulated for projected image out of strategic considerations. What is the portrayal of religious institutions, mullahs, Islamic icons and memes, vis a vis non-Muslims in such cultural material meant for domestic consumption?

That would be highly revealing - if cultural projection for estimates has to be anything more serious!

Somnath ji, we do not need a South Asia University. We already have too many "south asian" orgs, pseudo-intellectuals etc running around.

I can't understand why we have to indulge in appeasing BD or any other Muslim country/ bloc. Look at China and how they treat their Muslims. Still China is feared and respected in the Muslim world.

It is all "might is right"

Akalam bhai,
What is your projection for the the next round of elections in BD? What do you think will happen to the relative representation of the two sides? The opposition has already targeted every move seen by them as selling off the sovereignty of BD to India. You are surely aware of the division of votes in the last elections too, as well as the recent local-body elections. What in your assessment will be the possible reflections in foreign policy if and when there is a regime change?

Moreover, anyone has direct contacts with Nepal, here? Can you project what is your assessment of the general "aam aadmi" attitude towards India, at the moment? As well as future trends? I have asked several people to provide some inputs - who are based away from Kathmandu. Will report when I get them.

Advait wrote:Somnath ji, we do not need a South Asia University. We already have too many "south asian" orgs, pseudo-intellectuals etc running around.

I can't understand why we have to indulge in appeasing BD or any other Muslim country/ bloc. Look at China and how they treat their Muslims. Still China is feared and respected in the Muslim world.

It is all "might is right"

There have always been segregationist forces in the Indian Subcontinent, who have been whispering in the ears of Muslims they are a separate nation.

If one retreats from asserting our claims on the others in the Subcontinent of having a common past, and having shared interests, one would be leaving the field open for the segregationists.

China has simply imposed its military diktat on the neighboring peoples - Muslim or otherwise. If we are not willing to do that, or not capable of doing that, whatever may be the case, then one needs to keep on asserting the shared historical and strategic commons through all means possible, all means which do not go contrary to our strategic interests.

At the same time one should keep gathering national strength, both economic, military, cultural, so that the others in the neighborhood have to accept one's domination!

One cannot adopt a single-dimensional strategy. Ideology only tells us what our goals ought to be, but one also needs strategy to get there, and the strategic path could leave the road of ideological purity every now and then. I don't want to belittle ideological purity. It is important to defend one's own rank and file, but expansionary urges requires one puts on an extra thinking cap!

somnath wrote:

Advait wrote:Somnath ji, we do not need a South Asia University. We already have too many "south asian" orgs, pseudo-intellectuals etc running around.

I can't understand why we have to indulge in appeasing BD or any other Muslim country/ bloc. Look at China and how they treat their Muslims. Still China is feared and respected in the Muslim world.

It is all "might is right"

Advait-ji, seems that the concept of "soft power" has completely passed you by! A South Asia Uni will be part of an effort of reiterate the fact that every single dimension of "South Asian" civilisational heritage - music, arts, poetry, languages - is an Indian legacy...And the current Indian nation state is the inheritor of that legacy...It will only strengthen our efforts to consolidate South Asia under an Indian sphere of influence....

there is no kowtowing, only a sophisiticated assertion of our influence...A bit like the circus that goes on around urdu...A lot of people in India, of a particular ideology, proclaim urdu to be a "foreign, muslim" language..And then go on to make ridiculous attmpts to "cleanse" their hindi of its influences - the result is a sort of orotund hindi that no one understands or speaks..And there are people, including some in BR, who are proud of that! Stupidity at best, philistinism at worst..If urdu is a "foreign" language, do we give up our claims on the legacy of ghalib, faiz, zauq, firaq, josh, dayashankar, rs bedi? And give it up to the Pakis?

Unfortunately such blinkered viewpoints, coming out of half-baked knowledge lead to sub-optimal, sometimes obverse outcomes....

