India

""They keep in touch with other bongas and pray to Singbonga for the welfare of their household and the tribe. They are remembered and offered their due worship and sacrifice at all important occasions of life." (p.48) More explicitly: "The sacrifice they offer is mostly intercessory" (p.49), and their feasts "all refer to Singbonga as provider and creator of the tribe". (p.49)"

""Singbonga, unlike spirits, is worshipped for his own sake. His purity demands that he be offered sacrifices only of things that are white. Hence he is given sacrifices of white goats, white fowls, white gulainchi flowers, white cloth, sugar, milk, etc." (p.47)"

""Next in order come the Hatu Bongako or the Village spirits. (...) They are worshipped by the Pahan on behalf of the whole village at specific times in the sacred grove or the Sarna of each village." (p.48)"

""However, Singbonga's relation with the tribe is not one of individual love, but of an all-embracing tribal love. The tribe is the apple of his eye and yet he keeps himself a little aloof from it. He has no favorites; the pahan [= priest] is no more privileged in his eye than the ordinary villager. The Sarna peoples' allegiance to Singbonga is therefore also tribal, an allegiance to the visible and invisible tribe." (p.47)"

""Besides the Singbonga the Mundas generally worship a host of other spirits including their own ancestors. But Singbonga occupies the highest position in the hierarchical order of spirits." (p.46)"

"The third group of spirits in the Munda pantheon are the Ora Bongako or the House-spirits. These are the spirits of the deceased ancestors of each family. They are worshipped in the house-sanctuary called Ading, by the head of every family. Sometimes they are referred to as Haparomko (the ancestral spirits). Ancestor worship finds an important place in the religious belief of the Mundas. They believe that after the death of a person his spirit/shade (roa/umbul) has no house to live in. As an outcast it roams about in the neighborhood of the grave. After an odd number of days, the Umbul-ader (homebringing of the shade) ceremony is performed by which the 'shade' of the deceased is brought into the ading of the house and enshrined there. Henceforth the man's spirit is called no longer umbul but Ora Bonga (House Spirit). This important ceremony is a way of re-introducing the deceased member into the tribe. It is believed that they in turn are the real benefactors of the family or the tribe to which they belong."

""Sarna spirituality is marked by a strong belief in one God. A careful study of their religious beliefs and ceremonies shows that they believe in a Supreme Being whom they call Singbonga which literally means Sun God." (p.46)"

"People from the Munda community inhabit central and northeastern states. The freedom fighter, Birsa Munda, who fought against British rule belonged to this community. He was influenced by a Brahmin whom he regarded as his guru. He learnt the Hindu epics and was inspired by their legendary heroes. He became a vegetarian when he met a Vaishnava saint who taught him Bhakti. Birsa Munda also raised his voice against Christian missionaries and the oppression of landlords and British administrators. Many Vanavasi communities claim Kshatriya ancestry."

""Tribal religions generally believe in one God, in a Supreme Being who goes by such names as the Great Spirit, the Great One, the Creator, the Mighty Spirit (...), etc. Although at times God is identified with the rain, light, dawn, fire, water, hills, the Supreme Being of the tribal people is usually independent of the material or astral world. (...) He has dominion over the entire universe." (p.44)"

"The true history of the agrarian agitation in Chhota-Nagpur has yet to be written. The task has so far been attempted by partisans only. Munda children of the German Mission are even now sedulously taught the gospel of hate in the class-room of their schools. One of the school text-books entitled ‘Nelem Odo Senem’-Look and Walk-Which was published by the Munda Sabha of the G. E. L. Mission, Chhota-Nagpur, in 1909, tells how the ancestors of the Munda reclaimed the jungles and converted the country, by their labour, into a smiling garden. It tells the Munda boy how his forefathers successfully drove away all wild animals from the country and also how enemies who were worse than the wild enemies came in as inter-loppers and robbed them of the fruit of their toil. In further states that in spite of various laws framed by the English to restrain these foreigners, as are still being despoiled by Hindus and Mussalmans. The schools in which these doctrines are inculcated are largely subsidised by our Government.”"

"There is no doubt that the great success of the Christian missions in obtaining converts is due largely to the secular benefits which the Mundas, thus, obtained."

