Future strategic scenario for the Indian Subcontinent

[harbans]

We're getting some WKK types on the Newsweek site saying i's so sad she sed 'Hindu'. Should not have hurt others. People will misunderstand..given a few replies in counter to them..but then the Paki comes spamming again. Basicall we have los of people who'd like to change the nature of truth..just to be in the good books of those who claim exclusivity in spiritualism as a high form of doctrine.

[svinayak]

The point is all religions in India are treated as equal (theoretically). Christianity and Islam however occupy far more of society's free space, for example, wrt politics, etc, as you just stated. There is no need to allow this free space, this leeway in the Indian Constitution.

I agree.
India's history where both people from these religions from outside have attacked and subjugated the people here.

[RajeshA]

RajeshAji, your thoughts if Hinduism can be thought in terms of a 'Religious/ spiritual Constitutional Charter' much like the principles of Liberty, egalite, fraternite were laid out for political purposes.

harbans ji,

I am in favor of pursuing first the drafting of such an "Indian Ethos Charter", then anchoring of it in India's Constitution, and then pushing for legislation which makes the State an active participant in the implementation of this charter.

All major religious communities in India should get a very clear message : -

• A Religion is GOOD if it adheres to the principles of the Indian Ethos Charter.
• Either you assure that your religion is GOOD, or the State will take measures to reform the religion, so that it fits the 'Indian Ethos Charter'.

Indian State has previously taken an active interest in reforming Hinduism, getting rid of untouchability, sati, dowry and encouraging widow remarriage. Hinduism is in a better state today because of these reforms.

The 'Indian Ethos Charter' should give the Indian State new energy, new thrust to reform the Abrahamic religions as well, as practiced in India. It should empower the Indian State to deal with Religion and how it affects Society. Initially it need not be through prohibiting the practices, as that would be inviting conflict, but the Indian State would be in a much better position to argue in favor of giving massive amounts of financing for education, health, jobs, other facilities to those amongst the Muslims who swear loyalty to a reformed Islam, an Indic Islam. Indian State can also then argue in favor of allowing scientific analysis of religion in India, because of India's obligation to assure 'freedom of spiritual and scientific quest'. Indian State can also legislate against virulent religious preachings which encourage violence, or against violence by religious gangs as a consequence of allegations of blasphemy.

So people who define themselves as Hindu, automatically except different paths to God, different pursuits to God, different approaches, and different ways of trying those approaches in the future. A 'Hindu' constitution would allow all that. Thus technically those who follow Christ and don't evangelize come automatically under the 'Hindu' fold. To interpret Hinduism in that manner and table it as such stop all the bogus, cliched nonsense of 'way of life' and stuff. It also solves the problems of how people try and explain Hinduism and it's multitude of experiences and concepts. Excluvism in spiritual tradition should be shunned..

I personally think this is how we should understand Hinduism in general, but we should delve much deeper into it as it is our tradition also.

Hinduism is however much more than these abstract principles. It is full of many strands of thinking, and it does carry much baggage with it.

For the sake of anchoring these Hindu principles in the Constitution, and making it politically feasible, it would perhaps be advisable to call this by a more general name. I used the term "Indian Ethos Charter". Other terms like "Indian Secularism Charter", etc. are possible.

For this 'Indian Ethos Charter', I would include some more general principles over and above those that deal specifically with religion, principles like

• pluralism & diversity
• preservation of culture
• mutual respect (no more calling names like kufr, etc.)
• individual pursuit of spirituality
• scientific inquiry
• equality
• individual rights
• etc.

Some are already in the Preamble to the Indian Constitution!

[harbans]

^^ Rajeshji thanks for your inputs, well appreciated. I do think this requires some thought. It's not going to happen overnight, and i don't see why the present existing charter does not theoretically compel action against the constiutional carter of some existing religions in India. Tis ma be more a power game than just a consitutional one. Will give it some thought.

[svinayak]

Indian State has previously taken an active interest in reforming Hinduism, getting rid of untouchability, sati, dowry and encouraging widow remarriage. Hinduism is in a better state today because of these reforms.

This change was done during colonial times in the form of social engineering without a proper debate across the Hindu community and relfecting Hindu traditions etc. THey need to be made in line with the accepted Hindu traditions and sampradayas.

The 'Indian Ethos Charter' should give the Indian State new energy, new thrust to reform the Abrahamic religions as well, as practiced in India. It should empower the Indian State to deal with Religion and how it affects Society.

Indian version of these religions have to be created.

[RajeshA]

Indian State has previously taken an active interest in reforming Hinduism, getting rid of untouchability, sati, dowry and encouraging widow remarriage. Hinduism is in a better state today because of these reforms.

This change was done during colonial times in the form of social engineering without a proper debate across the Hindu community and relfecting Hindu traditions etc. They need to be made in line with the accepted Hindu traditions and sampradayas.

Important thing is that social equality and mobility of both the genders is retained or improved upon, regardless of the adjustments that need to be done.

[brihaspati]

There was a lot of discussion in the earlier part of this thread on religion and rashtryia attitude towards religion. This brought in also a lot of flak.

The article discussed above, and the subsequent discussion should make it obvious - what is actually the issue here. It is actually a question of accepting or rejecting a core set of values which are to be used in evaluating and forming preferences between religions and their practices. The author of the article, RajeshAji, and Harbansji, all have a certain intrinsic set of values inside their minds, which they are using to evaluate the Abrahamic or even "Hindutva" as it is represented by certain groups.

The problem is without such a set of values, all religions, faiths have to be accepted as allowable and allowed to be practised. The values above, which have problems with the Abrahamic, and of which perhaps the posters or the author are not always conscious about, are actually derived from Bharatyia and what Acharyaji chooses to call "dharmic" roots. It is the Bharatyiatva which finds the Abrahamic problematic. Therefore it also has problems with that modern reconstruction of the Abrahamic in liberal garb by the "West".

If we work back through the logical chain, at one stage we will reach the source of our difference with the rest of the world - it lies in the philosophical precepts of the Vedanta or the Upanishads. We may not be conscious of it, we may even deny it, but that is the source of core values that we use subconsciously to evaluate other faiths and their claims.

"Charaibeti -quest-yatra" is the epitome and essence of the Bharatyia value (I am not claiming it to be an absolute truth to be accepted by all others ) for me. From this comes our uneasiness with faiths that close the door on further quest. That bans critical inquiry and exploration of itself. From this comes our uneasiness with faiths that seek to control how we should think or how we should express ourselves.

But we usually make the mistake of not realizing this core value as the most fundamental one for us. Because we do not recognize its fundamental nature, we do not see any line of thought that does not seek to protect this most fundamental value over and above all else - as a line of thought that contradicts this value. If "quest" is the most basic and topmost priority "value" beneath all our philosohical superstructures, then any acceptance of a situation that targets this very fundamental value is actually contradictory and antagonistic to the "value" itself. If we accept this to be the core of our philosophical existence, then that values has to be protected against predatiry attacks, and any faith or system that threatens this value has to be erased out of existence. If we also consider this value to be of importance for humanity, then it is our duty to protect this value for posterity and humanity and do all that is necessary to do so - if it also means eliminating those theologians and their networks which specifically target our core "value" for liquidation.

