12-08-2007, 11:15 AM
Hi people. It''s been a while since I last came here.
In the meantime I had a flurry of brain activity and wrote a whole lot of stuff, mostly on BR.
I would like to post some of those articles here for whatever comments they might attract. I wonderd where to post this one and thought that Indian core values may become visible if we can recognise the layers that have been painted on.
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I see a lot of confusion on questions like "Who is a dhimmi?", "Who is not?", "Who is a Hindu fundamentalist?", "Who is not?", "Who is a Hindu revivalist?""Who is not?" etc.
For example I have been described both as a Hindu rightwing fundamentalist as well as a Macaulayite dhimmi for saying the same things. I am sure others would have faced a similar situation.
These questions have answers, but those answers can come only with some idea of how Hindu society has developed and moved over many more centuries than Islam.
I will try and put down some thoughts but the post promises to be a long one.
Let me start with an analogy to describe societies. Most people are likely to have played with marbles. If you have a marble on the ground and you hit with another, the first marble moves off in some direction or the other. A similar analogy would be balls on a billiard table.
Imagine a huge billiard table (maybe 100 km long) with a 50 Kg billiard ball rolling on it. (Unlike real billiards the ball is rolling, not still, but hey you don't get 50 Kg billiard balls on 100 Km tables)
Anyhow this 50 Kg ball is rolling along the 100 Km long table. Now if you hit this 50 Kg ball with a standard billiard ball (using a cue) you will hardly notice a change in the movement of the 50 Kg ball. If you are serious about changing the direction of movement of the 50 Kg ball using your only tool - billiard balls, what you need is the cooperation of 25, or 50 or 200 billiard players who all aim to hit the 50 Kg ball from one side. Each hit makes only a slight difference - but after 100 hits the 50 Kg ball will be moving in a slightly different direction. And if you can see the 50 kg ball after it has moved along this new direction for 25 km, you will find that it has strayed far from its original path.
You may never see the ball in its changed path. But in order to make it go on a changed path you need to know
a) Where the ball is coming from to predict which way it is going
b) Which way YOU want the ball to go
c) A means to hit the ball many times with the little strokes at your disposal to achieve the end result.
Huge societies are like this 50 Kg ball on a 100 Km long table. Small frequent strokes change their path and the changed path is visible only tens of kilometers (centuries) down the line.
Why centuries? Was that a typo? No. It does take at least a century to make major changes in a really huge society. Let me quote a medical example. Despite modernity, international travel, net savviness and awareness of the world, many Indians still carry with them memories of medical myths. Without going into details, many Indians believe that action X causes disease Y, which is complete nonsense. Changing that belief will take centuries for a simple reason. Each person who believes that myth today has heard it from a grandparent - and has therefore been primed with misinformation that is at least 60 to 70 years old. This person has often already fed that misinformation to his children and grandchildren, ensuring that the 70 year old misinformation is propaganted for a further 50 to 70 years. Changing this requires multiple acts of correction and everyone in the chain has to be told that the info is wrong or that some new info is correct. Achieving this sort of change often requires at least a century, sometimes more.
If most Indians are dhimmi today. it is because of attitudes that were instilled centuries ago. It is worth trying to look back at what happened to understand where we are today. Only that will give us an idea of where we are heading and any direction changes hat we may seek.
By the time Islam came to India the civilization had already been chugging along for over 2000 years. Things had happened, Buddhism and Jainism had arisen and spread their wings across India or outside. All three religions survived and there were and are similarities in the worldview of all three. None of them sought by written code to impose death sentences or slavery on practitioners of the other and conversion form one to the other (for convenience or political gain) was not punishable by death.
Then Islam came in and it was a totally new ball game. As it spread its tentacles and rulers settled in, the first dhimmis started being produced. Over a span of centuries Islam came to control most parts of modern India for at least a while, during which populations who had no place to flee had to submit to dhimmitude.
Dhimmi attitudes became commonplace in India. Cover or hide yer wimmen. Do not dispute anyone who says anything good about Islam. Accept without murmur criticism of your faith. Practice it in the background. Perhaps it took several centuries for this process to happen, but it happened alright. In the meantime, new hawks developed in India who figured out the weaknesses of the Islamic kings. The Mughal empire started cracking up with Hindu upstarts challenging their hegemony. But there was probably no stability of the sort needed for a gradual rollback of dhimmitude - for attitudes once established need centuries to remove wholly.
