emergence of the new order?

[Guest guest]

Namaste to all! I am new to the list, got introduced to

it by Dean. Hope to learn and contribute whatever little

I can.

 

Dhanyavaad

Kalyan Ram

 

 

 

Emergence of a new order?

Free Press Journal July 27, 2000

 

By M V Kamath

http://www.indiavotes.com/elections/news/feature507.html

 

It is said that Aadi Sankara, the great exponent of

adwaita (788-820 AD)

travelled all the way from his village Kaladi in Kerala

to the four corners of

India to spread the message of monism. By any account it

was a tremendous feat.

He was not moving among an alien people. Islam had yet

to make its entry into

India and wherever he went he could only have met those

who practised sanaatana

dharma. He set up four maths which have survived to this

day, but neither his

powerful advocacy of dharma, nor the institutionalising

of his faith united

India politically. India was painfully divided against

itself to such an extent

that invader after invader, beginning with Mohammad of

Ghazni and ending with

Robert Clive could without much effort establish

sovereignty over the country.

Religion did not unite people. Hundreds of temples stood

destroyed. A British

representative travelling from Surat to Delhi during the

time of Jehangir was to

write that throughout his long journey he did not see a

single temple standing.

Communication between one distant part of India and

another was non-existent.

Ethnic, logistic and other divisions kept people apart.

There was no possible

meeting of minds. It is said that as late as 1761, the

news of the tragic

defeat of the Marathas at the third battle of Panipat

reached Kerala six months

later and that, too, in a fragmented form.

 

The British tried to change the communication scene by

establishing Posts &

Telegraphs and still later by laying down railway lines.

They did it not to do

any favour to their subjects but to enable movement of

troops from one part of

the country to another should people show any incipient

signs of rebellion.

That the people indirectly benefited by the new means of

communication was

altogether a different matter. But for centuries alien

forces could come to

India and indulge in murder and mayhem but those who

perforce had to face alien

wrath had to do it on their own strength and with no aid

from anyone else. A

Ghazni Mohammad could destroy the temple of Somnath,

Portuguese barbarians could

come to Goa, destroy over three hundred temples and put

to the stakes some 130

Hindus and apostates -- and not a dog barked. During the

125 odd years of

British rule, Christian missionaries could indulge in

wholesale conversion of

tribal people in the North East, but no Hindu leader

thought it affected him.

Hindu indifference to changes around them was

monumental. Indifference was the

name of the game. Besides, the missionaries had the

tacit, if not open, support

of the ruling power. And who would bare to openly

challenge it? Worse than

religious indifference was the manner in which Hindus

allowed their culture to

be eroded.

 

As English education spread a new class was to come into

existence that was to

hold Hindu customs and manner, Hindu rites and rituals in

contempt. A notable

example was Jawaharlal Nehru who, in the years following

independence, was to

turn secularism into a cult. The British meanwhile had

inculcated into the

Hindu ethos a sense of inferiority which made many

Indians think lowly of

themselves. The best education -- and this in the land

which once boasted great

universities like Nalanda -- was to be had not in India

but at Oxford and

Cambridge. The best technology was to be learnt not in

Banaras or Bombay but in

Manchester or places equally far away. The nation which

at one time built the

finest warships such as one that Lord Nelson, no less,

was to use at the famous

naval battle of Trafalgar, was brought to a point of

having to buy British ships

for coastal transport. Culturally, India in the forties

and early fifties, was

at its nadir. Running down Hinduism as outdated,

caste-oriented and

fundamentalist had become the fashion among the elite in

control of the media.

But things are changing. And the worm, to use a cliche,

is turning. A new

awakening is to be seen in the country. The elite is

finding it hard to come to

term with this new development. One sees it reflected in

the manner in which

the BJP and the VHP are under attack in the English

language press. Words like

`fundamentalist', `communalist' and `fascist' are freely

used. The sad part of

it all is that the elite is not realising what is

happening under its very nose.

