The Untruth of an Indian Majority

harimau #113, {``Hey Muslims, take your women out of burqas. And you Christians, shut up about the Saviour. We don`t want to be saved. We are pagans, we intend to have a good time on earth with wine, women and song.``}

Harimau,
Amen, brother, amen! Jizakullah and Ma`ashallah. I am in total agreement with your comment. You could also say ``Live and let live. If you can`t do that, then at least have the decency to die without killing others.`` Thank you.

I am utterly amazed when I see declarations from Pak gentlemen that they are scholars on Arthashastra and Chanakya. No one in India is talking about them. After seeing these names in History books, the only place I see them are Pak media, and in Pak news paper columns every other day.


Is Shireen Mazaari burning midnight oil at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute trying to understand the intricacies of Arthashastra? Does this explain the glorious strategic and military victories strewn in the path of Pak from 1947 to 2006?


Do you guys study these in Pak ideology studies, or Islamiyat studies at home? Perhaps getting tested on these at school:

1.Essay Question (15 marks)
Describe the Hindu baniya manipulative tactics as outlined in Arthashastra.


2.Short notes( 5 marks)
Cunning Chanakiya and his relevance to present day Pakistan.

majumdar/dost-mittar/anyone else: while hopefully ijaz gul (who has obviously studied the matter in some depth) will provide some feedback, in the meantime i would appreciate any light you can shed on the questions i raise in #129.

MY dear friends.

The matter is not as easy as it seems. We all have our own beliefs, and thus we put forth our own theories. My 2 paise worth here. We have sung the ``MantraPushpanjali`` in all our Pagan Pooja rituals. And it has lines that state ``Pruthivyai Samudra Paryantaya Ek-rad eti`` whioch means one nation from the mountains of himalayas to the shores of Indian ocean. That I think puts the Indian Nation since ages in right perspective. All the things in the mythology point to that. Had we not been one nation, the Shankaracharya from down south wouldnt have travelled to Himalayas to attain supreme knowledge, nor would the people of North travel to Rameshwaram. Nor would a south Indian name himself as Ramaswamy, neither would a north indian girl be named Kamakshi. It all points to one single tradition.
Leave all aside. if we have to be a nation that is powerfull and respects all and allows for freedom for all, then we have to unite under one roof and forget rather stop pointing to differences amongst ourselves. That my dear friends will only facilitate the enemy. And , by enemy, i dont mean Pakis. They are welcome to live their own lives. But their beliefs tell them something else.They can rest assured, we will never attack them first. We have always been reactionary, and thats remains true here. if only they stop fearing that we will eat at their basic beliefs. They fear us because if they stop thinking of us as an enemy, they will all find simillarities between the two sets, and thus the separate existance will vanish.
The only disimilarity is the arabic import in pakistan. If they drop the arabic part, they are no different.
So we can always think of a pan-subcontinent union, with free trade and all.
We need to drop the differences first.
So I urge all of you, rather than pointing fingers, lets all point tio the simillarities. we can accede that Paki`s are a nation, and they should accede that they are not going to take any more bites out of our land.
That should bring about peace.
If not then, we have the usual self destruct routine.
enjoy. We are a typical animal race that is moving fast towards a what you call apocalypse. Who will survive this is a question. So gfriends, so quarelling, make peace.
Amen.

Re: # 134
sajid11_in
>>>>So I urge all of you, rather than pointing fingers, lets all point tio the simillarities. we can accede that Paki`s are a nation, and they should accede that they are not going to take any more bites out of our land. That should bring about peace<<<<

Sajid:
I share your sentiments, except I only wish things are that simple.
Just retaining the territories , and having thier own lives it seems
will not seem to resolve the problems. Besides they havent agreed
to your proposal on ``retaining territories``.

India should not become permanet member of security council,
if India increases its defence budget from 2.5 % to 2.75% it
is intimidating, it is Indian hegemony... one never heard
of Pak civil nuclear requirments until India signed one; then it
needs a package deal. In summary India should not
achieve and do things which it believes it deserves
based on its size and economy all because a much
smaller country seeks parity.In other words ``I have no life
and I won`t let you have a life``

meanwhile terrorism continues.....