It was about this time that the British came to India. Their style was completely different and their technology better. They found a fissured land divided up between warring Kings and played one against the other. As long as they got the loot they wanted they did not bother whether the supported Muslim kings or Hindu kings. In some places such as Mysore state, they replaced a Muslim ruler with a Hindu one. In other places they may have favored a Muslim for their convenience.
The British did not ask for dhimmitude per se, but once again they did not specifically foster an environment to remove it. They were interested in wealth and loot and created conditions to foster that. In fact they may have perpetuated Hindu dhimmitude, as I will speculate.
I believe the British actually helped to make allies out of Muslims and Hindus in a way different from the ruler-dhimmi relationship that had existed previously. British rule upset the ruler-ruled equation in India so thoroughly that Hindus and Muslims got together to throw out the British. But something happened that caused exactly the opposite as well, almost simultaneously.
Britain fostered its own agenda to "educate Indians to appreciate British goods" as Macaulay intended. The education of Indians started with the creation of Bengali babus. The English education and Macaulay-ization was taken up with enthusiasm by some Indians because it offerred a route of economic release for them. Macaulay-ization as we know was not taken up with the same gusto by Muslims who tended to go towards Madrassa education. This led to a split between Hindus and Muslims because dhimmi former subjects of Muslims were getting empowered, while the act of Macaulayization was seen as a threat to Islam. Hindus, who were already dhimmified, did not see much of a threat to Hinduism by Macaulayization, as their faith was already crushed in their dhimmi minds.
However the need to get rid of the British did unite Hindus and Muslims for a bit. Hindu dhimmitude no doubt assisted in maintaining communication and trust while there was cooperation, but the increasing Macaulayization and power of Hindus was noted with alarm by some Islamists. After all, "Macaulayization" was not just creation of a class of Britain lovers. It was also the creation of borrowed British institutions, particularly secular rule of law and democracy with elections that would ensure that any majority bloc would win. When independence became a distinct possibility, these Islamists realised that their old power - the old "Muslim ruler-Hindu dhimmi subject" would be gone. That was unacceptable and the idea of Pakistan was born from this.
The important point to note here is that Muslim-Hindu cooperation during independence revolved around the old ruler-dhimmi relationships built up during the earlier Islamic era. This old ruler-dhimmi cooperation was a useful unifier in British rule, but the Macaulayization of Hindus was advanced enough to favor British style democracy and government and not a return to the old Islamic state. In fact even the existing Hindu Kings in India opted for democracy and to join the Indian union.
The most rabid Islamic elite ran off to Pakistan but the old Islamic power base in many India states remained. Also remaining was a natural and deep dhimmitude of most Hindus. It was this dhimmitude that probably aided harmony and the development of early post independence India, while commitment to Macaulayization stabilized the democratic system.
Pakistan was Islamist from the word go. they had no need for British democracy and values. And any remaining kafirs in Pakistan were treated just like Islam treats kafirs.
I think that if Pakistan had not been rabidly Islamist, and had not constantly tried to arouse Indian Muslims to rebel Indian dhimmitude would have gone on much longer. But it is going.
But dhimmitude will take more than a century to go, and if dhimmitude in a fellow Indian bothers you, it is worth remembering that it is a deeply entrenched and centuries old mindset that was created by the need to survive under murderous Islamic kings. It will not go away soon, and people who show dhimmitude need to be seen with sympathy as well behaved and non aggressive (dove) survivors rather than mocked as being stupid.
People need to be gently lifted out of an anachronistic dhimmi mindset and not coerced into thinking something different. That coercion leads to cognitive dissonance, anger and rebellion. That is why, when you mock a dhimmi sufficiently, he will call you a Hindu extremist. If so called clever Hindus have any brains - they will display patience and understanding about an age old mental process and change it in gradual steps rather than by aggressive mocking. The latter is a self goal that Hindus have no business scoring when they are getting the first chance in centuries that they can actually do something useful in the world. A hurried change in dhimmi mindset cannot occur. You are only making things more difficult for yourself by cursing an Indian as being a dhimmi and accusing him of dancing to the tune of his lords. He can't help it. If you are intelligent - you can help.
