Mahadev Gobind Ranade (1842-1901)

Hello Netizen, did you manage to come to terms with Rsridhar`s Kashmir proposal, which I asked him to make ? :)

Haroonelahi...

My source on Ranade`s life is ``Sources of Indian Tradition Vol 2`` published by Columbia University... edited Stephen Hays. Volume 1 of the same book deals with the religious history of the subcontinent ... edited by Ainslee Embree. For Tilak and Gokhale I suggest Wolpert`s earliest book by the same name... Also I hear a movie in Tilak is to be released soon...

Bhagat Singh`s history is well documented in A G Noorani`s ``The Trial of Bhagat Singh`` easily available in any bookstore in Lahore... I got it from Variety.. There is also a book by Kuldip Nayyar available... haven`t read it.

Can`t help you with Ganga ram... I wrote a brief paragraph on his contributions as a philanthropist in another article.

Woplert wrote a book by the same name? What do you mean?

Very original perspective and the point is well made. I liked in particular your bold comment that: ``Iqbal had mentioned of how the Hindu society could never be democratic, because such a situation will mean an end to Hindu society. Had he qualified it with “as we know it” it would have made sense.`` This questioning of things based on common sense, logic, observed facts, rather than acceptance of the words of some man (regardless of his stature in history) is the very essence of human progress.

I have as you know often referred to the Quran as the basis for reaching this concept of human progress. But the same can be done via other sources - and your drawing upon the hindu tradition (which is indeed largely unknown to most Pakistanis) is an interesting new perspective on this theme.

And indeed, the parallelism with Sir Syed hit me even before I came to the para where you yourself refer to Sir Syed. I wonder what kind of opposition Ranade ran into - Sir Syed as you know was bitterly opposed by the maulvis.

re: Yasser

``Perhaps it is time for a Muslim Ranade, or many Muslim Ranades, as lawyers, judges, historians, journalists and teachers who will help reform the Muslim society like that great man did, over a 100 years ago.``

Muslims are confused both on an individual level and on a national level. There is no intellectual spirit of questioning in the Muslim world and yes, there might have been one in the past, but it is of no consequence to the future. Muslims have a hard time, with the concepts of modernity, because first of all, they are confused and do not know what it means or suggests. In case of Pakistan, the word ``modernity`` means not an acceptance of change as much as it stands for a cultural onslaught on the values of Islam per se and Islamic thought in a generic sense.

Reform is impossible in Pakistan and the Muslim world, because the religion of Islam does not allow for an evolutionary process either in intellectualism, politics, legal jurisprudence, social justice, gender rights, or any such topic/subject related to the development of a society. Muslims accept that Islam is the perfect code of life and hence, the question becomes of how is it possible to better perfection? Once as the Muslims start claiming and accepting the believe that Islam is the perfect religion, this rationale by its very reasoning denies any possibility of reform or change, because such issues are considered as useless since Islam is already perfect, and hence ipso facto, does not need to change or evolve into a more advanced form of existence.

To reform and change implies that there exists imperfections, and an acceptance that admits to an existing imprefection but since Islam disallows this option, change in Islam then translates into issues of dogma and acceptance of orthodoxy. Reform starts, invaribly, from questioning the existing set of conditions and finding them unsatisfactory, but this sort of debate is not allowed in Islam because the dogmatic nature of Islam disapproves any intellectual pursuit, which goes against the grain of its idee fixe. Since the most of the Muslims think there is nothing wrong with Islam, what are we hoping to change or reform?

Getting to the idea of reform in Pakistan, the problem stems from a lack of visible political will to answer this question/issue; secularism. As long as there is no seperation of religion and politics in Pakistan, political reform always slips into religious ideas and the whole debates becomes one of ideology, in which reform/change is seen as an attempt to reform the Islamic identity of Pakistan itself, which by extension implies a reform within Islam itself. The inability to tackle with this question will always abort any reform in Pakistan, because since politicans in Pakistan derive the legitimacy of their illegitmate power from Islam, they will never openly and willingly challenge Islam itself in Pakistan and that means, there will be no reform. Period.

