INDIA’S SELF DENIAL
Prologue
Why is it that Indians, particularly its elite - the
intelligentsia, the journalists, the writers, the top
bureaucrats, the diplomats - hold an image of themselves
which is often negative, and have a tendency to run
down their own country ?
The self-perception that Indians have of themselves,
is frequently detrimental to their self-confidence.
This is particularly striking amongst Indian journalists,
who always seem to look at India through a western prism
and constantly appear to worry how the foreign press
views India, how the foreign countries - particularly
the United States of America - perceive India, what
the Human Right agencies say about India... Thus, when
one reads certain Indian magazines, one has the impression
that they could be written by foreign journalists, because
not only do they tend to look at India in a very critical
manner, but often, there is nothing genuinely Indian
in their contents, no references to India’s past
greatness, no attempts to put things in perspective
through the prism of India’s ancient wisdom. Therefore,
most of the time, their editorial contents endeavour
to explain the present events affecting India, such
as Ayodhya, or the problem of Kashmir, or the Christian
missionaries’ attempts at conversion of tribal
Hindus, by taking a very small portion of the subcontinent’s
history - usually the most recent one - without trying
to put these events in a broader focus, or attempting
to revert back to India’s long and ancient history.
In a gist, one could say - although things have been
changing in the late nineties - that there is hardly
any self-pride amongst India’s intellectual elite,
because they are usually too busy running down their
own country. It is done in a very brilliantly manner,
it is true - because Indian journalists, writers, artists,
high bureaucrats, are often intelligent, witty and talented
people - but always with that western slant, as if India
was afflicted by a permanent inferiority complex. One
then has to try to analyse the underlying reasons of
this negative self-perception that India has of herself,
probe the unconscious impulses which give many Indians
- Hindus, we should say, as the majority of India’s
intelligentsia are born Hindus - the habit of always
depreciating their own culture and traditions.
THE THEORY OF THE ARYAN INVASION
_________________ I
The first and foremost explanation for this inferiority
complex could be the theorem of the Aryan invasion,
which is still taken as the foundation stone of the
History of India. According to this theory, which was
actually devised in the 18th and 19th century by British
linguists and archaeologists, who had a vested interest
to prove the supremacy of their culture over the one
of the subcontinent, the first inhabitants of India
were good-natured, peaceful, dark-skinned shepherds,
called the Dravidians. They were supposedly remarkable
builders, witness the city of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistani
Sind, but had no culture to speak-off, no written texts,
no proper script even. Then, around 1500 B.C., India
is said to have been invaded by tribes called the Aryans
: white-skinned, nomadic people, who originated somewhere
in Ural, or the Caucasus. To the Aryans, are attributed
Sanskrit, the Vedic - or Hindu religion, India’s
greatest spiritual texts, the Vedas, as well as a host
of subsequent writings, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata,
the Ramanaya, etc…
This was indeed a masterly stroke on the part of the
British : thanks to the Aryan theory, they showed on
the one hand that Indian civilisation was not that ancient
and that it was posterior to the cultures which influenced
the western world - Mesopotamia, Sumeria, or Babylon
- and on the other hand, that whatever good things India
had developed - Sanskrit, literature, or even its architecture,
had been influenced by the West. Thus, Sanskrit, instead
of being the mother of all Indo-European languages,
became just a branch of their huge family; thus, the
religion of Zarathustra is said to have influenced Hinduism
- as these Aryan tribes were believed to have transited
through numerous countries, Persia being one, before
reaching India - and not vice versa. In the same manner,
many achievements were later attributed to the Greek
invasion of Alexander the Great : scientific discoveries,
mathematics, architecture etc. So ultimately, it was
cleverly proved that nothing is Indian, nothing really
great was created in India, it was always born out of
different influences on the subcontinent.
To make this theory even more complicated, the British,
who like other invaders before them had a tough time
with the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, implied that the
Aryans drove the Dravidians southwards, where they are
still today; and that to mark forever their social boundaries,
these Aryans had devised the despicable caste system,
whereby, they the priests and princes, ruled over the
merchants and labourers... And thus English missionaries
and later, American preachers, were able to convert
tribes and low caste Hindus by telling them : "
you, the aborigines, the tribals, the Harijans, were
there in India before the Aryans; you are the original
inhabitants of India, and you should discard Hinduism,
the religion of these arrogant Aryans and embrace, Christianity,
the true religion".
Thus was born the great Aryan invasion theory, of two
civilisations, that of the low caste Dravidians and
the high caste Aryans, always pitted against each other
- which has endured, as it is still today being used
by some Indian politicians - and has been enshrined
in all history books - Western, and unfortunately also
Indian. Thus were born wrong “nationalistic”
movements, such as the Dravidian movement against Hindi
and the much-maligned Brahmins, who actually represent
today a minority, which is often underprivileged….
This Aryan invasion theory has also made India look
westwards, instead of taking pride in its past and present
achievements. It may also unconsciously be one of the
reasons why there was at one time such great fascination
for Sonia Gandhi, a White-Skinned-Westerner, who may
have been unconsciously perceived as a true Aryan by
the downtrodden Dravidians and a certain fringe of that
Indian intelligentsia which is permanently affected
by an inferiority complex towards the West. It may even
have given a colour fixation to this country, where
women will go to extremes to look “fair”.
But today, this theory is being challenged more and
more by new discoveries, both archaeological and linguistic.
There are many such proofs, but two stand out : the
discovery of the Saraswati river and the deciphering
of the Indus seals. In the Rig Veda, the Ganges, India’s
sacred river, is only mentioned once, but the mythic
Saraswati is praised on more than fifty occasions. Yet
for a long time, the Saraswati river was considered
a myth, until the American satellite Landstat was able
to photograph and map the bed of this magnificent river,
which was nearly fourteen kilometres wide, took its
source in the Himalayas, flowed through the states of
Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, before throwing itself
in the sea near Bhrigukuccha, today called Broach. American
archaeologist Mark Kenoyer was able to prove in 1991
that the majority of archaeological sites of the so-called
Harappan (or Dravidian) civilisation were not situated
on the ancient bed of the Indus river, as first thought,
but on the Saraswati. Another archaeologist , Paul-Henri
Francfort, Chief of a franco-american mission (Weiss,
Courty, Weterstromm, Guichard, Senior, Meadow, Curnow),
which studied the Saraswati region at the beginning
of the nineties, found out why the Saraswati had ‘disappeared’
: « around 2200 B.C., he writes, an immense drought
reduced the whole region to aridity and famine »
(Evidence for Harappan irrigation system in Haryana
and Rajasthan -Eastern Anthropologist 1992). Thus around
this date, most inhabitants moved away from the Saraswati
to settle on the banks of the Indus and Sutlej rivers.
According to official history, the Vedas were composed
around 1500 BC, some even say 1200 BC. Yet, as we have
seen, the Rig Veda, describes India as it was before
the great drought which dried-up the Saraswati; which
means in effect that the so-called Indus, or Harappan
civilisation was a continuation of the Vedic epoch,
which ended approximately when the Saraswati dried-up.
Recently, the famous Indus seals, discovered on the
site of Mohenja Daro and Harappa, may have been deciphered
by Dr Rajaram, a mathematician who worked at one time
for the NASA and Dr Jha, a distinguished linguist. In
the biased light of the Aryan invasion theory, these
seals were presumed to be written in a Harappan (read
Dravidian) script, although they had never been convincingly
decoded. But Rajaram and Jha, using an ancient Vedic
glossary, the Nighantu, found out that the script is
of Sanskrit lineage, is read from left to right and
does not use vowels (which like in Arabic, are ‘guessed’
according to the meaning of the whole sentence). In
this way, they have been able to decipher so far 1500
and 2000 seals, or about half the known corpus. As the
discovery of the Saraswati river, the decipherment of
the Indus scripts also goes to prove that that the Harappan
Civilization, of which the seals are a product, belonged
to the latter part of the Vedic Age and had close connections
with Vedantic works like the Sutras and the Upanishads.
