It makes me feel good to read this article - more so because I live in US now. But a few questions that crossed my mind make me feel uncomfortable: Why did such an ancient and wise civilisation not concentrate on two important aspects of any decent society - unity and equality? If we were united, we wouldn't have been enslaved by barbarians and exploiters for 1000 years. If there were equality, we wouldn't be having this evil called caste system. We can cheat ourselves by saying that we were an ideal society spoiled only recently by foriegn invaders or we can acknowledge that we, in fact, had problems like inequality and injustice even before kaliyuga (as depicted in our own mahabharatha). Denigration of history is bad but blind glorification is dangerous too because accepting the mistakes is the first step towards correcting it.
Don't compare ancient Bharat to MODERN DAY nations. MAKE CONTEMPORARY COMPARISONS
by Vikram on Aug 17, 2004 01:49 PM
What about the rest of the world? Wasn't Europe a hell-hole of of intolerance at the time? Didn't landlords have the power of life and death over peasants? Even the democracy of Greece was nothing to write home about. Yes, INDIANS invented democracy. And studies have found that the Hindu democs. of our nation were far more equitable and open than those of Greece.
The mistake we Indians make is that WE COMPARE OUR ANCIENT CIVILIZATION TO TODAY'S NATIONS. Of course there's going to be a difference! Only 200 years ago, weren't people being burnt at the stake for going against the Church's "teachings"? Wasn't the Goan Inquistion (a model of Xtian "charity" if there ever was one) still in full swing? Bharata was FAR AHEAD OF THE REST OF THE WORLD in terms of tolerance and respect for all people. The very fact that innumerable men came up to criticize caste is itself representative of the openness of Hindu society. Did anyone rise against the Church's dictatorship for almost 1,500 years? Then M Luther comes along and starts another fundamentalist movement (protestantism), and all-out wars occur within Xtianity. Xtianity=INTOLERANCE. Bharat was far ahead of all contemporary nations.
RE:Denigration vs Glorification
by vikas verma on Aug 18, 2004 04:28 AM
So, what you're saying is, the murder of 1000 people is justified in the aftermath of the murder 100 people.
RE:Denigration vs Glorification
by Tejpal Singh on Aug 17, 2004 01:01 PM
Dear Senthil,
Your idea seems to be very good!!
But just ask those Tilak-dhari pandits and other self professed high castes , how would feel while sitting next to a so-called Shudra or eating alongside.
You will get your answers right there.
I think the solution lies in removing those differences and one day history would be different.
RE:Denigration vs Glorification
by susriram on Aug 17, 2004 04:00 PM
Senthil, Kaliyug is a period wherein corruption of socitey starts. Uptil then, common man's society is not corrupted. Even in warfare, deciet was not known. A tale which says Yudhistir lied to Dronacharya has not been forgiven. A fact that Rama shot Bali from behind a tree, was maybe forgiven given his reputation, but not forgotten. In Kaliyug, society is being corrupted. Uptill before Aurangazeb, society had not been touched. There was an attempt by various rulers to lure people to their thinking but not in the form of intoleration. WHAT British did is they have touched the social fabric in a occupational manner, not in an embracing manner. Till then the common man was not used to partisian behavior of office bearers. People in general were not used to "dis-unity" so the term unity does not come into question. There was hardly anything imposed except some basic state-concerning diktats; people had their own pious philosophies and were allowed to follow them. It took people to go abroad, understand how world is thinking and come back as leaders and teach people back home. It took a century to achieve what you would say "awareness". It takes to fly to know what flying means. Rg
I was delighted to read this article of Rajeev Srinivasan. COming as it does in a time when talking about our own heritgage and ancient civilisation is being derided, thias article made a good reading.
Last year I happened to read a book Underworld by Graham Hancock (Crown OPUblishers, NewYork 2002).He is a marine archeologist and his wife a Malaysian of Tamil origina is also a diver. Both of them have made udneerwater explorations and have written about mancient civilisations. Prominent among their researches cover Sarasvati Vallye Civilisation, Dwarka, KumariKandam,etc., It also buries the myth of Aryan Invasion.
It is really unfortunate that the founding fathers of this nation did not take any pains to review the history of this country in a new light and continued with the degrading and spine-breaking versions of our erstwhile colonial owners.
India and all its prosperity-intellectual and otherwise was demolished in a long period of 1000 years starting with the time when the Muslims started their expansion into the Indian subcontinent.
Although the damage was contained by their integration within the fabric of India, the remaining dignity of India was erased by the Englishmen who wished to rule the body,mind and spirit of India. And for this it was utterly necessary to wipe out any iota of self-respect we had for ourselves, our culture, our history. We were to be reduced to slaves.
And were they succesful? Add to that the Congress regime that divided the country and instead of instilling dignity tore away the last shreds of whatever was left.But the good thing is that we have started thinking and aren't accepting things at face value.Present reversals are kind of step backward in time.Its time we knew the right history.
I liked aryindam banerjees phrase de-indianization of history.
i dont understand why we want to be always in the mode of constant self-denial of any of our greatness. it just amazes me - self respect and pride are essential indigrents to nation building and we have tons of it if we were to look for it.
We are in the age of perspectivisation by focussing only on at small portions of the overall picture. Look at what the Christian Church has done across history, across the world, it is hard to find anybody more violent or vicious , equalled only by Muslim invaders. And there would be no mention of it - the only text that you want to add is Vedas punished to death people who killed cows. That to start with is probably not true and there are a million things so beautifull about the Vedas, its universality, tolerance, quest for peace and self realisation and just sheer beauty, that you would not want to talk about.
I do hope some historians start writing non biased views and preserve it for future generations, who may be interested only in the truth.
We need articles and people like these to make us Indians proud. Our psyche hs been so badly battered by the british . that we feel that we are just slaves...
Its very strage that this article has not attracted any comment from any of the readers.. What happend to the so called secular Indians.. where are they????
Its shame yaar nobody has the time to share their comments on this article.Shame utter Shame!!!!
We need eye opener like these so that people can come out of their deep slumber and take pride in their own culture and society and don't go running after the so called western "modern" culture.
Good job done .I am eagerly looking forward to the next article from him.
Please forward these article to as many people as you can... You may feel that all these things ar known to everybody.. but it is not so... even if is so then also what harm in forwarding a simple truth...
I urge every true india to forward the same to as many people as possible.