China isnt a relevant example in this matter - it isnt a multi-religious society like us, and above all it isnt a democracy - but the extent of efforts that China puts in around the world to highlight the Chinese legacy is stupendous..So do we, in a number of "pvt sector" ways....South Asia uni is only a small "public" step in that direction...A small stone in the grand edifice of a South Asian common market and security architecture...A series of such steps - FTA/RTAs, common security understandings etc will lead up to the destination model............

SomnathJi,
I beleive u have Nalanda 2.0 in ur mind...but from a practical POV how much difference a university can make? what is the objective of the university? to churn out graduates who will go back to the own countries and act as the agents of the SAU? do graduates will have enough influences in their respective societies?what will be acceptable gestation period?and the most important what will be the acceptable motivational factors to drive students int he university?Certainly arts/humanities/Marxism is not enough...will the techical graduates be allowed to work in the Indian industries and will that be acceptable to Indian jobseekers?

The idea of a "South Asian University" is a good idea actually. Depends on what will be taught there in the humanities side! Since SAU did not contain the word technical or science, it has to include humanities too as uni!

Now what will be taught there as history/civilization/culture/language of the "South Asia"? Let me start with just one small observations : here is a conference announcement from UC Irvine -http://www.humanities.uci.edu/arthistor ... mcultures/

This interdisciplinary conference highlights the social, economic, literary, and artistic/architectural transitions taking place in Indo-Muslim cultural centers during the 18th and 19th centuries. This post-Mughal period of consolidation of colonial power in South Asia has traditionally been considered a time of decline in centers of Indo-Muslim or Indo-Persian culture such as Hyderabad and Lucknow, as historical patterns of patronage were displaced by the formation of new social and economic elites. Rather than considering these later developments to be pallid reflections of the high Mughal period (late 16th-17th centuries), our collective project treats them as creative and ongoing transformations. The inheritors of Indo-Muslim cultures actively interpreted and negotiated with the new forces of colonialism and modernity, transforming older cultural forms. The junior and senior scholars participating in the event concentrate on 18th- and 19th-century literature, history, art and architectural traditions and other cultural productions both at Indo-Persian cultural centers and in their hinterlands. Panels on Indo-Persian authors and their oeuvres will emphasize the central place Indo-Muslim Hyderabad, Delhi, and Lucknow held in the Persianate world of the 18th and 19th centuries. Other panels will treat the cultural and economic connections such centers maintained with other locales on pan-Indic and global scales.

What should be most interesting is the repeated use of "Indo-Islamic", "Indo-Persian", and the supposed vitality and transformation even in the post "high-Mughal" south-Asia. There is still the use of the term "Indo-Saracenic" architecture etc. So what is consciously contrasted is that "Indo" is somehow different from "Muslim" or "Persian". Similar terms are used in other areas of history/sociology as Indo-Arabic etc. If India is a "fusion" of Muslim/Persian/Arabic in culture/language/civilization - why the need to separate those components out from "Indo"?

Is it because "Hindus/Buddhists/Sikhs" are reluctant to accept those components? Is it because underlying there is a perception, and the need to perceive the distinction that "Muslim" means, "Persian" means, "Arabic" means - strictly separate from "Indo" - emphasizing their non-Indo roots? Is the fusion deliberately sabotaged conceptually because Muslim/Persian/Arabic must be seen as distinct to maintain their separate identities - but the Indo is fused in connection with India to show one way traffic from those others into "Indo"? why is not "Indo-Persian"discussed in connection with Persian or Arabic civilization on their home grounds? No Indian contribution there?

The world is so black and white whenever it is convenient to paint so! So now there is one single universal "Hindi", no dialect differences from region to region and social class to social class. No difference between urban "Hindi" where Muslim power centres existed like Lucknow "khaas jabaan" and the "Hindi" of the UP Hindu peasant! Nothing should be said about the insistence on using "paani" and never "jala" by the overwhelming majority of Muslims even when they are speaking a non-Persian/non Arabic dialect shared by non-Muslims of their region. Bengali or "Banglaa" should be a pre-eminent example! So "purification" tendencies in an Indic language should be condmened, dropping of words from languages which themselves do not acknowledge Indic languages - has to be condemned. But lips kept shut about the persistent similar tendencies from the other side. Thats weher uber-pseudo-secularist deception leads to!

