political-commentators-from-india

"Every time I go to Bangladesh—and I go regularly— I find the country still in the midst of war. The guns of 1971 have stopped long ago but conflicts and tensions have not. The society remains divided from top to bottom. People of Bangladesh can be categorised into two groups: pro-liberation and anti-liberation. The first claims to represent the forces which fought against Pakistan to create an independent country. It mostly favours Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Sheikla Mujib-ur-Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh. The second group supports Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. Her husband, Zia-ur-Rahman, headed free Bangladesh through a coup. ...After 30 years of Independence, who did what during the liberation struggle is getting hazier, but not the prejudices. Some impressions about people—a few may well be true—remain implacable. The worst part is that there is no mood of forgetting and forgiving. The liberation or the anti-liberation label has become such a prized possession that the fakes and failures use it to settle scores politically and, worse, violently. The cleavage, really speaking, is like India's caste system, with its prejudices and biases. Appointments, transfers and even allocations of funds are made on the basis of who was on which side."

"The Aryan-Dravidian or Aryan-Tamil dichotomy envisaged by some scholars may have to be given up since we are unable to come across anything which could be designated as purely Aryan or purely Dravidian in the character of South India of the Sangam Age. In view of this, the Sangam culture has to be looked upon as expressing in a local idiom all the essential features of classical “Hindu” culture."

"We are aware of the fact that certain historians professing to project the Marxist ideology have been in the habit of claiming infallibility and monopoly of wisdom, branding all other historians as reactionary and communal and treating them as untouchables. This intellectual fascism has to be discouraged. What they were enjoying for some time was not a monopoly of wisdom but a monopoly of power in several government bodies and universities. This has come to an end happily. Historical research must now gather new momentum in this country so that our people are eventually liberated from the hegemony of Eurocentric history and enabled to develop their own independent Indian perspective."

"The history of India for the period after Harsha was often conceived as the history of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. Society outside these was neglected as if it was of no consequence. The history of the regions of North East India and South India was often kept out of what came to be regarded as the mainstream history of India. The process of development of the Indian civilization, its formation and dissemination, and the stages of its growth were not subject matter to be considered in history courses taught in schools and colleges."

"Referring to the standard “history of different political units” in India, Narayanan asserts that they have been “discussed as though they were kingdoms established arbitrarily by some powerful tyrants and functioning arbitrarily without reference to a framework of civilization”. He blames this on a Euro- centric paradigm, that used, “European and West Asian parallels of religious persecution, conversion, state religion, church-state conflicts etc […] while approaching all Indian phenomena”. About the historiography of medieval India, Narayanan concurs that Hindus have been depopulated from the historical record, and Hinduism has been denuded of its vitality,"

"The resistance to a reevaluation of history is tenacious. As Prof. M. S. G. Narayanan, chairman of the Indian Counsel for Historical Research (ICHR), wrote, “History is constantly rewritten by historians in every country in every age”. He adds that “it is only natural that the intellectual and cultural hegemony of the colonial masters must be terminated, at least after half a century of political independence”. He points out that in colonial historical paradigms, *There was a general tendency to condemn and denigrate everything Indian, calling it Hindu and communal, without realizing the fact that the label ‘Hindu’ did not represent a religion in the Semitic or Western sense, but a whole civilization which possessed institutions and outlook entirely different from those of the Western civilization. [….] Western standards, capitalist or communist, were applied indiscriminately to Indian history for evaluating the developments in all walks of life. This was evident in the way terms like religion, state, class, empire, nation, law,justice, morality, etc. were used in the analysis and interpretation of the past in India."

"The most important assumption was that Indian history was just a collection of unrelated events, like a series of migrations and conquests, owing their origin to external stimuli. It did not reveal the organic growth of a nation or a civilization, marking the stages of development or decline. The people are not an active force bringing about changes like the renaissance and reformation, or producing a revolution at some stage. It was a procession of exotic and colourful characters, autocratic kings and emperors just having their way without encountering resistance from the people. ...a long series of invasions…[acted] upon the unresponsive masses [and] political and historical upheavals [were] not products of conditions within society, representing certain trends or movements among the people. […] It was as though India was simply a geographical entity, providing an empty stage for odd characters to appear and move about for some time before their mysterious disappearance."

"“Islamic radicalisation is not a new phenomenon in Kerala, where Muslims account for 26.56 per cent of the total population or around 9 million people,” says Dr N.P. Hafis Mohamad, a sociologist and author based in Kozhikode. “When the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was established in 1977, a few students in Kerala joined it and the organisation had units in many campuses in the state. However, during the past four decades, only a tiny section within the community has opted for a radical path, while 99 per cent of Muslims in Kerala remained secular and contributed to the social-cultural-economic development of the state.”"