In this light, it becomes evident that not only there
never was an Aryan invasion of India, but, as historian
Konraad Elst writes, it could very well be that it was
an Indian race which went westwards : " rather
than Indo-Iranians on their way from South Russia to
Iran and partly to India, these may as well be the Hitites,
Kassites or Mitanni, on their way from India, via the
Aral Lake area, to Anatolia, or Mesopotamia, where they
show up in subsequent centuries" (Indigenous Indians).
AN IMAGE OF POVERTY
_____________________
II
Another reason why Indians often exhibit a negative
idea of themselves, may be because India is always associated
in the world with poverty : Mother Teresa, Unicef, or
Calcutta. This image has been reinforced by books such
as the City of Joy, an international best-seller, which
takes a little part of India - the Calcutta slums -
and gives the impression to the naïve and ignorant
western readers, that it constitutes the whole of India.
Another factor which reinforces the image of poverty
is the tremendous fame which Mother Theresa enjoyed
in her lifetime - and even after her death, as she is
in the process of being made a saint. While it is true
that Mother Theresa did a tremendous job in Calcutta,
she never tried to counterbalance the very negative
image of India that her name was carrying, with some
praise for the country which had adopted her for fifty
years. She could have spoken for instance about the
great hospitality of Indians, or the open-mindedness
of Hindu religion, which had allowed her to practise
Christianity near one of the most sacred temples of
the country, or even about the near worship which most
Hindus showed for her.
It is true that there is a tremendous amount of poverty
in India, and that many people can only afford one meal
a day. But four things should be known. Firstly, that
until the 18th century, in spite of the repeated Muslim
invasions, India was known as one of the richest countries
of the world, the land “of milk and honey”.
You only have to read the numerous accounts of travellers
from different countries, who all marvelled at India’s
prosperity.
The second thing, is that all the great famines of India
happened during the British time. Many historians, such
as Frenchman Guy Deleury, have documented the economic
rape of India by the British : “Industrially the
British suffocated India , gradually strangling Indian
industries whose finished products, textiles in particular,
were of a quality unique in the world which has made
them famous over the centuries. Instead they oriented
Indian industries towards jute, cotton, tea, oil seeds,
which they needed as raw materials for their home industries.
They employed cheap labour for the enterprises while
traditional artisans were perishing. India, which used
to be a land of plenty, where milk and honey flowed
started drying” (Modèle Indou)… According
to British records, one million Indians died of famine
between 1800 and 1825, 4 million between 1825-1850,
5 million between 1850-1875 and 15 million between 1875-1900.
Thus 25 million Indians died in 100 years ! The British
must be proud of their bloody record. It is probably
more honourable and straightforward to kill in the name
of Allah, than in the guise of petty commercial interests
and total disregard for the ways of a 5000 year civilisation.
Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, India was
bled dry and there were no resources left.
The third fact, is that after Independence, whatever
poverty there still was in this country, there were
no more famines, as India managed to become self-sufficient
in food through the Green Revolution (whatever negative
side effects it had on India’s ecology - but that
is another story). This is a great achievement, a tremendous
task of which India can be proud off. For if you look
at China, India’s largest neighbour, which always
invites natural comparison with India as they share
many of the same problems and characteristics, it went
through tremendous traumas after independence. Millions
died of hunger, for instance, when Mao diverted peasants
from cultivating the land, in his misguided and megalomaniac
effort to increase steel production. It should also
be said that later it did look as if China fared better
than India in its effort to feed adequately its people.
But that is because they employed coercion to control
their own population, whereas India, a democracy, never
tried to force its citizens to have less children -
except for a short while under Indira Gandhi (who lost
the elections shortly after).
The fourth thing is that there is a tremendous amount
of black money in India – as much as 40 to 50%
of the total economy. If that money could be tapped
and channelled to the White economy, it would give a
tremendous boost to the nation. But you need a government
wise enough to enact laws which make people cheat less.
People have been cheating since 1947, because Nehru
had decided that Socialism, partly modelled after the
Soviet Union, was the best tool to bridge the yawning
gap between the very rich and the very poor of India.
At that time, it seemed a good idea, but as years passed,
it proved a disaster, spawning a huge bureaucratic system,
breeding corruption, stifling free enterprise and overall
making people cheat, because it had introduced one of
the heaviest taxing system in the world. And the sad
thing is that Indians - from the middle class to even
the poorer people - are some of the greatest savers
in the world. Not for them the credit card system, which
is ruining the West, by artificially enhancing the economy
- no, they save in land, gold, jewellery, or in cash,
often stashed at home. And that is a tremendous asset
for India, if it could be brought in the open. There
is nowadays an economic crisis in the so-called Tiger
countries of Asia – even Hong-Kong is affected
by it. But so far, India’s economy has remained
sound. Of course there are drawbacks: the Rupee is not
yet fully convertible, subsidies drain the Exchequer,
import duties are still levied on many goods…
However this partially insulated economy has helped
India to protect her own industries, while switching
gradually to a fully liberalised financial system. Thus,
if that tremendous amount of black money could be tapped,
it would also contribute towards changing this “poor”
image sticking to India, which is harming her in her
quest for foreign investments and international recognition.
China too had a very negative image until the late
sixties : the Red menace, the communist Dragon, the
great Backward leap... But after Nixon’s visit
in 1971, everything changed – that is the Western
Press, which was responsible in the first place for
China’s negative image, started projecting a more
positive picture of China. It also helped, that contrary
to Indians, the Chinese are proud of themselves and
possess a strong nationalistic bend – maybe because
they have never been colonised, except for short periods.
And today, there is not only a fascination for China
in the West, but the Industrialised World has also placed
many of its economic chips there. France, for instance,
invests 10 times more in China than in India. Yet, India
is a much more interesting country from the investment
point of view : it is democratic, which China is not;
people there speak more English than in China; it has
laws to protect contracts, which is not the case in
China; it is a stable country, in spite of the political
problems and all kinds of separatist movements…
But still, the world hardly takes notice of India –
although things are beginning to change. And that is
because of India’s negative image, of course !
And nobody is more responsible about this negative image
than Indians themselves. India has to stop going around
with a begging bowl in her hands. For India does not
have to beg : it has the material and intellectual wealth
- it has even the monetary resources.
THE CASTE SYSTEM
________________
III
The caste system has been the most misunderstood, the
most vilified aspect of Hindu society at the hands of
Western scholars - and even today by "secular"
Indians. And this has greatly contributed to India’s
self-depreciation, as you hardly find any Indian who
is not ashamed of caste, especially if he talks to a
Westerner. But ultimately, one must understand the original
purpose behind the caste system, as spelt out by India’s
Great Sage and Avatar of the Modern Age, Sri Aurobindo
: "Caste was originally an arrangement for the
distribution of functions in society, just as much as
class in Europe, but the principle on which this distribution
was based was peculiar to India. A brahmin was a brahmin
not by mere birth, but because he discharged the duty
of preserving the spiritual and intellectual elevation
of the race, and he had to cultivate the spiritual temperament
and acquire the spiritual training which alone would
qualify him for the task. The kshatriya was kshatriya
not merely because he was the son of warriors and princes,
but because he discharged the duty of protecting the
country and preserving the high courage and manhood
of action, and he had to cultivate the princely temperament
and acquire the strong and lofty Samurai training which
alone fitted him for his duties. So it was for the vaishya
whose function was to amass wealth for the race and
the shudra who discharged the humbler duties of service
without which the other castes could not perform their
share of labour for the common, good". (India's
Rebirth, p 26).
