<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What happens when people make claims that ârama sethuâ exists, Ayodhya is situated somewhere in northern India and such like? What happens when such âhistoricalâ claims begin to find their way into peopleâs consciousness?
In the early phases, there is happiness and euphoria. Not because we can now say, âah, after all, everything that Ramayana says is trueâ. But because we feel our connections to the past have taken on tangible presence. We feel that we recognize these empirical markers because we have always been familiar with them. Dwaraka, Brindavana, Kurukshetra, Ayhodhya... these are our cities and our past. Suddenly, there is exhilaration: it merely requires a few days journey to go to Kurukshetra! However, this is merely the first phase. What happens in the subsequent phase when this claim is pushed further, as it is invariably going to be?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is there any difference between the Hindus fighting to liberate Ram Janambhoomi from the mlecchas and the present "movement"? Even Guru Gobindji attempted the same. Does fighting against the iconoclasm of tirthsthanas necessarily involve accepting the truth claims of the iconoclasts?
The prime argument during Ram Sethu controversy was that the Existence of Rama was irrelevant to the proposed destruction of Rama Sethu, along with geopolitics of LTTE and the like. This was much improved argumentation over the Archaeology of Ayodhya debates from before.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Consider the following scenario. It becomes common âknowledgeâ that the war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas was a tribal war, fought somewhere in the north of India some three thousand years ago. And that ârakshasaâ, âvanaraâ merely named some or another tribe in India. Krishna was a dark-skinned upstart from some tribe; Rama was a king somewhere up north; Draupadi was a daughter from yet another tribe that practiced polygamy, and so on. In short, we discover that our epics and puranas are badly written historiographies that chronicle the lives of ordinary human beings like you and me. We discover what we knew all along: it is not possible to train the monkeys that swing from tree to tree to build a bridge between India and Sri Lanka.
Then the âDalitâ and progressive intellectuals turn up. They tell us that some or another âBrahminizedâ poet merely described the work of the âslavesâ of a human king called âRamaâ as the work of âmonkeysâ. By calling these slaves as âmonkeysâ, they add, the âupper-casteâ proves yet again its disdain and contempt for and the oppression of âthe Dalitsâ. As has been typical of the âAryansâ, the Brahmin priests were not even willing to consider such âslavesâ as human beings. The same argument would then get applied to the Danavas and Rakshasas: we âdiscoverâ that the âDravidiansâ were the Rakshasas and the Danavas of our epics.
Do not mistake the point I am making here. <b>No factoid or even a set of factoids will ever lend truth-value to these claims. They would be mere surmises and guesses. But they will get pushed across as âscientificâ and âhistoricalâ hypotheses that very soon end up becoming âfactsâ about the Indian past. They will acquire the same status that the âIndologicalâ truths have today. </b>For instance, which intellectual in the world challenges the claim that âBuddhismâ battled against âBrahmanismâ? Almost none. How many know of the circumstances that produced this âguessworkâ or even about the amount of Christian theological baggage required to sustain this claim? Alas, hardly any.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Colonial genesis of a supposed Hindu Buddhist animus has been argued by Ram Swarup in <i>Buddhism vis-a-vis Hinduism</i>.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In exactly the same way, with such stories accompanying the growth of a new generation, which one of them will ever want to become a Bhakta of Rama, Krishna or Anjaneya? How many will go to their temples or even build them? When they grow up in the knowledge that âkurukshetraâ names a place somewhere in North India where the local tribes from the region fought a war fought during 500 B.C.E; when they grow up in the knowledge that a tribe called âNagasâ, from some remote part of India, also figure in an imaginary epic whose authoritative critical edition is published by some or another University Press in the US; when they âknowâ that the local events in some remote city (Bikaner, Ayodhya...) were presented to their credulous forefathers as âthe historyâ of India; when they know all these and more, what would be their connection to what we consider as our past today?