I have had my say. i have no idea whether anyone will understand, but I feel better for having said it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In the meantime I had a flurry of brain activity and wrote a whole lot of stuff, mostly on BR.
I would like to post some of those articles here for whatever comments they might attract. I wonderd where to post this one and thought that Indian core values may become visible if we can recognise the layers that have been painted on.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
I see a lot of confusion on questions like "Who is a dhimmi?", "Who is not?", "Who is a Hindu fundamentalist?", "Who is not?", "Who is a Hindu revivalist?""Who is not?" etc.
For example I have been described both as a Hindu rightwing fundamentalist as well as a Macaulayite dhimmi for saying the same things. I am sure others would have faced a similar situation.
These questions have answers, but those answers can come only with some idea of how Hindu society has developed and moved over many more centuries than Islam.
I will try and put down some thoughts but the post promises to be a long one.
Let me start with an analogy to describe societies. Most people are likely to have played with marbles. If you have a marble on the ground and you hit with another, the first marble moves off in some direction or the other. A similar analogy would be balls on a billiard table.
Imagine a huge billiard table (maybe 100 km long) with a 50 Kg billiard ball rolling on it. (Unlike real billiards the ball is rolling, not still, but hey you don't get 50 Kg billiard balls on 100 Km tables)
Anyhow this 50 Kg ball is rolling along the 100 Km long table. Now if you hit this 50 Kg ball with a standard billiard ball (using a cue) you will hardly notice a change in the movement of the 50 Kg ball. If you are serious about changing the direction of movement of the 50 Kg ball using your only tool - billiard balls, what you need is the cooperation of 25, or 50 or 200 billiard players who all aim to hit the 50 Kg ball from one side. Each hit makes only a slight difference - but after 100 hits the 50 Kg ball will be moving in a slightly different direction. And if you can see the 50 kg ball after it has moved along this new direction for 25 km, you will find that it has strayed far from its original path.
You may never see the ball in its changed path. But in order to make it go on a changed path you need to know
a) Where the ball is coming from to predict which way it is going
b) Which way YOU want the ball to go
c) A means to hit the ball many times with the little strokes at your disposal to achieve the end result.
Huge societies are like this 50 Kg ball on a 100 Km long table. Small frequent strokes change their path and the changed path is visible only tens of kilometers (centuries) down the line.
Why centuries? Was that a typo? No. It does take at least a century to make major changes in a really huge society. Let me quote a medical example. Despite modernity, international travel, net savviness and awareness of the world, many Indians still carry with them memories of medical myths. Without going into details, many Indians believe that action X causes disease Y, which is complete nonsense. Changing that belief will take centuries for a simple reason. Each person who believes that myth today has heard it from a grandparent - and has therefore been primed with misinformation that is at least 60 to 70 years old. This person has often already fed that misinformation to his children and grandchildren, ensuring that the 70 year old misinformation is propaganted for a further 50 to 70 years. Changing this requires multiple acts of correction and everyone in the chain has to be told that the info is wrong or that some new info is correct. Achieving this sort of change often requires at least a century, sometimes more.
If most Indians are dhimmi today. it is because of attitudes that were instilled centuries ago. It is worth trying to look back at what happened to understand where we are today. Only that will give us an idea of where we are heading and any direction changes hat we may seek.
By the time Islam came to India the civilization had already been chugging along for over 2000 years. Things had happened, Buddhism and Jainism had arisen and spread their wings across India or outside. All three religions survived and there were and are similarities in the worldview of all three. None of them sought by written code to impose death sentences or slavery on practitioners of the other and conversion form one to the other (for convenience or political gain) was not punishable by death.
Then Islam came in and it was a totally new ball game. As it spread its tentacles and rulers settled in, the first dhimmis started being produced. Over a span of centuries Islam came to control most parts of modern India for at least a while, during which populations who had no place to flee had to submit to dhimmitude.
Dhimmi attitudes became commonplace in India. Cover or hide yer wimmen. Do not dispute anyone who says anything good about Islam. Accept without murmur criticism of your faith. Practice it in the background. Perhaps it took several centuries for this process to happen, but it happened alright. In the meantime, new hawks developed in India who figured out the weaknesses of the Islamic kings. The Mughal empire started cracking up with Hindu upstarts challenging their hegemony. But there was probably no stability of the sort needed for a gradual rollback of dhimmitude - for attitudes once established need centuries to remove wholly.