It is true that in time the caste system has become
perverted, as Sri Aurobindo also noted : "it is
the nature of human institutions to degenerate; there
is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated.
It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications
which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate
and even immaterial and is determined by the purely
material tests of occupation and birth... By this change
it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of
Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate
the material and thus lost most of its meaning. the
spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority
came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and
the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce
us to our present condition...(India's Rebirth, p 27)
Today, the abuses being done in the name of caste are
often horrifying, specially to a Westerner brought up
on more egalitarian values. Some of the backward villages
of Tamil Nadu, or Bihar for instance, still segregate
Harijans and the lower castes, who do not have the same
access to educational facilities than the upper castes,
in spite of Nehru’s heavy-handed quota system,
which has been badly taken advantage off.
Modern-day Indian politicians have exploited like nobody
else the caste divide for their own selfish purposes.
The politicians of ancient India were princes and kings
belonging to the kshatriya caste; their duty was to
serve the nation and high ideals were held in front
of them by the brahmins and rishis who advised them.
The Buddha’s father for instance, was a king elected
by its own people. But today we see corrupt, inefficient
men, who have forgotten that they are supposed to serve
the nation first, who are only interested in minting
the maximum money in the minimum time. Indian politicians
have often become a caricature, which is made fun of
by the whole country, adding to India’s self-negating
image. They are frequently uneducated, gross people,
elected on the strength of demagogic pledges, such as
promising rice for 2 Rs a kilo, a folly which at one
time was draining many state’s coffers, or by
playing Muslims against Hindus, Harijans against Brahmins,
as in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Ministers
in India are most of the time ignorant, unqualified,
often having no idea about the department they are overseeing
- it is the civil servants who control matters, who
know their subject thoroughly. You have to work hard
to become a civil servant, study, pass exams, then slowly
climb up the hierarchy, hereby gaining experience. The
politician just jumps from being a lowly clerk, or some
uneducated zamindar to become a powerful Minister, lording
over much more educated men. There should be also exams
to become a minister, a minimum of knowledge and skills
should be required of the man who says he wants to serve
the nation. It matters not if he comes from a low caste,
but he should have in his heart a little bit of the
selflessness of the kshatriya and a few drops of the
wisdom of the brahmin.
Nobody is saying that the caste system should be praised,
for it has indeed degenerated; but it would also help
in enhancing India’s self-pride if Indians realised
that once it constituted a unique and harmonious system.
And finally, have the people who dismiss caste as an
Aryan imposition on the Dravidians, or as an inhuman
and nazi system, pondered the fact that it is no worse
than the huge class differences you can see nowadays
in South America, or even in the United States, where
many Negroes live below the poverty level ? And can
you really exclude it off-hand, when it still survives
so much in the villages - and even in more educated
circles, where one still marries in matching castes,
with the help of an astrologer? Does the caste system
need to be transformed, to recapture its old meaning
and once more incarnate a spiritual hierarchy of beings?
Or has it to be recast in a different mould, taking
into account the parameters of modern Indian society?
Or else, will it finally disappear altogether from India,
because it has become totally irrelevant today ? At
any rate, Hindus should not allow this factor to be
exploited shamelessly against them, as it has been in
the last two centuries, by missionaries, "secular"
historians, Muslims, and by pre and post-independence
Indian politicians - each for their own purpose.
THE MUSLIM INVASIONS
__________
IV
Another very important reason for the negative self-image
that Indians have
got of themselves, are the Muslim invasions. This is
still today a very controversial subject, since Indian
history books have chosen to keep quiet about this huge
chunk of Indian history - nearly 10 centuries of horrors.
At Independence, Nehru too, put it aside, perhaps because
he thought that this was a topic which could divide
India, as there was a strong Muslim minority which chose
to stay and not emigrate to Pakistan. Yet, nothing has
marked India’s psyche - or the Hindu silent majority,
if you wish - as the Muslim invasions. And whatever
happens in contemporary India, is a consequence of these
invasions, whether it is the creation of Pakistan, whether
it is Kashmir, whether it is Ayodhya, or Kargil. There
is no point in passing a moral judgment on these invasions,
as they are a thing of the past. Islam is one of the
world’s youngest religions, whose dynamism is
not in question; unfortunately it is a militant religion,
as it believes that there is only one God and all the
other Gods are false. And so as long as this concept
is ingrained in the minds of Muslims, there will be
a problem of tolerance, of tolerating other creeds.
And this is what happened in India from the 7th century
onwards : invaders, who believed in one God, came upon
this country which had a million gods… And for
them it was the symbol of all what they thought was
wrong. So the genocide - and the word genocide has to
be used - which was perpetrated was tremendous, because
of the staunch resistance of the 4000 year old Hindu
faith. Indeed, the Muslim policy vis à vis India
seems to have been a conscious and systematic destruction
of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined. Entire
cities were burnt down and their populations massacred.
Each successive campaign brought hundreds of thousands
of victims and similar numbers were deported as slaves.
Every new invader often made literally his hill of Hindu
skulls. Thus the conquest of Afghanistan in the year
1000, was followed by the annihilation of the entire
Hindu population there; indeed, the region is still
called Hindu Kush, 'Hindu slaughter'. The Bahmani sultans
in central India, made it a rule to kill 100.000 Hindus
a year. In 1399, Teimur killed 100.000 Hindus in a single
day, and many more on other occasions. Historian Konraad
Elst, in his book "Negationism in India",
quotes Professor K.S. Lal, who calculated that the Hindu
population decreased by eighty million between the year
1000 and 1525, indeed, probably the biggest holocaust
in the world’s history, far greater than the genocide
of the Incas in South America by the Spanish and the
Portuguese.
Regrettably, there was a conspiracy by the British,
and later by India’s Marxist intelligentsia to
negate this holocaust. Thus, Indian students since the
early twenties, were taught that that there never was
a Muslim genocide on the person of Hindus, but rather
that the Moghols brought great refinement to Indian
culture. In "Communalism and the writing of Indian
history", for instance, Romila Thapar, Harbans
Mukhia and Bipan Chandra, professors at the JNU in New
Delhi, the Mecca of secularism and negationism in India,
denied the Muslim genocide by replacing it instead with
a conflict of classes :
”Muslims brought the notion of egalitarianism
in India”, they argue. The redoubtable Romila
Thapar in her "Penguin History of India",
co-authored with Percival Spear, writes again : "Aurangzeb's
supposed intolerance, is little more than a hostile
legend based on isolated acts such as the erection of
a mosque on a temple site in Benares".
What are the facts, according to Muslim records ? Aurangzeb
(1658-1707) did not just build an isolated mosque on
a destroyed temple, he ordered all temples destroyed
an mosques to be built on their site. Among them the
Kashi Vishvanath, one of the most sacred places Hindu
worship, Krishna's birth temple in Mathura, the rebuilt
Somnath temple on the coast of Gujurat, the Vishnu temple
replaced with the Alamgir mosque now overlooking Benares
and the Treta-ka-Thakur temple in Ayodhya. The number
of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in 5, if
not 6 figures, according to his own official court chronicles:
"Aurangzeb ordered all provincial governors to
destroy all schools and temples of the Pagans and to
make a complete end to all pagan teachings and practices"...
