Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

[ShauryaT]

Would you be able to state your view?

I agree the confusion has stemmed in, due to a variety of factors and will not go into them here.

By no means is the view I offer an all encompassing one for Dharma and neither do I claim it is entirely authoritative but I am not very intelligent either, so I will try . FWIW: The Dharma we ought to be concerned with in context can be classified into four. One is Swa Dharma - which is largely adherence to our lakshanas or value systems. Values that one strives to live by at a personal level. We have many texts that describe it and the number varies, I choose to go by what exists in the Manu Smriti to anchor the concept of values.

Next is Varna Dharma - which largely relates to our Dharma in context of society. A famous quote of the BG, describes it as a division into four classes based on works and the nature of these works. If well regulated, these divisions can be used well, to regulate knowledge, wealth and power for the larger good of society at large. A division that the west continues to struggle with and democracy and the welfare state being its latest avatar.

The next in line would be our duties that dominate through the major stages of our life, again sub classified into four stages or Ashramas. These duties seek to fulfill our obligations to our relationships both close and far one's, with its focus changing as we progress through the stages of life with a focus on acquisition in the first half and renunciations in the second half of one's life.

Last but not the least is Brahman or Universal Dharma, which asks us to connect with our spiritual selfs and to look within to find answers on what our dharmas should be based on high principles of Truth, Natural Order of things and a spirit of Sacrifice/Daan/Yagnya.

Following the rules of dharma - (A new dharma shastra is in order), in pursuit of the four PuruSharthas (Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha) would be a life lived as per Dharma. Dharma would be a framework of obligations, and when some of these obligations are unfulfilled, they may invite the wrath of the state to protect the vulnerable. I recognize each of the above concepts needs elaboration, modernization, maybe even new structures to allow them to be used and be fit for a changed world, where life spans, health, attitudes, tools and ways of living are all changed - especially in context of the era of nation-states. However its goals, objective, values and principles would be decidedly based on our evolution of our society and this evolution includes our interactions and learnings from other civilizations.

PS: I recognize the difficulty of it all, for we face it at a personal level every day, where Western mores are constantly fighting with the Indian one, especially for folks such as myself, who live in the western world. The difficulty to express, articulate, practice and propagate these concepts within India is not lost on anyone and this hollowness is well reflected in the "Hindutva/Secular" debates popular within the polity in India.

[Shanmukh]

The only universal values I know are don't kill, don't tell lies, don't cheat, look after your family, be kind, be generous, be charitable, be faithful to your spouse.

Shiv Saar-I believe the ISIS would like to have a word with you about your universal values

[A_Gupta]

I think people may understand better about the WU thread with an analogy.

Pakistan thinks it is the tekedaar of Islam. We all understand how stupid that is.

The West thinks it is the tekedaar of Civilization. We all (not) understand how stupid that is.

[Pulikeshi]

I doubt if you have any opinions that you can put down firmly as your own original opinion rather than waiting to question what someone else says. That is all I see from you. If I am wrong on that count please oblige me and say something that makes sense to you that is not a question posed as a reaction to a post made by someone.

Shiv,

What you are asking of me requires a tome, and it is hard to translate that into succinct posts that are clearly presented.
So I plan to make a couple of posts to explain my point of view…
Also, I want to thank you for challenging the blind worshippers of WU, all I am pointing out is we ourselves are still stuck in it!
Therefore for the most part, my opinions are similar to yours, A_Gupta's, Shaurya's and a few others on this thread.

However, where I differ perhaps and I have to clarify the definitions of the terms I use to avoid confusion.
First, convention - a way in which something is usually done, especially within a particular area or activity.
Second is, declaration - a formal or explicit statement or announcement. Notice the first is tied to (convention)
action (Karma) and the second is more about a (declaration) fact or a belief, usually the latter.
Finally, I will not translate Sanskrit words such as Dharma, Karma, Artha, etc.

Let us take an example declaration – “The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West” If you try to dispute this declaration in
polite company, you will be met with a lot of ridicule. However, on closer observation, the Sun only rise due East and sets due
West on two days – the spring and fall equinoxes. Whereas on most days the Sun (irritatingly so) rises North or South of “due East”
and sets North or South of “due West.”

The West by and large is a declaration based society, due to their origins in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. That is, since the
religions of the triad were themselves declarative, the consequent secular beliefs are declarative as well. The declarative approach is very
much like the "The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West" idea, however it gets worse, if such an idea is shoved down the throat of
others as in they need 'saving' to ensure said declarations hold. Here, they commit the classic mistake of - it held good for us, and must
hold true for all others - therefore declaring an Universal claim. With declarative approach at worse one faces inquisitions or jihad, and
at best coercion and digestion. Declarations hold accountable ones beliefs not necessarily ones actions - this is a key difference.
Hence we see - Millennium declaration, Human Rights declaration, Hippocratic Oath, Constitution of most countries, etc.
You can only agree with the beliefs in these declarations or not!

Let us take another example – “The Pandit always places flowers on the idols before doing Aarathi to the idol, then he distributes Prasad
and Tirtha.” If you dare ask the Pandit why he is doing it this way, chances are you will be told, it has been done so since eternity.
Similarly, if you ask a cobbler why he makes this particular type of stitch for the shoes or sandals he makes, he will most likely answer
that this was the case since eternity. The bronze idol makers will use a coconut leaf to measure out the body parts of Nataraja, to make
the lost wax molds, but it is done by convention irrespective of the size of the idol, there are ratios to follow - for moderns think about
how to organize your organizations - no manuals, no documentation, everything works on convention. No one can show any declaration
as to why it is this way, but everyone’s actions by and large is by convention.
Convention by and large dictates the actions not beliefs of most individuals in the Indian sub-continent.

The East, especially Indian-subcontinent (not just India the country), is therefore by and large run by conventions. These conventions
are Jati and Varna based and even those co-opted into secular English edumacated frameworks still suffer from their native affliction.
This is not to say there are no declarations – the Sruthi and Smrithi are declarations, but by and large the masses live not by these
declarations, in their daily lives they live their life based on past and current examples of the following of conventions.
The challenge comes when you take a conventions based society that has guided Karma of individuals and then convert them into a
declarations framework and question their convention and ask them to declare their beliefs. Most are ill equipped to do that...
You say Religion, they say Hinduism, you say Human Rights and they say but all living things have rights - but where is it so declared?
What follows is a confusion on both sides of the divide - this then is definition and articulation of a problem.

More later…

[Gus]

Shiv Saar-I believe the ISIS would like to have a word with you about your universal values

Saar islamists also have such universal values. The only problem is it applies to only their universe (specifically only their sect) and everybody else needs to join or be dhimmi or die. In some ways, they actually make this clear instead of the WU BS...

[shiv]

The West by and large is a declaration based society, due to their origins in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. That is, since the
religions of the triad were themselves declarative, the consequent secular beliefs are declarative as well. The declarative approach is very
much like the "The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West" idea, however it gets worse, if such an idea is shoved down the throat of
others as in they need 'saving' to ensure said declarations hold. Here, they commit the classic mistake of - it held good for us, and must
hold true for all others - therefore declaring an Universal claim. With declarative approach at worse one faces inquisitions or jihad, and
at best coercion and digestion. Declarations hold accountable ones beliefs not necessarily ones actions - this is a key difference.
Hence we see - Millennium declaration, Human Rights declaration, Hippocratic Oath, Constitution of most countries, etc.
You can only agree with the beliefs in these declarations or not!

Let us take another example – “The Pandit always places flowers on the idols before doing Aarathi to the idol, then he distributes Prasad
and Tirtha.” If you dare ask the Pandit why he is doing it this way, chances are you will be told, it has been done so since eternity.
Similarly, if you ask a cobbler why he makes this particular type of stitch for the shoes or sandals he makes, he will most likely answer
that this was the case since eternity. The bronze idol makers will use a coconut leaf to measure out the body parts of Nataraja, to make
the lost wax molds, but it is done by convention irrespective of the size of the idol, there are ratios to follow - for moderns think about
how to organize your organizations - no manuals, no documentation, everything works on convention. No one can show any declaration
as to why it is this way, but everyone’s actions by and large is by convention.
Convention by and large dictates the actions not beliefs of most individuals in the Indian sub-continent.

The East, especially Indian-subcontinent (not just India the country), is therefore by and large run by conventions. These conventions
are Jati and Varna based and even those co-opted into secular English edumacated frameworks still suffer from their native affliction.
This is not to say there are no declarations – the Sruthi and Smrithi are declarations, but by and large the masses live not by these
declarations, in their daily lives they live their life based on past and current examples of the following of conventions.
The challenge comes when you take a conventions based society that has guided Karma of individuals and then convert them into a
declarations framework and question their convention and ask them to declare their beliefs. Most are ill equipped to do that...
You say Religion, they say Hinduism, you say Human Rights and they say but all living things have rights - but where is it so declared?
What follows is a confusion on both sides of the divide - this then is definition and articulation of a problem.

More later…

Pulikeshi thanks for taking the time to put this down.

I was actually approaching the issue from a completely different direction. A child in a Hindu family in India is told to do certain things, told that he must live his life in a certain way. Much of this is convention as you say. But children are taught what is right and what is wrong using examples from stories. They are taught convention but not all of it is blind. I do admit much of it is totally blind, but justifications are given for right and wrong. Whether those justifications are themselves right or wrong is a different issue.

What this has resulted in is an Indian society that is remarkably consistent in its memes and behaviour. Migration to the west has not (yet) changed this much. The basic requirements of living one's life in order to maintain social cohesion are already there in every family. But we do not declare it or say it out loud simply because these conventions are taken for granted. We speak only when convention is broke. Angst about western universalism occurs when convention is broken.

I have been probing BRF with "what is dharma" for a few years now. On and off. I did a BRF word search for dharma and I get no straight answers. All I am asking is "What would a parent tell his/her child about the Hindu way of life and what dharma means"

Somehow, for me, personally, unread in the Vedas or Upanishads, dharma was simple until I started reading BRF and Google. No one seems to have a clue about how dharma can be explained to a child who does his education in English.