Well, Devesh's point was different, ie, there is a US-sponsored conspiracy on to destroy India's economy, and IMF is a tool to do that...Anyways, doesnt seem like it was a thought-out hypothesis...

Somnath:

your naivete is astounding and amusing. when there is a conspiracy, the details or the objectives are not openly declared. the idea is that a few established powers come together to form organizations through which they can enforce their dictates and augment their power. it is as simple as this.

there is reams of research done which has proven that IMF funding for nations is based heavily on the interests of the Western nations. go to any database like JSTOR and search for IMF. you will see paper after paper, published in reputed journals and reports, most of which conclude by saying that geopolitical interests of the "advanced/developed" nations are the most important factors which determine IMF activities.

the world bank is no different. it is headed by the elite establishment members of US. if you look at World Bank's leadership, you will see that these guys have interests and "footprints" all over the place. one of the recent heads of WB was and is presently associated with CIC, the chinese sovereign wealth fund. on a side note, it is interesting that a former head of WB becomes adviser for CIC and then CIC decides to invest in American financial sector, even after the financial ponzi scheme starts unraveling. and we're supposed to believe that there is a huge US-China rivalry going on right now....

former members of CFR and other US imperial establishment, billionaire financiers or their cronies, ex-US-servicemen turned politicans/diplomats/businessmen; it is these people who form the rank and file of Western-led multilateral organizations. to conclude that these people serve the interests of their own countries is not wild delusional fantasy. it is the logical conclusion.

as to how India fits in the plans of these multilateral organizations (euphemism for American imperialism), their goal is simple. to neuter India by slowly diluting away her sovereignty.

and Somnath, i would request you to search out some research on IMF/WB and see how the interests of US and US-led nations are the motivating force behind these organizations. i will not do your work for you and post links and references. you can do it by yourself.

devesh wrote: when there is a conspiracy, the details or the objectives are not openly declared. the idea is that a few established powers come together to form organizations through which they can enforce their dictates and augment their power. it is as simple as this.

there is reams of research done which has proven that IMF funding for nations is based heavily on the interests of the Western nations. go to any database like JSTOR and search for IMF. you will see paper after paper, published in reputed journals and reports, most of which conclude by saying that geopolitical interests of the "advanced/developed" nations are the most important factors which determine IMF activities.

By now you should have learned to answer such questions where CT is used liberally the purpose is to mainly to discredit the poster than to understand the topic.

US has done complicated policy and maneuver to hide its policy on India. Pakistan is the main tool using which they have planned to change India for over 40 years now. South Asia studies in the various universities is an extensive program which is done to attract Indians and mold them for US world view. Sanctions against India and US media supporting Kashmir and Pak support for atleast 40 years has been successful. LeT training in early 80s and continued support for these outfits to raise money in US for the last 20 years is the most glaring examples. Only recently after 911 and after several years their support base in US has been banned.
Last week one Indian was showing me all the Khalistan supporters and the business they are doing openly in the US. I asked him if this is allowed and he said nobody minds this in the US.

Its somewhat unrelated to this topic, but since IMF has been invoked so many times, an interesting development..

The new IMF policy paper on capital flows management
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sur ... 40511B.htm

Interestingly,

This latest research is part of work begun over a year ago, and now endorsed by the IMF’s Executive Board, to develop a pragmatic, experience-based approach to help countries manage large capital inflows. Until last year, capital controls were not seen as part of the policy toolkit, now they are.

Seems that contrary to the fears of our resident nationalists, it is the IMF "washington consensus" that is being "destroyed" by (among others) Indian experience!

the studies referenced in the report are very good - merits reading in full...OT..

Serendipity maybe, but an eminently readable article on India quest for foreign (American) aid....