"Hasan Ali Khan came and said that 172 temples
in the area had been destroyed”... “His
majesty went to Chittor and 63 temples were destroyed”…
“Abu Tarab, appointed to destroy the idol-temples
of Amber, reported that 66 temples had been razed to
the ground". Aurangzeb did not stop at destroying
temples, their users were also wiped-out; even his own
brother, Dara Shikoh, was executed for taking an interest
in Hindu religion and the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was
beheaded because he objected to Aurangzeb's forced conversions.
This genocide is still a reality which should not be
wished away. Because what the Muslims invasions have
done to India is to instil terror in the Hindu collective
psyche, which still lingers many centuries later and
triggers unconscious reactions. The paranoia displayed
today by Indians, their indiscipline, their lack of
charity for their own brethrens, the abject disregard
of their environment, are a direct consequence of these
invasions. What India has to do today, is to look squarely
at the facts pertaining to these invasions and come
to term with them, without any spirit of vengeance,
so as to regain a little bit of self-pride. It would
also help the Muslim community of India to acknowledge
these horrors, which paradoxically, were committed against
them, as they are the Hindus who were then converted
by force, their women raped, their children taken into
slavery – even though today they have made theirs
the religion which their ancestors once hated.
EUROPEAN COLONIALISM ______
V
Obviously, one of the major causes for India’s
self-depreciating image are
the European invasions. The paradox is that no country
in the world as India has shown as much tolerance towards
accepting in its fold persecuted religious minorities
from all over the planet. Take the Jews, for instance,
who have been persecuted and treated as second-class
citizens everywhere after fleeing the destruction of
the temple of Jerusalem. In India, not only were they
welcomed, but also they were allowed to live and practise
their religion peacefully, till most of them went back
to Israel after Independence… But it is not only
the Jews, but also the Parsis, who fled persecution
by the Muslims in Iran, or the Christian Syrians, who
landed in India in the 3rd century, or the Arab merchants
who from time immemorial were allowed to establish trading
posts in Kerala... Or even the Jesuits, who were welcomed
when they landed with Vasco de Gama in Calicut in 1495.
But, as the Syrian Christians, as the Arab merchants,
they quickly turned against their benefactors and set
not only to exploit India commercially, but also attempted
to impose their own religions on the “Heathens”,
the Pagans, the Infidels.
It is thus a bit of a paradox when one hears today
Indian intellectuals claim
that Hindus are intolerant, fanatic, or “fundamentalists”.
Because in the whole history of India, Hindus have not
only shown that they are extremely
tolerant, but Hinduism is probably the only religion
in the world who never tried to convert others –
forget about conquering other countries to
propagate their own religion. This is not true with
Christianity, it is not true with Islam - it is not
even true with Buddhism, as Buddhists had missionaries
who went all over Asia and converted people. This historical
tolerance of Hinduism is never taken into account by
foreign correspondents covering India and even by Indian
journalists. If it was, Indians might at least take
some pride in their country’s boundless generosity
towards others… Indians have a very short memory
of themselves, maybe because they never cared to write
down their own history.
Thus, this beautiful tolerance was taken advantage
off by numerous invaders – particularly Europeans
colonisers. The Portuguese for instance, were allowed
to establish trading posts in the 15th century by the
Zamorin of Cochin. And what did they do? Alfonso de
Albuquerque started a reign of terror in Goa, razing
temples to erect churches in their stead, burning "heretics",
crucifying Brahmins, using false theories to forcibly
convert the lower castes and encouraging his soldiers
to take Indian mistresses. Later, the British missionaries
in India were always supporters of colonialism; they
encouraged it and their whole structure was based on
"the good Western civilised world being brought
to the Pagans". In the words of Claudius Buccchanan,
a chaplain attached to the East India Company : "...Neither
truth, nor honesty, honour, gratitude, nor charity,
is to be found in the breast of a Hindoo"…
What a comment about a nation that gave the world the
Vedas and the Upanishads ! After the failed mutiny of
1857, the missionaries became even more militant, using
the secular arm of the British Raj, who felt that the
use of the sword at the service of the Gospel, was now
entirely justified, so that at Independence, entire
regions of the north-east were converted to Christianity.
Remember how Swami Vivekananda cried in anguish at the
Parliament of Religions in Chicago: "if we Hindus
dig out all the dirt from the bottom of the Pacific
Ocean and throw it in you faces, it will be but a speck
compared to what the missionaries have done to our religion
and culture »".
In the late nineties, Indian Christians complained
about persecutions by Hindus “zealots”.
It is true that there happened two or three crimes,
particularly a ghastly murder against an Australian
missionary and his two young sons. But the massive outcry
it evoked in the Indian Press showed clearly how Indians
are constantly denying themselves and consider the life
of a White Man infinitely more important and dear than
the lives of a hundred Indians. Or to put it differently
: the life of a Christian seems to them more sacred
than the lives of many Hindus, which shows how the White
Man’s presence in India still has such an impact.
Because when Hindus were slaughtered, whether in Pendjab
in the eighties, or in Kashmir in the nineties, when
militants would stop buses and kill all the Hindus -
men, women and children, when the few last courageous
Hindus to dare remain in Kashmir, were savagely slaughtered
in a village, very few voices were raised in the Indian
Press - at least there never was such an outrage as
provoked by the murder of the Australian missionary.
At long last, Hindus are beginning to realize the harm
done by missionaries to their social and cultural fabric.
Yet even today, one still hears of covert attempts at
conversion by Christian missionaries. In the poor districts
of Kerala for example, missionaries still use the «
miracle » ploy to convert people : the naive drops
a « wish » in a box placed at the entrance
of church. And lo, this wish - a loan, some cloths,
a boat - is miraculously granted a few days later. Needless
to say that the happy innocent converts quickly, bringing
along his whole family. It is also this meekness of
the Hindus towards the Christians, as if the British
missionaries had permanently left an imprint of inferiority
in the collective psyche of Indians, which contributes
towards India’s self-denial. And let us not forget
that Pope John Paul II proclaimed that Asia will be
the target of Evangelisation in the Third Millennium.
MACAULAY’S CHILDREN
_______________
VI
When they took over India, the British set upon establishing
an intermediary race of Indians, whom they could entrust
with their work at the middle level echelons and who
could one day be convenient instruments to rule by proxy,
or semi-proxy. The tool to shape these « British
clones » was education. In the words of Macaulay,
the « pope » of British schooling in India:
« We must at present do our best to form a class,
who may be interpreters between us and the millions
we govern; a class of persons, Indians in blood and
colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals
and in intellects ». Macaulay had very little
regard for Hindu culture and education : « all
the historical information which can be collected from
all the books which have been written in the Sanskrit
language, is less valuable than what may be found in
the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools
in England ». Or : « Hindus have a literature
of small intrinsic value, hardly reconcilable with morality,
full of monstrous superstitions »...
It seems today that India’s Marxist and Muslim
intelligentsia could not agree more with Macaulay, for
his dream has come true: nowadays, the greatest adversaries
of an « indianised and spiritualised education
» are the descendants of these « Brown Shahibs
» : the « secular » politicians, the
journalists, the top bureaucrats, in fact the whole
westernised cream of India. And what is even more paradoxical,
is that most of them are Hindus !
