05-16-2006, 06:46 PM
Op-Ed in Pioneer, 16 May 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Jainas, cream of Hindu society
Sandhya Jain |
The Union Minister for Minority Affairs' determination to impose minority status upon Jainas has come as a shock to a community that has long regarded itself as the cream of Hindu society. Obviously, Mr AR Antulay is only continuing the UPA policy of fragmenting the nation by offering reservations to Muslims in Congress-ruled states and extending 27 per cent reservations to OBCs in higher education. Coupled with the Prime Minister's hints that the private sector should open its doors to caste-based employment, this has made Ms Sonia Gandhi's supremacy in Indian politics the most implosive period in the nation's modern history.
Barring some wealthy Digambara Jaina families with ambitions for maulvi-like control over the community, Jainas have neither sought nor desired minority status. Jainas have never shirked hard work or competition, and therefore excel in all spheres of life, from trade and industry to professions where merit alone assures ascendance. <b>Far from furthering their cause, minority status could actually deprive them of access to institutions of higher education as Jainas are a minuscule community, never having crossed even half percent of the population. With merit criteria removed, minority status will push Jainas from the penthouse to the basement.</b>
Despite their size, Jainas enjoy disproportionate influence over the Hindu community and are perceived as the pinnacle of Indic spirituality.<b> Jainas share common roots with Hindus and aver that 22 Tirthankaras hailed from the Iksvaku dynasty of Shri Rama, while two belonged to the Hari clan of Shri Krishna. </b>No wonder the Indian constitution classifies Jainas and other native spiritual traditions as 'Hindu,' though like the others, Jainas retain their distinction on the Indic spectrum, adhering to particular forms of belief and worship. This is hardly the same as being 'separate,' a mischievous colonial concept invented to promote opposition and division.
<b>Jainas profoundly influenced India's cultural and social life. Early on, they compelled Hindus and Bauddhas to accept the supremacy of ahimsa (non-injury to all creatures) and vegetarianism, and fashioned these into cornerstones of Indian culture. </b>According to Jaina theology, the universe and everything in it, even rocks and stones considered inanimate in other traditions, is a living organism with a soul (jiva, atma). Long before modern science accepted that plants are living organisms with senses, Jainas were aware that plants were living beings worthy of respect. The knowledge that plants breathe oxygen at night is behind the Indian sentiment against plucking flowers or cutting trees after sunset.
Jaina awareness of nigoda (single celled) life-forms led to the injunction against animal sacrifice and consumption of meat. Meat is a perfect breeding ground for nigodas, hence consumption of meat leads to a fall in spiritual evolution. Sufferings inflicted upon living creatures are revisited upon one through the karmic trajectory, and man suffers for misdeeds committed in any lifetime. <b>Jaina tradition emphasizes man's personal responsibility for other species ("parasparopagraho jivanam") and the environment.</b> This compassion towards lesser beings made Jainas pioneers in setting up hospitals for birds and animals.
Jaina tradition does not bestow special sanctity on the cow as it respects all life without distinction, but Jainas tend to take the lead in movements against cow slaughter as it is historically and culturally a humiliation of the Indic tradition and Jainas cannot stay aloof from such a flagrant act of violence for this gentle animal. <b>Among Hindus, Vaishnavas became vegetarian. Devotees of Devi continued to practice animal sacrifice on ritual occasions and many coastal and other groups retained meat in their diet. However, once the vegetarian ethos was entrenched as morally superior, it could never be dislodged through the centuries that followed.</b>
<b>Jainas similarly absorbed Hindu beliefs, even if these did not enter the official theology. The Mahabharata expounds four debts that the individual must discharge: deva rna by worship; pitr rna by continuing the family; rsi rna by acquiring and disseminating knowledge; and manava rna by service to humanity. </b>Jainas have a story that Aristanemi, the twenty-second Tirthankara, wished to renounce the world without getting married. His paternal cousin, Sri Krishna (himself the avatara of Vishnu), reminded him that all previous world Saviours had married and raised families before renouncing the world in pursuit of the spiritual quest; hence he should marry and please his father.
