Page < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 >

The Death of Traditional Hinduism – By Frank Morales 

A tragic occurrence in the very long history of Hinduism was witnessed throughout the 19th century, the destructive magnitude of which Hindu leaders and scholars today are only beginning to adequately assess and address. This development both altered and weakened Hinduism to such a tremendous degree that Hinduism has not yet even begun to recover.

British Attack on Hinduism

The classical, traditional Hinduism that had been responsible for the continuous development of thousands of years of sophisticated culture, architecture, music, philosophy, ritual and theology came under devastating assault during the 19th century British colonial rule like at no other time in India's history.

Innovative Cultural Genocide

What the Hindu community experienced under British Christian domination, however, was an ominously innovative form of cultural genocide.

What they experienced was not an attempt at the physical annihilation of their culture, but a deceivingly more subtle program of intellectual and spiritual annihilation. It is easy for a people to understand the urgent threat posed by an enemy that seeks to literary kill them. It is much harder, though, to understand the threat of an enemy who, while remaining just as deadly, claims to seek only to serve a subjugated people's best interests.

Sage Valmiki composing the Ramayana epic.

The ancient grandeur and beauty of a classical Hinduism has stood the test of thousands of years.

(For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

***

Anglicized Hindu Intellectuals

During this short span of time in the 19th century, the ancient grandeur and beauty of a classical Hinduism that had stood the test of thousands of years, came under direct ideological attack. What makes this period in Hindu history most especially tragic is that the main apparatus that the British used in their attempts to destroy traditional Hinduism were the British educated, spiritually co-opted sons and daughters of Hinduism itself. Seeing traditional Hinduism through the eyes of their British masters, a pandemic wave of 19th century Anglicized Hindu intellectuals saw it as their solemn duty to "Westernize" and "modernize" traditional Hinduism to make it more palatable to their new European overlords. One of the phenomena that occurred during this historic period was the fabrication of a new movement known as "neo-Hinduism".

What is Neo-Hinduism?

Neo-Hinduism was an artificial religious construct used as a paradigmatic juxtaposition to the legitimate traditional Hinduism that had been the religion and culture of the people for thousands of years. Neo-Hinduism was used as an effective weapon to replace authentic Hinduism with a British invented version designed to make a subjugated people easier to manage and control.

The Christian and British inspired neo-Hinduism movement attempted to execute several overlapping goals, and did so with great success:  

a) The subtle Christianization of Hindu theology, which included concerted attacks on iconic imagery (archana, or murti), panentheism, and continued belief in the beloved gods and goddesses of traditional Hinduism.
b) The imposition of the Western scientific method, rationalism and skepticism on the study of Hinduism in order to show Hinduism's supposedly inferior grasp of reality.
c) Ongoing attacks against the ancient Hindu science of ritual in the name of simplification and democratization of worship.
d) The importation of Radical Universalism from liberal, Unitarian / Universalist Christianity as a device designed to severely water down traditional Hindu philosophy.

The Death of Traditional Hinduism

The dignity, strength and beauty of traditional Hinduism was recognized as the foremost threat to Christian European rule in India. The invention of neo-Hinduism was the response. Had this colonialist program been carried out with a British face, it would not have met with as much success as it did. Therefore, an Indian face was used to impose neo-Hinduism upon the Hindu people. The resultant effects of the activities of Indian neo-Hindus were ruinous for traditional Hinduism. 

A Confused Existence

Hinduism will continue to be a religion mired in confusion about its own true meaning and value until traditionalist Hindus can assertively, professionally and intelligently communicate the reality of genuine Hinduism to the world.

(source: The Death of Traditional Hinduism – By Frank Morales). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999. (For more refer to chapter on Greater India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor).

Top of Page

The Colonized Mind
Macaulayism and Colonial Slavery

Ashish Nandy, a Christian critic of old and new forms of colonialism, has observed: "The pressure to Westernize is the most conscious form of this colonial mentality: "Colonialism has a long way to go before it is vanquished! Our nations are ostensibly independent, but our minds still remain enslaved. "

The Indian press, like most of its Third World counterparts, puts a premium on all that is modern and condemns as degenerate all that is traditional....In order to put the stamp of legitmacy on modernization, we have to believe that the traditional civilization was inhuman. Instilling guilt about the "evils of Hindu society" is indeed a favorite weapon of the secularist elite.