It is they, who upon getting independence, have denied
India its true identity and borrowed blindly from the
British education system, without trying to adapt it
to the unique Indian mentality and psychology; and it
is they who are refusing to accept a change of India’s
education system, which is totally western-oriented
and is churning out machines learning by heart boring
statistics which are of little usefulness in life. And
what India is getting from this education is a youth
which apes the West : they go to Mac Donald’s,
thrive on MTV culture, wear the latest Klein jeans and
Lacoste T Shirts, and in general are useless, rich parasites,
in a country which has so many talented youngsters who
live in poverty. They will grow-up like millions of
other western clones in the developing world, who wear
a tie, read the New York Times and swear by liberalism
and secularism to save their countries from doom. In
time, they will reach elevated positions and write books
and articles which make fun of India, they will preside
human-right committees, be “secular” high
bureaucrats who take the wrong decisions and generally
do tremendous harm to India, because it has been programmed
in their genes to always run down their own country.
In a gist, they will be the ones who are always looking
at the West for approval and forever perceive India
through the western prism. It is said that a nation
has to be proud of itself to move forward - and unless
there is a big change in this intellectual elite, unless
it is more conscious of its heritage and of India’s
greatness, which has begun to happen in a small way,
it is going to be very difficult for India to enter
the 21st century as a real super power.
Thus the education curriculum has to be totally revised.
For instance, Indian history is still taught as it was
devised by western scholars and it promotes blindly
theories such as the Aryan Invasion, which probably
never happened. On the other hand, students learn practically
nothing about the extraordinary genius of their culture.
Studies of the Vedas, for example, should be made compulsory
from the seventh grade upwards, because, as Sri Aurobindo
remarked : "the Veda was the beginning of our spiritual
knowledge, the Veda will remain its end. The recovery
of the perfect truth of the Veda is therefore not merely
a desideratum for our modern intellectual curiosity,
but a practical necessity for the future of the human
race. For I firmly believe that the secret concealed
in the Veda, when entirely discovered, will be found
to formulate perfectly that knowledge and practice of
divine life to which the march of humanity, after long
wanderings in the satisfaction of the intellect and
senses, must inevitably return." (India's Rebirth,
p.94). Indian children should be told about the immense
human and spiritual values of their own literature,
like we in Europe are brought up on the values of the
Iliad and the Odyssey, or the great Greek tragedies.
Therefore, education in India has to be more indianised
- it is not a question of being “nationalistic”,
or “saffron-oriented”, as Indian Marxists
are fond of saying, but of knowing one’s own culture
: the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, which
according to many western scholars stand among the greatest
literary works ever written.
Of course, Indian students have to be geared-up for
the competitive world, because unless you can deal on
par with the West, unless you can speak fluently English,
in order to do business and interact, you cannot compete,
you cannot become a great nation. Therefore, the best
of western education has to be imparted, as Sri Aurobindo
had clearly indicated : "National education...may
be described as the education which starting with the
past and making full use of the present, builds up a
great nation. Whoever wishes to cut of the nation from
its past, is no friend of our national growth. Whoever
fails to take advantage of the present, is losing us
the battle of life. We must therefore save for India
all that she has stored up of knowledge, character and
noble thoughts in her immemorial past. We must acquire
for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her
and assimilate it to her own peculiar type of national
temperament. We must introduce the best methods of teaching
humanity has developed, whether modern or ancient. And
all these we must harmonise into a system which will
be impregnated with the spirit of self-reliance, so
as to build up men and not machines". (India's
Reb 36). Then India will produce generation after generation
of children who are proud of their own countries and
do not go about negating themselves.
THE PARTITION OF THE SUBCONTINENT
___________________________
VII
The first leaders of pre-independent India took some
disastrous decisions, and the worst of them was to allow
the division of their own country on religious lines.
And today, the consequences of this partition are still
felt : Kashmir is the most visible of them; but you
also have Ayodhya, Kargil, the nuclear bomb, the Bombay
or Coimbatore blasts - and above all, the self-negation
of a nation which is not whole, which has lost some
of its most precious limbs in 1947. Yes, it is true,
the British used to the hilt the existing divide between
Hindus and Muslims; yes, the Congress was weak : it
accepted what was forced down its throat by Jinnah and
Mountbatten, even though many of its leaders, and a
few moderate Muslims, disagreed with the principle of
partition; it was also Gandhi's policy of non-violence
and gratifying the fanatical Muslim minority, in the
hope that it would see the light, which did tremendous
harm to India and encouraged Jinnah to harden his demands.
But ultimately, one has to go back to the roots, to
the beginning of it all, in order to understand Partition.
One has to travel back in history to get a clear overall
picture. This is why memory is essential, this is why
Holocausts should never be forgotten.
For Jinnah was only the vehicle, the instrument, the
avatar, the latest reincarnation of the medieval Muslims
coming down to rape and loot and plunder the land of
Bharat. He was the true son of Mahmud Ghaznavi, of Muhammed
Ghasi, of Aurangzeb. He took up again the work left
unfinished by the last Mughal two centuries earlier:
'Dar-ul-Islam', the House of Islam. The Hindu-Muslim
question is an old one - but is it really a Muslim-Hindu
question, or just plainly a Muslim obsession, their
hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this
polytheist religion? This obsession, this hate, is as
old as the first invasion of India by the Arabs in 650.
After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of
Allah is still as much ready to strike the Kafirs, the
idolaters of many Gods. The Muslims invaded this country,
conquered it, looted it, razed its temples, humiliated
its Hindu leaders, killed its Brahmins, converted its
weaker sections. True, it was all done in the name of
Allah and many of its chiefs were sincere in thinking
they were doing their duty by hunting down the Infidel.
So how could they accept on 15th August 1947 to share
power on an equal basis with those who were their subjects
for thirteen centuries? "Either the sole power
for ourselves, and our rule over the Hindus as it is
our sovereign right, we the adorers of the one and only
true God - Or we quit India and establish our own nation,
a Muslim nation, of the true faith, where we will live
amongst ourselves".
Thus there is no place for idolaters in this country,
this great nation of Pakistan; they can at best be ‘tolerated’
as second-class citizens. Hence the near total exodus
of Hindus from Pakistan, whereas more than half the
Muslim population in India, chose to stay, knowing full
well that they would get the freedom to be and to practice
their own religion. In passing, the Muslims took their
pound of flesh from the Hindus - once more - by indulging
in terrible massacres, which were followed by retaliations
from Sikhs and hard core Hindus, the ultimate horror.
Partition triggered one of the most terrible exodus
in the history of humanity. And this exodus has not
ended: they still come by hundreds of thousand every
year from Bangladesh, fleeing poverty, flooding India
with problems, when the country has already so many
of her own.
For French historian Alain Danielou, the division of
India was on the human level as well as on the political
one, a great mistake : "It added to the Middle
East an unstable state, Pakistan, and burdened India
which already had serious problems". And he adds:
"India whose ancient borders stretched until Afghanistan,
lost with the country of seven rivers (the Indus Valley),
the historical centre of her civilisation. At a time
when the Muslim invaders seemed to have lost some of
their extremism and were ready to assimilate themselves
to other populations of India, the European conquerors,
before returning home, surrendered once more the cradle
of Hindu civilisation to Muslim fanaticism." (Histoire
de l'Inde, p.355)
Pakistanis will argue that the valley of Kashmir, which
has a Muslim majority, should have gone to Pakistan
– and in the mad logic of partition they are not
totally wrong. It is because Nehru and Gandhi accepted
this logic, which was tremendously stupid, that India
is suffering so much today. Of course, we cannot go
back, History has been made : Pakistan has become an
independent country and it is a “fait accompli”.