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/embar ... s/774384/0

Enormously hilarious - those were the (bad old) days!

The Aid India Consortium (sometime down the line it became a "connsortium, from a "club) continued till the early '90s...And then, India became a net creditor to the world....To think that there are conspiracies now that we are being subject to

--

devesh wrote: when there is a conspiracy, the details or the objectives are not openly declared. the idea is that a few established powers come together to form organizations through which they can enforce their dictates and augment their power. it is as simple as this.

there is reams of research done which has proven that IMF funding for nations is based heavily on the interests of the Western nations.

All kinds of names will be thrown at you like -'uber nationlsists' 'CTs' and what not.
But continue to view the world from Indian interest point of view and bring in the point which will help Indians and expose which have ulterior motives

Acharyaji - names and colorful descriptions become necessary to fluff up posts that do not have much information, or to bolster a fundamentally weak argument.

For example:

"shiv is an old man"

versus

"shiv is a doddering old fossil whose grey cells have been replaced by grey hair, where hair still occurs"

somnath wrote:The Indo-Japan equation is the least-talked of, but perhaps the most crucial one in Asia in the coming decades...India offers Japan almost everything that it lacks - a large and growing market, a young population to market the newest gizmos, a hungry infrastruture, a fabulously attractive market to invest in (for financial investors), and a military that is capable of expanding its horizons right up to the China sea - a true counterweight to China...Japan, on the other hand, offers India a similar bouquet of complementarities - a large savings pool hungry for investment, an ultra sophisiticated engg and R&D base and above all, no historical baggage........

For a Japan that is both weary and wary of China, and an India that is increasingly wary of the dragon, a strategic alliance makes perfect sense...We have seen bits of that durign the Tsunami relief ops - when India, Japan, Oz and US navies worked in tandem, and pointedly refused China's entry in the group...

China has a large trade with Japan, so its going to remain complicated..But the hstorical/civilisational baggage and current geopolitics will dictate a gradual hardening of an alliance...

No wonder, the Japanese are keen to host Nirupama Rao for the next steps in dialogue despite the Fukushima and tsunami aftermath..
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 900080.cms

Some more serendipity today - C Raja Mohan on the emerging India-US-Japan axis!
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india ... s/773615/0

somnath wrote: BTW, the concept of an "idea", or ideology influencing foreign policy, its all bunkum..The French have had cozy relationships with generations of African despots, even Gaddafi was feted a couple of years ago in Paris..US of course has a long history of bedding some of the nastiest characters around the world....

As a concept, the 'idea of India' goes way beyond the realm of foreign policy. As India increasingly competes with the US and China in superpower sweepstakes - a key differentiator for India will be its 'soft power' and the values that go along with the India 'brand'. Whether the US actually implements its supposed championing of democracy and 'individual rights' overseas or not ( and not too many folks are naive enough to believe that they actually do so in every case) is irrelevent - the fact is that the constant pairing of America with these concepts through the media achieves its purpose. The dominant perception about the United States is that it has amongst the best internal democratic and 'individual rights' credentials.

Being upfront about one's value systems is also about creating a culture that believes in the country's exceptionalism - the founding fathers of America imprinted in the minds of the American public that they were the new world and bastions of concepts such as democracy and individual liberty. This in turn reinforced the perception among Americans that their nation was 'exceptional' and in turn encouraged the setting up of institutions in all spheres - academia, science, business that were setup with the purpose of being the best in their field globally.

In foreign policy, it is not important that the values enunciated be applied in each and every case - in other words, India would - just like the US- apply these values when it suits her, ie when there are no other geostrategic considerations that take precedence. But what is important is that the world be AWARE of these concepts and values as central Indic tenets that Indian citizens deeply care for.

