Upton Sinclair On Religion

Government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, but Religion oppressed his mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at its source.
Upton Sinclair
Source: The Jungle - "Chapter 31"

'We Have Got Lost', 'Let's Stand Up, Do Something.'

Dharampalji in an intense conversation at his kuti in Sevagram Ashram,2005

On Western influenceBut why hasn't any moment started till now on de-linking from the western minset? After Gandhi, there seems to have been no commensurate effort in that direction. The predominant thrust among Indian leaders and thinkers was to make India Western. Or that we could not survive unless we took aid from the West. Even extraordinary individuals like Swami Vivekananda held such views.

D: I think we are too demoralised. I think even the great Vivekananda, after he had gone around the country for about four years, from 1889 to 1893, and saw the wretchedness, the poverty, the impoverishment of the mind and attitudes and so on, was perplexed as to what had happened. Then he went to the West and saw a different world and that made him feel that we could not do anything on our own. We have to have Western aid, Western muscular power, but what he meant was that we might require these things to stand up. He didn't mean that it would be forever. He meant that we needed such support in the next generation or so, 10-20-30 years and we'd come into our own, chart our path, to some extent similar to that of Western man, but in other ways perhaps very different. The West was to serve as an example, but not forever. That doesn't seem to have been Vivekananda's idea. Our people got stuck because, I think, we are too literal. Whether it is Vivekananda or Mahatma Gandhi or someone else we seem to take them too literally; something has happened to us. Maybe this is a much older trait. It may that because of Vasco da Gama and the British and partly the Islamic period - all this could have made a contribution to the degradation, the loss of faith, the loss of courage - added to it. Is it of our own making, or is this what happens eventually to all civilisations and maybe they have a new birth at some other stage?..read the full interview

dharampal.net

Caste And Democracy

"Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this Universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play".
Sri Aurobindo


Caste and democracy

" WE FEAR our correspondent who has criticised on another page the consistency of our

views on caste, has hardly taken any trouble to understand the real drift of our articles. His attitude seems to be that we must be either entirely for caste as it at present exists or entirely against the institution and condemn it root and branch in the style of the ordinary unthinking social reformer. Because on the one hand we protested against the ignorant abuse of the institution often indulged in simply because it is different in form and spirit from European institutions, and on the other hand emphasised the perversions of its form and spirit and the necessity of its transformation in the pure spirit of Hinduism, our correspondent imagines that we are inconsistent and guilty of adopting successively two different and incompatible attitudes. Our position is perfectly clear and straightforward. Caste was originally an arrangement for the distribution of functions in society, just as much as class in Europe, but the principle on which the distribution was based in India was peculiar to this country. The civilisation of Europe has always been preponderatingly material and the division of classes was material in its principles and material in its objects, but our civilisation has always been preponderatingly spiritual and moral, and caste division in India had a spiritual object and a spiritual and moral basis. The division of classes in Europe had its root in a distribution of powers and rights and developed and still develops through a struggle of conflicting interests; its aim was merely the organisation of society for its own sake and mainly indeed for its economic convenience. The division of castes in India was conceived as a distribution of duties. A man's caste depended on his dharma, his spiritual, moral and practical duties, and his dharma depended on his svabhāva, his temperament and inborn nature. A Brahmin was a Brahmin not by mere birth, but because he discharged the duty of preserving the spiritual and intellectual
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elevation of the race, and he had to cultivate the spiritual temperament and acquire the spiritual training which could alone qualify him for the task. The Kshatriya was a Kshatriya not merely because he was the son, of warriors and princes, but because he discharged the duty of protecting the country and preserving the high courage and manhood of the nation, and he had to cultivate the princely temperament and acquire the strong and lofty Samurai training which alone fitted him for his duties. So it was with the Vaishya whose function was to amass wealth for the race and the Sudra who discharged the humbler duties of service without which the other castes could not perform their share of labour for the common good. This was what we meant when we said that caste was a socialistic institution. No doubt there was a gradation of social respect which placed the function of the Brahmin at the summit and the function of the Sudra at the base, but this inequality was accidental, external, vyavahãrika. Essentially there was, between the devout Brahmin and the devout Sudra, no inequality in the single viral purusa of which each was a necessary part. Chokha Mela, the Maratha Pariah, became the Guru of Brahmins proud of their caste purity; the Chandala taught Shankaracharya: for the Brahman was revealed in the body of the Pariah and in the Chandala there was the utter presence of Shiva the Almighty. Heredity entered into caste divisions, and in the light of the conclusions of modern knowledge who shall say erroneously? But it entered into it as a subordinate element. For Hindu civilisation being spiritual based its institutions on spiritual and moral foundations and subordinated the material elements and material considerations. Caste therefore was not only an institution which ought to be immune from the cheap second-hand denunciations so long in fashion, but a supreme necessity without which Hindu civilisation could not have developed its distinctive character or worked out its unique mission.
But to recognise this is not to debar ourselves from pointing out its later perversions and desiring its transformation. It is the nature of human institutions to degenerate, to lose their vitality, and decay, and the first sign of decay is the loss of flexibility and oblivion of the essential spirit in which they were conceived. The
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spirit is permanent, the body changes; and a body which refuses to change must die. The spirit expresses itself in many ways while itself remaining essentially the same, but the body must change to suit its changing environments if it wishes to live. There is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated. It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications which, once essential, have now come to be subordinate and even immaterial and is determined by the purely material tests of occupation and birth. By this change it has set itself against the fundamental tendency of Hinduism which is to insist on the spiritual and subordinate the material and thus lost most of its meaning. The spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present condition. It is these perversions which we wish to see set right. The institution must transform itself so as to fulfil its essential and permanent object under the changed conditions of modern times. If it refuses to change, it will become a mere social survival and crumble to pieces. If it transforms itself, it will yet play a great part in the fulfilment of civilisation.
Our correspondent accuses us of attempting to corrupt society with the intrusion of the European idea of Socialism. Socialism is not an European idea, it is essentially Asiatic and especially Indian. What is called Socialism in Europe is the old Asiatic attempt to effect a permanent solution of the economic problem of society which will give man leisure and peace to develop undisturbed his higher self. Without Socialism democracy would remain a tendency that never reached its fulfilment, a rule of the masses by a small aristocratic or monied class with the consent and votes of the masses, or a tyranny of the artisan classes over the rest. Socialistic democracy is the only true democracy, for without it we cannot get the equalised and harmonised distribution of functions, each part of the community existing for the good of all and not struggling for its own separate interests, which will give humanity as a whole the necessary conditions in which it can turn its best energies to its higher development. To realise those conditions is also the aim of Hindu civilisation and the original intention of caste. The fulfilment of Hinduism is
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the fulfilment of the highest tendencies of human civilisation and it must include in its sweep the most vital impulses of modern life. It will include democracy and Socialism also, purifying them, raising them above the excessive stress, on the economic adjustments which are the means, and teaching them to fix their eyes more constantly and clearly on the moral, intellectual and spiritual perfection of mankind which is the end".
Bande Mataram, September 22, 1907