But if you go to Pakistan today, you will notice that
its Punjabis look exactly the same as Indian Punjabis
: they have the same mannerisms, eat the same food,
dress similarly, speak the same language… Everything
unites them, except religion. And this is what Sri Aurobindo
kept saying in 1947 : " India is free, but she
has not achieved unity, only a fissured and broken freedom...The
whole communal division into Hindu and Muslim seems
to have hardened into the figure of a permanent political
division of the country. It is to be hoped that the
Congress and the Nation will not accept the settled
fact as for ever settled, or as anything more than a
temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously
weakened, even crippled; civil strife may remain always
possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest.
The partition of the country must go...For without it
the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and
frustrated. That must not be." (Message of Sri
Aurobindo on the 15th of August 1947).
It is only when the subcontinent will be whole again
and the scars on both sides have been healed, that a
Greater India will regain some of the self-pride gone
with Partition.
THE HUMILIATION OF 1962
_____________
VIII
The so-called Kargil war of Kashmir in June 99 has
triggered two very positive phenomenons for India. For
the first time in a long stretch, it gave the country
a bit of nationalism, it made many Indians proud of
the heroism and selflessness of their soldiers. Whatever
jingoism, or chauvinism there also was, one could feel,
from Tamil Nadu to Punjab, that for a time there grew
a feeling of togetherness in the nation, the knowledge
of one’s soldiers fighting it out there, in the
harshest and most dangerous conditions and defending
Mother India’s sacred land. And that was very
positive, for unless a nation possesses a bit of nationalism,
it cannot keep on growing. And the second very positive
aspect is that it has revived in India a notion which
has been extinct for a long time : that of the kshatriya
spirit. A nation needs warriors, it needs soldiers to
defend itself and protect its women, children, and its
borders from hostile and asuric elements, which throughout
history have negated the Good and the Holy. It is fine
to be Gandhian and non-violent, but in the tough and
rough world of today, one cannot be too naïve :
you need a strong and well-equipped army to be able
to defend one’s dharma. But a well equipped army
is not enough – we have seen how today the United
States’ army, the most modern and high-tech of
the world, is only capable of fighting from a distance,
either bombarding from the sky, or shooting from boats
off-shore, a coward’s war, as its soldiers have
lost the sense of kshatriya, of honour, of dying for
one’s country. In Kargil, India saw the selflessness
of its soldiers, with all the officers in front, climbing
in the cold under enemy fire and wrestling peaks in
impossible conditions, with little more than blood and
tears.
But not only Indians lack self-confidence in their
dealings with the West, but they seem to have a permanent
fear of the Chinese. Is it because in 1962, the Chinese
took advantage of India’s naïveté,
and attacked treacherously in the Himalayas, humiliating
the Indian army and taking away 20.000 square kilometres
of her territory, which they have not yet vacated ?
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawarlahal Nehru,
had decided that India and China were the natural ‘socialist’
brothers of Asia. Shortly before China’s attack,
the Indian Army Chief of Staff had drafted a paper on
the threats to India's security by China, along with
recommendations for a clear defence policy. But when
Nehru read the paper, he said : "Rubbish. Total
Rubbish. We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is
non-violence. We foresee no military threats. Scrap
the Army. The police are good enough to meet our security
needs." We know the results of this very foolish
assessment.
But the biggest mistake that Nehru did was to betray
Tibet, a peaceful spiritualised nation. For Tibet had
always been a natural buffer between the two Giants
of Asia - in fact, the Dalai Lama‘s repeated offer
that Tibet becomes a denuclearised, demilitarised zone
between India and China, makes total sense today and
Indian leaders should have immediately adopted it. But
unfortunately, if there is one thing which all political
parties in India share, it is the policy of appeasing
China in exchange for a non-interference of the Chinese
in Kashmir. But what non-interference ? Not only did
China give Pakistan the know-how to develop nuclear
weapons, but it also provided missiles to deliver them
! On top of that, according to the CIA, China has transferred
one third of its nuclear arsenal to Nagchuka, 250 kms
away from Lhassa, a region full of huge caves, which
the Chinese have linked together by an intricate underground
network and where they have installed nearly one hundred
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, many of them pointed
at Indian cities. The reason for this is that the Chinese,
who are probably among the most intelligent people in
the world, have always understood that India is their
number one potential enemy in Asia – in military,
nuclear and economic terms.
It should be clear that as long as India does not stand-up
up to its responsibility towards Tibet and continues
to recognise China’s unjust suzerainty of it,
there will be no peace in Asia. Indian leaders are perfectly
aware that the Chinese, a span of fifty years, have
killed 1,2 million Tibetans, razed to the ground 6254
monasteries, destroyed 60% of religious, historical
and cultural archives and that one Tibetan out of ten
is still in jail. As we enter the Third Millennium,
a quarter million Chinese troops are occupying Tibet
and there are 7,5 million Chinese settlers for six million
Tibetans - in fact, in many places such as the capital,
Lhassa, Tibetans are outnumbered two to one... India
has also to wake-up to the plain fact that China needs
space and has hegemonic aspirations : it got Tibet,
it got Hong Kong, it got part of Ladhak; now it wants
Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, the Spratly islands and
what not ! Fifty years ago, during the Korean war, Sri
Aurobindo, had seen clearly in the Chinese game : “the
first move in the Chinese Communist plan of campaign
is to dominate and take possession first of these northern
parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to
their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent
in passing Tibet as a gate opening to India”.
India should overcome its awe of China and be ready
to eventually face once more the Chinese army. The nuclear
tests of India, which have been very criticised, because
ideally you have to get rid of nuclear weapons if you
want a safe world, should be seen in that light.
A WESTERNISED FRAMEWORK
__________________
IX
It is not only the British education system, which
was blindly adopted at Independence by Nehru, but also
the whole judicial, constitutional, and legal set-up.
The Constitution, for instance, has repeatedly shown
its flaws, as the Presidents, who has no real powers,
are playing more and more games and trying to impinge
upon the Prime Minister’s prerogatives. Democracy
in India has also been perverted : we have seen how
the Congress, who in the last three elections of the
century made disastrous showings, has used the subtleties
of the system to bring down four successive governments,
thus provoking useless and expensive elections, which
in turn threw no stable governments until the National
Democratic Alliance won by a landslide in 1999. Therefore,
it is the whole democratic system of India that has
to be reshaped to suit a new, truer nation, which will
manifest again its ancient wisdom.
And what is true democracy for India, but the law of
Dharma ? It is this law that has to be revived, it is
this law that must be the foundation of a true democratic
India: "It has been said that democracy is based
on the rights of man; it has been replied that it should
rather take its stand on the duties of man; but both
rights and duties are European ideas. Dharma is the
Indian conception in which rights and duties lose the
artificial antagonism created by a view of the world
which makes selfishness the root of action and regain
their deep and eternal unity. Dharma is the basis of
democracy which Asia must recognise, for in this lies
the distinction between the soul of Asia and the soul
of Europe." (India's Reb p.37- March 16th 1908)
And the most wonderful thing is that, practically,
India has at hand the model of a new form of democracy
in the old Panchayat system of Indian villages, which
has to be revived and worked up to the top. These ancient
Panchayat system and their guilds were very representative
and they had a living contact with the people. On the
other hand, the parliamentary system has lost contact
with the masses : the MP elected from Tamil Nadu or
Andhra Pradesh, sits most of his time in Delhi, an artificial,
arrogant and faraway city. The palatial bungalow, the
car, the servants, the sycophancy, the temptation to
get corrupt he encounters there, make him forget his
original aspiration to serve the people – if he
ever had one…What has to be done is not only to
decentralize the Government, by giving a greater autonomy
to the states – which should take care of most
separatist movements – but also to send back the
elected politicians to their fields of work, so that
they have a living contact with their people, as they
did two thousand years ago : « We had a spontaneous
and a free growth of communities developing on their
own lines...Each such communal form of life - the village,
the town, etc. - which formed the unit of national life,
was left free in its own internal management. The central
authority never interfered with it... because its function
was not so much to legislate as to harmonise and see
that everything was going all right”... (India’s
Rebirth 172)
The Judiciary, with its millions of backlog cases,
which sometimes take decades to be decided upon, with
its lawyers looking like crows in these ridiculous black
dresses, would have to be reviewed too. It would be
absurd to put back the Manu law into practice; but certainly
the law of Dharma, of Truth, should be translated into
a new Judicial system. Not to judge according to Western
standards, with its so-called secular values, which
have no relevance to India : « The work of the
legislators attempted to take up the ordinary life of
man and of the community and the life of human desire
and aim and interest and ordered rule and custom and
to interpret and formulate it in the same complete and
decisive manner and at the same time to throw the whole
in to an ordered relation to the ruling ideas of the
national culture and frame and perpetuate a social system
intelligently fashioned so as to provide a basis, a
structure, a gradation by which there could be a secure
evolution of the life from the vital and mental, to
the spiritual motive.. » (Found of Indian Culture
p. 283).