A prime example of this fallacy was the debate on the reformed text books and how the whole episode was re-constructed into a debate on the sacred ideology of Pakistan and Islam itself and in the end, the government gave up reforming the text books. Why? It did so, because it favored the continuation of its political power as more important than the future of this nation; its children. Why; because the governments in Pakistan always think for the short term political gain and not the long term consequences of its actions.

Reform? What reforms are we taking about in Pakistan? It makes not a difference worth an iota whether Pakistan has ample amounts of judges, teachers, scholars or journalists or historians, because none of them would wish to challenge the religion of Islam and its monoploy on the statecraft of Pakistan for the sake of reforming Pakistan.

The reason for this lack of willingness is not a lack of imagination, but it is the bitter experience of betrayal by the governments of such past endeavors in Pakistan. The reason, why Musharraf`s enlightened moderation has such few converts is because there is a very high sense of alienation, between an average Pakistani and his/her government. The governments in Pakistan, elected or non-elected, do not represent the people of Pakistan or their interests, but it represents its own power and it will willingly and gladly enter into a political alliance with the religious groups in Pakistan to shore up its power base - Liaquat Ali Khan did it; so did Ayub Khan when he invoked religion on the eve of 1965 war; Bhutto did it after the elections of 1975; Zia did it; Nawaz and his 15th amendment to the consitution was a similar minded idea; Benazir became the ``daughter of the east`` to gain power and Musharraf cobbled the MMA into power for his own political expediencies.

It is not that the people of Pakistan do not identify with the concept of a moderate Islam, but they do not trust their government to support them and are afraid that if they come out in support of the idea, the government might simply ditch them when the next political opportunity would present itself to our leaders in Islambad.

Two things must happen for reform movements to take place and prevail. One is political will and the other is the political power to enforce that will. In Pakistan, these two ideas work at cross-purposes with one another and do not compliment each other. The goverment, which has the political power, does not have the will to institute reform and the people, who have the will for reform, have no power to ensure that reform not only happens, but is also sustained to its logical conclusions.

Hence, the question becomes that for reform to happen in Pakistan, we have to reform the present nature of political power in Pakistan. We have to define and articulate a very distinct understanding of secularism in Pakistan. We have to change the very nature of Pakistan as a state by seeking to re-address the political injustice, which was inflicted upon the nation in 1956, by seeking to empower the people, as the sole guardians of political power and taking away this power from our representatives, who claim to act in God`s name, because as the preamble of our constitution is worded, it has given them the power of demi-gods. We have to do this, because without it, there is no point of asking for political accountibility from our politicans, because since they act as representatives for God, how can they be wrong?

This brings us back to square to one! All political reform runs into Islam and religion in Pakistan and its lack of courage to challenge religion and Islam, simply means that it will appease and capitulate to the power of organized theocracy in Pakistan.

Hence, in all humility and bewilderment, I must ask you again; what reforms are you hoping for in Pakistan? lol :)

Ciao

P.S.: Sorry for this long post...

re: amit # 11

The greatest challenge in understanding Hinduism is in looking past the marks of its thorough, centuries-longl rape and disfigurement by the European-Arab world`s strategic linguists.

We have certain obligations to ourselves. The first of these is to stop using the defamatory anti-Hindu vocabulary Euro-Arab missionary-conquerors deliberately invented.

But something else has to come even before that - awareness of our own intellectual ravishment.

I will return to make a few concrete suggestions.

re: Yasser

One more point.

The reason why Kemal Ataturk was able to reform Turkey into a modern nation, was as you well know, he got rid of the power of religion in politics. We need something similar to happen in Pakistan and as long as the power of religion is not defeated and removed from Pakistani politics, no meaningful reform can take place in Pakistan.