Dharma for a simpleton is a way of life that maintains harmony. The world according to Hindu dharma is a mixture of good and bad, happiness and sorrow, pain and pleasure - all of which come in equal measures. Excess of anything goes against nature. Balance and harmony are desirable. All life is sacred. The earth and every living being on it are connected together. Plants and animals aid man, and therefore man too must aid plants and animals. A Tiger kills because killing is its dharma. In the case of a tiger killing is not adharma. Wanton and needless killing over and beyond what might be essential for fulfilling one's life's obligations is adharma. So what are one's life's obligations? When one is young one must study and play and exercise. One must respect one's teachers and elders. One must be truthful and one must learn to control excess anger, passion, pride or greed. One must learn compassion for the weak and for animals. When one is older it is essential to marry. One must have children and bring upo those childrens. Life's duties involve performing sacred functions, cleanliness, sincere work, care for one's spouse, care of children, their education, caring for one's parents and elders - and so on it goes.

All this is convention. Why must one do all this?

This is where Hindu dharma becomes article of faith like any other religion. If you can believe what Jesus or Mohammad said, you are required to believe that these things are right to maintain harmony in society.

It is a totally different matter if someone asks for proof that all these acts actually maintain harmony and help society in every way. One can ask questions like you did, "If Hindus are supposed to have compassion for the poor how come India has the maximum number of poor? "If cleanliness is so important for Hindus how come Indi ahas so much filth?"

Can you or anyone else answer this question?

Particularly, can I ask if India's filth and poverty are because of loss of dharma? In other words, if people had been dharmic, would there have been no poverty and filth in India?

I would request people to actually apply their minds to this question. Since this is not a test where i ask questions and then provide correct answers while dissing wrong ones I will say that in my view India's filth and poverty have no connection with dharma or lack of dharma. Dharma demands acts from every Hindu whether he is rich or poor. If he is starving and sick, he may not be able to do his duty and he needs help and compassion. When the numbers of people who need help and compassion far exceed the ability of society to provide help you get gross poverty and filth.

I believe that educated Indians have a curious problem that stems from western style education. They believe that western values lead to lack of filth and poverty. They do not want to believe the reasons for India's overwhelming poverty and filth. Anyone who begins to explain is dismissed as a person making excuses. And beyond this is mockery of dharma. This is a mind that is so full of western universalism that there is no argument. No cure. A concerned Indian can only shake his head in sorrow and move on. It is a time for India and Indians to be dissed and mocked. Often by our own.

I believe that our educated people are illiterate. Many are too proud of their own knowledge and success to admit this. They are illiterate of dharma and they are illiterate of the science that goes into the causes of poverty and degradation in India. They are following a cargo cult (as Arun Gupta pointed out) . They believe that if India sort of behaves like a western nation, or if Indians had started behaving in that way, poverty and filth could have been avoided.

I think India should not give up its convention. But I think Indians can try and educate themselves about poverty and filth. Connecting it with too much dharma or lack of dharma are wrong. Dharma is an article of faith for us and we simply must have faith. But dharma did not cause poverty and filth and will not cure it.

[shiv]

The only universal values I know are don't kill, don't tell lies, don't cheat, look after your family, be kind, be generous, be charitable, be faithful to your spouse.

Shiv Saar-I believe the ISIS would like to have a word with you about your universal values

Actually they have the same universal values, but they will kill you because you don't follow their God. Killing of te enemies of god is allowed. The only thing going for Hindu moral values is that they are not an imposition in the name of God. They are values. Not laws that come with a threat of punishment. That is what allows debate about situations in which one moral value comes in conflict with another - like soldier killing.

In iIlam you can kill non Muslims. The dead man is always a non Muslim which is why god had him killed. There is denial that Muslims kill Muslims.

[ShauryaT]

The challenge comes when you take a conventions based society that has guided Karma of individuals and then convert them into a
declarations framework and question their convention and ask them to declare their beliefs. Most are ill equipped to do that...
You say Religion, they say Hinduism, you say Human Rights and they say but all living things have rights - but where is it so declared?
What follows is a confusion on both sides of the divide - this then is definition and articulation of a problem.

I do not disagree with the issue you have presented but it was not that our land was always a convention based society only. Our Dharma shastras are declarative. The issue was the effectiveness of our shastras would rise and fall with the corresponding rise and fall of kingdoms and empires that enforced them. With the rise of a united state, there is scope to have such an enforceable declarative framework again. But, I do agree that our convention based society will find the transition difficult and there would be internal resistance to such an attempt.

[member_22733]

Popping back from lurk mode to post this gem:
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/ ... qI.twitter

When Indian-born scholars such as Gayatri Spivak or Homi Bhabha—drawing from the ideas of the late Edward Said—talk about the ‘postcolonial’ position, they seem to emphasise the ‘post’, when it’s still questionable whether we have actually gone past. Indeed, colonialism is like a zombie to the Diaspora—not alive but not dead either. Like the undead, it keeps coming back because we keep denying it exists. When I speak to young Indian-Americans about colonialism, I often feel that we’re having a conversation inside a barn surrounded by zombies. We know the undead are all around us, yet we seem to ignore or downplay their presence (cue your favourite horror movie).

Within India, the denialism seems to be much stronger because independent India was tethered to the British colonial era. Many of India’s leading nationalists were either Macaulayites or devotees of Harold Laski, the British political mind whose ideas of secularism were digested in full by leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon (though Laski himself was a proud Zionist). As a result, India’s intellectual development was monopolised from the very beginning by those who, unwittingly or not, embraced the Macaulay idea of ‘persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’. Indeed, the independence movement thinkers rejected British rule but sought to mimic British views and society-building paradigms. Concepts of secularism and religion, sex and sexuality, and even caste and class, were driven almost exclusively by the colonial narrative.

The article goes on to the heart of the issue:

One of the most devastating consequences of colonialism is India’s collective failure to tangibly understand its impact, and how virtually every aspect of society has been impacted to the core by the colonial era. Indian bureaucracy, jurisprudence, and its magnificent— and often decaying—physical structures are all vestiges of the colonial mastery over natives. Ironically, the nearly three centuries of sustained colonialism— whether done indirectly through British, Portuguese or French trade administrators or directly through each country’s rule—was not syncretic. Colonial administrators might have borrowed ideas or tried to placate communal disputes, but there was never a semblance of discourse or equal exchange of ideas. Colonial frameworks were imposed upon Indians.

In many ways, Indians became what Frantz Fanon described of the plight of the natives in France’s African colonies in the 1960s: perpetually inferior and unable to break away from the psychological bondage of the mandate of French superiority. It’s what many scholars later termed ‘internal inferiorisation’. Indians were educated in missionary schools, socialised under norms that the British—and, to much lesser, localised degrees, the French and Portuguese—reified through laws of that era. Even India’s history, one that is being debated by what Guha calls ‘captive ideologues’, was written primarily by the British or those schooled by them. The study of Hinduism was defined by missionary frameworks. This isn’t to discount the Orientalist perspective as a legitimate view, but it’s also ludicrous to downplay the influence such a perspective has had in shaping how Indians understand Hinduism which got conflated with caste and ritualism—two things that Indian independence leaders wanted nothing to do with.

I never imagined Ramachandra Guha and Shiv Vishwanathan had a grasp on these things, no matter how faint. There is some hope.

There is more

The British imposed a sustained campaign of psychological violence matched only by the pilfering of the Subcontinent’s natural resources and cultural wealth, and they exacerbated—and in some cases helped create—the communal tensions that have played a significant role in the country’s social and political narrative over the past 60-plus years. Even India’s controversial laws, such as its archaic ban on homosexuality, are relics of that colonial past.

THE MODERN AESTHETIC

Perhaps the most troubling impact of colonialism’s zombie-like presence is that India’s post-Independence race to modernity has been shackled by a regressive discourse that frames the West as an ideal to mimic. This is the modern aesthetic—a binary in which mimicking Western patterns of consumption is somehow tantamount to progress. Indeed, the ideological battles over ‘Westernisation’, and the frequently moronic comments from Indian politicians about its evils, actually divert attention from a larger issue: the inherent belief of Indians that modernisation and traditionalism are inextricably intertwined with the East-West dichotomy. Such a belief premises progress upon the notion of conspicuous consumption being the great liberator. By this logic, wearing short-shorts or dancing to Pharrell’s Happy is somehow progressive, as opposed to substantive efforts like an intellectual deconstruction of Kabir or the eco-feminism of Vandana Shiva.

Please read the whole article. Its a gem and keeper.

One main point of disagreement with the author is the approach that "We need not be angry at the turds who colonized us". I disagree with that. The anger is justified. That anger is the first step to accept what we lost: a large chunk of our civilizational continuity, which is now replaced by a jigsaw of rituals, customs, laws and belief all in extreme disharmony. The anger is also the first step in ganing a resolve to redeem our history, and to extract the true cost of colonization from the genocidal colonizers in their current form. It may take 50 years to get there, or it may take 500 years, but we must not forgive and more importantly we must not forget.

[A_Gupta]

LokeshC, good one.

[A_Gupta]

Yet that limited knowledge of local conditions has rarely stopped administrations from intervening if they believe American national security or vital interests are at stake. Instead, policymakers since World War II have assumed that American values are universal, and that all people desire to have the same political structures and institutions that exist in the United States. Moreover, they believe that World War II demonstrated that American power is benign and that people in other countries understand that and welcome U.S. assistance and guidance. It follows that those who oppose the United States only have malevolent intent and must be resisted or defeated.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... z3AmZxrPWw

[A_Gupta]

Particularly, can I ask if India's filth and poverty are because of loss of dharma? In other words, if people had been dharmic, would there have been no poverty and filth in India?

I would request people to actually apply their minds to this question. Since this is not a test where i ask questions and then provide correct answers while dissing wrong ones I will say that in my view India's filth and poverty have no connection with dharma or lack of dharma. Dharma demands acts from every Hindu whether he is rich or poor. If he is starving and sick, he may not be able to do his duty and he needs help and compassion. When the numbers of people who need help and compassion far exceed the ability of society to provide help you get gross poverty and filth.

It is my personal belief, that after several decades of one Victorian era famine after another, where millions died and all effort would seem to be futile, that Hindus lost their civic dharma -- their public spirit, so to speak. Overwhelmed, they, by and large, simply gave up. Maybe one day I will be able to demonstrate this.