"Dr Mohamad, 65, who conducted an in-depth study on the migration of Kerala’s Muslims to radical path after 21 youths joined Islamic State territories in Afghanistan, feels that counter radicalisation efforts by the state have checked the problem effectively. “Less than 60 persons from Kerala have joined the IS, with another 100 from the Gulf. These numbers do not reflect the mindset of the majority of Muslims in Kerala. In fact, there is an effort by certain vested sects to brand Kerala as breeding ground of Islamic terror outfits to meet political targets. They paint the actions of a tiny section of people as the mindset of the community,” he points out. He adds that the fall of Afghanistan into hands of Taliban forces again triggers debate on the links between some of Kerala’s people with radical Islamic groups. “Gulf money, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the ban on SIMI led to the mushrooming of radical Islamic outfits in Kerala. Ex- SIMI members raised various platforms and recruited youths to serve their purpose,” he concluded."

"The Bible teaches that the human problem is moral , rather than biological or metaphysical. God created human beings good. (Would you expect anything different from an almighty Creator?) Our first parents [Adam and Eve] chose to disobey God and thereby became sinners. That trait has been transmitted to us all . . . From childhood our tendency is towards evil . . . Our central problem, according to the Bible is that we are sinners. We need a divine Savior who will forgive our sins and transform our hearts – the core of our being."

"Vishal Mangalwadi is an Indian American evangelist with a strikingly Eurocentric message of Christianity. He claims that colonialism under the British was very good for India, and has written a book specifically praising one of the nastiest evangelists of the British colonial era, William Carey. His thesis is that India’s suffering has been caused by its heathenism. India is one of the societies which has ‘looked to many local and regional gods’, or have ‘postulated that life’s goal is to achieve oneness with the absolute nothingness that constitutes ultimate reality’, or have somehow got lost in ‘esoteric philosophic and religious mysteries’. On the other hand, ‘the only civilization that has looked largely to the Bible for its inspiration, the West, has been able to conquer human cruelty, hopelessness and degradation’, and this should become the role model for all Indians. He laments that the West has become complacent in its success, forgetting that the Bible was ‘the book that catapulted the West to the forefront of world economics, politics, and culture’... He informs his readers with obvious delight that ‘at least one good American Christian (presumably, unaware of the Christian-Maoist nexus) has asked his Congressman if he should help Christians in Orissa buy guns.’ Blaming India’s ills on ‘Hinduism’s gods that require appeasement’, he mourns that Hindus have corrupted the ‘clean institutions built up by British Christians’..."

"Meanwhile, another musketeer of the Christian Mission in India was trying to engage Arun Shourie into another duel. Vishal Mangalwadi with headquarters in Mussoorie, U.P., wrote ten letters to the author of Missionaries in India between 8 August 1994 and 21 September 1995. Arun Shourie glanced at the first letter and consigned it to where it belonged - the waste-paper basket. The others that followed remained unopened and met the same fate. He had better things to do than go through the garbage collected by a professional practitioner of suppressio veri suggestion falsi. Mangalwadi published his letters in the form of a book in early 1996. “I had hoped,” he mourned, “that Mr. Shourie would reply to my letters, so that eventually we could publish our dialogue - perhaps jointly. However, since he chose not to, these letters are now placed before the reader as a monologue.”"

"Besides launching a Jihad against Animism and Hinduism, the Maoists are also active in supporting evangelists. At times, Maoists escort evangelists into remote villages where police officers are afraid to go. They summon everyone to hear the Gospel. The evangelists may show a film such as the ‘Jesus Film’. Half-way through the film the Maoists would stop the film and give a lecture on Maoism. Then they would resume the film and ask an evangelist to give Alter Call. Following a fellowship meal the evangelists would be escorted back to their base! I have heard at least one credible report that Christians and some Maoists spent two days together fasting and praying. Christian leaders have not reported these stories to their supporters because (a) many of them can’t make sense of what they are hearing, and (b) they are also embarrassed by the fact that their mission is supported by ‘terrorists’."

"Secular democracy has failed but there is no forum in India that teaches biblical economic and political thought. The Church should be training its youth to reform and run the institutions of justice that Hindu secularism has corrupted. Christ and Mao have come together in Orissa because people oppressed for thousands of years have decided to stand up against the Hindu socio-economic system."

"Pro-Christian Maoists in Orissa have already warned a number of specific Hindu leaders responsible for anti-Christian violence, that they are next on their hit list. A few hundred ‘Christian-Maoist’ guerillas will change the power-equation in Orissa."

"But now that the Christian influence has diminished in India, the old tantric cult is coming back openly on the surface. There are around fifty-two known centers in India where tantra is taught and practiced. In its crudest forms, it includes worship of sex organs, sex orgies which include drinking of blood and human semen, black magic, human sacrifice and contact with evil spirits through dead and rotting bodies in cremation grounds, etc."

"The Indian philosophical tradition, in spite of all its brilliance, could not produce a culture that recognized human rights and the intrinsic worth of the individual. Nor could yogic monism give to Indian society a framework for moral absolutes, a strong sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair. Yogic exercises indeed gave flexibility to our bodies but unfortunately the yogic philosophy gave too much flexibility to our morals – making us [i.e. Indians] one of the most corrupt nations in the world."