And what are these key values that are rooted in the Indian ethos & civilization -

1) Reverence for knowledge and truth ( follows from the Indian motto 'Satyameva Jayate'...The world knows India as being extremely competitive academically and this will reinforce the Indian 'education' and 'knowledge economy' brand. )

2) Creation of wealth opportunities for all (India is one civilization, like the Chinese - that literally worships wealth & success ! This is a key distinction from either Western or Islamic cultures )

3) Emphasis on individual pluralism and active stance against religious dogma (This is literally the most important Indic concept that is 100% unique to India and in some sense is India's duty to evangelize this concept in the world stage)

somnath wrote: Well, I havent read Makhanlal Chaturvedi, but if you read what this personwrote in Kafan or Godaan or Shatranj ke khiladi, you will realise too which version of hindi I am talking about...And this person was known to be writing in the "common man's" language...

I like the books written by him.

somnath wrote: But really, you miss the point...there is a certain syntax that is widely used in the language - the institution that perhaps captures it "best" from a popular perspective is Bollywood,

That would be very sad indeed. Bollywood is for entertainment. The syntax/style used there should not determine the trajectory of language.

somnath wrote: In everyday syntax, do you use the word "paani", or do you use "jal"?

In villages, the word "jal" is often used. In some parts of Bihar, the word "jalpaan" is used for breakfast. So both words are used.

It is ganga-jal, not ganga-paani.

somnath wrote: Do you use the word "chaand" or do you use "chandra"?

What is the Hindi word for lunar eclipse? chandra-grahan (not chaand-grahan).

You will find the word chandramukhi here.

What is the Hindi word for sunflower? Suryamukhi.

The word Charanamrit is often used.

Of course, chaand, suraj and paani are also used. No doubt about it.

somnath wrote: Do you say "zameen" or do you use "dharti"?

Actually, both zameen and dharti are movies. However, they are used in different ways. For example, people say "dharti gol hai" (The earth is round.) We don't say "zameen gol hai".

somnath wrote: And that is precsely what is so strange about the DD News effort as well..It reaches (or used to) out to an audience that largely talks "zameen", but would insist on using "dharti"...

The word "dharti" is used often is movies. There is a song: "Dharti Kyun Vipreet Huyi".

For example, in today's newspaper the word "dharti" is in editorial (shown below). I think DD News uses a type of Hindi which is very similar to what you see below. (And I am glad it is very different from "Sheila ki jawani" and "Munni badnaam hui".)

Mods please make this language issue stop on this thread. It belongs somewhere else, maybe in the GDF section.

My two bits on this:
In the present environment does anyone really believe that SAU will be anything other than a leftist, pseudo-secular bastion where Indic history will be denigrated and Invaders glorified. Even pre-Invader history will be all about how evil Brahms destroyed Buddhism etc.
And don't tell me history is not going to be a major aspect. What else would "shared heritage studies" mean. If you really want our neighbors to study here then simply issue more visas and encourage our private colleges to market themselves in those countries. Btw, already a lot of Nepali students are in India.

When students from our neighboring countries live and study with Indians in normal colleges only then there will be real foundation for understanding each other. Not one SAU where those students will be placed in an ivory tower.

Advait wrote:Mods please make this language issue stop on this thread. It belongs somewhere else, maybe in the GDF section.

My two bits on this:
In the present environment does anyone really believe that SAU will be anything other than a leftist, pseudo-secular bastion where Indic history will be denigrated and Invaders glorified. Even pre-Invader history will be all about how evil Brahms destroyed Buddhism etc.
And don't tell me history is not going to be a major aspect. What else would "shared heritage studies" mean. If you really want our neighbors to study here then simply issue more visas and encourage our private colleges to market themselves in those countries. Btw, already a lot of Nepali students are in India.

When students from our neighboring countries live and study with Indians in normal colleges only then there will be real foundation for understanding each other. Not one SAU where those students will be placed in an ivory tower.

Advait-ji, wont get into the syllabi etc - its not even "out", so no point commenting presumptively..

About the raison de etre of SAU, I said before that students from all over the developing world have been coming to DU to study (btw, not just "nepalis" a lot of them are actually from NE)..But an elite SAU with inter-disciplinary courses will set the benchmark very high..From what one has heard, they are setting the benchmarks really high...