The Results Of Yankee Democracy

Who Wants To Be Yankee's Lackey?

There are not many countries in the world where George W. Bush is regarded as something of a hero. He is, however, in India — a marker of how relations between the world’s largest democracy and its oldest flourished during his tenure as President.
Hillary Clinton’s visit to India this week, her first as Secretary of State, gave probably the best insight yet into how President Obama intends to carry forward that relationship, set to become one of the most important — and potentially trickiest — among the major nations as the 21st century progresses...source

Bharat Is United-Part2

Presenting the current demi gods/deities/vital beings of the indian subcontinent..:-)

Raj Kumar Santoshi may have moved Lahore in his adaptation of the play "Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhya Woh Jamiya Nahin" to Hyderabad, but filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt is all set to shoot an entire Bollywood film - a Hindu-Muslim love story - in Pakistan’s cultural capital...read+


HDI Oscars: Slumdogs versus millionaires What does it mean to rank much better on GDP per capita than in the HDI, as we do? It means we have been less successful in converting income into human development, writes P Sainath...read+

Bangalore, Apr 30: Homeshop18, India's 24 hour home shopping channel has launched a new show, coming together with Reebok has launched 'Reebok 20:20 Cricket Mania' in lieu with the on going Indian Premier League Season-2. The show will feature exclusive Reebok merchandise of Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab..source

Bharat Is United-Part1

YAY!!SOUTH ASIAN OCCUPY TOP RANKINGS IN GLOBAL HUNGER/POVERTY INDEX!!(I AM SURE IIT GEEKS AT "GOOGLE MY SCALABLE GOD" WERE NOT INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT)) Poverty in South Asia: Issues and Suggestions
South Asia is facing many challenges due to diverse political situation at regional level, still the region as a whole shares a lot of socio-economic problems in common and poverty is one of these. Poverty is a daunting challenge for countries in the region in particular Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
South Asia currently hosts more than half of the poor in the world. Despite many poverty alleviation and aid programs by international donors the situation is not improving as it was stipulated few decades back particularly in big countries in the region like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh...read more



South Asia hunger back at 1960s famine levels
A United Nations report says the number of people going hungry in South Asia has jumped by 100 million in the past two years.
The UNICEF report says the global economic crisis has exacerbated poverty in a region where more than 1 billion people live on less than $2 a day.
The number of people suffering from chronic hunger in South Asia is now the same as it was 40 years ago.
The raw figures are stark. In the South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, one third of people are going hungry.
Almost half of all children are underweight, as regional director of UNICEF in South Asia Daniel Toole explains.
"Perhaps the most dramatic impact is that we see that there are about 100 million more people hungry in South Asia than two years ago. That's a huge change," he said...READ MORE