Yasser, what needs to be worked in Pakistan, as a concept and then implemented, is not the evocation of reform, but the political methodologies for reforms; the metrics by which reform can be measured and thus, the reforms become specfic tangible ideas and not abstract debating issues. Sadly, we have not been able to develop the rubric for such methodologies in Pakistan.

Ciao

Hi Yasser:

You whetted the appetite but did not serve the full meal. You seem to have used Ranade as a pretext to praise the adapatability of the hindu society and unfavourably compare the muslim society to it. I was hoping to learn more about Ranade. Like most Indians, I had only heard about him and that too because a hall in Delhi School of Economics was named after him.

Incidentally, if you are reading about the Indian stalwarts of that period, I would recommend to do some reading of someone who fascinated me a lot when I was your age - M.N.Roy. Roy (not his original name) was active in the international communist movement and locked horns with the likes of Stalin and Mao. He later turned away from communism and founded a movement for radical humanism, which died with him.

Dear Yasser:

While you are on your journey, you may want to go to the concert of Pandit Kichlu. There are very few exponents of Dhrupad style even in India, the style associated with Tan Sen of Akbar`s court. But it takes time to develop a tast for classical Indian music; make it easier for you and skip the first half. The second half of these concerts is generally less ``pukka``.

Re: # 24

YES!!!! M N Roy ... the radical Humanist.... I have been reading a lot about him too...

Re: # 25

I am indeed going to be there....

I also work for Sanjan Nagar... www.sanjannagar.org

Come to Pakistan again... and you will find great things being done to develop Indian classical music...

Tahmed

The person to study alongside Sir Syed would be Raja Rammohan Roy - the father of modern India. Like Sir Syed a few decades later, RRR had faced opposition from his orthodox co-religionists.

RRR was in his forties when Sir Syed was born. RRR was fluent in Sanskrit, Bengali, English, Persian and Arabic. By the time Sir Syed was in his formative years, RRR had built up a phenomenally productive career, which besides his main works within the core of Hinduism, included the founding of the Unitarian Church in Calcutta, publishing a book in Persian on the subject of monotheism, called TuhFat-ul-Muhawwidin, and starting a Persian newspaper (first in India?) called Miratul-Akhbar.

Sir Syed was familiar with RRR`s contributions in Persian, and deeply admired the man. Studying the two together might afford a better understanding of Sir Syed himself, and of the joint Hindu-Muslim legacy of ideas and worldviews.

//..While trying to convince Jinnah of the idea of a separate Muslim state in the north west India, Iqbal had mentioned of how the Hindu society could never be democratic,...//

Yep. That`s where muslims of [undivided] India missed out.

A lot of Reforms in hindu society happened in later part of British rule .... a 100 year before independence. In fact - the fight for independence was partly against British - it was also a fight against ourselves[for hindus, that is]. It was a fight for freedom from foreign rule as well as a fight for freedom from dogma of statified and rotten society.

Gandhi, Nehru and host of other people all over the country had led the largest such movement ever in history, cutting across language and a hundred other fault lines of a vast and ancient society. Every village, every region has a reformer, a gandhian, a hero - inspired by gandhi or otherwise. The ``revolutions`` was across the spectrum and deep to the grassroots.

That was about hindus. What did muslims do in the sam time? Precisely nothing. Quixotic Leaders like Iqbal, Jinnah were out fighting wind-mills of ``Hindu Domination``, engaging in arm-chair revolutions and Ivory-tower sermons ...... Instead of getting down the trenches and reforming muslims societies - they were sermonzing to abdul-lungi, in three-piece suits......... Instead of leading abdul away from his ignorant mysery - they were inciting him with rhetoric - ``Islam in danger``, ``Hindu domination`` and what not! .......... Instead of teaching muslims the benefits of reform and exciting them up for a change - they were pontificating about being ``constitutionalists`` and ``opponents of Mass Movements``.

The result is for all to see. Even now - things have not changed that much.

Well, none of us knew Hindu society very well then, including Iqbal.