And yes, it is meant to be "elite" - better to mould the decision-makers of tomorrow than a bunch of hoi pollois...Just as large corporations "handcuff" students from the IITs and not the Latur Institutes of Tech, or from the IIMS and not the IIPMs More seriously, only in elite schools will we, given limited resources, be able to do full justice to the objectives..

Anyways, it is only a small part of the larger South Asia Common market idea..

An amazing article, and from the unlikeliest of sources!-

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.a ... e=04/06/11

'Italian by birth and Catholic by baptism'

John Maclithon

I was surprised when the Congress party gave me a Padma Shri — I am the only foreign journalist to ever get it. For, in my 40 years of political reporting in India, I have always been a vocal critic of the Nehru dynasty. Someone recently even called me "a vitriolic British journalist, who in his old age chose to live back in the land he never approved".
It started with Operation Blue Star. I was one of the few western correspondents who criticised Indira. As I have said since then, the attack on the Golden Temple and the atrocities that followed produced in all Sikhs a sense of outrage that is hard today to alleviate. I believed then that the large majority of Hindu India, even if politically hostile to Indira Gandhi, openly identified with — and exulted in — her will to overwhelmingly humble a recalcitrant minority.
Indira Gandhi helped my fame grow by wanting to imprison me during the Emergency. She threw me out of India for a short while, but the result was that most of India tuned in to my radio's broadcasts, The Voice of India to hear what they thought was 'accurate' coverage of events.
When Rajiv Gandhi came to power, I believed he was sincerely trying to change the political system, but he quickly gave up when the old guard would not budge. I criticised his foolish adventure in Sri Lanka, although I felt sorry for him when he was assassinated.
It is in Kashmir, though, that I fought most viciously against Rajiv and subsequent Congress governments for their human right abuses on the Kashmiri Muslims of the Valley. I was the first one to point out then that the Indian government had at that time no proof of Pakistani involvement in the freedom movement in Kashmir. Thus, I always made it a point to start my broadcasts by proclaiming that "the Indian government accuses Pakistan of fostering terrorism", or that "elections are being held in Indian-controlled Kashmir…"
Other foreign journalists used the same parlance to cover Kashmir and they always spoke of the plight of the Muslims, never of the 4,00,000 Hindus, who after all were chased out of their ancestral land by sheer terror (I also kept mum about it).
As for Sonia Gandhi, I did not mind her, when she was Rajiv Gandhi's wife, but after his death, I watched with dismay as she started stamping her authority on the Congress, which made me say in a series of broadcasts on the Nehru dynasty: "It's sad that the Indian National Congress should be completely dependent on one family; the total surrender of a national party to one person is deplorable. You have to ask the question: what claims does Sonia Gandhi have to justify her candidature for prime ministership? Running a country is far more complicated than running a company. Apprenticeship is required in any profession - more so in politics". I heard that Sonia Gandhi was unhappy about this broadcast.
After then president Abdul Kalam told her that she had kept both her Italian and Indian passports for a long time, and which disqualified her from becoming the prime minister of India, she nevertheless became the supreme leader of India behind the scenes. It is then that I exclaimed: "The moribund and leaderless Congress party has latched on to Sonia Gandhi, who is Italian by birth and Roman Catholic by baptism." She never forgave me for that.
Today, I can say without the shadow of a doubt, that when history will be written, the period over which she presided, both over the Congress and India, will be seen as an era of darkness, of immense corruption, and of a democracy verging towards autocracy, if not disguised dictatorship, in the hands of a single person, a non-Indian and a Christian like me. Truth will also come out about her being the main recipient for kickbacks from Bofors to 2G, which she uses to buy votes, as the WikiLeaks have just shown.
Finally, I am sometimes flabbergasted at the fact that Indians -Hindus, sorry, as most of this country's intelligentsia is Hindu - seem to love me so much, considering that in my heydays, I considerably ran down the 850 million Hindus of this country, one billion worldwide.
I have repented today: I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride, "Yes, our civilisation has a Hindu base to it." The genius of Hinduism, the very reason it has survived so long, is that it does not stand up and fight. It changes and adapts and modernises and absorbs - that is the scientific and proper way of going about it. I believe that Hinduism may actually prove to be the religion of this millennium, because it can adapt itself to change.

