Thoughts on Indian Culture

Indian culture is known for its spiritualism. It is this facet of Indian culture which has helped it survive for ages. Indeed, Indian society is spiritually inclined and seeks salvation as the ultimate goal of life. This has lead to the misunderstanding that indulgence and materialism is despicable; Indian culture bans materialism. A deeper look at Indian philosophy reveals that it is not just a culture of renunciation but equally of indulgence rather a fine balance of both.

The Indian way of life declares four essentials for a compete and meaningful life- Dharma, Artha, Kam and Moksha. Dharma is not just religion but duties, duty towards parents, spouse, children; summarized as family. The second ring of such duties would be towards community, then society, thereafter country and finally world. All this was collected and presented in the form of religious dictum, made mandatory to ensure compliance for smooth working of personal life and progression of society.

Artha meant money, the earning of material belongings that we all call today “bucks”. The next was Kam, meaning sex. Indian culture is the only one to institutionalize sex and accommodate it in the structure of life. Most religions have looked towards it only as in evil but in India it has been seen as an instrument, rather one of the components of life. These two components are clearly depicting materialism. These are indications of indulgence and the fact that they have been recognized and allowed in Indian culture.

Moksha is the ultimate spiritual goal, the endeavor of every soul to get rid of the wriggle of life and death. Indian culture thus insists on achieving this fine balance of materialism and spiritualism.

However, a glance on past shows that Indian culture is understood to be only one of spiritualism and thus all indulgences and material pursuits have been declared to be bad. The interpreters and blind followers have said so thereby resulting in stagnation and eventual deterioration of Indian culture. Indian culture is remembered only for its spiritual advancements and its material achievements have been undermined. This has become a reason for buffoons to sit idle and justify economic disintegration and pervasiveness of abject poverty. Although, Indian culture teaches how to make the best of the worst situation but does not insist on perpetuating worst situation. All these have lead to superstition and branding of Indian culture as archaic and old. No doubt, it has certain fallacious which every culture has. Claiming perfection would be stupidity.

There are certain evil feature which come over time or features that become redundant over time, that does not make the entire culture fickle, it is the weed which is to be removed with time, those attacking the cultivation itself are fools and those who claim insistence on orthodoxy are preposterous.

The Facts and Fiction of Indian History

The study of Indian history is one of the most complicated and perplexing exercise especially due to the confusion amongst historians about its facts and fiction. The article explores the dichotomy of two and proposes a way out. The facts lobby is normally lead by orthodox historians who see every work of Indian history written by British as a imperial manifesto and fiction lobby is led by the western historians who in their quest for international standardization brand all of Indian history to be a mythological discourse. Indian history, especially ancient history is a mixture of facts and figures. Facts are the tangible tangents connected with the imaginative leap of fiction. The two schools of thoughts need elaboration before their drawbacks are highlighted and addressed.

India is undoubtedly one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It inevitable underwent transformations from one stage to another where every succeeding civilization, inspite of continuing its predecessors characteristic features developed its own diaspora. This variation is unique to Indian history. It becomes difficult for a westerner with a continuous un-revealed history to be skeptical about existence of any such situation. This inherent characteristic feature of diversity necessitates India centric instruments for study of Indian history. Nextly, the sources of Indian history differ greatly than those prevalent in west. It would be unreasonable to expect every civilization to adopt some tools for recording and preservation of history. Every civilization has its own manner of recording and preserving historical facts. Merely because Indian kings preferred bards over commissioned historians to record history in prose does not make their history nonexistent and unreliable. Argument is not to blindly follow the words of commissioned bards as gospel truth and idea here is not to indulge into the great debate about their doubtful partiality. The sole undercurrent of the argument is that they have recorded history in the fashion that suited them the most. There are various other contemporary records of Indian history which are bound to be different from that of western historians.

While studying Indian history, especially Indian history it may not be lost sight of that recording of history, then was not merely an academic exercise as assumed by western scholars. It was an instrument of entertainment with the objective of conveying the intricate principles of life to masses in a way they can understand. Indian history therefore was not a drab exercise of alienated intellectual but a colorful picturisation to which the audience could connect itself. If would be wrong for western historians to disregard all prior to the Christian era as Dark Age or Age of Myth. This extremism of fictionist criticizers of Indian history especially ancient history is incorrect and unreasonable.

On the other hand the orthodox historians do not appear to be doing any good to the Indian history. They damage it due to their dogmatic approach towards Indian history. For them every word of Upanishads is a fact seen by naked eye and an allegation of heresy is blasphemy for them. This approach has caused great damage to the study of Indian history, more so to the history itself. This approach has lead rest to disbelieve it entirely.  An orthodox argues that all of it imagined existed then. In his insistence for proving fiction to be facts the facts gets left aside and subjected to destitute. The extremism of orthodox and western historians is fatal to Indian history.

The way out is confluence of the two schools, best from both the worlds. It is the exercise of separating facts from fiction. Facts would be identifiable, palatable on the test of tools of modern historical investigation. The segregation of fiction from the facts. Let us examine Prithvirj Raso for that matter. The fact would be that after defeating Mohammad Ghori when Prithviraj Chauhan was taken prisoner he succeeded in killing Ghori. This could be corroborated with the date, time and circumstances of death of Ghori.  It would not be proper to blatantly disregard Prithviraj Raso on all counts including this. Indeed, the exaggerated explanation of bravery of Prithviraj Chahuan will be have to be kept away from facts and counted towards the pool of fiction.