"We cannot be tolerant of intolerance" can immediately be seen to be self-contradictory, unless we distinguish bewteen forms of "tolerance". It needs to go further "we cannot be tolerant of intolerance of tolerance" and specifically say that our highest priority is protecting the value of "quest", and "tolerance" actually comes lower in priority to this value of "quest".

This makes the proselytizing versions of the Abrahamic in all its current forms unacceptable. Judaism no longer claims right to convert and impose its belief set on the others (they have made it also "ethnic") which makes it easier for us to "tolerate" and cohabit with Judaism. As long as serious demographic miracles do not happen that suddenly puts the Judaic as the only numerically dominant ethnic group in the world and badly needing the Indian subcontinent for their homeland - we should not have any problems with this particular Abrahamic.

As Acharyaji says, if the "converters" really agree to change - drop the "conversion" bit, then we can have a "dhimmi" arrangement perhaps. I do not see much chance for that though as long as they see their communities in power elsewhere who can lure them along dangling support.

[svinayak]

Important thing is that social equality and mobility of both the genders is retained or improved upon, regardless of the adjustments that need to be done.

These are also part of the smpradaya and should be made if need be

[suryag]

Link to the SAAG forums - dont know if this has been posted earlier
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/BB/default.asp

[brihaspati]

Tasleema Nasreen's experiences provide an interestsing aspect for India's future. Is this going to be the future scenario?
http://taslimanasrin.com/index2.html

Taslima returned to India before her residence permit expired. But again, the largest democracy in the world demanded that she would only get the extension of her residence permit for India if she gives undertaking that 1. she must leave India ( she has to show her flight ticket that she is leaving) before 17th of February ( the day her residence permit would be expired), 2. she must not go to Kolkata, 3. she must not interact with media and 4. she must not enter India before 31st of May ( by this time the general election in India will be over). Taslima had no other alternative but to leave India silently.

Mayor of Paris invited Taslima to stay in a artist's residence in Paris for 6 months.

She is currently living in the USA.

[samuel]

Anyone know how to reach her?
We could try for her to give a seminar series, perhaps at Harvard.
S

Tasleema Nasreen's experiences provide an interestsing aspect for India's future. Is this going to be the future scenario?
http://taslimanasrin.com/index2.html

Taslima returned to India before her residence permit expired. But again, the largest democracy in the world demanded that she would only get the extension of her residence permit for India if she gives undertaking that 1. she must leave India ( she has to show her flight ticket that she is leaving) before 17th of February ( the day her residence permit would be expired), 2. she must not go to Kolkata, 3. she must not interact with media and 4. she must not enter India before 31st of May ( by this time the general election in India will be over). Taslima had no other alternative but to leave India silently.

Mayor of Paris invited Taslima to stay in a artist's residence in Paris for 6 months.

She is currently living in the USA.

[shaardula]

B,
i wanted to ask you some questions.

what constitutes legitimate political aspirations of muslims in raashtra?
what constitutes legitimate social aspirations of muslims in raashtra?
as an individual same as anybody else. but what about as a community?

i realize the distinction is tenuous (assertion is always on behalf of a group). but i think it is still an important distinction to make.

reason i ask is, now the trend is to say: congress was unyielding to the aspirations of ML. the point is, JLN's view was force fed to all the communities. they stuck with it, worked with it, AND created a space within it for themselves AND used it to assert themselves. What was it about ML, that they could not even work with it? mughal putra syndrome?

[ramana]

samuel, She has a gmail account for her contact. Maybe we should have a BR meeting for her!

[samuel]

BR meet (in US?) for this sounds great.
S

[harbans]

"Basic Freedom of Spiritual Quest" - an excellent way to describe the issue.

What organizations like USCIRF seem to demand is exactly that - Basic Freedom of Spiritual Quest. However they demand this in physical terms. Everybody should be free to pursue his spiritual quest. Nobody should be allowed to physically obstruct him, including through law. There is nothing here to criticize.

However this is often applied to people who are external to the ideological context in which the individual resides. It happens where strong and aggressive religious groups physically obstruct minority and/or weaker religious groups from exercising their 'spiritual quest'.

It is also applied to when the State undertakes measures to subdue the 'spiritual quest' through law, law enforcement agencies, paramilitary groups, vigilante groups enjoying the protection of those in power, etc.

What most organizations active for religious freedom fail to condemn is when the system internal to the ideological context in which the individual resides obstructs an individual's freedom for 'spiritual quest'. That is, the religion to which the individual belongs is in itself an impediment to this 'spiritual quest'.

Rajesh ji, can i use these lines in another forum where some really hard nosed American Xians are giving me a little hard time..old forum i posted earlier.

But the above points you made are really solid. Why not send them to a few organizations? What organizations sending this stuff will make a difference? Your's and Mannys original post really are par excellence. They give a very good expression to an idea that can remain hazy and difficult to explain..should'nt let this just wither. These are very potent expressions indeed.

[RajeshA]

harbans ji,

feel free to use it as you please.

Are you 'prady' BTW?

[harbans]

yes..thats where it started..

[RajeshA]

immensely informative posts!

[shaardula]

harbansji,

i dont know the context. but from what gathered, prof. balagangadhara has posed the problem rather well.
kindly go through the following paper by his student jopp. it is not trivial but i think very valuable in articulating the problem.

http://heathenfaqs.googlepages.com/jopp1.pdf

from what little i know, i think this is a seminal paper. their heathen in his blindness is more famous, but this is where they get to the nitty gritty and nuts and bolts of the problem, IMO.

The Indian state, modelled after the liberal democracies in the West, is the harbinger of religious conflict in India because of its conception of toleration and state neutrality. More ‘secularism’ in India will end up feeding what it fights: so-called ‘Hindu fundamentalism’.

The framers of the Indian constitution took over the theory of the liberal state as it emerged in the West and tried to transplant it into the Indian soil. In the process, they also endorsed the theological claim that religion is an issue of truth.
While such a stance makes sense in a culture where the problem of religious tolerance arises because of the competing truth claims of the Semitic religions, it does not in another cultural milieu where the pagan traditions are a living force.
Consequently, the Indian state is subject to contradictory demands. It must look at the Hindu traditions the way the Semitic religions do, as we have argued, while simultaneously playing the ‘agnostic’ with respect to the issue of whether religion
itself is a matter of truth. The first impels it to legislate on the issue of conversion; the second compels it to remain ‘neutral’ and let the communities decide. The first stance results in violence generated and sustained by the state; the second stance forces the involved communities to solve this problem on their own. The first attitude results in forcing the interaction between the Semitic religions and the pagan traditions to take the form of religious rivalry; the second forces the state to withdraw.

i dont want to sound like an evangelist, but here are the proceedings(?) of a conference his group conducted along with kuvempu university, india

http://www.youtube.com/user/cultuurwetenschap

please watch how vanayak et al., side step the problem formulation. they are completely into politics. something acharya has been teetaring about, even before teetar's founders themselves were even conceived.