Ijaz_gul#123:
``Pathetically, because of his cantekrous reputation, people avoid admiring him and most damage has been done by Indians themselves. He became a comic character and even Nehru in his book, `Discovery of India` does not do full justice to his stature.``

I am afraid most Indians won`t agree with this statement. Kautalya is a highly admired, figure in India and not a comical figure at all. There was even a reverential TV serial on him. I have, however, seen comical references to him in the Pakistani media.

Majumdar#130:
``It is interesting that the three great Mauryan emperors- CGM, Bindusara and Ashoka all died as members of different faiths- CGM died a Jain, Bindusara a Hindu, Ashoka- a Buddhist. No one was called an apostate and threatened with the death punishment, nor did the emperors try to convert the rest of the world to their faith. All desis can be proud of this.``

Very astute observation. But not really surprising. In pre-islamic India, religion was not a big deal; it was more like the modern day affliation to a political party where one could change one`s membership of the party without a traumatic change in one`s identity, one did not have to be ashamed of one`s past or repudiate it when changing one`s faith.

Bharath#108:

``Irrespective of whether you are a Hindu or Muslim what a pity Sir. Our civilization, our heritage are several thousand years older``

You are preaching to the coir, Bharath saheb!

But the issue is the Hindu political identity and not Indian civilization.

Jang#110:
The pre-partition alliance and the post-partition behaviour are not unrelated. If you go through the deliberations of the constituent assembly, you would find that several minority representatives, including Muslims, were against any special treatment for minorities in the constitution. However, the Congresss felt loyalty bound to cater to the leaders of the Jamiat-ul-ulema-e-Hind who had steadfastly stood with the Congress against Jinnah and Pakistan.

Ijaz_gul#111:
``Hindu identity existed withinin diversity for a very long time. Barring South India of antiquity which was not considered part of the Indian empire, Hindism was able to absorb the influences of Buddism and Jainism, reason why so few Buddists and Jains are left in what was the origins of these religions.``

I think that you are talking here about two different things. Hinduism or more accurately, Brahminism, was able to absorb the influence of Buddhism and Jainism by incorporating some of their tenets within itself, but all these could really be called Indic philosophies which is why they were all classified in the catch-all categories of Hindus by the outsiders; I think that the differentiation of Jains or Buddhists and even Sikhs from Hindus is a relatively recent phenomenon, even though Guru Nanak, I believe, did once say that he is neither Hindu nor Mussalmaan.

I do not see any evidence of a Hindu political identity before the 19th century. Harimou has pointed out to the congregation of Hindus at relgious places such as Haridwar, Gaya and Kashi. I have two comments on that: one, as far as I can tell, these congregations and rituals were limited to upper caste Hindus which would exclude the majority of Hindus from them; secondly, I do not know how old these practices are - I do not recall any references to them even in the more recent Hindu literature such as Ramayan and Mahabharat, although there are references to such identities as Arya, Asura, Vaanar or Bheel [I admit that my recollection may be faulty!].


avkrishna#115:
``Towards the end, you have explained how the minorities can minimize this reactionary Hindutva force.

Can you also share your thoughts on what`s likely to happen ?``

Let`s not blame the minorities. It is not the minorities that are to be blamed but the mainly Hindu leaders who find it more convenient to pander to the Mullahs.

My prognosis is not very optimistic. I think that Indian political parties whether of a secularist, leftist or saffron hue, do not think beyond the next election or even by-election. So, they would continue to play the vote-bank politics, with the BJP increasingly trying to cultivate its Hindu vote bank. The success of the Modi experiment in Gujarat and the failure of the Vajpayee experiment at the Centre in terms of electoral success are not very happy portents. There seems to be a convergence of interests between the anti-american and anti-globalist leftists and the anti-american Mullahs, which is likely to drive educated Hindus even more towards the BJP. Another possiblity is that Hindutva-vadis might gain strength within the Congress itself.

