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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).
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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.
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