[brihaspati]

shaardulaji,
cannibalizing partly from the expulsion thread:


For JLN, Islam's separatist tendencies of a separate "religious homeland" could not be true - he attributes all the barabarity to particular ethnic and race culture, all use of Islam to promote identity as being sourced form ethnic past and motivated by non-religious drives. Amalendu Misra summarizes this imagination of JLN - "Nehru engaged himself in imagining the coming of Islam to India through its original followers - the Arabs. the hatred against Islam in the Indian psyche and the denigration of Afghan and Slave rule, Nehru conceded was because Islam did not come India 'proper'. By proper he meant Islam in its original undiluted form" (Misra, Identity and Religion: foundations of anti-Islamism in India, p121). JLN actually speculates that if the original Arab culture had come with early Islam the rising Ara culture would have intermixed with previous Indian culture and enriched each other. There goes the "inexorable force of history" - for here is acknowledgement of choice.


JLN had started his reconstruction of Islam as a religion in the Indic sense, and diassociated all barbarity from the faith, much earlier than 1937. Moreover he tried to strip off all claims of a separate identity for Muslims in India at the same time. Here however, at one go JLN does an impossible conjuring trick. While he wants to deny the political and the military component of Islam, and ascribes a higher, "purer", culturally advanced origin for Arabic Islam he is elevating Islam to the status of a competing culture to the Indic but not of Indic origin. But at the same time by denying the nationhood of Islam he contradicts this very same separate and equal or high cultural status compared to the Indic. Liaqat Ali reacts "The Muslims are a nation and not a community. It would be a travesty to dismiss 90 million people with a glorious past as a community."

He among all the other Congressites, is instrumental in promoting the absurd theoretical dichotomy of making the Islamic a high culture equal or competing to the Indic but of non-Indic origin, while seeking to deny the natural fallout of such a status in the aspiration for a separate nationhood - creates all the memes and excuses for ML to flourish. Nehrus writings and his practice itself reveal a deliberate and conscious pretension in his attitudes towards the Islamic.

On the one hand he ignores all reality of Islamic rule, sometimes omits passages or claims from narrative sources that conradicts his construction programme. He portrays Islamic taking of Hindu wives as a sign of syncretism - but remains silent on the lack of reciprocation from the Hindu side. On the other, he demands that Muslims relinquish their notions of attachment to Arabia.

It is actually a simplistic portrayal to say that JLN was patriotic and nationalistic in all his motives in a "secular" "non-communal" sense. Only considerations of power based on Hindu imagery of plurality and the consciousness of identification with the Hindu, could have made JLN viciously attack the aspirations of a high culture for self-assertion - a culture which by his own construction had no inherent violent expansive tendencies.

JLN was doing a JS in his reconstrucion of the "Muslim" - he did not unfortunately yet have a Jinnah to focus on. They both have done it for the same purpose, to make use of a reconstructed Islamic identity that can be safely slotted into a power structure that they wish to impose. After acknowledging such high culture and non-violent non-expansive core for Islam, there was no reason to be scared of allowing the ML to have its pound of flesh in the 37 elections - and only one factor explains the fear, a clear recognition that the ML has the power to disrupt weilding of power by the Congress, and in the dynastic milieu of north Indian networks, it meant personal power.

It is not simply about Mughalputra. It is about allowing Islam to reconstruct itself as a separate alternative identity to that of the Indic. It is about the complete failure to understand the nature of the theology and societal control that holds Islam together and its totalitarian nature. The mistake happens time and again, because we model it and analyze based on expectation from the Indic framework of philosophy. To understand Islam, we have to understand it from the viewpoint of the Islamic. The Islamic concept is a totalitarian view of rashtra and human civilization. Any attempt at making it part of something else is anathema to it - it thinks of itself as complete and omniscient. Islam cannot share space for long with another concept of rashtra, either it dissolves or migrates or overwhelms.

In the case of India, the question has now been complicated beyond measure by helping in its consolidation and orthodox reconstruction. Questioning and weakening this identity over the long term seems to be the only way left.

[shaardula]

B,
could it have been an honest decision maker's condition? from an actual decision maker's perspective, i would think that the situation then was immense and the possibilities desirable and potentially long term. the window of opportunity then was narrow and what could be achieved was so precious that it would have been callous of nehru to have frittered it away in either taking up the fool's errand of reforming islamists or in blindly trusting the hindu narrative of the time. please remember that the hindu narrative of the time was that of a people under siege. it is one thing for people like rajaji to talk, quite another for somebody from closer to the center of indic center of mass to decide.

all that he could have done is seed a process, and that i think he did that commendably. that doesnot mean the work is done. but he has shown the way. even you agree and that the islamists be taken down dialectically. hindutva, as useful as it is, doesnot have the capability to do it.

i would imagine many during that time realized that after many centuries of localized piecemeal adhoc temporary trysts with control, there was a real tangible shot at restoring long term meaningful control in the direction of indic thought. for the first time in history there was an alternative way of talking about this eternal problem - as a nation state, as a people's movement etc. the old methods had time and again shown that the respective camps withdraw into a shell. and given the critical mass of the islamic camp in india, fortunes would always swing. this in turn would again put the hindus back in medieval mode when they were under seige and halt its evolution.

in contrast, this new idea helped create the necessary aggregation of the indic camp, which was missing previously. this aggregation is not labeled as hindu, and is not necessarily amicable to hindu inertia/taamasa, but it has managed to bring a significant number of indics along, hasn't it? more importantly, it has created a space that has revived the evolution of hindus which had stalled under attack.

also now the lessons and experiences are more systematic rather than adhoc. earlier what the raayas learnt was not transferable to the marathas, and what they learnt was not transferable to sikhs. for the first time we have a system and the system is based on popular participation.

the new system has universalized participation to a level that was earlier missing. i would like to believe, we indian masses have tasted enough blood that, now it is not sufficient if you knock out the king. ofcourse masses is just sweet talk. but the number of local satraps who now have tasted power has increased.

plus, even if the dynamics are the same, the process by which you get sanskritized these days has become that much more transparent. even though getting sanskritized is not the classic definition, but that is good isn't it? the old method was the method of a people under siege.

i would like to believe that now all islamists can do is ransack india materially. this may have been true all through the time, but earlier this depended on atleast a couple of individual indics holding out in the periphery. if it was present earlier, then under the new system it has only strengthened.

more importantly, this new method gave an opportunity for the the core of india to heal.

i would think the above should be counted as real gains for an indic. gains of this quality, the indic had not seen in a while. it was not intended, nor was it benign, but what the british intervention has done is, it has allowed the indics to break a cycle and not get stuck at the level islamists engage, rise above it, pose the problem differently and tackle it with new tools.

my main problem with hindutva is beyond confrontation and prescriptions, it does not posses the necessary narrative. the hindutva method is not going to bring about any of the required gains. As hindus we have a blindspot to its short comings and entertain romantic notions about its capabilities. hindutva is the attitude of hindu mind under siege, which is all about taaratamya rather than gnyaana or viveka. a case in point is this slogan about making sanskrit the national language. that is such a dissipative effort. which is not at all what is needed at the moment. the real effort should be to restart the much delayed and necessary evolution and revival of indic thought.

i am not dismissing hindutva completely. they bring about a much needed course correction and prevent people from getting too carried away and forget that as long as islam does not reform itself, we are still under siege. a lowly thankless duty they have. but if the hindutva are true indics then hindutva should do it as its dharma.

ps: i dont deserve a ji. worse i fear it is aayu ksheeNa for me.