India has no national language, as Nehru thought that
English could be the unifying language. But barely 10%
of India knows English fluently and Hindi is spoken
only in the North. Yet, very few seems to realise that
India possesses in Sanskrit the Mother of all languages,
so intricate, so subtle, so rich, that no other speech
can equal it today. It could easily become the unifying
language of India : "Sanskrit ought still to have
a future as the language of the learned and it will
not be a good day for India when the ancient tongues
cease entirely to be written or spoken", admonished
50 years ago Sri Aurobindo, A dead language, you say
! Impossible to revive? But that's what they argued
about Hebrew. And did not the Jewish people, when they
got back their land in 1948, revive their ‘dead’
language, so that it is spoken today by all Jewish people
and has become alive again ? The same thing ought to
be done with Sanskrit, but as Sri Aurobindo points out:
"it must get rid of the curse of the heavy pedantic
style contracted by it in its decline, with the lumbering
impossible compounds and the overweight of hair-splitting
erudition". Let the scholars begin now to revive
and modernise the Sanskrit language, it would be a sure
sign of the dawning of the Renaissance of India. In
a few years it should be taught as the second language
in schools throughout the country, with the regional
language as the first and English as the third. On top
of that, Sanskrit would be a gift to the world, because
it will boost the studies of the Vedas, whose great
secrets will be unravelled. And again, this will go
in enhancing India’s self image.
ARISE AGAIN O ANCIENT INDIA
______________________
X
“Arise O India, be proud once more of Thyself”,
one would be tempted to say in conclusion. This should
be India’s motto for the Third Millennium, after
five centuries of self-denial. For, in spite of its
poverty, in spite of the false Aryan invasion, in spite
of the Muslim holocaust, in spite of European colonialism,
in spite of Macaulay’s children, in spite of the
Partition, in spite of the Chinese threat, in spite
of the westernised framework, India still has got tremendous
potential. Everything is there, ready to be manifested
again, ready to mould India in a new modern nation,
a super power of the 21st century. Of course, India
has to succeed its industrialisation, it has to liberalise,
because unless you can compete economically with the
West, no nation can become a super power. India has
also to solve its political problems, settle its separatist
troubles, get rid of corruption and bureaucracy. And
lastly, it has to apply quickly its mind and genius
to its ecological problems, because the environment
in India is in a very bad way, near the point of no-return.
Thus, if India can succeed into its industrialisation
and liberalisation, become a force to be reckoned militarily,
economically and socially, then the wonder that IS India
could again manifest itself.
And what is this Wonder ? Beyond the image of poverty,
of backwardness, beyond even the wonder that is Hinduism,
there is a Knowledge – spiritual, occult, esoteric,
medical even – still alive today in India. This
Knowledge was once roaming upon the shores of this world
- in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece… – but it
has now vanished to be replaced by religions, with their
dogmas and rituals, do’s and don’t, hells
and heavens. For we have lost the truth. we have lost
the Great Sense, the meaning of our evolution, the meaning
of why so much suffering, why dying, why getting born,
why this earth, who are we, what is the soul, what is
reincarnation, where is the ultimate truth about the
world, the universe... But India has kept this truth,
India has managed to preserve it through seven millenniums
of pitfalls, of genocides and attempts at killing her
santanam dharma.
And this will be India's gift to this planet during
the next century: to restore to the world its true sense.
to recharge humanity with the real meaning and spirit
of life, to gift to this dolorous Planet That which
is beyond mind : the Supra-Mental. India will become
the spiritual leader of the world :
"It is this religion that I am raising-up before
the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed
through the Rishis, Saints, and Avatars, and now it
is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am
raising forth this nation to send forth my word...When
therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the
Santana Dharma that shall rise, it is the Santana Dharma
that shall be great. When it is said that India shall
expand and extend herself, it is the Santana Dharma
that shall expand and extend itself over the world.
It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists".
(India's Reb. p. 46 -Uttara speech)
This knowledge does not necessarily reside in mystical
realms, but in authentic Indian traditional forms of
genius which can be very practical. Take for example
ancient medical systems, like Ayurveda, or Siddha. Today,
alleopathic medecines are found even in India's remotest
villages, making people dependant on harmful drugs which
are expensive and only serve to enrich the big foreign
multinationals. It takes a Deepak Chopra, an Indian
doctor exiled in the United States, to remind the world
that Ayurveda is one of the greatest medical systems
ever devised; that 5000 years ago, when the rest of
the planet lived in total medical ignorance, Indian
doctors were already performing plastic surgery, knew
that the origin of many diseases were psychosomatic,
had found in Mother nature the cure for most of man’s
ailments and realised that the five natural elements
have to be made balanced in the human body for a perfect
harmonious life. Not only that, but Indian doctors were
also yogis. They perceived that beyond the human body
was another divine reality, of which the soul was the
vehicle on earth. Today, Western doctors (and many Indian
ones) are totally ignorant of the different planes of
consciousness which superimpose our terrestrial life.
Hence these doctors and the psychiatrists of the West
are, as Sri Aurobindo pointed out, « searching
with a torch light in the dark caverns of man’s
Unconscious ». This ancient knowledge is unfortunately
now being neglected. As a result, American companies
are patenting medicines using the properties of neem
or haldi, for instance, which were known 4000 years
ago by India’s forefathers. As in the case of
Sanskrit, the Indian Government should thus put its
energies and resources towards the reviving of Ayurveda.
Or take pranayama, the science of breathing. The effects
of pranayama have been studied for thousands of years
and Indian teachers know exactly what results will this
type of exercise have on you and what kind of routine
you should do to improve that particular problem, or
develop this certain faculty in you. Pranayama, in Sanskrit,
means breath - and in India, it is known that prana
circulates in the whole body and that one breathes not
only trough the nose and mouth, of course, but through
ANY part of the body, making thus prana flow everywhere.
Thus, according to yogis, prana can revitalise all these
parts of our body which do not receive enough energy
- and which, as a consequence, become weak and lose
their vitality, like the eyes for instance. Pranayama
is in fact everywhere : in the air which surrounds us,
of course, but also in animals, in Nature, in the mineral
world even. It is also found in food : today, one speaks
of vitamins, proteins, calories - but one does not understand
that it is actually the prana in the food which gives
us energy; and the quality of this prana depends on
the sort of food we are partaking.
