A defeatist tendency exists in the psyche of modern
Indians perhaps unparalleled in any other country today. An inner conflict
bordering on a civil war rages in the minds of the country’s elite. The main
effort of its cultural leaders appears to be to pull the country down or remake
it in a foreign image, as if little Indian and certainly nothing Hindu was
worthy of preserving or even reforming.
The elite of India suffers from a fundamental alienation
from the traditions and culture of the land that would not be less poignant had
they been born and raised in a hostile country. The ruling elite appears to be
little more than a native incarnation of the old colonial rulers who haughtily
lived in their separate cantonments, neither mingling with the people nor
seeking to understand their customs. This new English-speaking aristocracy
prides itself in being disconnected from the very soil and people that gave it
birth.
There is probably no other country in the world
where it has become a national pastime among its educated class to denigrate
its own culture and history, however great that has been over the many
millennia of its existence. When great archaeological discoveries of India’s
past are found, for example, they are not a subject for national pride but are
ridiculed as an exaggeration, if not an invention, as if they represent only
the imagination of backward chauvinistic elements within the culture.
There is probably no other country where the majority religion, however
enlightened, mystical or spiritual, is ridiculed, while minority religions,
however fundamentalist or even militant, are doted upon. The majority religion
and its institutions are taxed and regulated while minority religions receive
tax benefits and have no regulation or even monitoring. While the majority
religion is carefully monitored and limited as to what it can teach, minority
religions can teach what they want, even if anti-national or backward in
nature. Books are banned that offend minority religious sentiments but praised
if they cast insults on majority beliefs.
There is probably no other country where regional, caste and family
loyalties are more important than the national interest, even among those who
claim to be democratic, socialist or caste reformers. Political parties exist
not to promote a national agenda but to sustain one region or group of people
in the country at the expense of the whole. Each group wants as big a piece of
the national pie as it can get, not realizing that the advantages it gains mean
deprivation for other groups. Yet when those who were previously deprived gain
power, they too seek the same unequal advantages that causes further inequality
and discontent.
India’s affirmative action code is by far the most extreme in the world,
trying to raise up certain segments of the population regardless of merit, and
prevent others from gaining positions however qualified they may be. In the
guise of removing caste, a new casteism has arisen where one’s caste is more
important than one’s qualifications either in gaining entrance into a school or
in finding a job when one graduates. Anti-Brahminism has often become the most
virulent form of castist thinking. People view the government not as their own
creation but as a welfare state from they should take the maximum personal
benefit, regardless of the consequences for the country as a whole.
Outside people need not pull Indians down. Indians are already quite busy
keeping any of their people and the country as a whole from rising up. They
would rather see their neighbors or the nation fail if they are not given the
top position. It is only outside of India that Indians succeed, often
remarkably well, because their native talents are not stifled by the dominant
cultural self-negativity and rabid divisiveness that exists in the country
today.
Political parties in India see gaining power as a means of amassing
personal wealth and robbing the nation. Political leaders include gangsters, charlatans
and buffoons who would stop short at nothing to gain power for themselves and
their coteries. Even so-called modern or liberal parties resemble more the
courts of kings, where personal loyalty is more important than any democratic
participation. Once they gain power politicians routinely do little but cheat
the people for their own advantage. Even honest politicians find that they
cannot function without some deference to the more numerous corrupt leaders who
often have a stranglehold on the bureaucracy.
Politicians divide the country into warring vote banks and place one
community against another. They offer favors to communities like bribes to make
sure that they are elected or stay in power. They campaign on slogans that
appeal to community fears and suspicions rather than create any national
consensus or harmony. They hold power based upon blame and hatred rather than
on any positive programs for social change. They inflame the uneducated masses
with propaganda rather than work to make people aware of real social problems
like overpopulation, poor infrastructure or lack of education.
Should a decent government come to power, the opposition pursues pulling
it down as its main goal, so that they can gain power for themselves. The idea
of a constructive or supportive opposition is hard to find. The goal is to gain
power for oneself and to not allow anyone else to succeed.
To further their ambitions Indian politicians will manipulate the foreign
press to denigrate their opponents, even if it means spreading lies and rumors
and making the country an anathema in the eyes of the outside world. Petty
conflicts in India are blown out of proportion in the foreign media, not by
foreign journalists but by Indians seeking to use the media to score points
against their own opponents in the country. The Indians who are responsible for
the news of India in the foreign press spread venom and distortion about their
own country, perhaps better than any foreigner who dislikes the culture ever
could.