The facts can be acknowledged, once established on the basis of modern tools of history and successively the scope of fiction will reduce. The text under consideration will thus give a realistic understanding of the true events what we can call history.

The orthodox historians may have to give-up some of their supernatural claims about natural beings and western historians may have to accommodate some harsh facts dispelling long standing notions and prejudices towards Indian history. Lack of above is not a loss for the people and culture of India but a true loss for history, as such.

The “Natak” of Karnataka

                In the recent times, after blast of information technology and mammoth increase in software exports from India Bangalore attained the status of an IT hub and the entire state came to be known as a progressive state. It became a magnet for professions and righty deserves to be so. It is not just rich in the mind resource but also blessed with abundant natural resource. Thankfully the mind resource not infected by politicians has maintained to be sterile but natural resource is ravished and plundered. Amidst this contrast, the most painful contrast is between the civilized, docile and accommodative people being led by selfish, self preserving uncivilized politicians as evidence by the drama of Karnataka State Legislature.

The event may have already been seized by the rival parties for mud-slinging on each other but in the process no one appears to have realized that it is the political face of the country which has been defaced. The situation shows the democratic process has remained merely an “institutionalized anarchy”. The actions of factions depict anarchy but they are doing it in a purported democratic setup thereby institutionalizing it. The legislators have stretched the definition of freedom in democracy, to far, to use any and every mean to attain the sole aim of seizure of power.

The most shocking portion is that we have given recognition to roudism in democracy. Political parties are openly abdicating representatives of people and the representatives of people seem to be enjoying the lap of the most lucrative offerer. Such a naked struggle to snatch power at any cost is definitely not practiced in any democracy, except those which are pathetically sham democracies and still in crude form. We do not appear to have really understood the meaning of democracy and democratic process inspite of so many years. Abdicating a Member of Legislative Assembly is abdicating the people whom he represents and if the representative is behaving like this he shall be declared to have lost the faith of the people and disqualified. Indeed politics is a dirty game but not as dirty as it is made in this country and it is akin to one of the worst despotically ruled countries.

For many, this may not be a shock because right from college politics it is a practice to kidnap all the voters in election wherever there is representative voting or kidnap other student leaders having strong control over votes. The repeated practice has recognized this and made us apprehend that democracy means muscle power and money power. It gets most depressing when the so called educated class turns a blind eye and decides not even to criticize. Criticism may not change this evil practice but it will keep the thought of resistance alive so that at the opportune moment when a leader emerges for us we can rally behind him. It will be unfortunate if we get a leader and we would have killed even the thought of resistance.

Inaugural Ceremony of Commonwealth Games.

It was truly magnificent to witness the grand inaugural ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, especially after caustic criticism and rising perplexity questioning whether games will even happen. I was also a proud comrade of the bandwagon busy basing the manner and conduct of the games but was made to rethink on certain features after witnessing the amazing moment of national pride and honour, which was nothing less than stamping on the world scene that India is not just a rising super power but probably just moments before such acclaim.

No one can forgo the financial embezzlement and time schedule irregularities on the arrangement of the games for which the organizers were expected to take the blame and respond promptly but an overall assessment of the event leaves a pleasant mark on memory.

First and foremost was the grandeur of event and its mammoth magnanimity. It was impeccable planning and flawless execution covering multifarious faculties which would otherwise be difficult to manage. The event was declaration of India’s arrival and probably a proud moment for sportsmen which will be complete after the Indian kitty is full of medals, just because of performance of our athletes and not because there was a bad or no competition. There are 71 teams to not just to fill the quorum. Thinking otherwise would mean discrediting the potential of our own athletes. It may not be fair to make then face byproducts of our wrath towards shameless politicians.

The skeptical lobby would challenge the amount spent in the games and would see it as a wasteful exercise. There no point being a pseudo-socialist and selfish by being blind critic of every act of national extravagance. It India wants to impose itself as a strong notion willing to play greater role in world politics this branding is necessary. The flaw is with the working of political system. As a people if we are merry choosing corrupt politicians and dynastic superheroes then we have to suffer the flop side of these choices; a product of our laziness of not voting and not participating in the political process and blind icon dynastic worship. Indeed there are issues of poverty and deprivation which need attention and address. This does not mean we project perpetual poverty in our actions. For the taxpayers they should feel happy for that portion of their money which was actually utilized for the event to be used in the best way ever and be active now to address that amount which got gulped by farce contractors in liaison with corrupt babus and netas.

There have definitely been problems throughout and some entirely unforgivable like the falling bridge, the errant must get severest punishment. This should not be seen to mean that the false ceiling which fell down was a routine and every ceiling would now start falling. I wish media was slightly fairer in its criticism. We would want it to be a watch dog and not a biting dog. The actions of media have projected India to be a banana republic with no system.

No wrongdoer shall be spared. They all deserve severest of punishments but let not that destroy the moment of national pride expressed in the most phenomenal fashion ever in this country. Let’s enjoy this moment of surging nationalism and then once the event is over get ready to bash the wrongdoers.