Hindu and Jaina traditions are like the weft and woof of the unstitched garment favoured by our saints; they cannot be separated without severe haemorrhage to both. The shared spirituality of the Indic tradition is like an unstitched garment - whole, inclusive, interlinked, and unthreatened by the inevitable loss of culture, tradition and diversity that accompanies monotheistic traditions. The latter may be compared to stitched garments - elegant, structured, appealing, but ever haunted by the inward sense of loss that accompanies the rejection of diversity in divinity.
<b>Minority status is a historical millstone round the nation's neck, caused by the fact that the Constituent Assembly offered some privileges to the Muslims in order to avert partition, but retained the provisions despite partition. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had the vision to foresee that a political minefield lay ahead on this route; he favoured a seamless society without religious barricades.</b>
<b>In fact, there is a serious flaw in the argument that India's religious minorities need special constitutional guarantees to preserve themselves. Unlike monotheistic faiths, the sanatana dharma accords space to other creeds and India has been a civilisational haven to persecuted communities such as Jews, Syrian Christians, Parsis, Tibetans and Bahai's. It has also sought to accommodate historically aggressive communities. </b>
<b>These communities have received an unwarranted bonanza from the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA, in the form of exemption from implementing the 27 per cent OBC quota in educational institutions run by them. This will give minority-run educational institutions an unfair political and economic clout, while aggravating social divisions in the larger society by inducing competition on the basis of caste, rather than merit.</b>
As recently as August 2005, a Supreme Court Bench comprising then Chief Justice Mr RC Lahoti and Justices Mr DM Dharmadhikari and Mr PK Balasubramnyan, had directed the national and State level Minorities Commissions to find ways of reducing and ultimately ending the list of notified minorities, rather than increasing them. The court warned against encouraging fissiparous tendencies in the nation; it seems the warning fell on deaf ears.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Jainas, cream of Hindu society
Sandhya Jain |
The Union Minister for Minority Affairs' determination to impose minority status upon Jainas has come as a shock to a community that has long regarded itself as the cream of Hindu society. Obviously, Mr AR Antulay is only continuing the UPA policy of fragmenting the nation by offering reservations to Muslims in Congress-ruled states and extending 27 per cent reservations to OBCs in higher education. Coupled with the Prime Minister's hints that the private sector should open its doors to caste-based employment, this has made Ms Sonia Gandhi's supremacy in Indian politics the most implosive period in the nation's modern history.
Barring some wealthy Digambara Jaina families with ambitions for maulvi-like control over the community, Jainas have neither sought nor desired minority status. Jainas have never shirked hard work or competition, and therefore excel in all spheres of life, from trade and industry to professions where merit alone assures ascendance. <b>Far from furthering their cause, minority status could actually deprive them of access to institutions of higher education as Jainas are a minuscule community, never having crossed even half percent of the population. With merit criteria removed, minority status will push Jainas from the penthouse to the basement.</b>
Despite their size, Jainas enjoy disproportionate influence over the Hindu community and are perceived as the pinnacle of Indic spirituality.<b> Jainas share common roots with Hindus and aver that 22 Tirthankaras hailed from the Iksvaku dynasty of Shri Rama, while two belonged to the Hari clan of Shri Krishna. </b>No wonder the Indian constitution classifies Jainas and other native spiritual traditions as 'Hindu,' though like the others, Jainas retain their distinction on the Indic spectrum, adhering to particular forms of belief and worship. This is hardly the same as being 'separate,' a mischievous colonial concept invented to promote opposition and division.