But a western writer, Prof. Samuel P. Huntington was

quick to note the ongoing

changes as early as in 1995 when he wrote what is now

regarded as a classic:

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World

Order. As he saw it,

European colonialism is over and American hegemony is

receding and with the

erosion of western culture, indigenous, historically

rooted mores, languages,

beliefs and institutions are reasserting themselves. As

Prof. Huntington put

it: ``The growing power of non-western societies

produced by modernization is

generating the revival of non-western cultures throughout

the world''. And he

adds: ``As non-western societies enhance their economic,

military and political

capacity, they increasingly trumpet the virtues of their

own values,

institutions and culture.''

 

The process had begun much earlier but is now catching up

with a vengeance.

Prof. Huntington has noted that Marry Lee once described

by a British cabinet

Minister as ``the best bloody Englishman east of Suez''

was to change his name

to Lee Kuan Kew and set about learning Mandarin to become

``an articulate

promoter of Confucianism'' in Singapore. Similarly

Solomon Bandaranike, a

thoroughly westernised Sri Lankan was to get converted to

Buddhism in an effort

to appeal to Sinhala nationalism. As Prof Huntington put

it: ``They reverted

to their ancestral cultures and in the process at times

changed identities

names, dress and beliefs''.

 

Power and culture go together. As long as western power

held away in the

colonies they had conquered, local cultures maintained a

low profile. But a

resurgent India, politically united, economically growing

and socially more

coherent is becoming culturally aggressive. Which other

country in the world

has sent 33,000 physicians and surgeons to the United

States of America,

literally as a gift? And now about 15,000 Indians

(mostly, one may be certain,

Hindus) have been given or are about to be given ``green

cards'' by the German

Federal Republic which wants their services as

engineers. Fifty years ago this

would have been unthinkable. Today it is a reality. How

many American doctors

and how many German engineers are there in India?

 

Prof. Huntington says that in India ``the prevailing

trend is the rejection of

Western forms and values and the `Hinduization' of

politics and society''. This

is not entirely correct. Western forms and values are

still prevalent in

certain sections of society which will be seen even in a

casual glance at our

English media. But the fact remains that India is

increasingly making its

presence felt in the West. And within the country itself

the word `Hindutva' is

slowly, even if at considerable cost, getting

acceptance. Prof. Huntington

quotes George Weigel as saying that ``the

unsecularisation of the world is one

of the dominant social facts in the late twentieth

century''.

 

Anti-western sentiments are most sharply to be seen in

Islamic countries. In

India the elite still hold sway in positions of power but

their hold is slowly

crumbling. It is unlikely that Hinduism will turn

`fundamentalist' as is

generally considered. This is because `fundamentalism'

as is defined in the

West is alien to Hindu thinking. Unlike Judeo-Christian

religions, including

Islam, which are linear in approach, Hinduism is circular

and all-embracing

which is perhaps one reason it has withstood the terrible

onslaught of both

Islam and Christianity down the centuries. To charge

Hinduism or Hindutva as

`fundamentalist' is erroneous. Its method is to absorb,

not confront. And it

is bound to prevail precisely because of that

distinguishing characteristic.

This will partially explain the recent attacks in

Christian institutions and

priests. It is somewhat strange that in Goa, Karnataka

and Andhra Pradesh,

those guilty are members of a strange cult known as the

Deendar

Channabasaweshwara Siddique which is Islamic in origin.

Plainly, Islam - or at

least one small and insignificant part of it in India -

does not want

competition from Christianity. And while it is claimed

that Christianity is an

Asian religion and certainly at least in Kerala it has

been in existence for

centuries, its main body is seen as alien-supported and

one attempting to usurp

majority culture space. And his Holiness the Pope did

not do either himself his

religion or his co-religionists any good by saying that

he planned to `harvest'

Indian souls to Christianity in the coming decades.

 

What is presently happening in India today is not a law

and order problem

--which can be handled with reasonable ease -- but a

clash of civilizations and

the re-making of a new world order. Clashes of

civilizations do not come in

neatly folded envelopes. They are invariably messy,

sometimes irrational and

too often bloody. What needs to be noticed is that the

Hindu community is now

organising itself as it had never before. The tribals

are accepted as part of

an ancient Hindu (Call it Indian) culture and Christian

inroads in tribal

society is being challenged, with increasing ferocity. A

wise Christian

community will understand the tectonic changes that are

taking place in India

and act accordingly. Confronting Hinduism or Hindutva

through western aid and

support can only be described as counter-productive.