As Modi said in one of his speeches after the BJP won the elections, Mahatma Gandhi's genius was that he was able to make people able to connect their ordinary everyday actions with a Great Cause - the fight for independence - and thus inspire them to wake up, to act. IMO, Modi correctly identified in that very speech, that that is what we need to do to get rid of poverty and filth.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/gora12.htm
Gora, an atheist, made this observation to Gandhi, which has left a deep impression on me ever since I first read.

"Now, you tell me, why do you want atheism?" Bapuji asked me in a calm and affectionate voice.

I was struck by the tone as well as by the nature of the question. It was not the usual question: What is atheism? or what is the use of atheism? Such questions call forth only academic answers. 'Why do you want atheism?' had something remarkably human and practical about it. It was Bapu-like. To my recollection, in all my numerous discussions on atheism, no one had put the question to me in that form. But, instead of taking me by surprise on account of its singularity, the question touched my heart and I poured out my heart.

I began: "I was in Calcutta last year. I saw the famine-stricken destitutes walking heavily on the pavements. Here and there some of them dropped dead in the streets. They died beside the marts and stalls which exhibited their sweets and fruits for sale. Suppose there was a hungry dog or a bull in the same situation. Would he die of hunger? No. Beat him, scold him, he would persist in his attempts to pounce upon the shop, somehow eat the sweets and fruits and satisfy his hunger. Why did not the destitute do the same? I do not think they were afraid of the policeman. The destitutes were there in hundreds and thousands. No concerted action was required of them. If a fraction of their number had fallen upon the shops, all the policemen in Calcutta put together could not have stopped them. Even confinement in a gaol with its poor diet would have been preferable to death due to starvation. Why, then, the destitutes did not feel desperate and loot the shops? Were all the destitutes abject cowards without exception? Or had all of them such a high sense of civic responsibility as to be unwilling to disturb law and order? No. They were all simple, normal folk with no knowledge of civic rights and duties. Had they known their civic rights and duties in the least, there would have been no Bengal famine at all.

"Looking at the other side, were all the shop-keepers so cruel as to allow their fellow-men to die of dire hunger before their own eyes? No. On the other hand they shed tears of pity and contributed liberally and ran the gruel kitchens for the destitutes. They recited hymns of ethics every day.

"If the destitute is not cowardly and if the shopman is not cruel, why did so many people die of hunger? I think the reason is their philosophy of life.

"Both the destitute and the shop-keeper are votaries of the same philosophy of life. Each one said to himself: 'It is my fate, that is his fate; God made me like this, God made him like that.' On account of the commonness of their philosophy, there was no change in their relationship, though some ate their fill and many starved to death. The destitute's faith in that philosophy made his behaviour different from the animals.

"What I have said with regard to the Bengal famine applies also to the relationship between the untouchables and the caste Hindus, between the dark-skinned and the white-skinned. The same philosophy rules all these relationships.

"What is the result of following that philosophy of life? Man has become worse than the animal. Instead of living well, he is dying ill. His strength to resist evil is very much weakened. The pleasures of the few are built upon the bones of the many. This is really the unhappy fact in spite of our moral professions and pious wishes for the happiness of all humanity. This philosophy of life based upon belief in God and fate -- this theistic philosophy -- I hold responsible for defeating our efforts at ethical life and idealism. It cannot securely preserve the balance of unequal social relations any longer, because the pains of the flesh have begun to revolt against that philosophy. Hate and war are already replacing love and peace.

Well, the bolded portion above is where we could begin a debate.

"I want atheism to make man self-confident and to establish social and economic equalities non-violently. Tell me, Bapu, where am I wrong?"

Bapuji listened to my long explanation patiently. Then he sat up in the bed and said slowly, "Yes, I see an ideal in your talk. I can neither say that my theism is right nor your atheism is wrong. We are seekers after truth. We change whenever we find ourselves in the wrong. I changed like that many times in my life. I see you are a worker. You are not a fanatic. You will change whenever you find yourself in the wrong. There is no harm as long as you are not fanatical. Whether you are in the right or I am in the right, results will prove. Then I may go your way or you may come my way; or both of us may go a third way. So go ahead with your work. I will help you, though your method is against mine."

I felt overwhelmed by his magnanimity. I requested, "You are encouraging me, Bapu. I want to be warned of the possible pitfalls in my way, so that I may benefit by your wisdom and experience and minimize my mistakes."

Bapuji replied, "It is not a mistake to commit a mistake, for no one commits a mistake knowing it to be one. But it is a mistake not to correct the mistake after knowing it to be one. If you are afraid of committing a mistake, you are afraid of doing anything at all. You will correct your mistakes whenever you find them."

The bolded section is what India needs in huge and overwhelming quantity and quality. The attitude Gandhiji displays here is highly anti-ideological. To me this is the practical attitude that makes dharma a meaningful concept.

[Pulikeshi]

^^ Never afraid to be wrong, but never in doubt of the goal

Thanks for sharing as always... this thread has a lot of good nuggets.... much water has passed since the last religious debates on BRF.
I just realized it was seven years ago

[shiv]

LokeshC, Arun Gupta, thought provoking posts that I will return to later. Right now let me post thoughts that were earlier provoked and placed in the fridge.

Pulikeshi's description of Indian and western societies as convention based and declarative respectively is an interesting classification.

In fact my thoughts went on to another classification of western and Indian societies made earlier - "resource rich" and "resource poor". This latter classification does not good enough. In fact even in resource rich or resource adequate societies you can have "acquisitive" and "non-acquistive" people.

Hindu dharma has, in keeping with its exhortation that a balance must be maintained without excess of anything has created a class of "non-acquisitive" people. People who have the means to own a lot more material things but deliberately stop at what is just necessary for them. Being non acquisitive means owning only 5 shirts when you can afford 15.

I have such people in my family and acquaintance group. All are not poor. Most are not very rich, but can afford a lot more but do not wish to acquire more. But their presence can be seen in other, more indirect ways. If you look at all the progress India has made in terms of literacy, public health, agriculture, manufacturing or technology you find that the core group of people who have been working have received salaries that amount to less than a tenth of what a similar worker might have earned abroad. This has not prevented them from simply carrying on and doing what they needed to do, satisfying themselves with what they have rather than what they could get. Among such people you will find many who have had job offers abroad or even the chance to emigrate. While many do leave there has always been a core group of Indians who are quite happy to work in India for the amount they get. There are few words to describe such people , "undemanding", "not ambitious", "loser", "underpaid" etc. In fact none of these may be perfect. They all follow a non acquisitive lifestyle where the demand they place on society gives them just enough to live and perform their duties to family and society.

Very often exclamations of how poor people are fail to take into account the Hindu tendency to be non acquisitive. This is not to say that there is less poverty than the figures show. "Poverty" becomes more visible because people who can afford more live modest non acquisitive lives. If you leave out heavy jewellery or silk sarees worn at functions, India has no formal dress code to differentiate wealthy from poor. Size of paunch and jewellery were better indicators of wealth and status than attire - and that too for people who can read such nuances.

The point I am trying to make here is that Hindu society has encouraged a voluntary code of avoidance of excess consumption, excess ownership of "things" and vivid displays of personal wealth. This is not renunciation. Renunciation is totally different. This is simply lack of consumption over and beyond what is adequate. This may not be the best thing for consumer demand, but it is also not true to say that "If everyone could afford XYZ, everyone would go for it. It is only poverty that stops them." That observation is wrong for a visible segment of Indian society.

In fact this reflects in the savings figures of Indians - I think Indians tend to put away a lot more in banks (also gold and real estate) rather than spend it all. I am no economist but this actually gives the GoI a lot more money in banks to play with. The government in turn has been fairly generous in the returns people get for long term savings - but I digress.

[RamaY]

the Sruthi and Smrithi are declarations...

I doubt this is a valid statement! Otherwise good points Pulikesi garu.

BTW, LokeshC & A_Guptajis thanks for those posts...

Instead of living well, he is dying ill. His strength to resist evil is very much weakened.

a western mind. One's inability to live well need not be someone else's evil. The Whiteman is trying to blame the native businessmen for the famine while not even mentioning the real manufacturers of the famine, the Whiteman-creed.

[member_23692]

It is a totally different matter if someone asks for proof that all these acts actually maintain harmony and help society in every way. One can ask questions like you did, "If Hindus are supposed to have compassion for the poor how come India has the maximum number of poor? "If cleanliness is so important for Hindus how come Indi ahas so much filth?"

Can you or anyone else answer this question?

Particularly, can I ask if India's filth and poverty are because of loss of dharma? In other words, if people had been dharmic, would there have been no poverty and filth in India?

I would request people to actually apply their minds to this question. Since this is not a test where i ask questions and then provide correct answers while dissing wrong ones I will say that in my view India's filth and poverty have no connection with dharma or lack of dharma. Dharma demands acts from every Hindu whether he is rich or poor. If he is starving and sick, he may not be able to do his duty and he needs help and compassion. When the numbers of people who need help and compassion far exceed the ability of society to provide help you get gross poverty and filth.

I believe that educated Indians have a curious problem that stems from western style education. They believe that western values lead to lack of filth and poverty. They do not want to believe the reasons for India's overwhelming poverty and filth. Anyone who begins to explain is dismissed as a person making excuses. And beyond this is mockery of dharma. This is a mind that is so full of western universalism that there is no argument. No cure. A concerned Indian can only shake his head in sorrow and move on. It is a time for India and Indians to be dissed and mocked. Often by our own.

I believe that our educated people are illiterate. Many are too proud of their own knowledge and success to admit this. They are illiterate of dharma and they are illiterate of the science that goes into the causes of poverty and degradation in India. They are following a cargo cult (as Arun Gupta pointed out) . They believe that if India sort of behaves like a western nation, or if Indians had started behaving in that way, poverty and filth could have been avoided.

I think India should not give up its convention. But I think Indians can try and educate themselves about poverty and filth. Connecting it with too much dharma or lack of dharma are wrong. Dharma is an article of faith for us and we simply must have faith. But dharma did not cause poverty and filth and will not cure it.