Dr. Koenraad Elst has written: 

"But Indian Marxism as such has been only a passing phase in a much larger trend known as Macaulayism, named after the British administrator Thomas Babington Macaulay, who in 1835 initiated an education policy designed to create a class of people Indian in skin color but British in every other respect. “Macaulayites” are those Indians who have interiorized the colonial ideology of the “White Man’s Burden” (as Rudyard Kipling called it in a famous poem): The Europeans had to come and liberate the natives, “half devil and half child”, from their native culture, which consisted only of ignorance, superstition and the concomitant social evils; after this liberation from themselves, these Indians became a kind of honorary Whites. 

Macaulay’s policy was implemented and became a resounding success. The pre-Macaulayan vernacular system of education was destroyed, even though British surveys found it more effective and more democratic than the then-existing education system in Britain. The rivaling educationist party, the so-called Orientalists, had proposed a Sanskrit-based system of education, in which Indian graduates would not have been estranged from their mother civilization as they became through English education, and in which they could have selectively adopted the useful elements of Western modernity, more or less the way Japan modernized itself. 

As Ashish Nandy, a Christian critic of old and new forms of colonialism, had observed: “Schooling is the chosen instrument of alienation. The brightest children are snatched away from familiar surroundings to be introduced in schools based on the Western model. When they leave they speak the language of the colonizer and can no longer communicate with their own people.” 

It is this class of Hindu-born “Macaulayites” which have inherited the mantle of the colonial ruling class. Its most conspicuous representative was the first Prime Minister of free India, Jawaharlal Nehru, then sometimes nicknamed “India’s last Viceroy”, and recently evaluated as “the English gentleman who came to ruin India”. 

(source: Decolonising The Hindu Mind - Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism - By Koenraad Elst Rupa & Co. January 2001 ISBN 8171675190  p. 25 - 27 and 49). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999. For more refer to chapter on First Indologists and Education in Ancient India

***

The Indian Media (Macaulay Putras?) and Hinduism   
Gain respectability in the US under the guise of attacking the "Hindu nationalist" 

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, in Feb. 1855, had said that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India. 

He wished that the Hindus forget their past and get familiar with the English by means of literature and as a result cease to regard them as foreigners, speak of their great men with the same enthusiasm as the English do. In due course they are sure to become more English than Hindu.  

We cherished the idea that in independent India, we will be free to cultivate ancient values and tradition suited to modern times. The freedom dawned on August 15, 1947. Since then we have been witnessing that though the English are gone, English prevails and English traditions still rule. It got a strange fellow, the Marxists, as the aim of both was the same, to keep the country off its ancient values. We had even before seen on record such a friendship in the form of a pact between the opposing sides of a German Max Mueller and The English Maculae for the agreed cause of uprooting ancient Vedic values.

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59)  

Dismissing with incredible arrogance the profound speculation and beautiful language of the Sanskrit classics, he said, " I doubt whether the Sanskrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors." 

"We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." 

Refer to chapter on First Indologists and Education in Ancient India  

***

Today we have an English media impressed and influenced by the West. Then there is the Marxist media of foreign origin totally cut off from Indian values and roots. Unfortunately our independent India has not developed any such media in English that has roots in the soil and among the people. The English press has become notorious for its neglect of Indian traditions and cultural heritage.

I have the following points to raise in this connection in good spirit. The English media invents its own phrases to suit their requirements and one such prase is Hindu Nationalist Party. Do you know what image does it produce in the mind of a reader who is not well versed with Indian culture and tradition? This phrase is used to attack BJP, a national party ruling today. It has secular credentials and stands for a secular India. Never ever it has even hinted at the idea of a Hindu nation. The media is “pleased”to put a prefix Hindu National before it. It means that the party stands for a nation of Hindus, an absurd idea of infant fancy. In foreign eyes, it is meant to equate the party with the Islamic fundamentalists. 