[svinayak]

my main problem with hindutva is beyond confrontation and prescriptions, it does not posses the necessary narrative. the hindutva method is not going to bring about any of the required gains. As hindus we have a blindspot to its short comings and entertain romantic notions about its capabilities. hindutva is the attitude of hindu mind under siege, which is all about taaratamya rather than gnyaana or viveka. a case in point is this slogan about making sanskrit the national language. that is such a dissipative effort. which is not at all what is needed at the moment. the real effort should be to restart the much delayed and necessary evolution and revival of indic thought.

You are assuming that Hindutva is some static past narrative. It is about what you make of the present and for the future with Indian as the center.

The entire education system is seeped in colonial view that there is no real Indian narrative and experience ever being explored from Indian/Hindu point of view. It has to start in the education system, schools, colleges and teachers

[John Snow]

ok
seta ayush man bhava.

There are two kinds of people

Vayo Vrudha ( age wise senior)

Gyana Vrudha. (senior by virtue of knowledge or simply virtues)

If one is Gyana Vrudha but not Vayo Vrudha, then Gyana Vrudha can be addresed as ji and yet there wont be any aayush kshenam ( loss of logitivity)

So if Brihaspathi ji addresse you as Shardula ( Nara Shardula ~ Nara simha) ji it is not out of fear but out respect to your Gyana (vrudha).

Pray continue shardula ji in asking suta maha muni.....

[shaardula]

my main problem with hindutva is beyond confrontation and prescriptions, it does not posses the necessary narrative. the hindutva method is not going to bring about any of the required gains. As hindus we have a blindspot to its short comings and entertain romantic notions about its capabilities. hindutva is the attitude of hindu mind under siege, which is all about taaratamya rather than gnyaana or viveka. a case in point is this slogan about making sanskrit the national language. that is such a dissipative effort. which is not at all what is needed at the moment. the real effort should be to restart the much delayed and necessary evolution and revival of indic thought.

You are assuming that Hindutva is some static past narrative. It is about what you make of the present and for the future with Indian as the center.

The entire education system is seeped in colonial view that there is no real Indian narrative and experience ever being explored from Indian/Hindu point of view. It has to start in the education system, schools, colleges and teachers

no 'charya that is a different battle. hindutva has no answer/solution to your concerns. next time you are in oor please talk to bhyrappa and/or ganesh. they will telll you, hindutva has no solution for these problems. imo, we dont really have a usable estimate of the indian center - we have not yet correctly localized its correct center. the danger of premature action is we grasp what exists near us in the periphery and hold it as if it is the center.

snow gaaru. meeru marenu. alaanTeed emi laed ikkaDa. b-gaariki naaku oka polikaa?

[JwalaMukhi]

Himavan (snowji)'s akasha ganga has descended onto the bhoomi to spread the gyaana and pavana to the earthlings; namo namaha. After return from yatra to africa, vachanas and uvachas from himavan are flowing like Ganga, spinning the mortals caught in its wake.

[svinayak]

no 'charya that is a different battle. hindutva has no answer/solution to your concerns. next time you are in oor please talk to bhyrappa and/or ganesh. they will telll you, hindutva has no solution for these problems. imo, we dont really have a usable estimate of the indian center - we have not yet correctly localized its correct center. the danger of premature action is we grasp what exists near us in the periphery and hold it as if it is the center.

snow gaaru. meeru marenu. alaanTeed emi laed ikkaDa. b-gaariki naaku oka polikaa?

Hindutva is a political concept. The revival of intellectual thoughts has to come out from Indic heritage. If according to you there is no indic heritage left inside India I have nothing to say.

[RajeshA]

Hindutva has been cleverly and successfully portrayed as Hindu Chauvinism, as Hindu Supremacism, as Hindu Favoritism, as anti-Secularism. In the Indian media it has been demonized to an extent, that the use of the term and the pursuit of its agenda would be increasingly difficult.

In my opinion, the Hindutva agenda was to build up politically facilitating environment for reintroducing the Indic foundation in the nation's discourse, be it in our media, our education, our values, our language. It was supposed to stop the erosion in the nation's consciousness. In that way, it was it was indeed meant as a counter-movement to the pseudo-secular Macaulayist agenda, though not to the secular agenda.

However Hindu having become a term to specify a particular religion, at the same level as the religion of Islam, and the prefix -tva being used in a similar way to -ism, it was easy to create a public image of Hindutva being equivalent to Islamism. Just as people cannot condone Islamism for its brutality, similarly the people were being asked to project all their prejudices about Islamism on to Hindutva as well. The strategy of killing it worked. Images of hysterical saffron mobs during Babri Structure Demolition helped strengthen this image.

Hindutva lost steam, because instead of concentrating on bringing about a change in national consciousness through education and public discourse at a fundamental level, the Hindutva forces frittered away the opportunity and political capital by concentrating on emotionally charged issues and then not pursuing even those to their logical end, in the process losing credibility.

Under the banner of Hindutva, no political drive can be generated to pursue a non-Pseudo-Secular, a non-Communist, a non-Macaulayist agenda for India in the national discourse. One would have to find a different Banner for promoting Dharma.

It would have to be a banner which has positive connotations under the present discourse in India, and still be powerful enough to support the agenda of Dharma and Indic Heritage.

I suggest the banner be called Indian Ethos.

[svinayak]

However Hindu having become a term to specify a particular religion, at the same level as the religion of Islam, and the prefix -tva being used in a similar way to -ism, it was easy to create a public image of Hindutva being equivalent to Islamism. Just as people cannot condone Islamism for its brutality, similarly the people were being asked to project all their prejudices about Islamism on to Hindutva as well. The strategy of killing it worked. Images of hysterical saffron mobs during Babri Structure Demolition helped strengthen this image.

Good post. The media and the elite who control the media actually control this image of Hindutva etc. Nobody else had any control on the media potrayal of Hindutva.

[brihaspati]

shaardula wrote
could it have been an honest decision maker's condition? from an actual decision maker's perspective, i would think that the situation then was immense and the possibilities desirable and potentially long term. the window of opportunity then was narrow and what could be achieved was so precious that it would have been callous of nehru to have frittered it away in either taking up the fool's errand of reforming islamists or in blindly trusting the hindu narrative of the time. please remember that the hindu narrative of the time was that of a people under siege. it is one thing for people like rajaji to talk, quite another for somebody from closer to the center of indic center of mass to decide.