Ok, I will attempt to answer this question. And I vehemently disagree with you, but disagree agreeably. At the same time, you say in the above post that anyone who disagrees with you "is a mind full of western universalism" and that he is an "educated illiterate" and that person believes that "if India sort of behaves like a western nation............then filth could have been avoided". So, let me ask you this. Is there room to disagree with your proposition that filth and poverty have nothing to do with people acting in a dharmic way or not. You really are saying that filth and poverty are agnostic conditions that "just happened" and are not a manifestation of adharma practiced by Hindus. So, is there room to disagree with that at all, without being branded a "western universalist", by definition (as you define a person who disagrees with your proposition as a western universalist) or an "educated illiterate" ?

I personally dont much care what you brand me, but I just wanted to point out that when you make statements like that, you may not deter someone like me from disagreeing with you, but you may deter a lot of people, because it sounds like bullying, and quite early teenager style bullying at that.

In any case, let me answer the question this way. Let us turn your question around and ask it this way. If we acted in a more dharmic manner today, would we in pretty short order have less poverty and less filth ? Now, I invite you to answer that question. Again, it is not a trick question or I am not testing you either and then pull a right answer on you. Let me provide the answer as I see it. I think, of course, if we acted more Dharmic we will have less poverty and less filth. Even today, we are not a poor country. There is enough money to go around and there is tremendous, almost unlimited potential to generate more. Provided, provided what ? Provided that our society and our people become more dharmic, specifically more duty oriented and sacrifice oriented(only those who are able to perform their duties, I am not talking about those who are not able to), then we will be creating a society that is fairer, has more of a level playing field, more opportunities, and there will be automatically a fairer distribution of the wealth that we already have and then there will be very little poverty. So, in fact, it is a combination of Western universalist runaway capitalist system, combined with the old Soviet style licensing and apparatchik system, combined with an absolute mafia government which deliberately does not enforce the laws and which results in no law and order, which keep majority of our people down. That is what exists in our country today, a western universalist runaway capitalist system, combined with old Soviet style licensing and apparatchik system combined with the ruling mafia deliberately not maintaining law and order. All these are adharmas. You do away with these adharmas, and you do away with most of the poverty we have. So the ruling establishment and elites are absolutely, completely adharmic. Now let us come to the people. Of course, the ruling elite and the ruling mafia will be that way, as long as they can get away with it and no check is placed on them. Who will put a check on them ? The people. But are our people putting a check on any of these things ? Have they ? Most of our people even the ones who are not totally down and out (there is a good 50 plus percent of the population that is not poor and a good 30-35% of them are quite comfortable, who really have the money, time and leisure, not to mention opportunity) to do their duty and really, really put a check on the adharmic elite. Do they ? Of course not. Why not ? Well, many reasons. The most significant reason is that most of these people get bought off by dreams and aspirations for the next piece of land (no mater how much land they already have), next luxury car (no matter how many cars they already have), next woman (these days, in case of women, the next man conquest), shopping in malls, vacations abroad and yes, using their money to lord over those below them, rather than pulling them up. Is this not adharmic behaviour ? You dont think that if this adharmic behaviour stops and instead, these people who can do their duty and here I say again, only those in India who can perform their duty today, you dont think we can virtually eliminate poverty. By eliminating poverty I am not saying, we all will be rich or even very well off, but we all will have enough to live in basic dignity.

Now talking about filth. There is absolutely no question in my mind that there is enough money in India today to keep it clean. It is not lack of money or helplessness that keeps us filthy and unclean. It is absolutely our collective adharmic actions. All the filth that you see in public places or outside our homes or anywhere is nothing but an external manifestation of the filth inside of the collective us. We clean our insides, we will automatically have clean "outsides". We act more dharmic, we will be clean on the inside and there is no way in hell, if we are clean on the inside, that we can ever, ever be unclean on the outside. No, there is not too many people creating filth and not able to clean it. No, it is not the case, whether it comes to poverty or filth, that today in India we have an imbalance of people who need help and those who can provide the help. A good healthy majority in India, today can not only take care of themselves, but also can pick up the rest of those who are unable, they just have to act 20% more Dharmic, not much more. The filth is also not because as you have said in your other posts, that we have not been able to come up with a substitute for the caste system. There are enough professional companies today who can clean our public areas, given the right incentives and honest local governments and by honest, I mean not just not corrupt but also not blatantly and brazenly political when it comes to trash collection, allowing illegal encroachments and allowing animals to roam the streets. Again, manifestation of a mafia government, with no checks from the rest of the collective. Dharma is not just acting honestly in your job, it is actually also to perform your duty to not allow adharma to continue (we all know Geeta). If the mafia government exists, why are the people, yes yes, only those 50 plus percent, that are capable, why are they not doing Mahabharata against the evil ? Elementary, my dear Shiv. The rest of the people have become Shakunis too.

So, to conclude, no, there is no dearth of resources in India today, to either alleviate poverty or to keep us clean. It is all a manifestation of the filth inside of us. All the adharma inside of us.

Let me tell you, during the time of 1857 or the Third Battle of Panipat (all Muslims piled up on the Marathas by inviting Abdali) or even the independence movement, we were far poorer than what we are today. Much much poorer. But it was the poor mainly, and the middle class then that almost won the Battle of Panipat for the Marathas, almost won the 1857 gadar for the Hindustanis, and actually won independence from the British. You think a people who can accomplish those feats with so much less, cannot keep India clean today, with so much more, by way of materialistic wealth ? So, yes, to blame our poverty for our poverty and our filth on our poverty is an excuse.

AND NO, NEITHER YOU NOR ANYONE ELSE GETS TO CALL ME AN WESTERN UNIVERSALIST FOR SAYING WHAT I SAID IN THIS POST.

[shiv]

I think, of course, if we acted more Dharmic we will have less poverty and less filth.

Please expand on this. I don't know what dharmic activity will reduce poverty and filth in the timeframe that someone else sets.

The time frame is important.

If dharmic activity will remove poverty and filth among 1 billion Indians in 1 year - it would be magic..

If it could be done in 10 years it would be good.

I have already stated my view that poverty in particular is set to be with us for the next 50 years. That is my guesstimate. It also means that people will continue to mock and deride India and her dharma for the next 50 years.

Most people are unable to allow derision and mockery to flow over oneself like a water drop on a lotus leaf. They react and try and change (or duck or deny) if they are mocked. If dharma does not work and if dharma is mocked, it will be discarded.

[shiv]

I began: "I was in Calcutta last year. I saw the famine-stricken destitutes walking heavily on the pavements. Here and there some of them dropped dead in the streets. They died beside the marts and stalls which exhibited their sweets and fruits for sale. Suppose there was a hungry dog or a bull in the same situation. Would he die of hunger? No. Beat him, scold him, he would persist in his attempts to pounce upon the shop, somehow eat the sweets and fruits and satisfy his hunger. Why did not the destitute do the same? I do not think they were afraid of the policeman. The destitutes were there in hundreds and thousands. No concerted action was required of them. If a fraction of their number had fallen upon the shops, all the policemen in Calcutta put together could not have stopped them. Even confinement in a gaol with its poor diet would have been preferable to death due to starvation. Why, then, the destitutes did not feel desperate and loot the shops? Were all the destitutes abject cowards without exception? Or had all of them such a high sense of civic responsibility as to be unwilling to disturb law and order? No. They were all simple, normal folk with no knowledge of civic rights and duties. Had they known their civic rights and duties in the least, there would have been no Bengal famine at all.

"Looking at the other side, were all the shop-keepers so cruel as to allow their fellow-men to die of dire hunger before their own eyes? No. On the other hand they shed tears of pity and contributed liberally and ran the gruel kitchens for the destitutes. They recited hymns of ethics every day.

"If the destitute is not cowardly and if the shopman is not cruel, why did so many people die of hunger? I think the reason is their philosophy of life.

"Both the destitute and the shop-keeper are votaries of the same philosophy of life. Each one said to himself: 'It is my fate, that is his fate; God made me like this, God made him like that.' On account of the commonness of their philosophy, there was no change in their relationship, though some ate their fill and many starved to death. The destitute's faith in that philosophy made his behaviour different from the animals.

Well, the bolded portion above is where we could begin a debate.

I think this man's conclusion is questionable. I would not dismiss it as wrong unless I can provide some data, which I cannot. But I could speculate on at least one alternative explanation

If you look at Indian folklore there are plenty of references to famines caused by natural disasters. It is likely that every single village in India would have at least a few people who had seen a bad monsoon or some other catastrophe leading to famine at some time in their lives. Feeding the hungry is a recurrent theme in Indian tradition. I am simply speculating here that at times of famine people migrated to places where they could get some food aid. I know this to be true from an autobiographical account of disease and famine in the early 1900s written by my wife's grand uncle. In this day and age, food is transported to disaster areas - but this is dependent on surveillance, communication and transport. Before all this it was always migration.

Rural transport right up until the 1970s was predominantly by bullock cart. A family could travel to a village 20 km away in a day by bullock cart in case of famine, even if several people were too weak to walk. Famines would kill bullocks just as much as people. If bullocks died, or if distances exceeded 40 or 50 km the scale of disaster could be expected to rise exponentially.

The question is, does migration always work? A logical answer would be that if the scale of disaster can be matched by the availability and proximity of relief supplies, then migration will mitigate famine. I am certain that most Indian villagers would, in the remote past, have managed to mitigate their hunger by migration. And they would never have had to loot. The need for looting might never have cropped up in the historical memes of the starving migrants. It could have the absolute scale of disruption caused by the British market control that led to unprecedented scenes.

i don't know that i am right. I am just speculating on other rational causes rather blaming it in Hindu philosophy. After all why would these people migrate at all. They could have folded up and died in their villages if they were so hindu-philosophical. Why migrate and die. Accept your fate and die there and then, no?

Maybe this is an example of what Balu says is a western/Macaulayite interpretation of Hindu philosophy. Seeing India as a westerner does.

[shiv]

Please read the whole article. Its a gem and keeper.

One main point of disagreement with the author is the approach that "We need not be angry at the turds who colonized us". I disagree with that. The anger is justified. That anger is the first step to accept what we lost: a large chunk of our civilizational continuity, which is now replaced by a jigsaw of rituals, customs, laws and belief all in extreme disharmony. The anger is also the first step in ganing a resolve to redeem our history, and to extract the true cost of colonization from the genocidal colonizers in their current form. It may take 50 years to get there, or it may take 500 years, but we must not forgive and more importantly we must not forget.