The misuse of the word secular—I think most of us do not know that the word secularism has never been defined and is being used by the media in its own way to serve its purpose. It is productive of more mischief than good and the English media finds it useful to engage it in its design. The word secular does not appear in the Preamble of the constitution it finds only a single casual mention as ‘ Economic, financial, political and otherwise secular activity’ in article 25(2c). 25 years later in 1975 ,during emergency, the lame duck Lok Sabha through 42nd.amendment, got the word secular prefixed to the description of India as a ‘sovereign Republic.’ No definition was ever given to the word. The word secular remains in the preamble as a political slogan, meaning nebulous and negotiable. When India was partitioned, it was divided on the basis of two-nation theory. The fight was between Nationalism and Communalism. Hindu majority India chose Nationalism and its nationalism was based on pluralism and belief in unity in diversity. Indira Gandhi in the interest of her political survival gave it a new turn with the connivance of communists. She turned Nationalism versus Communalism into Secularism versus Communalism. Now there is no idea of nationalism. Every one is for the party and govt. Vote bank idea is important. Society can be divided into castes and subcastes, caste groups can be formed and high posts can be filled by caste and vote considerations. They are called secular. Slogans and half-truths and incitements with a view to garnering votes can be done in garb of secularism. The media highlights these as secularists and patriots. They would rather see the country burn to ashes than see any problem settled in favor of Hindus as it loses their votes. Hindu baiting is a game that does not matter as they gain by it. The English media fails to highlight the exploitation of religious sentiments of the minorities by some sectarian majority Hindu parties who have in it rank communal minded elements.

The English media does not care to find out why is there no leadership for a mutual dialogue on contentious issues like Ayodhya? The English media has failed to let us know the causes why the Hindu population in Pak declined from 14% in 1947 to 2% today, where as the Muslims in India, despite the media presentation of their insecurity, rose from 10% to 14% during the same period? The media has an obligation to detail the nation about the condition of Hindus in Muslim countries and especially in Bangla Desh where they are raped and tortured regularly. The print and the television have failed to picture the rape scenes and burning of the innocent people which it shows time and again in case of minorities in India. The media has a responsibility to let us know why the Muslims and the clergy distance itself from immoral acts of its fellowmen but never condemn or publicly denounce these barbarous acts. 

The Hindu Shankaracarya and Hon’ble Ravi Shankar have offered themselves for mutual talks and settlements of issues facing them but why is there no such offer from the Muslim side?

***

The Hindu Shankaracarya and Hon’ble Ravi Shankar have offered themselves for mutual talks and settlements of issues facing them but why is there no such offer from the Muslim side? Is not this the result of Hindu baiting and political appeasement of the minorities to the detriment of national interest? The media intensifies the sense of minoritism and there by keeps them at a distance from the main stream majority 

The English media has failed to criticize the growing trend of international interference in our internal affairs by countries which have a record of human right violations. The people have a right to know about the frequent foreign trips of these media men and admissions and fellowships to their wards and job for progeny. 

The Hindu faith lies in the belief that every one has to reap the consequences of his action in this or in consecutive lives and the press is no exception. Let God kindle our path from darkness unto light. AUM

(source: The Media and Hinduism - By Dr. Rajnikant Lahri - indolink.com). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists. Also refer to Brown Sahib`s Burden – By Venkat Lakshminarayan - indiacause.com).  Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

The Incomplete Decolonization
Macaulay and India's rootless generations

Malcolm Muggeridge, who worked in India as a teacher and journalist for long years, writes: 

“I dimly realized, that a people can be laid waste culturally, as well as physically—not only in their land but in their inner life—as if it is sown with salt. That is what happened in India; an alien culture, itself exhausted, trivialized and shallow, was imposed on them. When we (British) went, we left behind... a spiritual wasteland. We had drained the country of its life and creativity, making it a place of echoes and mimicry.”

(Note: Mr. Muggeridge, (with the BBC) unleashed the myth of "Mother" Theresa on the unsuspecting pagans of India. Indeed, through MT, the Church seeks to impose on the pagans "an alien culture, itself exhausted (steep decline in its western stronghold), trivialised and shallow (credo qui absurdum). Refer to http://www.meteorbooks.com/chap3.html and chapter on Conversion.

Refer to Former Catholic Sister Says Even Mother Teresa Is a Fraud - By By Greg Szymanski June 6, 2007.

We can still hear the echoes and mimicry from this wasteland—from the ‘children of Macaulay’. 

Rabindranath Tagore used to call them ‘shadows’. They are not real people, but zombies programmed by Macaulay to act like the Caliban, the slave. (the slave in Shakespeare's The Tempest).