The killing of one Christian missionary becomes a national media event of
anti-Christian attacks while the murder of hundreds of Hindus is taken casually
as without any real importance, as if only the deaths of white-skinned people
mattered, not the slaughter of the natives. Missionary aggression is extolled
as social upliftment, while Hindu efforts at self-defense against the
conversion onslaught are portrayed as rabid fundamentalism. One Indian
journalist even lamented that western armies would not come to India to chastise
the political groups he was opposed to, as if he was still looking for the
colonial powers to save him!
.....
The strange thing is that India is not a banana
republic of recent vintage but one of the oldest and most venerable
civilizations in the world. Its culture is not trumpeting a militant and
fundamentalist religion trying to conquer the world for the one true faith but represents
a vaster and more cosmic vision. India has given birth to the main religions
that have dominated East Asia historically, the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh,
which are noted for tolerance and spirituality.
It has produced Sanskrit, perhaps the world’s
greatest language. It has given us the incredible spiritual systems of Yoga and
its great traditions of meditation and Self-realization. As the world looks
forward to a more universal model of spirituality and a world view defined by
consciousness rather than by religious dogma these traditions are perhaps the
most important legacy to draw upon for creating a future enlightened
civilization.
Yet the irony is that rather than embracing its own
great traditions, the modern Indian psyche prefers to slavishly imitate worn
out trends in western intellectual thought like Marxism or even to write
apologetics for Christian and Islamic missionary aggression. Though living in
India, in proximity to temples, yogis and great festivals, most modern Indian
intellectuals are oblivious to the soul of the land. They might as well be
living in England or China for all they know of their own country. They are
isolated in their own alien ideas as if in a tower of iron. If they choose to
rediscover India it is more likely to occur by reading the books of western
travelers visiting the country, than by their own direct experience of the
people around them.
The dominant Indian intelligentsia cannot appreciate
even the writings of the many great modern Indian sages, like Vivekananda or
Aurobindo, who wrote in good English and understood the national psyche and how
to revive. It is as if they were so successfully brainwashed against their own
culture that they cannot even look at it, even if presented to them clearly in
a modern light!
Given such a twisted and self-negative national
psyche, can there be any hope for the country? At the surface the situation
looks quite dismal. India appears like a nation without nationalism or at least
without any national pride or any real connection to its own history.
Self-negativity and even a cultural self-hatred abound. The elite that
dominates the universities, the media, the government and the business arenas
is the illegitimate child of foreign interests and is often still controlled by
foreign ideas and foreign resources. It cannot resist a bribe and there is much
money from overseas to draw upon. Indian politicians do not hesitate to sell
their country down the river and it does not require a high price.
Fortunately signs of a new awakening can be found.
There is a new interest in the older traditions of the country and many people
now visit temples and tirthas. Many young people now want to follow the older
heritage of the land and revive it in the modern age. The computer revolution and
the new science are reconnecting with the great intelligence of the Indian
psyche that produced the unfathomable mantras of the Vedas.
Slowly but surely a new intelligentsia is arising
and now several important journalists are writing and exposing the hypocrisy of
the anti-Hindu Indian elite. Yet only if this trend grows rapidly can there be
a real counter to the defeatist trend of the country. But it requires great
effort, initiative and creativity, not simply lamenting over the past but
envisioning a new future in harmony with the deeper aspirations of the region.
One must also not forget that the English-educated
elite represents only about three percent of the country, however much power
they wield. The remaining population is much more likely to preserve the older
traditions of the land. Even illiterate villagers often know more of real
Indian culture than do major Indian journalists and writers.
Meanwhile overseas Hindus have become successful,
well educated and affluent, not by abandoning their culture but by holding to
it. They see Hindu culture not as a weakness but as a strength. Free of the
Indian nation and its fragmented psyche, they can draw upon their cultural
resources in a way that people born in India seldom can. Perhaps they can return
to the country and become its new leaders.
However, first this strange alienated elite has to
be removed and they will not do so without a fight. The sad thing is that they
would probably rather destroy their own country than have it function apart
from their control. The future of India looks like a new Kurukshetra and it
requires a similar miracle for victory. Such a war will be fought not on some
outer battlefield but in the hearts and minds of people, in where they choose
to draw their inspiration and find their connection with life.
Yet regardless of outer appearances, the inner soul
of the land cannot be put down so easily. It has been nourished by many
centuries of tapas by great yogis and sages. This soul of Bharat Mata will rise
up again through Kali (destruction) to Durga (strength). The question is how
long and difficult the process must be.
September
2, 2013
Vamadeva Shastri
(Dr. David Frawley, American
Institute of Vedic Studies, New Mexico)
http://www.hinduhumanrights.info/the-colonial-native-vs-the-hindu/
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