Lokesh I agree with you. Anger is the first step before solutions. It is necessary to feel angry and speak out, rather than meek acceptance and rationalization that "This is our fate". In fact you have noticed how anyone who actually speaks out is instantly attacked with retorts that brand the person who speaks out angrily as "full of grievances" or is indulging in "bashing". As if grievances or anger are something to feel guilty about at the end of such a massive civilizational loss. We are more acceptable as people who simply sit back and take it. We are not to be angry or harbour grievances.

I find that anger has another positive side effect - it provokes contrarian viewpoints, which can then be examined for validity.

When I was thinking about this subject late last night, I realized that Islamist societies are dealing with western universalism in their own unique way. They have become so violent that the only people who will be left are people who have no option but to stay on, and who will buckle to stay alive but remain where they are. All traces of western universalism will vanish from these areas. We live in an interesting world.

[member_23692]

I think, of course, if we acted more Dharmic we will have less poverty and less filth.

Please expand on this. I don't know what dharmic activity will reduce poverty and filth in the timeframe that someone else sets.

The time frame is important.

If dharmic activity will remove poverty and filth among 1 billion Indians in 1 year - it would be magic..

If it could be done in 10 years it would be good.

I have already stated my view that poverty in particular is set to be with us for the next 50 years. That is my guesstimate. It also means that people will continue to mock and deride India and her dharma for the next 50 years.

Most people are unable to allow derision and mockery to flow over oneself like a water drop on a lotus leaf. They react and try and change (or duck or deny) if they are mocked. If dharma does not work and if dharma is mocked, it will be discarded.

Yes, great questions and a thoughtful observation. Time frame ? Since you asked, allow me to answer and I will answer it this way.

1. With all due respects, 50 year predictions ?? Really ?

2. Look, I thought about exactly the same point for a very very long time. Months, even years. What do we do to make our progress faster ? It is not an easy question. But one fine day, I woke up and got an epiphany. See, time frame really is not important, and, nor can anyone predict any time frame for anything. There are so many factors and variables. We can have a nuclear accident tomorrow. We can have a lunatic mullah in Paki just unleash the entire Paki arsenal on us. Even if something as cataclysmic does not occur, as we make progress, more subtle powers (you will love this, I mean the West), may just find ways, all kinds of ways, trade agreements, pressure, encircling us economically, deliberately manipulating the oil and energy markets...........there are so many imponderables.

3. So, what is important ? Important thing is that we follow Dharma, and become more dharmic, then we have solved the problem. If we can even trend slowly towards more "Dharmicism", even if it is a very gradual graph, as long as it is trending up, and the key is that we should trend towards more "dharmicism", not negative trend or even a flat graph, we would be fine. If we simply focus on that, without worrying about results, we can never lose. Since Dharma is also an end in itself, at least we will have Dharma. But there is also a very strong direct connection between becoming more Dharmic and being less poor and cleaner.

4. Which Dharmic activity will solve the problem of poverty and filth in the forseeable future, or shall we say, a predictable future, you ask ? Well, everything Dharmic. The steeper the graph of increasing Dharmicism, the faster we will get rid of poverty and filth. So, the challenge is how to make the graph steeper. But even before that, we have to set the right trend. Right now, in India we are trending negatively towards Adharma, rather than trending up towards Dharma. The graph is not even flat. We have not even stopped the bleeding. This is the problem I have with your 50 year prediction. I dont see a negative dharmic trendline, coinciding with increased material gain or increased cleanliness. That is the fourth cardinal law of logic. I do believe in cause and effect. The timing I cannot predict, but actions have consequences. And trending towards Adharma, as we are doing now, cannot in the medium or long term produce good or desired results.

5. Now about specific direct connection between particular Dharmic activities and removal of poverty and filth. Let us say that today there are 55% of the Indian population who have at least enough financial resources and enough time, both, to be able to lead their lives as per Dharma. Now, if most of these 55%, abstain from indulging in casteism (by casteism, I dont mean the traditional casteism, that the West always accuses us off, but by casteism, I mean, dividing us by caste, as people like DMK, Mulayam, Lalu, Mayawati types and the Congress types do, but cannot do, unless they get large numbers of supporters among common people), abstain from runaway Western Capitalism, and come out on the streets, create their own newspapers and media, spread awareness of the evil nature of our system of governance (Modi notwithstanding, as I have already stated elsewhere a couple of months ago, that Modi is one man and the one billion adharmis will not let him succeed, which infuriated you) and yes, even use force if and when necessary against adharma, then yes, it will have a very large effect on reducing poverty and filth. The more Dharmic our people act, the more forcefully Dharmic they act, the faster we will achieve our goals.

6. So the key is 1) To reverse the trend towards Adharma that we are on right now, stop the bleeding, 2) To accelerate the trend towards Dharma by becoming proactive in various different public spheres using various methods such as media and even force, 3) Keep at it resolutely, regardless of short term results or even some short term negative results, with single mindedness that does not get effected by criticism from detractors, whether they be from the West or elsewhere or even within.

7) Also, things CAN happen very quickly. Take the example of Singapore. Of course, Lee Kuan Yew did not go the Dharmic way, but he did find a solution, which is not entirely inconsistent with our Dharma. In 1947, Singaporeans were wild, poor and dirty people, even more than us Indians. Lee came and first and foremost, imposed strict law and order, but strict for everybody. There was no one who was exempt from the law. Very important. Equality in the eyes of the law, very critical. Then he tried to create a fair economic system, with a reasonably level playing field. Singapore did not have a legacy of Western style conglomerates and Siemens type behemoths, so they started with a somewhat of a level playing field and Lee's policy, not the least of which were "equality in the eyes of law, not just criminal law but civil law as well", kept the playing field quite level, to this day. Then we put emphasis on excellence and perfection and also cleanliness and aesthetics (the buildings in Singapore for miles on in are color coordinated and you will not be able to detect a single paint chip on any of the buildings there). You see the results in 65 years. Yes, I know, it has only been 65 years and Singapore is a small place, I know all the usual reactions. But then, take Japan. I am not saying that we go for Singaporean or Japanese solutions. We have to find solutions which are rooted in our ground situation and most importantly, our Dharma. But the only point I was trying to make is that if we do the right things, things CAN, not necessarily will, move very quickly. A ten year time frame is not unrealistic, as long as we are able to reverse the current trend towards Adharma.

You see, there is nothing else we can do, as human beings, and specifically, dharmic human beings. Whether we get results or not, we can only try to be Dharmic, and then be more Dharmic and do what we can to see that others become Dharmic too, and failing that, stand up and fight with ALL means necessary against Adharma. We also have to be steadfast and not be swayed by short term disappointments. Lastly, we can only retain an unflinching and staunch belief, Dharmic way of life will eventually deliver us good practical results as well. And lastly, even if they dont, in the short run, being Dharmic is still the way to go and the only way to go.

My whole argument is premised on the fact that right now, we are trending negatively and steeply, towards Adharma. You will agree with me on everything else, if you agree with that premise. If you dont, please explain why you think, we are not on that steeply negative trend ?

I hope I have answered your question. If not, please point out what I have not answered or what you did not like, and I will try my best to explain or acknowledge that I dont have an answer.

[shiv]

My whole argument is premised on the fact that right now, we are trending negatively and steeply, towards Adharma. You will agree with me on everything else, if you agree with that premise. If you dont, please explain why you think, we are not on that steeply negative trend ?

I hope I have answered your question. If not, please point out what I have not answered or what you did not like, and I will try my best to explain or acknowledge that I dont have an answer.

I don't think we need to agree or disagree. An exchange of views is sufficient and will hopefully provoke more responses.

My "timeframe" question was simply based on the data that someone had made into an informative post - I need to locate that post.

Put simply, if India has 300 million poor today, India has put 700 million over the poverty line. So far so good. But in 1947 India had only 250 million poor - because that was our population then. So even after 67 years of serially and relentlessly improving the lives of a billion people we are left with a bigger poverty figure in total number than we had in 1947.

It would be unfair to say that Indians have done nothing. It would be logical to say that Indians have not managed to reduce poverty to say 10% (US levels of poverty). Is India's performance good, bad or so so? Mind you this is a rhetorical question - not an "Answer me now!" demand on you.

The other question I like to ask is, as long as India is doing the right things to improve itself and its human condition, who exactly has the right to mock and be scathing of India because of numbers picked out of a hat at any particular time? My analogy is like that of a photograph. If I stand in front of you and click your mugshot and you blink along with the shutter the photo will suggest that you had your eyes closed, maybe you were asleep standing.

india's 300 million poor in 2014 does not mean that India is asleep standing. Indians are working flat out and have educated more people and brought more people out of poverty that any other nation on earth since 1947. Singapore's population is 5 million. India has educated hundreds of Singapores since 1947. Were you not the person who asked me to take a positive view?

On an earlier discussion we had about bashing. It is everyone's right to bash India for its failures and compare it with any other nation. I consider it my right to highlight India's positives and bash any other country that I can bash provided I have the data and logical reason to do that.

[shiv]

Quoting my own response to another post, I have another take on the matter:

"If the destitute is not cowardly and if the shopman is not cruel, why did so many people die of hunger? I think the reason is their philosophy of life.

"Both the destitute and the shop-keeper are votaries of the same philosophy of life. Each one said to himself: 'It is my fate, that is his fate; God made me like this, God made him like that.' On account of the commonness of their philosophy, there was no change in their relationship, though some ate their fill and many starved to death. The destitute's faith in that philosophy made his behaviour different from the animals.

I think this man's conclusion is questionable. I would not dismiss it as wrong unless I can provide some data, which I cannot. But I could speculate on at least one alternative explanation

<snip snip snip>

I am just speculating on other rational causes rather blaming it in Hindu philosophy. After all why would these people migrate at all. They could have folded up and died in their villages if they were so hindu-philosophical. Why migrate and die. Accept your fate and die there and then, no?

Maybe this is an example of what Balu says is a western/Macaulayite interpretation of Hindu philosophy. Seeing India as a westerner does.

Over the years we have all witnessed scenes of terrible tragedy on TV. Bangladesh, Somalia, Gaza are a few I recall. In most instances the reporter, the eyewitness, is deeply moved and says he is helpless. It is his helplessness that is so moving. Everything that can be done is being done and its not enough and he can't help.