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITdemocracyindiaframeset.htm

Quote:
Indeed, in ancient India, monarchical thinking was constantly battling with another vision, of self-rule by members of a guild, a village, or an extended kin-group, in other words, any group of equals with a common set of interests. This vision of cooperative self-government often produced republicanism and even democracy comparable to classical Greek democracy.

Mantolives:
Iz Raza Kazim the m`aashooque in this pUrdaa-e-ZanGaree? Surely sounds like him.

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You `write` somewhere in the article:

``..Iqbal had mentioned of how the Hindu society could never be democratic, because such a situation will mean an end to Hindu society. Had he qualified it with..``

Are you not twisting Iqbal`s words? Please provide that ``quote``. It is in a line or two and begins with `` If a hindu

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``.

It shouldn`t take you too long. It is pretty well known as well.

Unless of course you , as usual ``discovered`` something to prove your Sahih Bukharis of
Jinnahcorrect.

Yassar,
I had read about Ranade a long time ago but never really thought that he influenced the Indian society in a big way. In the 19th and the early 20th century, there were many intellectuals, scholars, and government servants that were taken in by the British upper middleclass idealism and found reformism to be their niche in the over all Indian society. They always said the right things and barring a few never wavered in their support for British colonialist. They have our respects because they were the original elitists in the Indian society. Rabindranath Tagore was probably the last of 19th century elitist in the sub continent.

Feroz,

Your assessment of Pakistan is based on the current situation in Pakistan. Your comments appear appropriate but do not reflect the true state of affairs in Pakistan. Like many developing societies, the Pakistani society would have its own vicissitudes and sometime your pessimistic analysis may appear to be the whole truth but it is not.
If you compare the current Pakistani society to the one in the 50s, 60s and the 70s, you would find that Pakistan society’s progress despite the military regime and the absurd two-nation theory, was geared more towards modernism and acceptance of new ideas. There were severe conflicts in the society at that time and in the 80s the obscurity won the battle mainly because the biggest supporter of the modernization of Pakistan, the east wing parted company along with its more enlightened political and social ideas.

As someone said, “Even utter obscurity need not be an obstacle to success”
The conflicts move the society and the current conflicts would be helpful in removing many barriers to success from Pak social structure.

The positive side of the current story is that whenever people in Pakistan were allowed to make a choice they made the right intellectual choices and that proves that generally Pakistanis understand the need of the day more than the its rulers.
The previous Afghan war allowed the dogma to take control of Pakistan, the new war of Afghanistan after 9-11 is opening the doors for Pakistanis to reclaim society from the fringe echoboomseque elements of the Pakistani society. They controlled the society for far too long and it is not possible to eliminate their influence in a short period. It will take some doing to bring all of their symbols of obscurations down.
The prerequisite is to move the Pakistani society away from its unreal Muslim identity. The emphasis should be on the Pakistani society rather than on the Muslims or ummah at large. I am not suggesting that Pakistanis should be made to give up their religion but the effort should be to remove the religion from the collective life.
We tend to be very critical of the US influence in Pakistan. The US policies in the 80s led Pakistan to the current situation but it was still a choice made by the Pakistani rulers and not Pakistani people. Again, the US is offering a choice and again the rulers are forced to accept it. This time around, the US offer appears to more on the lines of realism than dogma.
The US support is vital in changing the Pakistani society as they have complete control over the Pak army and as long as the US continue to push the army for reform, despite its natural reluctance to do so, the army would follow the US line.
There is no doubt that the enlightened people like you in Pakistan need strong support as they have been weakened enormously during the last 20 years. The US is coming forward to provide the support. It is pushing the rulers to change their outlook and bring the realism back in the society.
India is another country that can provide enormous help in changing the Pakistani society. The conflict with India always helps the echobooms of our society. That’s why in the worst of times, the Pakistani left, liberals and democrat have always supported better relations with India. The current Indian government understands that without supporting the modern, liberal, and secular elements in Pakistan, it will not be able to remove the long-term threat that is the bread and butter of the obscure elements on both sides of the border.