"Hence they must see that they remain in the tribe. For them evil is essentially any offense that would break up their tribal status. There are two kinds of offenses: ethical and tribal. Ethical offenses include all aberrations committed consciously and which harm not so much the individual but others. Singbonga may punish such offenses by causing illness or misfortune to the tribe. (...) The offense against the tribe is the most tragic offense for the Sarna people, because their way to salvation is the tribe and this offense usually excludes them from the tribe." (p.52-53)"

""The spirits of the Mundas are hierarchically ordered. The first in order of dignity comes the Burubonga, Marang Buru or Pat Sarna. This spirit is a mountain-god or the highest hill or rock in the neighbourhood. He is represented by no visible object." (p.48)"

""Cult or worship is mostly directed to the spirits and the ancestors." (p.44-45)"

""The tribe is the temple of Singbonga and he wants it undefiled. The basic belief that Singbonga created the tribe and that therefore it must be preserved in its integrity justifies in the eyes of the Mundas all the regulations and taboos that bind them in this regard. (...) These include exogamy [between families], endogamy [within the tribe], and monogamy in marriage and conjugal fidelity. Not only the offenders themselves but the entire community is appropriately punished by Singbonga for the non-observance of these great ethical values. This almost exclusively tribe-oriented moral code with little personal conscience to enlighten and guide puts the Munda tribe in a world of its own, self-contained, self-sufficient and turned in upon itself, whose whole existence was tied to traditions with little change in the course of time." (p.47) "The Sarna people do not have a written code of moral law. Their idea of right and wrong comes from their tradition. Tradition is their measure of truth. Their way to salvation is the tribe."

""The tribals of Chotanagpur are an endogamous tribe. They usually do not marry outside the tribal community, because to them the tribe is sacred. The way to salvation is the tribe." (p.43)"

""The punishment is not carried over to the life beyond the grave. The idea of repeated rebirth is borrowed from the Hindu religion." (p.53)"

""The Mundas call themselves Horoko, which means 'men'." (p.43)"

""The domain of tribal belief also extends to the other supernatural beings which are above mankind but are less than the Supreme Being. They are usually called spirits but at times they are also invoked as 'deities' or 'gods'. Belief in spirits is one of the most important characteristics of tribal religions. In fact the tribal world is a world of spirits." (p.44)"

""Singbonga is eternal. (...) He is also omniscient and omnipresent. (...) Singbonga of Sarna religion is a gentle god, not a malignant deity. He is an all-pervading benevolent power, ever intent on doing good to humanity." (p.46)"

"At least don't buy Ganesha idols from China"

"Under the self-reliant India campaign, the country's goal is to make the nation the world's biggest military power on its own and develop a modern military industry here"

"My objective is to make India truly self-reliant."

"Our vision of a self-reliant economy should be of an economy which can meet all its import requirements through exports, without undue dependence on artificial external props such as foreign aid. I suggest to this august House that this is precisely the vision of self-reliance as bequeathed to us by Jawaharlal Nehru as elaborated in the Third Five Year Plan, and translated to the realities of today’s world."

"...we lack the self confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self reliant..."

"...our objective is to combine growth not only with social justice but also with self-reliance. We have a long way to go before we can rest content with our achievement on any one of these fronts."

"We look for self-reliance, not autarchy."

"India is an old country, but a young nation, we are impatient. I am impatient and I too have a dream of an India— strong, independent, self-reliant..."

"During Covid-19 pandemic, 130 crore Indians took a pledge to be 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'. When I talk about 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', it is about standing on your own feet."

"Self-reliance does not mean that we have everything we need. No country is self-sufficient in all respects... A poor man can be self-reliant while a wealthy person may be dependent on others. Self-reliance means making do with what we have and cutting out what we do not and cannot have."

"The king... breaks the temples and uproots tulsi plants… The bathing in Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of sacred asvattha and jack trees have been cut down."

""Indian government funded in part the work of ISKCON (Hare Krishna) in re-forestation of Vrindavan. Department of environment is supporting temples to maintain sacred groves. Ecological aspects of Sanatana dharma have been included in the school text books of at least one state, UP." ... Ms. Nanda has described how environmentalism in India is often clothed in Hindu language and symbolism. Thus, in trying to protect trees, women tie rakhis, the auspicious red threads which sisters tie around their brothers' wrists on the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, around these trees."