No, there is no obvious deterministic factor here that ncessitates what he did ideologically for a long time. There was no mainstream Hindu narrative of "seige" at the time. There was a running popular grassroots level theme for the previous 600 years of trauma. This did not require modern English education or press to continue as it was handed down from generation to generation as memories and narratives. But the areas where JLN operated, and obtained success, was exactly those areas where the remaining "Hindu" had long come to existential and collaorational arrangements with the Islamic. The first narratives of anti-Islamism developed as a a way of political unification and mobilization to reassert the majoritarian aspirations under the British. They could not directly go against the British, so they had to go against the Islamic - against whom there were already collective societal memories of trauma.

It was not a question of blindly trusting the Hindu narrative of the time. What Nehru did was as dishonest as Romila Thapar's activities on the intellectual front. He quotes sources to bolster his aimed for image of Islam, and quietly suppresses or outright denies aspects of Islam without any proof. His historical writings are a blaring attempt at reconstructing a history that did not exist. It is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order to selectively highlight and suppress to suit an inner political purpose.

More importantly, what was the necessity of constructing such an image of Islam? Was it necessary to consolidate the "Hindu" reassertion? To consolidate "Indian" resurgence at taking "control"? How is reconstructing the image of Islam as high culture of non-Indic origin which "could" enrich the Indic, help in this reassertion? Especially when from the Islamic side, there was no corresponding reconstruction of the "Hindu"? How can you excuse the complete failure to understand or deliberate ignorance of the only outcome of such rehabilitation of Islam - in the absence of matching appreciation from the Islamic - that the Islamic will seek a separate identity of equal or superior status to the Indic, given everything that history revealed about Islam's nature?

all that he could have done is seed a process, and that i think he did that commendably. that doesnot mean the work is done. but he has shown the way. even you agree and that the islamists be taken down dialectically. hindutva, as useful as it is, doesnot have the capability to do it.

He seeded a process alright. But this was a seed of destruction. His way is incorrect and dangerous, for it is not based on an understanding of the Abrahamic mindset, and the way it regenerates itself or continues. Policy formation based on personal experiences alone, or books alone, can be erroneous. Nehru's liberal and English upringing put him only with the "liberal" face of Islam, and hence he refused to look at the dark side of Islam. He imposed his personal experience on his intellectual pursuit and on the nations view. The false narrative he constructed lulled the "Hindu" into a false sense of security from the Abrahamic whose price the common Bengali or Punjabi had to pay.

A true visionary and intellect can see the fallacies and ulterior motives even in his own education. Nehru did not show this necessary mark of statemanship in questioning what the British education system or narration of Indian past put before him. This was an education that was not entirely targeting the Islamic, it also targeted the Hindu. Nehru did not question the negative portrayal and reconstruction of India's Hindu past and roots and try to find out why the ritish did what they did. His seeking of raising the status of the "Islamic" is a subconscious reaction to not having enough confidence in the "Hindu" for a successful thrust towards power, while at the same time clearly identifying with the Hindu. This was direct proof of his failing to grasp the underlying motivations of the British colonial project.

i would imagine many during that time realized that after many centuries of localized piecemeal adhoc temporary trysts with control, there was a real tangible shot at restoring long term meaningful control in the direction of indic thought. for the first time in history there was an alternative way of talking about this eternal problem - as a nation state, as a people's movement etc. the old methods had time and again shown that the respective camps withdraw into a shell. and given the critical mass of the islamic camp in india, fortunes would always swing. this in turn would again put the hindus back in medieval mode when they were under seige and halt its evolution.

What many imagined was the result of a careful construction by the British who were always keen to portray the Pre-Islamic and the Indic as "decaying", not strong enough on its own. They needed the "Hindu" whip to cow down the Muslim - which is an indication that in their eyes, a Hindu consolidation would be powerful enough to tackle the Islamic, but at the same time they were aware that any such consolidation would not stop at just getting rid of the Islamic but continue forward and chase off the British themselves. So the Hindu had to be restricted to a shaky non-confident foot resting on culture alone.

The old methods had not shown the islamic to be still critical. If you look at the entire history of the closing years of the Sulotanate to the fall of the Mughals, you can see, that the Islamic expands in spurts but they increasingly retreat before the rise of non-Muslim regimes and forces. In fact except Hyder/Tipu in the South and Siraj/Mir Qasim in the East, the British mostly fought with non-Muslim regimes right up to the First War of Independence. It took the scholar of "Hindutva" to coin the entire phrase actually - and not Nehru. The former correctly came out of the British imposed mindset - Nehru failed.

in contrast, this new idea helped create the necessary aggregation of the indic camp, which was missing previously. this aggregation is not labeled as hindu, and is not necessarily amicable to hindu inertia/taamasa, but it has managed to bring a significant number of indics along, hasn't it? more importantly, it has created a space that has revived the evolution of hindus which had stalled under attack.

Nehru could succeed in his imposition of the strange false hybrid because of the ground prepared for him by the colonial education system. It has created a space where the Bharatyia gasps for survival. It has created rather a total ideological vacuum wher the attempts by the "Hindu" flounder, for it has been forever ideologiaclly undermined as a delierate part of rashtryia policy. So much so that groups that started out to restore the "Hindu" reassertion fall back in endless cycles of self-recrimination and aping the Nehruvian politics itself.

also now the lessons and experiences are more systematic rather than adhoc. earlier what the raayas learnt was not transferable to the marathas, and what they learnt was not transferable to sikhs. for the first time we have a system and the system is based on popular participation.

On the contrary, there were extensive collaboration and overlaps between these forces. They echanged experiences through alliances as well as personnel.

the new system has universalized participation to a level that was earlier missing. i would like to believe, we indian masses have tasted enough blood that, now it is not sufficient if you knock out the king. ofcourse masses is just sweet talk. but the number of local satraps who now have tasted power has increased.

The new system has also universalized greater ideological control and brainwashing through the increasingly blatant reconstruction of history and image of the "other". But this happens only on the "Hindu". The rashtra gurantees and makes sure that the Arahamic have their own escape routes - where they do nothave nay obligation to portray similar whitewashed images of the "Hindu" as the "Hindu" has to swallow whitewashed images of the Abrahamic. This is your universal system and the legacy of Nehru.

plus, even if the dynamics are the same, the process by which you get sanskritized these days has become that much more transparent. even though getting sanskritized is not the classic definition, but that is good isn't it? the old method was the method of a people under siege.