I am sure a few of you may have witnessed scenes in India where you can't help. Because of my job - I have seen it a few times. A dozen casualties in a road accident - some dead. Some nearly dead and some badly injured. Or remember those scenes of 23 students getting washed away? (check YouTube) Helpless people gaping?

Even when everything that can be done is being done by bystanders and rescuers, eye witnesses can see the hopelessness of those who are about to die. In India, people often look at each other in despair, shake their heads and say "Karma". These people are expressing despair and helplessness just like the reporter on TV. They are not making a philosophical discourse. They are not saying " 'It is my fate, that is his fate; God made me like this, God made him like that." When terrible things occur in for Hindus, things that cannot be changed or where they are helpless they are taught to comfort themselves saying that it is "karma" - one's actions from some other lifetime that are being redeemed at that moment.

I suspect that this has been misinterpreted by too many people thinking that Indians simply give up and blame things on karma. I guess the above quote is an example of that.

[A_Gupta]

It is not possible to enter the minds of the people who died in the Great Famine of 1943-44, that Gora witnessed. We can only speculate on why they behaved the way they did.

To me, the great contrast is between: "I want, I take" and "I need but I won't take even to stay alive". Whatever the underlying philosophy or thought process doesn't matter. The first is adharma, plain and simple. The latter is manifestation of dharma on one side; the other side of the obligation of dharma, "Until I have spent all, no one around me will starve to death" was incompletely met.

Bengal, 1943:

[member_23692]

My whole argument is premised on the fact that right now, we are trending negatively and steeply, towards Adharma. You will agree with me on everything else, if you agree with that premise. If you dont, please explain why you think, we are not on that steeply negative trend ?

I hope I have answered your question. If not, please point out what I have not answered or what you did not like, and I will try my best to explain or acknowledge that I dont have an answer.

I don't think we need to agree or disagree. An exchange of views is sufficient and will hopefully provoke more responses.

My "timeframe" question was simply based on the data that someone had made into an informative post - I need to locate that post.

Put simply, if India has 300 million poor today, India has put 700 million over the poverty line. So far so good. But in 1947 India had only 250 million poor - because that was our population then. So even after 67 years of serially and relentlessly improving the lives of a billion people we are left with a bigger poverty figure in total number than we had in 1947.

It would be unfair to say that Indians have done nothing. It would be logical to say that Indians have not managed to reduce poverty to say 10% (US levels of poverty). Is India's performance good, bad or so so? Mind you this is a rhetorical question - not an "Answer me now!" demand on you.

The other question I like to ask is, as long as India is doing the right things to improve itself and its human condition, who exactly has the right to mock and be scathing of India because of numbers picked out of a hat at any particular time? My analogy is like that of a photograph. If I stand in front of you and click your mugshot and you blink along with the shutter the photo will suggest that you had your eyes closed, maybe you were asleep standing.

india's 300 million poor in 2014 does not mean that India is asleep standing. Indians are working flat out and have educated more people and brought more people out of poverty that any other nation on earth since 1947. Singapore's population is 5 million. India has educated hundreds of Singapores since 1947. Were you not the person who asked me to take a positive view?

On an earlier discussion we had about bashing. It is everyone's right to bash India for its failures and compare it with any other nation. I consider it my right to highlight India's positives and bash any other country that I can bash provided I have the data and logical reason to do that.

Of course, you are right, when you are critical of anyone bashing us, whether using statistics, innuendo, race, culture or any other means, if and when they do it maliciously, which happens a lot.

It is "defending" Indians, even the Adharmi Indians, is where I disagree with you. Forget about others. We have a duty to not only criticize Adharmi Indians but to proactively change directions to path of Dharma. We have to differentiate between defending our Dharmic actions, which it is our duty to do, and defending the mafia, the shakunis that have taken over our governance and also the general population which has become too clever for its own good.

However, in my scheme of things, others dont matter much. I take it for granted that the world is an evil place, even a monstrous place. People do monstrous things. We Indians do monstrous things to ourselves and to each other. So, I am under no illusions that "others" will do monstrous things to us, given half a chance. It is our duty to strengthen ourselves, so that we create a potent deterrence, so others dont screw us. And a potent defense will come from a wholistic strategy of creating a healthier society, healthier economy, fairness, rule of law and a strong defense. All this can only happen if we become more Dharmic, specifically, become more duty bound and sacrifice oriented. We have to be able to, as individuals, think of things that are larger than ourselves. And the "larger" is the Nation, not caste, or a regional group or a sub group. If we believe that we are a nation, because Dharma in its various incarnations, variations and manifestations, connects us together, then we have to act like that.

The little bit of progress on poverty that you have talked about, I am sorry, cannot be attributed to Indians having "done something". In general, in most of the world, which has had some semblance of a civilized past, such as Korea, Japan, China, East Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia etc have all done better than us after WW2, ironically, by following the Western system. We too followed the Western system. So, really we cannot credit ourselves for the economic benefits that we have accrued. The best we can say about ourselves is that we did not screw ourselves up as badly as Rwanda and some other places like that. I believe that India in particular had so much potential, that had we followed the Dharmic path, our own path starting in 1947, and done the right things, we realistically, would be competing with Japan and Singapore and would have certainly surpassed China by now. I really, really absolutely believe that. We can yet do it, despite the great slide and negative trends, if we just stop the bleeding and reverse the trend. You will be surprised how large of an effect, a small change towards more "Dharmicism" and doing the right things can make. We only need a 20% change in our collective attitudes to see major changes. I am not saying we should stop there, but the point is that even small changes, as long as they are positive, will make a huge difference. We are an ingenious people, with great talent, great intellect and great tradition. But like addicts or tragic geniuses, we have a very strong self-destructive trait. We have made a habit of snatching defeats from the jaws of victory, because of that self-destructive streak. This self-destructive streak is so strong that it eclipses every other great quality we have as a collective. We need to go into rehab and exorcise this self-destructive streak and the results can be miraculous and very fast.

While we dont reverse the trend and keep along our adharmic ways, not only our poor and our desperate suffer untold miseries that we dont see and choose to close our eyes to (after all, we still have millions of our people living in abject misery, and have been for generations), but the rest of us are also living miserable lives. A billionaire too, while he can afford any car in the world, does not have the roads to be able to drive his Ferrari anywhere in India. The rich and powerful too live in dirty environments, drink dirty water, breathe dirty air. Even the vegetables we eat are getting poisoned by our method of growing them. You think a rich guy can import his vegetables from abroad ? So, all this economic improvement we see today, has come at a heavy price, in my view, maybe even unacceptable price, as, as a trade off, we have done some irreparable damage to precious resources like air, like water, like source of food, but more importantly, by following the Western economic system, have done irreparable damage to our souls, our morals, our Dharma.

Yes, as long as India is doing the right things, no one has a right to mock us. But they will, and we should just let the mocking roll over us like water. But let us get to the point, where we are doing the right things. I think we are actually doing all the wrong things (of course the others are not criticizing us for that, their criticism is motivated by malice and will be there even if we do the right things).

Do you really think we are doing the right things ?

[shiv]

It is not possible to enter the minds of the people who died in the Great Famine of 1943-44, that Gora witnessed. We can only speculate on why they behaved the way they did.

To me, the great contrast is between: "I want, I take" and "I need but I won't take even to stay alive". Whatever the underlying philosophy or thought process doesn't matter. The first is adharma, plain and simple. The latter is manifestation of dharma on one side; the other side of the obligation of dharma, "Until I have spent all, no one around me will starve to death" was incompletely met.

Bengal, 1943:

This is an image of death, or near death. People at this stage need hospitals. They are too weak to take food. Starvation causes protein from organs to be eaten up for energy - and apart from muscles - even digesting food gets impaired. If ever there were a defeated people - here they are.

Ironically, at that very same time, Indian soldiers were fighting a British war for the Brits. Were they too fulfilling their dharma. It is the dharma of a soldier to fight.

A raped civilization that had no consciousness of its beginnings or where it was heading. Sad.

[shiv]

Yes, as long as India is doing the right things, no one has a right to mock us. But they will, and we should just let the mocking roll over us like water. But let us get to the point, where we are doing the right things. I think we are actually doing all the wrong things (of course the others are not criticizing us for that, their criticism is motivated by malice and will be there even if we do the right things).

Do you really think we are doing the right things ?

Look at it this way:
1. India has illiteracy - so we are building schools and have achieved some 60 or 70 % literacy as we are required to do. So that must be good

2. India has poverty so we have programs to reduce poverty - subsidies, freebies and sops

3. India has this terrible caste system so we are eliminating its effects by affirmative action, reservations etc

4. India has many religious minorities who feel threatened by the majority community so we have secularism

So we must be doing things exactly right. Exactly the way we can earn praise in the international community.


All must be well. We are well on our way to becoming a modern nation with democracy, freedom, equality for all, increasing wealth etc. We are all set to join the international community as a proud independent and modern state. OK we have a few niggling things to sort out. Gays don't have freedom. Women unsafe. Male female ratio more than unity. Roads? we will build them eventually? Filth? We will clean up eventually. After all we have a huge population. Why should anyone be unhappy about anything? What is the exact problem? What is wrong in what India is doing? In your view.

I will tell you what i think is wrong. India is developing only in the direction that others - especially western nations,tell us to develop. We are attending to all the things about India that the west tells us is wrong, while we compare ourselves with the standards the west sets for us. But then the west is so well developed. So clean, so wealthy. If we do what the west tells us to do we will surely become like them Powerful. Wealthy. Equal and proud. The cargo will arrive. Finally

But there is nothing Indian about our development. We are developing as a ba$tard hybrid nation with no identity other than what western literature knows us for. "Ancient. Elephants. Temples. Snake charmers. Sinuous dancers. Poverty. Filth" These words define India. All we need to do is remove the filth and poverty. Then all will be well. India does not have anything unique to offer the world other than cloning itself and becoming a western copy greater than Singapore, greater than Shanghai. Greater than Dubai. Our shiny glass fronted malls will have the best international brands including unpronounceable ones like Louis Vuitton. Our glass fronted multistory hospitals will provide state of the art medicare to meet "world standards" because the rest of the world is setting the standards for us. And our highways will finally allow our rich to drive their Ferraris and leave everyone else behind. We will wear suits and ties and be part of one happy global family. We will have arrived

Nice.