Recently, this ancient knowledge has been scientifically
verified when the National Institute of Neuroscience
in Bangalore, one of the most reputed in Asia, studied
for the fist time in the world, the effects of pranayama
on 80 patients suffering from various psychological
problems : depressions, anorexia, insomnia, obesity,
alcoholism... To do so, half of the patients continued
to receive a normal treatment : electroshocks, sedation,
psychiatric help, while the other half was only made
to practise pranayama two hours a day for three months.
By using the P300 method (Positive Electrical Wave),
to measure the reactions of the brain, through electrodes
placed on different parts of the body (vertex of the
skull, left lobe of the ear), the doctors were able
to study in nano-volts, thirty milliseconds after the
stimulation, the auditory and somatic reactions of the
patients. They quickly noticed that the latent periods
- that is the delay between the stimulus and the response
of the subject - decrease considerably after the pranayama
exercises and one also notes a slowing down of the breathing
and the cardiac rhythm. After three months, the 40 patients
having only practised pranayama, showed so much improvement
that they were allowed to go home, while the forty others
stayed on behind in the hospital.
Pranayama is probably the best suited Indian yogic
discipline for the West, because it is so down to earth,
so scientific : there are no miracles, no levitation,
no smoky mysticism, as everything can be explained in
a rational way. And again, the U.S.A., always prompt
to experience new techniques, is using this knowledge
: quite a few American companies have included exercises
of pranayama in the peps sessions of their executives;
sportsmen too are experimenting with it to improve their
performances, as the film « the Great Blue »,
has shown when the hero does a series of breathing exercises
known in India as « Viloma », to store as
much air as possible in his lungs, before breaking a
world record in underwater diving without oxygen.
And what about Kalaripayat, a very ancient multi-faceted
martial art, which is still practised in the villages
of Kerala ? In 522 A.D., an Indian Buddhist monk named
Boddidharma, who had become a master of Kalaripayat
(Buddhist monks, who travelled a lot in Asia to propagate
their religion, used bare-handed fighting and the bamboo
stick they used for walking to defend themselves against
attacks) and was the son of the king of Kancheepuram
in the state of Tamil Nadu, arrived at the court of
the Chinese Emperor Liang Nuti of the 6th dynasty. The
Emperor granted him a, audience and gave him travel
documents to walk to the Kingdom of Wei (now Junan province)
at the foot of the Han Shan mountains, to a Buddhist
monastery called the temple of Shaolin.
Father and founder of Zen Buddhism (called C’han
in China and Dhyana in India), Boddidharma taught the
Chinese monks the barehanded fighting techniques of
Kalaripayat, a very ancient Indian martial art, so that
they could defend themselves against the frequent attacks
of bandits. In time the monks became know all over China
as skilled exponents of barehanded fighting, which came
to be known as the Shaolin boxing art.
The Shaolin temple which was handed back a few years
ago to the C ’han Buddhist monks by the Chinese
Government, inheritors of Boddhidharma’s spiritual
and martial teachings, is now open to visitors. On one
of its walls, one can see a fresco depicting dark-skinned
Indians teaching their lighter-skinned brothers the
art of barehanded fighting. On the painting is inscribed
: « Tenjiku Naranokaku », which means :
« the fighting techniques to train the body (which
come) from India.
Kalaripayat, or Shaolin boxing as it is came to be
known, passed from China to Japan, through the Ryukyu
islands, landing in Okinawa to blossom in the art of
the Empty Hand, or later, Karate. Later it manifested
in the Japanese mainland as jiu-jiu-tso, judo, Shorinji
Kempo, etc. Karate, the art of the Empty Hand, father
of all Japanese martial arts, is a blend of Boddhidharma’s
martial teachings and the local fighting techniques,
which existed there before the advent of Zen Buddhism.
All Asian martial arts, particularly those of China
and Japan, recognize their origin in the Shaolin Temple
and honour Boddhidarma, (whom the Japanese call Dharuma).
His portrait is often displayed in their dojos, where
martial arts are practised.
And what about meditation, queen of all the yogic sciences
? That which is above everything, that without which
any yogic discipline is impossible. That which interiorizes
us, carries us within ourselves, to the discovery of
our true soul and nature. There are hundreds of different
mediation techniques, simple, cartesian, easy to experience,
which have been devised by Indian sages since the dawn
of Bharat. Each one has its own characteristics, each
one gives particular results, which has been experienced
by the billions of aspirants who have practised them
since the dawn of Vedic times. Meditation is being practised
more and more in the West and there have been numerous
scientific studies, which have shown the positive effect
of meditation on heart problems, psychological stress
or blood circulation.
The irony of it all is that not only most of the Indian
upper class and intellectual elite does not practise
meditation and pranayama, ignores what is Kalaripayat
and does not gets treated for its problems with Ayurveda,
but that none of these wonderss are included in the
schools and universities curriculum. So you have this
wonderful knowledge, which has disappeared from the
rest of the world, but if you go to cities like Delhi,
or Bombay, you realise that most of the youth there
have no idea about meditation, or have never heard of
pranayama. They are totally cut off from their ancient
culture, from the greatness of their tradition, and
even look down on it. So unless Indians start taking
pride in their own culture, India will never be able
to gift it to the world.
Famous French writer Andre Malraux had said that unless
the 21 century is spiritual, then it will not be. What
he meant was that the world has now come to such a stage
of unhappiness, of material dryness, of conflicts within
itself, that it seems doomed and there appears no way
that it can redeem
Itself : it is just going towards self-destruction,
- ecologically, socially, spiritually. So unless the
21st century allows a new spiritual order to take over
– not a religious order, because religion has
been a failure, all over the world - then the world
is going towards pralaya. And India holds the key to
the world's future, for India is the only nation which
still preserves in the darkness of Her Himalayan caves,
on the luminous ghats of Benares, in the hearts of her
countless yogis, or even in the minds of her ordinary
folk, the key to the planetary evolution, its future
and its hope.
The 21st century then, will be the era of the East;
this is where the sun is going to rise again, after
centuries of decadence and submission to Western colonialism;
this is where the focus of the world is going to shift.
And as when India used to shine and send forth Her Dharma
all over the Orient: to Japan, Thailand, China, Burma,
or Cambodia and influence their civilisations and religions
for centuries to come, once more She will emit Her light
and radiate, Queen among nations: "India of the
ages is not dead nor has She spoken Her last creative
word; She lives and has still something to do for Herself
and the human peoples. And that which She must seek
now to awake, is not an anglicised oriental people,
docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle
of the Occident's success and failure, but still the
ancient immemorial Shakti recovering Her deepest self,
lifting Her head higher towards the supreme source of
light and strength and turning to discover the complete
meaning and vaster form of Her Dharma”.
THEN WILL INDIA’S SELF-DENIAL BE DONE WITH FOREVER…
FRANCOIS GAUTIER
Bibliography
* Negationism in India, by Konrad Elst. Voice of India,
New Delhi.
* Histoire de l'Inde, by Jean Danielou. Editions Fayard,
Paris.
* India's Rebirth, Institut de Recherches Evolutives,
Paris.
Distributed in India by Mira Aditi Center, 62 Sriranga
1st Cross, 4th Stage Kuvempunagar, Mysore 570023
* Le Modèle Indou, by Guy Deleury. Hachette,
le Temps & les hommes. 1978
* Indigenous Indians, by Konrad Elst, Voice of India,
New Delhi.*
* The Foundations of Indian Culture, by Sri Aurobindo,
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondichery. 1988
* Growth of Muslim population in India, by K.S. Lal.
Voice of India, New Delhi.
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