Sanskritiziation, even now, takes place outside of formal educational process, and increases as the Indian goes further away from the Indian system, more significatly if they move into systems or countries that see no need to be paranoid about the Hindu as yet and therfore does not restrict free inquiry and access to information to the degree the Indian rashtra paranoidly does in putting up a purely non-political, non-militant, oh-so-philosophical and purely abstract image that it demands the Hindu conform to - while no such restriction is placed on the Abrahamic. This is the legacy of Nehru's grand vision - and if you look carefully into this, it is nothing qualitatively different from the British colonial project.

i would like to believe that now all islamists can do is ransack india materially. this may have been true all through the time, but earlier this depended on atleast a couple of individual indics holding out in the periphery. if it was present earlier, then under the new system it has only strengthened.

Really, can you predict the behaviour of all sections of the rashtra and society to Islamist ransacking? Isnt it still all about certain people holding out in the "periphery"? ideologically as well as geographically?

more importantly, this new method gave an opportunity for the the core of india to heal.

Where do you see the healing? Nehrus' policy of a false reconstruction of Islamic piety and high cultural status led to the formation of TSP which never lets the Indic forget and heal!

i would think the above should be counted as real gains for an indic. gains of this quality, the indic had not seen in a while. it was not intended, nor was it benign, but what the british intervention has done is, it has allowed the indics to break a cycle and not get stuck at the level islamists engage, rise above it, pose the problem differently and tackle it with new tools.

This is again what the British would like us to believe, for they desperately edited out from the reconstruction of India's past the military, political side of the "Hindu". Resurgences and revivals were going on all the time, and the Islamic was actually in retreat when the British arrived in their colonial project. The British intervention actually disturbed the process of military and political resurgence that the "Hindu" was going through. Islamist level of tackling should not be derided - they have been successful only because they have managed to score on the biological side, the raw physical arena of conflict, genocide and appropriation of others repoductive resources. We will blunder if we forget that the best possible way to ensure that a culture continues and its civilizational wealth retained is that it bilogically continues without interruption and physical intervention from others.

my main problem with hindutva is beyond confrontation and prescriptions, it does not posses the necessary narrative. the hindutva method is not going to bring about any of the required gains. As hindus we have a blindspot to its short comings and entertain romantic notions about its capabilities. hindutva is the attitude of hindu mind under siege, which is all about taaratamya rather than gnyaana or viveka. a case in point is this slogan about making sanskrit the national language. that is such a dissipative effort. which is not at all what is needed at the moment. the real effort should be to restart the much delayed and necessary evolution and revival of indic thought.

i am not dismissing hindutva completely. they bring about a much needed course correction and prevent people from getting too carried away and forget that as long as islam does not reform itself, we are still under siege. a lowly thankless duty they have. but if the hindutva are true indics then hindutva should do it as its dharma.

I am not yet touching "hindutva" with my probe. I still need to come to my own conclusions.

[shaardula]

Hindutva has been cleverly and successfully portrayed as Hindu Chauvinism, as Hindu Supremacism, as Hindu Favoritism, as anti-Secularism. In the Indian media it has been demonized to an extent, that the use of the term and the pursuit of its agenda would be increasingly difficult.

In my opinion, the Hindutva agenda was to build up politically facilitating environment for reintroducing the Indic foundation in the nation's discourse, be it in our media, our education, our values, our language. It was supposed to stop the erosion in the nation's consciousness. In that way, it was it was indeed meant as a counter-movement to the pseudo-secular Macaulayist agenda, though not to the secular agenda.

However Hindu having become a term to specify a particular religion, at the same level as the religion of Islam, and the prefix -tva being used in a similar way to -ism, it was easy to create a public image of Hindutva being equivalent to Islamism. Just as people cannot condone Islamism for its brutality, similarly the people were being asked to project all their prejudices about Islamism on to Hindutva as well. The strategy of killing it worked. Images of hysterical saffron mobs during Babri Structure Demolition helped strengthen this image.

Hindutva lost steam, because instead of concentrating on bringing about a change in national consciousness through education and public discourse at a fundamental level, the Hindutva forces frittered away the opportunity and political capital by concentrating on emotionally charged issues and then not pursuing even those to their logical end, in the process losing credibility.

Under the banner of Hindutva, no political drive can be generated to pursue a non-Pseudo-Secular, a non-Communist, a non-Macaulayist agenda for India in the national discourse. One would have to find a different Banner for promoting Dharma.

It would have to be a banner which has positive connotations under the present discourse in India, and still be powerful enough to support the agenda of Dharma and Indic Heritage.

I suggest the banner be called Indian Ethos.

precisely. but what follows "because" in that sentence is not an analysis, you are still listing consequences. Your statement should be edited as:
Hindutva lost steam, AND instead of concentrating on bringing about a change in national consciousness through education and public discourse at a fundamental level, the Hindutva forces frittered away the opportunity and political capital by concentrating on emotionally charged issues and then not pursuing even those to their logical end, in the process losing credibility.

The next question should be why did it happen like that? Could it have been any different? And back to the original question did this uncertainty cause Nehru to see the dangers in and short coming of this tendency of posing the problem as a hindu - vs the other problem, and instead conservatively chose to frame it as the problem of creating an india in indians' image, which is what hindutva agenda is, no? today what exists is a hindutva that is problematic. the indic thought is insulated from it. Contrast this with what is going on in TSP. In meaningful measurable terms what has TSP done for the progress of islamic thought?

Is it possible that Nehru decided the way to revive is not to usurp the authority to, or assume the burden of making a list of things that should be done for the indic to revive, instead nudge him in certain directions, but create an atmosphere where he discovers what is relevant to him?

Blaming current system is not convincing. Because under this very system many other aspects of indic thought have flourished. For example, we are able to discuss these issues with a reasonable expectation of the desirable outcome. at the same time the current system is vigilant/pedantic enough to not let all sorts of romantic obscurantism masquerading as indic to creep in. sure, the effect of this is felt most by the student who is paying attention. but such a student also derives the most benefit from true learning. and it is possible that all this high drama has made the class more interesting for that slacker in the last bench. there are signs that all this drama between the teacher and his pet student are beginning to educate the slacker.

(please note 'charya) there exists vast amount of indic thought out there, and increasingly more and more of it is being produced. however we should not forget that, indic thought has not yet come out with a viable coherent alternative narrative yet. with proof of it being in the "kesari" bath that the nagpur labs produced. the problem is not the ideas behind the kesaribath, the problem is the assumptions about the basis and the agents who were seen as the representative of indic thought.

in brf lingo i think what nehru was trying to do is engage the other in the mother of all chai biskoot sessions, till the correct environment was established.

in saying all this i realize that might be discovering attributes in nehru that never existed. my main point it is considering all that has gone by we are not necessarily worse off. the goal is still to establish primacy of the indic thought. but for it to be lasting, we cant just translpant medieval indic thought and assume that was representative of indic thought and we the rightful carriers of it. such free reign and slack is never good. and running with such notions is the essence of pakiness. evil yindoo way is to work at it and earn it.