<b>Jainas profoundly influenced India's cultural and social life. Early on, they compelled Hindus and Bauddhas to accept the supremacy of ahimsa (non-injury to all creatures) and vegetarianism, and fashioned these into cornerstones of Indian culture. </b>According to Jaina theology, the universe and everything in it, even rocks and stones considered inanimate in other traditions, is a living organism with a soul (jiva, atma). Long before modern science accepted that plants are living organisms with senses, Jainas were aware that plants were living beings worthy of respect. The knowledge that plants breathe oxygen at night is behind the Indian sentiment against plucking flowers or cutting trees after sunset.
Jaina awareness of nigoda (single celled) life-forms led to the injunction against animal sacrifice and consumption of meat. Meat is a perfect breeding ground for nigodas, hence consumption of meat leads to a fall in spiritual evolution. Sufferings inflicted upon living creatures are revisited upon one through the karmic trajectory, and man suffers for misdeeds committed in any lifetime. <b>Jaina tradition emphasizes man's personal responsibility for other species ("parasparopagraho jivanam") and the environment.</b> This compassion towards lesser beings made Jainas pioneers in setting up hospitals for birds and animals.
Jaina tradition does not bestow special sanctity on the cow as it respects all life without distinction, but Jainas tend to take the lead in movements against cow slaughter as it is historically and culturally a humiliation of the Indic tradition and Jainas cannot stay aloof from such a flagrant act of violence for this gentle animal. <b>Among Hindus, Vaishnavas became vegetarian. Devotees of Devi continued to practice animal sacrifice on ritual occasions and many coastal and other groups retained meat in their diet. However, once the vegetarian ethos was entrenched as morally superior, it could never be dislodged through the centuries that followed.</b>
<b>Jainas similarly absorbed Hindu beliefs, even if these did not enter the official theology. The Mahabharata expounds four debts that the individual must discharge: deva rna by worship; pitr rna by continuing the family; rsi rna by acquiring and disseminating knowledge; and manava rna by service to humanity. </b>Jainas have a story that Aristanemi, the twenty-second Tirthankara, wished to renounce the world without getting married. His paternal cousin, Sri Krishna (himself the avatara of Vishnu), reminded him that all previous world Saviours had married and raised families before renouncing the world in pursuit of the spiritual quest; hence he should marry and please his father.
Hindu and Jaina traditions are like the weft and woof of the unstitched garment favoured by our saints; they cannot be separated without severe haemorrhage to both. The shared spirituality of the Indic tradition is like an unstitched garment - whole, inclusive, interlinked, and unthreatened by the inevitable loss of culture, tradition and diversity that accompanies monotheistic traditions. The latter may be compared to stitched garments - elegant, structured, appealing, but ever haunted by the inward sense of loss that accompanies the rejection of diversity in divinity.
<b>Minority status is a historical millstone round the nation's neck, caused by the fact that the Constituent Assembly offered some privileges to the Muslims in order to avert partition, but retained the provisions despite partition. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had the vision to foresee that a political minefield lay ahead on this route; he favoured a seamless society without religious barricades.</b>
<b>In fact, there is a serious flaw in the argument that India's religious minorities need special constitutional guarantees to preserve themselves. Unlike monotheistic faiths, the sanatana dharma accords space to other creeds and India has been a civilisational haven to persecuted communities such as Jews, Syrian Christians, Parsis, Tibetans and Bahai's. It has also sought to accommodate historically aggressive communities. </b>
<b>These communities have received an unwarranted bonanza from the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA, in the form of exemption from implementing the 27 per cent OBC quota in educational institutions run by them. This will give minority-run educational institutions an unfair political and economic clout, while aggravating social divisions in the larger society by inducing competition on the basis of caste, rather than merit.</b>
As recently as August 2005, a Supreme Court Bench comprising then Chief Justice Mr RC Lahoti and Justices Mr DM Dharmadhikari and Mr PK Balasubramnyan, had directed the national and State level Minorities Commissions to find ways of reducing and ultimately ending the list of notified minorities, rather than increasing them. The court warned against encouraging fissiparous tendencies in the nation; it seems the warning fell on deaf ears.
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