Somnath you said - "I said before that students from all over the developing world have been coming to DU to study (btw, not just "nepalis" a lot of them are actually from NE)."

Do not make assumptions about me or make me out to be some kind of ignorant, racist guy. Cause that's what your remark implies. I have interacted with Nepali students who studied all over India.

It's clear that your mind is set on SAU, but your attitude leaves room for improvement.

Arjun wrote:But in order to really project Indian 'soft power' it is key that the students be taught the importance of the central tenets of Indic ethos I have outlined earlier, so they understand how Indic civilization (of which they are a part of) has evolved a unique and in some respects a superior world-view in comparison with other competing civilizations

Its a uni, not a primary school, so it will be difficult to "teach" subjects that may not be "in demand" with the larger student community...The demand for any course in a uni is dependent on how well the same is structured and taught...A well structured and above all, taught sociology course would have a great demand in a group of students reading to get a degree in, say, engineering...And courses in comparative religions, ideologies etc, well structured can also be a draw..(In the school I went to, an elective course on comparative leaderships through history used to be a big draw - among a bunch of students majoring in Finance)...However, for SAU to be a viable uni, it needs to focus on technical areas - sciences, engg, economics, business - that is what will attract the cream of the student population...It will be difficlut to scale up with an only-humanities objective - it will become JNU ver II! (thankfully thats not on the agenda)...

But this is only a small building block really, but one that has big potential IMO...

Expanding first on the economic dimension of the South Asian Common Market - here is a good exhaustive study on the impact of SAFTA on the whole of the region...Now, in our model, the Pak-specific variables need to be weeded out - but for now this should suffice..

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUT ... pter16.pdf

India benefits disproportionately across all variables - exports, economic growth and general welfare...A suitably packaged aid-cum-investment programme by India to all the other nations would mitigate the above impact....And create favourable business constituencies for us....

Advait wrote:Do not make assumptions about me or make me out to be some kind of ignorant, racist guy. Cause that's what your remark implies. I have interacted with Nepali students who studied all over India

Advait-ji, no assumption of "racism"...I am a DU alum, and confusing Nepalis for guys from NE is a common error a lot of students make - nothing racist about it...BTW, the number of Nepalis in DU (at least in my time) was quite small, the proportion of Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis and Africans was more - at least in the faculties/departments that I frequented!

Devesh-ji, you are just hand waiving again..I had asked you some fairly simple questions earlier in order to structure the discussion (and your responses), but you havent chosen to reply...I would ask again (similar questions, different context):

1. Which policies of IMF (and WB) do you think are geared towards "destroying" India's economy?
2. Which of the above policies have been adopted by India?
3. What have been the deleterious impact of those policies on the Indian economy?

the discussion is not about IMF's policies towards Latam, Africa, earth and the universe (we can have that in a different thread)- its about its policies towards India, and how they are a tool of the "no debates" US policy to "destroy India"..

And yes, I am not asking you do any "research" on IMF/WB for me - I deal with implications of some of the policy implications of IMF prescriptions on a daily basis..I am only asking you to make your point, given your wide research on these institutions with some references/facts....