[shaardula]

colours are indicative. spheres of influence and possible trajectories. concentricity indicates order of evolution. our estimate of the spheres and their trajectories is approximate(hence dotted). unrealized trajectories are receding. desirable trajectories have persistence well outside of their spheres (even if they are receding). only solid line is the trajectory we are on. its persistence is unknown.

disclaimer. its a schematic.ll angles are approximate.

nehru led us on the blue path, even has he sang soul stirring poems in melancholy about the untrodden green path?

[Pulikeshi]

in saying all this i realize that might be discovering attributes in nehru that never existed. my main point it is considering all that has gone by we are not necessarily worse off. the goal is still to establish primacy of the indic thought. but for it to be lasting, we cant just translpant medieval indic thought and assume that was representative of indic thought and we the rightful carriers of it. such free reign and slack is never good. and running with such notions is the essence of pakiness. evil yindoo way is to work at it and earn it.

S,

Hehehe, truer words have never been spoken before, Saadhu!

One suggestion - Bombay is now Mumbai, Madras is now Chennai, etc.
But, Hindu is not yet Sanathana Dharma, India is not yet Bharat... in vocabulary even..
Perhaps, the process is similar to the West which had to look back to its Hellanistic, Roman past to make its future.

[svinayak]

(please note 'charya) there exists vast amount of indic thought out there, and increasingly more and more of it is being produced. however we should not forget that, indic thought has not yet come out with a viable coherent alternative narrative yet. with proof of it being in the "kesari" bath that the nagpur labs produced. the problem is not the ideas behind the kesaribath, the problem is the assumptions about the basis and the agents who were seen as the representative of indic thought.

Again I would say do not underestimate the deep heritage of India and indic thought. Again taking some example from here and there does not give the correct picture. Intellectual process is deep and is not a product of one group or other group. Indian traditions have always multiple sources and different regions. One source and region cannot be the answer. Social organizations cannot be called as source of indic thought.

The next question should be why did it happen like that? Could it have been any different? And back to the original question did this uncertainty cause Nehru to see the dangers in and short coming of this tendency of posing the problem as a hindu - vs the other problem, and instead conservatively chose to frame it as the problem of creating an india in indians' image, which is what hindutva agenda is, no? today what exists is a hindutva that is problematic. the indic thought is insulated from it. Contrast this with what is going on in TSP. In meaningful measurable terms what has TSP done for the progress of islamic thought?

Nehru is just a product of his time. He was part of the modernization and globalization happening in the world at that period. He went by with what was current at that time.

[shaardula]

(please note 'charya) there exists vast amount of indic thought out there, and increasingly more and more of it is being produced. however we should not forget that, indic thought has not yet come out with a viable coherent alternative narrative yet. with proof of it being in the "kesari" bath that the nagpur labs produced. the problem is not the ideas behind the kesaribath, the problem is the assumptions about the basis and the agents who were seen as the representative of indic thought.

Again I would say do not underestimate the deep heritage of India and indic thought. Again taking some example from here and there does not give the correct picture. Intellectual process is deep and is not a product of one group or other group. Indian traditions have always multiple sources and different regions. One source and region cannot be the answer. Social organizations cannot be called as source of indic thought.

The next question should be why did it happen like that? Could it have been any different? And back to the original question did this uncertainty cause Nehru to see the dangers in and short coming of this tendency of posing the problem as a hindu - vs the other problem, and instead conservatively chose to frame it as the problem of creating an india in indians' image, which is what hindutva agenda is, no? today what exists is a hindutva that is problematic. the indic thought is insulated from it. Contrast this with what is going on in TSP. In meaningful measurable terms what has TSP done for the progress of islamic thought?

Nehru is just a product of his time. He was part of the modernization and globalization happening in the world at that period. He went by with what was current at that time.

the highlighted part. isn't that commendable? instead of making assumptions he stuck with what he had in hand.
no charya i am not underestimated it or pooh poohing it. what i am saying is hindutva did/does not have the framework to integrate the multiple sources of indic wisdom. nobody has said how that would have happened. somehow automatically assume that bcoz it is indic it will happen. what will happen, how will it happen, how will we measure what has happened nobody has said anything.

what is a test of indic-ness?

[svinayak]

the highlighted part. isn't that commendable? instead of making assumptions he stuck with what he had in hand.

It is not commendable. He was a minority in the large nation with a civilization going back to several thousand years. He did not understand the depth of the Indic if you read the 'Discovery of India'

the highlighted part. isn't that commendable? instead of making assumptions he stuck with what he had in hand.
no charya i am not underestimated it or pooh poohing it. what i am saying is hindutva did/does not have the framework to integrate the multiple sources of indic wisdom. nobody has said how that would have happened. somehow automatically assume that bcoz it is indic it will happen. what will happen, how will it happen, how will we measure what has happened nobody has said anything.

what is a test of indic-ness?

Again you refer to the same problem.
Hindutva is a political concept. Hence Hindutva cannot do anything you claim it should do or should not do. You are making an assumption here which is incorrect and totally takes away the focus.
You are claiming it should do this and that.
It is not a replacement for Indic intellectual process.

All the Hindu philosophy and its derivatives (including Jain, Buddhism, Sikhism etc) are the product of the Indic civilization. How difficult is that to understand.

[RamaY]

Acharya-ji

Perhaps it is the failure of Indic-thought-leadership that created the FHL leadership in pre/post independence era.

The need of the hour is to reinvigorate the Indic-thought process and offer an alternative social/political world-view in which the nation progresses with clarity of purpose, humility, pride and intellectual superiority.

Like I requested B-ji, my interest is to identify key performance areas that can be implemented independently at field level, at the same time building a strong core.

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from 'Strategic leadership for the future of India' Thread

I am all for assimilation - but the question is on what terms? How much of Islam has to be dropped to make it fit for assimilation? How much of "Bharatyia" has to be compromised? Can we at all assimilate by helping to raise all that in Islam makes it claim superior status? These are the fundamntal questions. And in this sense I feel that bot JLN and JS are making the same methodological mistake - if they contribute to raising the status or give justifications for the confirmation of those icons around which Islam reinvents itself to claim its original Jihadi agenda as the superior one. It appears that the smallest acknowledgement or favourable reconstruction of any aspect or individual in Islam from non-Muslims is taken by the Islamic as confirmation that "Allah" has moved in th heart of the non-believer towards "submission" to Islam. It simply whets their appetite for dominance and Jihadi conquest.

Brihaspati ji,

I think we ought to follow a certain strategy for winning back lost ground:

1) Give open support and praise to the icons of the munafiqs, the personalities, the dargahs, the customs drawn from Indic sources, etc.

2) Allow the extremists to attack the munafiqs.

3) Take the extremists to town. Publicize their sins. Drag them over the coals of justice. Kill them publicly.

4) Show loads of sympathy to the munafiqs.

5) Continue to build a national consensus on a common minimum agenda for social harmony through reform of religion. This common minimum agenda needs to increase with time, leaving ever less space to the extremists, and pulling the munafiqs away from the Islamic core and towards the mainstream. This is on the lines of my earlier suggestions to include "Indian Ethos" into the Constitution. The current common minimum agenda of secularism as defined by the Indian State is more geared towards assuaging the angst of the minorities from majority domination, but it does no justice to the definition of a common set of values.