[ShauryaT]

It is not possible to enter the minds of the people who died in the Great Famine of 1943-44, that Gora witnessed. We can only speculate on why they behaved the way they did.

No speculation needed. There is enough documentation on why they did what they did. Amartya Sen won a nobel documenting the famine. Maheindra Singh Sairala also provides detail accounts of the decisions in the highest offices. The wanton crime of the British and their deliberate diversion and distribution of food was to be blamed. Their focus was on the war not the SDRE of India. It has been proven that the extensiveness of the 1943 famine was entirely avoidable, if correct decisions had been taken by the men in power.

[shiv]

I believe that most of us are guilty of not having any vision for India, albeit innocently. It is not a deliberate act. We all believe that there is something out there but we cannot define it. It is at its best when it remains undefined. The minute we define something that we feel is Indian and desirable, another little memory bank in our minds boots up and compares that with what the west says on the subject, and, naturally, the west scores higher.

Let me say a few things that I think can be promoted in India as truly Indian, but first a few opinions to support my views.

Modern medical care is far too expensive to be applied to every person in India. Modern medical care must be removed from the mainstream "day to day" fevers, aches and pains and be restricted to hospitals that can cater to what modern medicine does best. Basically this means expanding the base of nurses, healthcare workers, physiotherapists and alternative medicine practitioners such as Ayurveda so that the latter group far outnumber doctors and meet the basic health needs of the population. Every district should have a modern hospital within easy reach of people in that district but Ayurveda needs to be given a huge push and not treated with the derision is is today. Medical planning and medical education in India need to change course.

India must deliberately encourage family and recognize that family is the fundamental social support unit. This must be a formal declaration as part of Indian ethos. Parents should be legally bound to care for children and adults should be given incentives to care for elderly relatives.

Women's health should be a special priority with subsidized obstetric clinics with female personnel, and creche facilities at every workplace mandated by law. Sanitary towels should be available at subsidized rates instead of diesel and haj subsidy.

Right to life ensures that too much is spent on lives that cannot be saved. The right to die in dignity should be recognized. Elderly people should be allowed to choose if they want everything to be done to save them during a formal terminal event, but they would have to set aside money or insure for that. Or else they opt to restrict lifesaving measures and let them die in dignity.

India is a unique country in which begging is accepted as necessary for some people for religious or other ritual reasons. These should be recognized and outside of that the beggar mafia need to be crushed.

Public transport should be given precedence over private transport. Public transport at regular intervals should reach every village.

In cities the services are provided by slum dwellers. Slum dwellers need to be recognized as an essential part of the city's population and should be given certain rights and facilities (water, power, convenient transport) while being compelled by law to meet some heath and safety standards.

Cities act as "heat sinks" and attract rainfall. Most of that rainfall flows in rivers and streams along roads and across huge concrete flat spaces and eventually drains into the public drainage system. This must change. Rainwater need to be discharged into the ground there and then. Large concrete spaces should be avoided, and trees and rainwater collection systems must be built into city planning. Indian city roads must be made pedestrian friendly. Many cities have ancient lakes and streams that are encroached by builders and developers. This must be resisted and land reclaimed for nature. City garbage collection and disposal need to be made both high tech and people bound by law to ensure that all organic waste is segregated, collected and composted locally and waste that can be used for fuel and power generation must be segregated and supplied to an area reserved for that purpose within every subdivision of every city. Architectural designs that consume less power should be given incentives, and vast areas of glass must be discouraged. Surveillance cameras at every street corner are a must both as security for people as well as monitoring of breakage of garbage disposal laws.

And last, but not least, schools should teach the truth about Indian history, mentioning famines and massacres as the occurred. Schools should teach about how government is structured and how it gets its funds. Schools should also teach children about civic services like water supply, sewerage and garbage disposal

That is all I can think of now - will post more later if I can think of something

[member_23692]

Yes, as long as India is doing the right things, no one has a right to mock us. But they will, and we should just let the mocking roll over us like water. But let us get to the point, where we are doing the right things. I think we are actually doing all the wrong things (of course the others are not criticizing us for that, their criticism is motivated by malice and will be there even if we do the right things).

Do you really think we are doing the right things ?

Look at it this way:
1. India has illiteracy - so we are building schools and have achieved some 60 or 70 % literacy as we are required to do. So that must be good

2. India has poverty so we have programs to reduce poverty - subsidies, freebies and sops

3. India has this terrible caste system so we are eliminating its effects by affirmative action, reservations etc

4. India has many religious minorities who feel threatened by the majority community so we have secularism

So we must be doing things exactly right. Exactly the way we can earn praise in the international community.


All must be well. We are well on our way to becoming a modern nation with democracy, freedom, equality for all, increasing wealth etc. We are all set to join the international community as a proud independent and modern state. OK we have a few niggling things to sort out. Gays don't have freedom. Women unsafe. Male female ratio more than unity. Roads? we will build them eventually? Filth? We will clean up eventually. After all we have a huge population. Why should anyone be unhappy about anything? What is the exact problem? What is wrong in what India is doing? In your view.

I will tell you what i think is wrong. India is developing only in the direction that others - especially western nations,tell us to develop. We are attending to all the things about India that the west tells us is wrong, while we compare ourselves with the standards the west sets for us. But then the west is so well developed. So clean, so wealthy. If we do what the west tells us to do we will surely become like them Powerful. Wealthy. Equal and proud. The cargo will arrive. Finally

But there is nothing Indian about our development. We are developing as a ba$tard hybrid nation with no identity other than what western literature knows us for. "Ancient. Elephants. Temples. Snake charmers. Sinuous dancers. Poverty. Filth" These words define India. All we need to do is remove the filth and poverty. Then all will be well. India does not have anything unique to offer the world other than cloning itself and becoming a western copy greater than Singapore, greater than Shanghai. Greater than Dubai. Our shiny glass fronted malls will have the best international brands including unpronounceable ones like Louis Vuitton. Our glass fronted multistory hospitals will provide state of the art medicare to meet "world standards" because the rest of the world is setting the standards for us. And our highways will finally allow our rich to drive their Ferraris and leave everyone else behind. We will wear suits and ties and be part of one happy global family. We will have arrived

Nice.

Excellent post and I feel your pain.

Could not have said it better myself.

We should also become part of the lowest common denominator......and completely lose a unique culture and a glorious civilization....sell it, sell it for a few fast cars, a few designer watches and suits and ties.......what a bargain ? And we call ourselves the smartest people on earth, great mercantilists, have a reputation for making great bargains and deals......and this is the deal we make......

Remember, how some native Americans sold their land in exchange for a few bottles ?

[A_Gupta]

It is not possible to enter the minds of the people who died in the Great Famine of 1943-44, that Gora witnessed. We can only speculate on why they behaved the way they did.

No speculation needed. There is enough documentation on why they did what they did. Amartya Sen won a nobel documenting the famine. Maheindra Singh Sairala also provides detail accounts of the decisions in the highest offices. The wanton crime of the British and their deliberate diversion and distribution of food was to be blamed. Their focus was on the war not the SDRE of India. It has been proven that the extensiveness of the 1943 famine was entirely avoidable, if correct decisions had been taken by the men in power.

I mean the people like those in the picture, who quietly died. The whole point was Gora saying that these people did not behave like animals trying to steal in order to stay alive.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv,
http://goodnewsindia.com/index.php/gni

Quoting from there -- emphasis added --

In search of India's wealth-makers

I stopped updating GoodNewsIndia in 2006 when the question arose in my mind if publishing 'good' stories about India by itself was good enough as a service. I have narrated my thoughts in greater detail in this article. { see http://pointreturn.com/ } Thus began work to restore a parcel of abandoned land near Chennai, christened pointReturn.

Six years on, I am comforted the land is responding to the efforts put in. A small team of young volunteers are into growing food and taking care of the land. By their kind courtesy, I am free now to resume my travels in search of 'good' stories in India.

It is a changed India today. I no longer retain my early confidence that a sustained economic boom will be like the tide that raises all the boats. Indeed, I am certain today, that it will not. I further believe that a 'modern' economy cannot create true wealth, let alone one shared with all. On the other hand, it can be destructive of what wealth we inherited and still possess. The true wealth of any nation is in fertile soil, abundant water, clean air, safe food and its people educated for independent action and free to practice it.

I shall go searching for people who are trying to make India wealthy in this manner.

-D V Sridharan
Apr 6, 2012

[member_22733]

This was posted by Arun about 2 pages ago:

http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/gaht5.htm

The next sentences are:

Writing in 1688 during the war against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Sir Josiah Child, director of the East India Company and instigator of the war, captured the essence of this relationship. "The subjects of the Mogul," he noted, "cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together, without starving and dying by the thousands for want of work to purchase rice; not singly for want of our trade, but because by our war, we obstruct their trade with all the Eastern nations which is ten times as much as ours and all the European nations put together" (quoted in Watson 197x, 348-5).

Note the curious parallels from this article in the TSP thread:

Mint editorial:

India should stop appeasing Pakistan : Sooner or later all governments try to placate Pakistan. Has that changed?

This has not been lost on Pakistan. A fundamental shift in the country’s strategic outlook can now be discerned, one in which India is permanently under the barrel of a gun. India’s strength is now its biggest disadvantage against Pakistan. To use economist Jack Hirshleifer’s terminology, Pakistan holds the “technology of conflict” while India has the “technology of production”. The technology of conflict is cheap. As one commentator described it, it is no more than a set of cheap tent and donkey cart training camps for terrorists. India, on the other hand, has much to lose. It has a sophisticated financial system that can react unpredictably to any terrorist activity. But much more than that, the constant threat of terrorist disruption can take away that most precious, but intangible, commodity “the will to invest”. At the slightest sign of trouble, international investors can re-think their plans; India’s rich states—Gujarat and Punjab, home to the country’s industrial and agricultural infrastructure—are under constant threat.

It is this realization that has brought Indian governments of all complexions to heel. Atal Bihari Vajpayee mustered a huge number of troops after the terrorist attack on Parliament in 2001, almost to a state of war. He backed away after realizing that Pakistan could not be taught a lesson without inflicting serious costs on the Indian economy. Manmohan Singh, a far weaker prime minister, adopted a different strategy after the 2009 Mumbai attacks. His idea was that economic integration between the two countries could wean Pakistan away from the technology of conflict.