"They pursued the enemy to the gates and set everything on fire. They burnt down all those gardens and groves. That paradise of idol-worshippers became like hell. The fire-worshippers of Bud were in alarm and flocked round their idols…"

"Bhabananda replied, “We recognize no other mother. ‘One’s mother and birthland are greater than heaven itself.’ But we say that our birthland is our mother. We’ve no mothers, fathers, brothers, friends, no wives, children, houses, or homes. All we have is she who is rich in waters, rich in fruit, cooled with the southern airs, verdant with the harvest fair.”"

"Satyendranath's younger brother, Jyotirindranath's poem composed for the Mela the same year ('Rise! 0 rise! children of Bharat') returned to the theme of resistance by portraying Mother India where she is Sickly and withered, a body of skin and bones,While the mighty demons Subjection and Ignorance Suck her blood and wound her soul And selfish Disunity, the monstrous fiend Her fair body into fragments doth hack! ...Behold, the mother sits captive In ignorant darkness, with feet and hands shackled."

"Do not the Hindus all over the country worship the tree? Tulasi, bilva, ashwattha are all sacred to the Hindu."

"I very much lament for what has happened to the groves in Madhura. The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at the points."

"Pakistani textbooks have a particular problem when defining geographical space. The terms "South Asia" and "Subcontinent" have partially helped to solve this problem of the geo-historical identity of the area formally known as British India. However, it is quite difficult for Pakistani textbook writers to ignore the land now known as India when they discuss Islamic heroes and Muslim monuments in the Subcontinent. This reticence to recognize anything of importance in India, which is almost always referred to as "Bharat" in both English and Urdu versions of the textbooks, creates a difficult dilemma for historians writing about the Mughal Dynasties."

"An example is the elaborate plant taxonomy in ancient India. According to the assessment of William Jones, published in 1795, this taxonomy was more advanced than the standard Latin-based ones used by Western botanists. Jones writes: 'I am very solicitous to give Indian plants their true Indian appellations, because I am fully persuaded that Linnaeus himself would have adopted them had he known the learned and ancient language of this country …'"

"It may briefly yet categorically be stated here that the earliest book of the Aryans, viz. the Rigveda, does not mention any of the species of cold-climate trees... On the other hand, all the trees mentioned in the Rigveda, such as the Asvattha (Ficus Religiosa L.), Khadira (Acacia catechu), Nyagrodha (Ficus benghalensis), to name just a few, do not belong to a cold climate but to a tropical one."

"Indian mimicry of British Victorian laws enacted under colonial rule has led to a contemporary controversy about gays. In traditional Indian society, there are no normative sexual categories of 'gay' and 'straight', and therefore being gay is neither banned nor formally sanctioned. It is simply left ambiguous and indeterminate for individuals to figure out for themselves in their own contexts. In the traditional Indian approach, the Western categories of gay/straight are not mutually exclusive, nor are they the permanent essences of a person. From such a perspective, questions such as whether a gay person is 'allowed' to be Hindu appear strange."

"But during Mughal and British rules, the Abrahamic views on sexuality were imposed, and the Queer community was marginalized and faced harassment. Even The New York Times has grudgingly acknowledged this fact, although it blamed only the British and remained silent on the role of Muslims.... We must understand that the Western Queer/Trans movement is a revolt against the Abrahamic religions’ bigotry on sexuality.. While it is true that India needs to work harder on the upliftment of the trans community, the Western Marxist approach is counter-productive."

"Indian civilization, unlike the Western, has historically had no issues with the idea of homosexuality and transgender peoples. There is an inherent acceptance in the Indian psyche that this is a private matter in which society should not meddle. And there is no injunction against them in Indian religious texts... On the contrary, traditional Indian narratives have had representations of the male and female principles combined in the popular deity, Ardhanareeshwara. The iconography of this deity melds the female and male bodies, transcending the binary of gender and taking the seeker towards the realm of the limitless beyond all categories. There are also sacred stories of people changing their gender."

"Actually, dance forms an intrinsic part of worship in the temples. . . . India alone has a concept of a God who dances. Siva is Nataraja, Lord of dancers, who dances in the Hall of Consciousness and weaves into it the rhythm of the Universe. Within His Cosmic Dance are included the Divine prerogatives of Creation, Preservation, Regeneration, Veiling and Benediction . . . Dance in India has been so closely linked with religion, that today it is impossible to think of it divorced from this essential background."