Macaulay wanted only Babus: men, as he said, Indian in colour, but British in the way they thought. But the British masters sat rather heavily on these babus and left a deep imprint of their ugly bottoms on them. So, if you see the babus going about with the ugly imprint of the bottoms of their erstwhile masters, you should not be surprised. The slaves are rather proud of it.

Naturally, the ‘children of Macaulay’ grew up ashamed of their civilisation, of their ancestors, while they felt overwhelmed by the ‘great achievements’ of Europe.

Nirad Choudhury's Continent of Circe is perhaps the best known outcry of this sense of shame among westernised Indians. But, then, he was an Anglophile. His pride? That he knew the names of every street in London! Did he know anything about India? No. Not till he was old. Not much has changed even after the country became independent. Why? Because power passed into the hands of these very babus—the Nirad Choudhurys of India.

So, generations of Indians grew up in this country, fascinated by the achievements of the West, of Britain in particular. Did the ‘liberators’ of India change Macaulay's educational system? Not at all. Why? Because they knew even less than Nirad Choudhury of their country. What has happened to Macaulay's children? Nirad Choudhury is no more. He died a heartbroken man. He became one of the bitterest critics of Western civilisation, particularly British.

Nationalism is taboo to our minorities. We know why. (But on this later.) They would like to change their history. But one must have roots in one's country, for a man without roots is like weeds in a field.

That is why the denigration of nationalism is all wrong. That is why this hankering after other people's way of life is all wrong. Macaulay had his day. And England is no more what it was. The sun has set over the British empire. But the sun of India is rising over the horizon. Let us hope, it will dispel the ‘shadows’ from our land.

(source: Macaulay and India's rootless generations - By M.S.N. Menon - organiser.org). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists

A proud Macaulay putra ? says Jerry (Jaithirth) Rao 

I, for one, am grateful to Macaulay. Without his gift to us, so many of us would be lesser individuals, not just different individuals. I use the word “lesser” quite deliberately. English is not just a medium or a means to an end; it is part of our very consciousness.

(source: In praise of Thomas Macaulay  - By Jerry (Jaithirth) Rao CEO of Mphasis).  Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

English in India: the mask of conquest

Unlike some of the African colonies, India had very well developed systems of education and written and oral literatures in Indian languages. How then did English get established as a language of the elite? Gauri Vishawanathan, a professor at Columbia University, in her book Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India, has done a study of the establishment of English language and literature in India. The establishment of the English-speaking elite in India took a 3-pronged approach:

1. The destruction and/or denigration of native education
2. The requirement of English for becoming part of the governing elite
3. The establishment of English only, i.e. English medium schools, along with the cessation of teaching English as a language in native-language schools.  

In particular, the soul of a nation is carried in its native literatures. In turning a nation away from its soul, the British bred ignorance and contempt of the native experience, while placing the idea of the “perfect” Englishman, contained in its literature, on the native pedestal. This created a class of native “brown sahibs” more comfortable with the English idiom than with their own and the establishment of a literary and cultural elite that was completely dissociated from their land.

(source: The English Class System - By Sankrant Sanu - sulekha.com). Refer to Who Killed Our Culture? We Did - By Youki Kudoh - time.com  May 3 1999.

The modern Brown Sahibs

Lord Macaulay could not have imagined that his Minute on Education, written for the British Colonial Administration in 1835, would still be valid 170 years later. His idea to create “Brown Englishmen” in India is alive and well, but with an important difference: the brown sahibs have now arrived in Europe and North America as well, and are hard at work to please their masters. In addition to the Brown Englishman, there is also now the Brown Frenchman, Brown Dutchman, Brown American, and so on. Macaulay’s Brown Englishmen were so thoroughly Westernised that, nearly 60 years after the departure of the colonialists, their descendants are still implementing their agendas. It is simply impossible for them to think or act independently; the instinct for subservience runs too strongly in their blood. Without the patronage of the white man, they cannot survive. 

Almost all colonized people display two characteristics: total subservience to the colonial master, and utter contempt for their own peoples. The depth of their subservience is the direct result of colonialism, but is dependent not on its duration, rather on its “depth and texture.” These modern-day house slaves, however, ignore a simple historical fact: colonialists have no permanent friends, only permanent interests; they have little use for such a slave mentality, especially when they know that the house slaves are a tiny minority of the colonized peoples.

(source: The modern Brown Sahibs - By Zafar Bangash - world.mediamonitors.net). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and First Indologists and Conversion.

Top of Page

Page < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 >