Basically, the current crop of leaders is behaving exactly same as the ones that were there when we were colonized by the moguls and the UQturds. We have not learnt anything from history.

[shiv]

I commute about 6 km up and down every day (fate has gifted me with a relatively short ride) on one of Bangalore's busiest roads. Actually the police do a fantastic job of keeping traffic moving. But the ride takes 30 to 40 minutes, which translates to about 10-15 km per hour. Bullock carts do 5 -10 kmph depending on the load and road - so with all our vehicles, we are only just a little faster than bullock carts, and no faster than horse carts.

Given India's population, what exactly would be the problem in using bullock carts for non time-critical loads? For example the delivery of a refrigerator or washing machine from warehouse to residence can be done by bullock cart. OK maybe have a time slot for such deliveries - maybe even night time.

Funnily enough we show contempt for bullock carts, but Bangalore is now catering to an increasingly wealthy group of people who buy bicycles - including some that cost Rs 50,000. This is because bicycles have been made popular in the west and we are borrowing from them, as usual, despite the fact that Bangalore has no road space for bicycle lanes. But Bangalore now has "Cargo cult" bicycle lanes. Lanes are marked on the sides of some roads, and cars are always parked on these lanes.

As a people we habitually stoutly defend any value that we copy or borrow from the west because everyone insists that the the west is the best even though what we borrow cannot be implemented as it is in the west and it becomes a ludicrous parody - a cargo cult.

The depth to which western values have sunk into our psyche is illustrated by the Ferrari owner in India, the epitome of the cargo cult exponent. There is nothing that a Ferrari can do in India. It has a reputation in the west because its capability is designed for western road conditions. The Indian in his Ferrari travels at 15 kmph exactly like the Tata Nano next to him. Briefly, on short stretches of road the car can accelerate to 50% of its designed speed. But yet we import and buy them and curse that our roads are bad. But we are a democracy remember? Democracy is good. That means the roads are for everyone, and the Ferrari owner makes a one time payment for the roads when he buys his car - after that he is free to curse because the amounts that other pay are only good enough to fund roads for motorbikes and Marutis. Not Ferraris.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ It is only the secondary purpose of a Ferrari is to drive fast; the primary purpose, is well, e.g., to signal "alpha male", etc.

[Pulikeshi]

^^^ Peacocks are crazy to have such heavy colorful feathers; it defeats their primary purpose of survival of the species. Grump! National Bird!

Socialism: Only cycles or feet for everyone, else use public transport - even if it is only bullock cart.
Capitalism: Make credit become available, the roads will expand by themselves and bigger and sexier the vehicle will all come to be.
Communism: Steal all the cycles, cars, bullock carts, etc. only party officials can use these... rest can grovel on all fours.
neo-SD: Solar panel on roads, gobar gas from bullock carts, industry to build solar panels using power from gobar gas, etc.... ecosystem of sustenance...

Just having a bit of fun... Perhaps a bad example, but goes along these same lines onlee no?

[shiv]

One habit in India is something that I value But I am supposed to curse that value (or non value?) and laugh at it.

One reads articles about why Indians (except maybe residents of Delhi??) display little road rage. The main reason is because Indians do not set themselves rigid time schedules. Time is never rigid except auspicious events which are strictly time bound.

What this means for me personally is that I need never worry about being in time for appointments. No one else worries. Everyone accepts that time is flexible. But what fascinates me is the way we educated Indians are supposed to pretend that his is bad and that we are all a faulty bunch of people. "Trains always late" etc.

Educated Indians all have a sort of mixed personality. Part of it is Macaulayite, WU which feels guilty about lateness. the other half is an inner calm that tells us that a party that is scheduled to start at 7-30 means you turn up at 8-30. The hosts want you to come after 8, so they say 7-30. Less literate or illiterate Indians have no such problems

One thing is absolutely certain. There is an Indian view of time, and in this Indian view minutes and seconds do not matter for non critical activity. All Indians are used to turning up on time for exams and for auspicious events like weddings. We know damn well that exam papers must be finished on time or no one would get anywhere near America. But Indians do have a non stressed view of time.

Ever since the British came, we have never been comfortable with ourselves and our chronological values. We are unable to conform to western attitudes about time but refuse to break away, think independently and set our own standards without shame. We actually do use our own standards in our day to day transactions but we are ashamed and apologetic about that and need to make jokes like "Indian Stretchable Time"

What the British did to Indians was to tell us that our habits and values are all wrong and that their are all correct. We believed them, but know that the truth lies somewhere in between. We can recognize that time can be viewed with different yardsticks based on context. But we are afraid to "walk away" and say "we see time in this way.". We are afraid because we are indoctrinated to believe that our tradition and our conventions are always wrong. Even if thinking or intuition tells us that this is incorrect we spend inordinate effort in telling other Indians that they are wrong in seeing time in an Indian way and must see it in the western sense in every context.

[shiv]

^^^ It is only the secondary purpose of a Ferrari is to drive fast; the primary purpose, is well, e.g., to signal "alpha male", etc.

That is what makes it even more ironic and pathetic. 95% of Indians do not know why a Ferrari should symbolize alpha male. Alpha male is symbolized by Rajnikanth. It's him. Not what he owns.

The Indian Ferrari owner sits in India and does a cargo cult demonstration of his alpha maleness to a non existent western crowd who might have been wowed if they were present. Most western tourists I meet in India experience the roads and often wonder what the Ferrari owner might be doing with his car in India.

I sometimes wonder if Indians get a sense of satisfaction by having white people fawning over them or believing that white man would be impressed by them. Performance in front of white man has greater value than performance in front of others. White man's standards are higher. "World standards" to be met by us, as opposed to Indian standards. I suspect that many things that Indians do are driven by this need - which is itself an indicator of a deep inferiority complex.

[Philip]

Universalism? Racism is alive and flourishing in the US of A as we are witnessing today.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/
A descent into madness in America's heartlands

[shiv]

I had this "aha moment" - I believe it's called an epiphany, when I was thinking about the Alpha male in a Ferrari and Rajnikant or Amitabh Bacchan as Alpha male.

The Indian stereotype filmi Alpha male is epitomized by a man who is strong, kind and benevolent. He is almost never rich and would never own a Ferrari. He respects and cares for his mother and his sister. He fights evil, rescues damsels in distress. He is incorruptible, honest and god fearing and loves children. He is Lord Ram minus any negatives that Ram might have had.

The stereotype western Alpha male is defined by what he has and what he controls. It could be a Ferrari, Lamborghini, million dollar yacht, home in Beverley hills or Monaco. His personal philosophy, whether he respects his mother, loves kids or is god fearing or not are irrelevant - it is what he owns/controls "in his right hand" that count.

Interestingly this takes me back to that article by Balu about a sovereign and his domain. A sovereign has full rights over his domain. The western stereotype Alpha male has a domain larger than anyone else - his domain may include all the flashy things he owns, trophy wife included. He is sovereign over a larger domain than all who behold him and that is his majesty. Not his honesty, integrity and poverty.

The Indian stereotype alpha male and the western stereotype are diametric opposites and I have found a lot of Indians who start making money in the west, especially in the US, being confused initially. They go from being honest god fearing, respect mother types to being the successful millionaire doctor with all the western Alpha male characteristics. But among Indians it usually does not last, most of them rediscover their roots and start giving back.

The point I am trying to make is that the Indian stereotype is all about human values and not money or wealth at all. The western stereotype is all about wealth, possessions and possibly power. One is value based. The other transactional.

Which is better if any? Most Indian friends tell me that the best combination is money plus values. There is no arguing with that. But from India - the values are held to be sacred even in the absence of money. I would say the values are more admirable option. This has an impact on the constant exhortation to "create wealth". The need to create wealth is deduced by the appearance of lack of wealth as defined by lack of things that people own. This recognition of widespread poverty in India by the lack of overt ownership of "things" brands Indian poverty as being more visible than it actually is.

How often have you hear the cliché "Mere paas dhan hai. daulat hai" to which the other guy says "Mere pass maa hai". This is an extreme but it typifies the Indian view of what wealth means in the Indian context. Family values, integrity and moral uprightness are taught in India as being the equivalent of wealth to the extent that material and monetary wealth are judged from the viewpoint of whether the wealth person has values or not. The person who lacks values is not admired even if he's got everything there is and his bird can sing.

[RajeshG]

I am new to this thread. Just commenting on the last few posts about what wealth means to us. And to the specific eg of Ferrari.

I would agree with Arun's description rather then Shiv's. But only slightly. Ferrari is not for "alpha maleness" per se. I think we buy these things to show our wealth to people be know - our community, our relatives, our friends etc . To us wealth and things that it can buy is only relevant as far as our society or community is concerned. In other words, it doesn't matter to us whether XYZ can do 90 mph or that it has leather seats etc. What matters is that my community, my jati, my village knows that I have this XYZ and they acknowledge it and *they* think that it is good. Its utility ends there.

We don't care whether we go to Disney land or what "attractions" it has, as long as we take a picture in front of its sign so we can tick that off and show the picture to our friends (and they approve of it). The attractions are not really attractive to us by themselves. Our "samaj" and "log" are important then the actual things. Things aren't tangible, "samaj" is.

There are practical implications for this.

If one sets up a charity to setup park benches for Bangalore then they will have a very hard time getting any contributions in Kanpur. Because it doesn't matter. If one were to setup a school *in a given village* and announce that each classroom will have the name of the grandfather of the person who contributed, it would be much easier to collect money from people from that village even when they have emigrated to random countries and are probably never going to come back to that village ever.

If I were to belong to chamar jati from village Chamarpur and I become a big time IT entrepreneur with a huge mansion in Seattle, USA, that mansion will have less value to me then a big house in Chamarpur. A contribution of 1 lakh for Chamar jati dharamshala in Varanasi will make me feel better then 2 billion dollars for naming Harvard business school in my name.

I guess I am trying to say that wealth to us only matters as long as people related to us acknowledge it and that is its only value. While this could be construed as being a "show off" I don't think that is the case. Its rather that whatever we do has to be acknowledged by people we know otherwise they aren't worth doing at all.