Re: # 132

DM ji,

Please disregard the first part of my interact. Thanks a lot for your perspective on future,

- Avkrishna

izaj_gul shows the essence of the pakistani mind in his thesis.

kautilya is india political mind: code word ..hindu baniya mentality -- A grade.
hindutva is indian military mind: code word bagal mein churi -- A grade.

thesis becomes a text at military academy.
LOL

harimau and avkrishna, while i think its perfectly fine to politically unite on the basis of hinduism, i just dont see it happen EXCEPT in reaction, nothing organic. e.g. can a hindu political party rise with the promise of abolition of caste (a patently hindu issue)? it can rise to ``check mate`` rise of other community fundamentalism. hindus are relatively confident that india is theirs and are busy with human endevour without the baggage of it being hindu endevour. their is however an innate understanding that success of the indian nation is success of a ``hindu rashrta`` after ``1000 years of slavery``. this feeling is not an overt political expression, its in the essence..kinda conceited ..born out of facing, absorbing, transforming so many foreign challenges (some brutal) and yet surviving the original thought.

Tahmed sahib,

It is interesting that the three great Mauryan emperors- CGM, Bindusara and Ashoka all died as members of different faiths- CGM died a Jain, Bindusara a Hindu, Ashoka- a Buddhist. No one was called an apostate and threatened with the death punishment, nor did the emperors try to convert the rest of the world to their faith. All desis can be proud of this. I can`t think of a similar case anywhere else in the world.

Regards

ijaz gul #126 : your Msc thesis was on Arthashastra!! What was your the main thrust of the thesis? To what extent were the detailed rules for running a kingdom as provided by A. reflected in the Mauryan empire? I ask this question because my impression is that so little is known of the day to day running of the Mauryan empire that it is not clear to what extent the Arthashastra rules were embodied in the running of the empire. Indeed given that the Mauryan empire, despite its extensive extent, was relatively short-lived (three generations, namely Chandragupta, his son Bindusara and then his grandson Asoka) - it would be seem that this embodiment was in fact quite limited.

Also, to what extent do you think was the Arthashastra complemented by Chandragupta`s observations of Alexander`s military tactics while a student at Taxila University, and to what extent did he employ these tactics to defeat the Nandas and subsequently extent his empire? To what extent did the Arthashastra you think contribute to Chandragupta`s embrace of buddhism and jainism to the extent of ``retiring`` from emperorship to live out his remaining days as a jain?

I would appreciate any light you could throw on these questions.

PS: while you would be right in saying that the Rawalpindi-Islamabad area was the birthplace of the Mauryan empire (since Chandragupta Maurya received his training and initial political assignments here, under the tutelege of Kautliya who was a son of the Rawalpindi soil), the capital of the empire seems to have in fact been Pataliputra (today`s Patna). But Rawalpindi can no doubt legitimately claim to have been the birthplace of the Mauryan empire (as indeed this area can legitimately claim to have been the birthplace of the Mughal empire whose administrative structure was carried over from Sher Shah who was another native of the Rawalpindi-Lahore soil along with his pathan heritage - but that is another story).

#126 IJAZGUL

No problem. Provided yours everyone(except ONE-you know who) is mine. No problem.

Mohar sahib,

(What`s wrong with that?.... you pakis have wiped out every other people from pakiland already..... )

You`re completely wrong. Paki Muslims have yet to wipe out Ahmedis, Zikris, Shias, Bohris, Ismailis, Barelvis etc.

Regards

sanjay,
Sarasvati and Maurya are mine. lol

In Pakistan minorities are being treated nicely. Where fair chances are being given to the all religious affiliations.

#123


As for the Mauryan Emipre, call it Indian or whatever to suit inventive nationalism. For me its capital was near Islamabad at Taxila.

Cheerios

No problem. If anything which revive common bonds between two peoples is always welcome.

But it should lead to kiddish talks that whatever is mine cannot be yours and whatever is yours cannot be mine. Till then , no problem.