It was about this time that the British came to India. Their style was completely different and their technology better. They found a fissured land divided up between warring Kings and played one against the other. As long as they got the loot they wanted they did not bother whether the supported Muslim kings or Hindu kings. In some places such as Mysore state, they replaced a Muslim ruler with a Hindu one. In other places they may have favored a Muslim for their convenience.
The British did not ask for dhimmitude per se, but once again they did not specifically foster an environment to remove it. They were interested in wealth and loot and created conditions to foster that. In fact they may have perpetuated Hindu dhimmitude, as I will speculate.
I believe the British actually helped to make allies out of Muslims and Hindus in a way different from the ruler-dhimmi relationship that had existed previously. British rule upset the ruler-ruled equation in India so thoroughly that Hindus and Muslims got together to throw out the British. But something happened that caused exactly the opposite as well, almost simultaneously.
Britain fostered its own agenda to "educate Indians to appreciate British goods" as Macaulay intended. The education of Indians started with the creation of Bengali babus. The English education and Macaulay-ization was taken up with enthusiasm by some Indians because it offerred a route of economic release for them. Macaulay-ization as we know was not taken up with the same gusto by Muslims who tended to go towards Madrassa education. This led to a split between Hindus and Muslims because dhimmi former subjects of Muslims were getting empowered, while the act of Macaulayization was seen as a threat to Islam. Hindus, who were already dhimmified, did not see much of a threat to Hinduism by Macaulayization, as their faith was already crushed in their dhimmi minds.
However the need to get rid of the British did unite Hindus and Muslims for a bit. Hindu dhimmitude no doubt assisted in maintaining communication and trust while there was cooperation, but the increasing Macaulayization and power of Hindus was noted with alarm by some Islamists. After all, "Macaulayization" was not just creation of a class of Britain lovers. It was also the creation of borrowed British institutions, particularly secular rule of law and democracy with elections that would ensure that any majority bloc would win. When independence became a distinct possibility, these Islamists realised that their old power - the old "Muslim ruler-Hindu dhimmi subject" would be gone. That was unacceptable and the idea of Pakistan was born from this.
The important point to note here is that Muslim-Hindu cooperation during independence revolved around the old ruler-dhimmi relationships built up during the earlier Islamic era. This old ruler-dhimmi cooperation was a useful unifier in British rule, but the Macaulayization of Hindus was advanced enough to favor British style democracy and government and not a return to the old Islamic state. In fact even the existing Hindu Kings in India opted for democracy and to join the Indian union.
The most rabid Islamic elite ran off to Pakistan but the old Islamic power base in many India states remained. Also remaining was a natural and deep dhimmitude of most Hindus. It was this dhimmitude that probably aided harmony and the development of early post independence India, while commitment to Macaulayization stabilized the democratic system.
Pakistan was Islamist from the word go. they had no need for British democracy and values. And any remaining kafirs in Pakistan were treated just like Islam treats kafirs.
I think that if Pakistan had not been rabidly Islamist, and had not constantly tried to arouse Indian Muslims to rebel Indian dhimmitude would have gone on much longer. But it is going.
But dhimmitude will take more than a century to go, and if dhimmitude in a fellow Indian bothers you, it is worth remembering that it is a deeply entrenched and centuries old mindset that was created by the need to survive under murderous Islamic kings. It will not go away soon, and people who show dhimmitude need to be seen with sympathy as well behaved and non aggressive (dove) survivors rather than mocked as being stupid.
People need to be gently lifted out of an anachronistic dhimmi mindset and not coerced into thinking something different. That coercion leads to cognitive dissonance, anger and rebellion. That is why, when you mock a dhimmi sufficiently, he will call you a Hindu extremist. If so called clever Hindus have any brains - they will display patience and understanding about an age old mental process and change it in gradual steps rather than by aggressive mocking. The latter is a self goal that Hindus have no business scoring when they are getting the first chance in centuries that they can actually do something useful in the world. A hurried change in dhimmi mindset cannot occur. You are only making things more difficult for yourself by cursing an Indian as being a dhimmi and accusing him of dancing to the tune of his lords. He can't help it. If you are intelligent - you can help.
I have had my say. i have no idea whether anyone will understand, but I feel better for having said it.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->