Perhaps, they would even end up being ashamed of their past and of their stories about the past: such stories confirm the worst that the world has told about India. Indian culture and her âreligionsâ were created to inflict massive injustice on fellow-human beings. âHinduismâ would, of course, be the main culprit.
We are almost past the first phase. The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar are initiating the subsequent phase. Instead of asking questions about the nature of âhistorical truthâ; instead of studying the religious culture where such questions originate from; instead, that is, of understanding the relationship between stories about the past and human communities, the ideologues of the Sangh Parivar want to establish the âhistoricityâ of our epics and stories. In the process of pushing this Christian theme, these ideologues will also achieve what Islam and Christianity have always desired: destruction of the âpaganâ and âheathenâ culture that India is. What the Muslim kings and the Evangelical Protestants could not achieve over centuries, the ideologues from the Sangh Parivar will achieve in a matter of decades.
<b>In order to destroy the past of a people, all you need to do is to give them history. What is called âhistoryâ today is a secularization of the Christian religion. </b>Christianity (Islam, Judaism) is hostile to anything that is different from itself. Especially, what it considers Pagan and heathen. This hostility persists in its secularized form as well. The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar, in their haste to capture political power, in their utter and total ignorance of the western culture, are pushing a Christian religious theme on to the Indian culture. Where explicitly Christian and Islamic attacks on the heathen culture of India failed, there, if left unopposed, this disguised attack on India will succeed. The saddest thing of it all is this: the Sangh Parivar genuinely believes that it is helping the Indian culture. However, its ideologues are not; they are helping destroy the Indian culture.
So, it appears, the questions facing us are these: do we need a history that Christianity has written, or do we need to retain our past? What do Indians need?
[Bangalore, 08-08-2008; S.N. Balagangadhara is Director and Professor at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium; http://www.cultuurwetenschap.be]
[right][snapback]94424[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A chilling scenario. RSS scholars tend to focus almost exclusively on colonial motivations of Max Mueller, British designs, and the like. The neohistorical school, which insists that their philological conclusions should impact Hindu practice, is outside the RSS proper.
In the early phases, there is happiness and euphoria. Not because we can now say, âah, after all, everything that Ramayana says is trueâ. But because we feel our connections to the past have taken on tangible presence. We feel that we recognize these empirical markers because we have always been familiar with them. Dwaraka, Brindavana, Kurukshetra, Ayhodhya... these are our cities and our past. Suddenly, there is exhilaration: it merely requires a few days journey to go to Kurukshetra! However, this is merely the first phase. What happens in the subsequent phase when this claim is pushed further, as it is invariably going to be?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is there any difference between the Hindus fighting to liberate Ram Janambhoomi from the mlecchas and the present "movement"? Even Guru Gobindji attempted the same. Does fighting against the iconoclasm of tirthsthanas necessarily involve accepting the truth claims of the iconoclasts?
The prime argument during Ram Sethu controversy was that the Existence of Rama was irrelevant to the proposed destruction of Rama Sethu, along with geopolitics of LTTE and the like. This was much improved argumentation over the Archaeology of Ayodhya debates from before.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Consider the following scenario. It becomes common âknowledgeâ that the war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas was a tribal war, fought somewhere in the north of India some three thousand years ago. And that ârakshasaâ, âvanaraâ merely named some or another tribe in India. Krishna was a dark-skinned upstart from some tribe; Rama was a king somewhere up north; Draupadi was a daughter from yet another tribe that practiced polygamy, and so on. In short, we discover that our epics and puranas are badly written historiographies that chronicle the lives of ordinary human beings like you and me. We discover what we knew all along: it is not possible to train the monkeys that swing from tree to tree to build a bridge between India and Sri Lanka.