6) Set up a state-financed program to wean the munafiqs into a reformed Islam, an Indic Islam, an Islam fully in consonance with the above mentioned national consensus on religious values, separating this into an independent sect with its own Indic Ulema, pulling away 95% of Muslims into the new sect.

[brihaspati]

I do even have problems with the illustrious personalities and their sites referred to in (1). Each such icon makes Islam presentable. That Islam which never ever compromises on the basic "pillars". Give me an "icon" of the munafiqs, which accepts that there can be other concepts of "God" than Allah, and that Muhammad need not be a Prophet of any "God", as what he preaches or reveals goes completely against anything that is associated with known other concepts of "one God". Give me a Munafiq which accpets that Sharia Law cannot be a ultimate goal. Give me a munafiq that accepts that conversion of all to Islam with its "kalima" and oath of allegiance to the "Prophet" is not a compulsory target.

(5) - can religion really be reformed by a national "consensus"? The very process by which such a "consensus" develops can be jeopardized by the religionists themselves. The assuaging "angst" aspect has been now hardcoded into the rashtra. There will be no tolerance even for any debate on adherence to a common minimal agenda. If the debate starts at all it will be targeted primarily in dealing with the so-called "caste problem" in "Hinduism". The debate will be hijacked into let first "evil yindoo" reform according to "our agenda" then we will consider - however, the fundamental "tenets" of our Abrahamic philospohy has been given by "God" so we mere humans cannot change them at will. (In fact both Barelwis and Deobandis agree that certain things in Islam traditionally and long accepted as part of Islam cannot be changed - those who do so do "qufr").

[harbans]

^^ As usual Brahspatiji very well said. My take is that Islam will never be compatible. The time is up for reform. We can say Xianiy reformed in 1990 years, but we cannot wait for 602 years more for Islamic reform to be comnpatible with Christian reform on time scales. It's been around for a loud and vulgar 1300 plus years. If it had to reform there would be an apology of sorts for so many massacres in India itself. None is going to come. The massacres are justified day in and day out on Paki forums. No Persians, no Turks, No Afghans have ever apologgized for an massacre. They've taken pride in them. So forget waiting in dhimmiude for that to come.

Like Nazism had to go and Germans stay, Like Fascism had to go and Italians and Japanese stay..same with Islam. It has to go. Muslims will have to be led out of this religion. There is no way out from this mess. And this is not my fault. The Koran leaves no choice on it's followers but to make constant direct or devious war on the unbelievers. The Christians could reform in hundreds of years, because of the NT which does not put its followers into the mess that the OT and the Koran put's it's innocent practitioners.

There are no reform solutions for the Koran or Islam that can exist. None. Zilch. Zero.

[RajeshA]

I do even have problems with the illustrious personalities and their sites referred to in (1). Each such icon makes Islam presentable. That Islam which never ever compromises on the basic "pillars". Give me an "icon" of the munafiqs, which accepts that there can be other concepts of "God" than Allah, and that Muhammad need not be a Prophet of any "God", as what he preaches or reveals goes completely against anything that is associated with known other concepts of "one God". Give me a Munafiq which accpets that Sharia Law cannot be a ultimate goal. Give me a munafiq that accepts that conversion of all to Islam with its "kalima" and oath of allegiance to the "Prophet" is not a compulsory target.

Brihaspati ji,

We all know that all Muslims think of Islam as the ultimate dogma and the right path, regardless of whether they are momeen or munafiq. Each Muslim would behave the way you have portrayed above. There will be hardly any exceptions to this rule.

The difference between the momeen and the munafiq lies not in the ideology, but their attitude, their lifestyles, their priorities. They remain in Islam but still want to enjoy the laissez-faire of the qufr. The munafiqs are the ones who want to have a bearable life, and enjoyable life.

The first point does not delve into ideology, but rather into psychology. The objective of praising their icons in the Music Industry, in Sports, in History is to give them an anchor, so that one can decelerate the predatory success of the Islamic core in assimilating the munafiqs more strongly into the core. That in itself is a goal worth pursuing.

The praise of the icons is not intended to make Islam more appealing to the qufr, or necessarily to increase the social overlap between the munafiqs and the qufr, but to increase the divide between the munafiq and the momeen. In absence of this, we are making the work of the momeen, the Islamists much easier in assimilating the munafiqs into the core.

(5) - can religion really be reformed by a national "consensus"? The very process by which such a "consensus" develops can be jeopardized by the religionists themselves. The assuaging "angst" aspect has been now hardcoded into the rashtra. There will be no tolerance even for any debate on adherence to a common minimal agenda. If the debate starts at all it will be targeted primarily in dealing with the so-called "caste problem" in "Hinduism". The debate will be hijacked into let first "evil yindoo" reform according to "our agenda" then we will consider - however, the fundamental "tenets" of our Abrahamic philospohy has been given by "God" so we mere humans cannot change them at will. (In fact both Barelwis and Deobandis agree that certain things in Islam traditionally and long accepted as part of Islam cannot be changed - those who do so do "qufr").

The issue here was not of 'reforming' Islam in the sense we usually understand 'reform'. National 'consensus' is actually a chimera. One will never reach something like that. 'National consensus' as I use the term, means one sets down the ideal attributes of a religion at an abstract level, and all religions in the land should be encouraged to adhere to these values. The 'National Consensus' is basically defined by the majority community and laid down by the majority community. It is called 'National' because the obligation for adherence is on a national scope. It is called 'Consensus' because no community would be outside its purview.

First the 'National Consensus' must be reached between the Indics. Then a few prominent Muslims much be bought over to laud these principles. Then the media should be switched on in a way, as if nobody opposes such high values, and then one should proceed to introduce them in a Constitutional Amendment. A true dialogue between the Indics and the Ulema is not necessary. The media makes it the right thing to do.

My suggestion of a 'reformed Islam', an Indic Islam refers more to 'reformed something', an 'Indic something' called 'Islam' for marketing. It is a project for taking a square Islam Tile and chopping it to fit a round hole/space in the floor. All that does not fit will be chopped off. You hire an Indic 'Ulema'. They can be from some theater group, for all I care. And we start calling it Indic Islam. You pump the project with money, and try to get the munafiqs to cross over under State protection.

This strategy is not based on an ideological debate about Islam or not Islam, about right and wrong, about permissible and prohibited. It is a project based on money, propaganda, privileges, State-ownership, subtle coercion for social engineering. We play the 'anti-Saudi' with similar scales of money. I have mentioned it earlier also, that I am totally in favor of prohibiting all foreign donations for religious institutions and strict punishment for any violations.

I am not saying that Islam need not be fought ideologically with debate, but I am of the opinion that there should be clear path of achieving the goal.

By the way, even the 'reformed Islam', 'Indic Islam' is a stop-gap measure, a railway station somewhere in the ideological forest, where the Muslims can be parked, before the Vedicisation Project takes over.