Somnath:

1. the very fact that IMF/WB are based on US led interests means that they work for the neutering and dilution of India.
2. India has not adopted the "cool" policies of the West hook, line, and sinker. and it should remain that way.
3. the deleterious impact of opening up our banking sector to international ponzi financiers is that we would have had a financial meltdown of our own in 2008. it will also institutionalize the concept of booms and busts.

also, Somnath, you should perhaps do more research on how exactly Urdu was forced upon Indians. in the former Nizam state, Urdu was forced on Telugu speaking people. if you wanted a job in govt, you had to know Urdu, or you weren't given one. at a time when the govt was the only game in town in Telangana area, this was direct oppression by Nizams. the Nizam officials in charge of implementing Urdu as official language used to ridicule Telugu as "Telangi Bedhangi."

if that is what you meant by "the rich history of Urdu," then yes, you are right.

devesh wrote:1. the very fact that IMF/WB are based on US led interests means that they work for the neutering and dilution of India.
2. India has not adopted the "cool" policies of the West hook, line, and sinker. and it should remain that way.
3. the deleterious impact of opening up our banking sector to international ponzi financiers is that we would have had a financial meltdown of our own in 2008. it will also institutionalize the concept of booms and busts.

???

1. By that logic, Microsoft is an American-owned company, so is Coca Cola, so is GE and about 1000 others working in India...So all of them would be working to "destroy" India?!!!Maybe we should drive all of them away?

2. Which "cool" policies are you referring to? Financial liberalisation?

3. If we didnt do #2 above, how come we had a "meltdown" of our own? Arent you contradicting yourself? BTW, there is a huge confusion among some in the nuclear thread on what is a meltdown, what is your definintion of "financial meltdown"? And what examples of that did you see in India? Banks going belly up, having to be rescued, large debtors defaulting - can you be a little more specific?

About urdu, didnt know that Nizams of hyd had suzerainty over the language....Given the great nationalist assertion - "urdu is a foreign/muslim language", well what can one say, beyond the fact that you are welcome to your POV! There isnt any data-based analysis possible (unlike assertions of islamism/jehadism %s in BD - where pop-stats can be used )...

But many people in India would be loathe to give up a heritage that has been enriched by the likes of Ghalib, Zauq, Dayashankar, Firaq, RS Bedi (and of course Munshi Premchand) and give it up to the Pakis....I would belong to that camp - and side firmly with the likes of Ashok Chakradhar and Prasoon Joshi and millions of others who speak a delightful hindi that is the lingua franca on the streets of northern india....DD News and the sanskritisation crowd can do all that they want - people will speak the language they are comfortable in! If TRPs of DD News (v/s say, Star News) is taken as an indication or the circulation of Ashok Chakradhar v/s any modern "sanskritiser", whoever he might be, people are already doing that

somnath wrote:

Arjun wrote:But in order to really project Indian 'soft power' it is key that the students be taught the importance of the central tenets of Indic ethos I have outlined earlier, so they understand how Indic civilization (of which they are a part of) has evolved a unique and in some respects a superior world-view in comparison with other competing civilizations

Its a uni, not a primary school, so it will be difficult to "teach" subjects that may not be "in demand" with the larger student community...The demand for any course in a uni is dependent on how well the same is structured and taught...A well structured and above all, taught sociology course would have a great demand in a group of students reading to get a degree in, say, engineering...And courses in comparative religions, ideologies etc, well structured can also be a draw..(In the school I went to, an elective course on comparative leaderships through history used to be a big draw - among a bunch of students majoring in Finance)...However, for SAU to be a viable uni, it needs to focus on technical areas - sciences, engg, economics, business - that is what will attract the cream of the student population...It will be difficlut to scale up with an only-humanities objective - it will become JNU ver II! (thankfully thats not on the agenda)...

Well, the SAU website talks of sociology as a course from the second year...Sociology and any humanities courses can have the slant that I have mentioned.

Irrespective, if the point of SAU is just to provide hard courses such as sciences, engineering, economics or business - it would not really be a 'game changer'. It would just be another good idea but not really consequential in the long-term !

The big issue in South Asia / Indian subcontinent is the mindset change that needs to occur in large parts of the population. There are significant parts of the subcontinent that worship Saraswati & Lakshmi and all that they stand for, and genuinely believe all paths to God to be equally valid. There is also a section of non-Hindu subcontinentals that follow similar progressive ideals - but one would be blind not to see that there are large parts of the subcontinent that need to be TAUGHT these basics. Without addressing this fundamental issue - not really sure how the SAU is a game-changer !