"For the modern physicists, then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter."

"It is the spirit of Purusha and Prakriti, an expression of evolution of movement, a truly creative force that is handed down the ages. This embodiment of sound and rhythm creating spiritual poetry is called dance or Natya. . . . The first glimpse of the dance comes to us from Siva Himself, a Yogi of Yogis. He shows us the Cosmic Dance and portrays to us he unity of Being. . . . The Cosmic Rhythm of His dance draws around Him ensouled matter, which manifests itself into the variety of this infinite and beautiful universe."

"From the seventeenth century onwards, Christian missionaries made scathing attacks on the Indian classical dance-forms, seeing them as a heathen practice. This was often expressed by attacking the devadasi system on the grounds of human rights. The devadasis were temple dancers, dedicated in childhood to a particular deity. The system was at its peak in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but a few hundred years later, the traditional system of temples protected by powerful kings had faded away under Mughal rule, especially since the Mughals turned it into popular entertainment, devoid of spirituality. The devadasi system degenerated in some cases into temple dancers used for prostitution, although the extent of this was exaggerated by the colonialists."

"Many of the English-educated elites of India accepted the colonial condemnation of their heritage and apologized for its 'primitiveness'. Some of them turned into Hindu reformers, and found the devadasi system detestable for moral and even social-hygienic reasons. However, the devadasis saw their very existence threatened and sent handwritten pleas to the colonial government, explaining the spiritual foundation of Bharata Natyam. They quoted Siva from the Saiva Agamas, saying, 'To please me during my puja, arrangements must be made daily for shudda nritta (dance). This should be danced by females born of such families and the five acharyas should form the accompaniments'. Since these Agamas are revered by every Hindu, the devadasis asked, 'What reason can there be for our community not to thrive and exist as necessary adjuncts of temple service?' They opposed the proposed draconian punishment for performing their tradition, calling the legislation 'unparalleled in the civilized world'. Instead of abolition of their traditional profession, they demanded better education to restore their historical status. They wanted the religious, literary and artistic education as in the past, saying, 'Instill into us the Gita and the beauty of the Ramayana and explain to us the Agamas and the rites of worship'. This would inspire devadasi girls to model themselves after female saints like Maitreyi, Gargi and Manimekalai, and the women singers of the Vedas, such that:. . . we might once again become the preachers of morality and religion. . . . You who boast of your tender love for small communities, we pray that you may allow us to live and work out our salvation and manifest ourselves in jnana and bhakti and keep alight the torch of India's religion amidst the fogs and storms of increasing materialism and interpret the message of India to the world."

"In fact, 1967 was the best-ever performance by the Bharatiya Jan Sangh before it merged with the Janata Party. What could have led to this sudden spurt of support for Sanghis? In all probability, it was the 1966 police firing at sadhus and other Hindu activists who were protesting outside the Parliament in Delhi to demand a blanket ban on cow slaughter. While the official records of those killed is very low, the popular claims of those killed range between few hundreds to even thousands. Whatever be the real numbers, the fact that it led to the feeling of ‘Hindus under attack’ among a segment of people, in all probability helped the Jan Sangh in the ensuing elections. Firing on kar sevaks at Ayodhya similarly helped the BJP in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections."

"When Araki accomplished the mission of converting people and training and guiding them in the new faith, he addressed the task of converting and guiding the womenfolk. Pious, puritanical, honest and trustworthy dervishes and sufis were selected and the task assigned to them. They were sent to all villages, localities and towns. In fact they reached each and every house. When they came to a homestead, they would get hold of the cow belonging to the housekeeper, kill it and sit down to eat beef in the company of womenfolk and family members. Along with this they administered the recitation of kelima to the womenfolk of the household, and taught them the basics of religion, the pillars of faith and the teachings of Islam. Distinguished vicegerents and sincere dervishes would enter the houses of aristocrats and the elite in order to administer kelima to them and make them eat beef. They would honour them by accepting their expression of repentance and make them promise that they would regularly offer prayers (namaz), observe fasts and other obligations. They also undertook to abstain from what was not permitted (in Islam). These special vicegerents and dervishes spread out in the suburbs of the towns and cities such as Pampur, Kani Pore (?) Shihabuíd-Din Pora etc. Men and women in these areas were apprised of what was permissible and what was not permissible in Islam."