Then the âDalitâ and progressive intellectuals turn up. They tell us that some or another âBrahminizedâ poet merely described the work of the âslavesâ of a human king called âRamaâ as the work of âmonkeysâ. By calling these slaves as âmonkeysâ, they add, the âupper-casteâ proves yet again its disdain and contempt for and the oppression of âthe Dalitsâ. As has been typical of the âAryansâ, the Brahmin priests were not even willing to consider such âslavesâ as human beings. The same argument would then get applied to the Danavas and Rakshasas: we âdiscoverâ that the âDravidiansâ were the Rakshasas and the Danavas of our epics.
Do not mistake the point I am making here. <b>No factoid or even a set of factoids will ever lend truth-value to these claims. They would be mere surmises and guesses. But they will get pushed across as âscientificâ and âhistoricalâ hypotheses that very soon end up becoming âfactsâ about the Indian past. They will acquire the same status that the âIndologicalâ truths have today. </b>For instance, which intellectual in the world challenges the claim that âBuddhismâ battled against âBrahmanismâ? Almost none. How many know of the circumstances that produced this âguessworkâ or even about the amount of Christian theological baggage required to sustain this claim? Alas, hardly any.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Colonial genesis of a supposed Hindu Buddhist animus has been argued by Ram Swarup in <i>Buddhism vis-a-vis Hinduism</i>.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In exactly the same way, with such stories accompanying the growth of a new generation, which one of them will ever want to become a Bhakta of Rama, Krishna or Anjaneya? How many will go to their temples or even build them? When they grow up in the knowledge that âkurukshetraâ names a place somewhere in North India where the local tribes from the region fought a war fought during 500 B.C.E; when they grow up in the knowledge that a tribe called âNagasâ, from some remote part of India, also figure in an imaginary epic whose authoritative critical edition is published by some or another University Press in the US; when they âknowâ that the local events in some remote city (Bikaner, Ayodhya...) were presented to their credulous forefathers as âthe historyâ of India; when they know all these and more, what would be their connection to what we consider as our past today?
Perhaps, they would even end up being ashamed of their past and of their stories about the past: such stories confirm the worst that the world has told about India. Indian culture and her âreligionsâ were created to inflict massive injustice on fellow-human beings. âHinduismâ would, of course, be the main culprit.
We are almost past the first phase. The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar are initiating the subsequent phase. Instead of asking questions about the nature of âhistorical truthâ; instead of studying the religious culture where such questions originate from; instead, that is, of understanding the relationship between stories about the past and human communities, the ideologues of the Sangh Parivar want to establish the âhistoricityâ of our epics and stories. In the process of pushing this Christian theme, these ideologues will also achieve what Islam and Christianity have always desired: destruction of the âpaganâ and âheathenâ culture that India is. What the Muslim kings and the Evangelical Protestants could not achieve over centuries, the ideologues from the Sangh Parivar will achieve in a matter of decades.
<b>In order to destroy the past of a people, all you need to do is to give them history. What is called âhistoryâ today is a secularization of the Christian religion. </b>Christianity (Islam, Judaism) is hostile to anything that is different from itself. Especially, what it considers Pagan and heathen. This hostility persists in its secularized form as well. The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar, in their haste to capture political power, in their utter and total ignorance of the western culture, are pushing a Christian religious theme on to the Indian culture. Where explicitly Christian and Islamic attacks on the heathen culture of India failed, there, if left unopposed, this disguised attack on India will succeed. The saddest thing of it all is this: the Sangh Parivar genuinely believes that it is helping the Indian culture. However, its ideologues are not; they are helping destroy the Indian culture.
So, it appears, the questions facing us are these: do we need a history that Christianity has written, or do we need to retain our past? What do Indians need?
[Bangalore, 08-08-2008; S.N. Balagangadhara is Director and Professor at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium; http://www.cultuurwetenschap.be]
[right][snapback]94424[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A chilling scenario. RSS scholars tend to focus almost exclusively on colonial motivations of Max Mueller, British designs, and the like. The neohistorical school, which insists that their philological conclusions should impact Hindu practice, is outside the RSS proper.