Random Thoughts

A Time to Choose The Forks in Life

To put yourself on a frequency of hits of an internet site is like what the ancient Hindus called walking on an Asidhaarrekha or walking on the cutting edge of a sword. For some reason unknown to me, the manager and editor of boloji.com chose this path. Whether it was to alert the public and recruit it to the affirmation of his pet peeve or personal philosophy, I do not know. I am totally unaware of the financial and egotistic benefits, which the editor derives, nor do I really care about it.

My philosophy is that once you have donated an article to a site (unfortunately with our Indian Hindu caste baggage) , it is like giving a vessel to a deserving Brahmin. It is not the job, right or privilege of the donor to decide the utilization of the gift by the donee (whether it is for Sandhya or cleaning the rear end after ablutions), as long as one thinks that the donee is a good person. What I have been noticing over many years, since I started writing at this site almost on a weekly basis over ten years ago, is a decreasing frequency of hits and visits.

Now some of this maybe because of the kind of articles, the sight offers, and in all fairness, from what little I know, the editor has tried to offer money to writers that he thought would be appealing to readers, and tried to get interactive responses from readers. But though wizened by his personal experiences in business dealings with his compatriot Indians, he has persisted in the hope of altruistic emotions of Indians. Many years ago, I gratuitously and perhaps even cynically warned him against it, knowing the basic selfishness of Hinduism even in its quest for salvation. The very failure of Buddhism, particularly of the Mahayana type, in which Boddhisatvas delay their own Nirvana to facilitate the nirvana of the average ignorant common man, to catch on in India (like the repeal of higher Medicare Part B premiums in America dependent on taxable income in America) is a heavy indictment on the character deficiency of India and Indians. I tried to raise the issue some weeks back. I proclaimed my lament loudly, if not resonantly in my article to Terminator Fans – some weeks ago.

So now we come to the beautiful song and ghazal from the second Devdas.

Jise tu qabool kar le wo sadaa kahan se laun
, which I urge every intelligent and curious reader to access on youtube to understand the basic economics of love and websites, and get off your can and post an opinion, even anonymously, and not be intimidated by fear, neutered by indifference or mentally euthanized by ennui or selfishness. This is what has led to the current demise of a responsive and effective honest US government. The petty security that Indians bank on by their education and 100,000+ dollars income is a mere jaggery to your elbow, unreachable, to entice you while leaving you vulnerable to discriminatory persecution, so replete in American history from the Aliens and Sedition Act, the Chinese exclusion act, the Italian exclusion act, the Palmer raids, the Mccarthy terror, the pogrom against immigrants, the incarceration in Guantanamo, the sanction of torture at clandestine sites and the arbitrary incarceration and assassination of American citizens, currently, to make you reflexive house niggers, grateful for lesser terror, to a dominant oligarchy bent on exploiting your greed, desire for security, and ignorance, just like the Brahmins did to the rest of you for thousands of years in India.

Below is my letter to a friend asking me about Vedas, Vedic and Vedanta. I urge you to get interactive. If you don’t do it, perhaps there may be no website for me to propagate my views, but that is not the purpose of my call to awaken you. I am like Cato, the younger. I am never less alone than when I am by myself. This is not a boast of my superiority, just a confession of my schizoid multiple personality disorder.

Here is my answer to a friend’s query about Hinduism.

The Vedas are mainly the books of knowledge (mainly three and later, the fourth Atharva). Vedic, the derived adjective refers to pertaining to the Vedas and is the standard English suffix "ic" added to it like terrify, terrible , terrific or concentric, analytic, electric. Vedanta, being the compound word (samasa in Sanskrit) from Veda+ Anta = Vedanta and refers to the end portion of the Vedas which are the Upnishadas, which literally means sitting at the feet of and I sincerely hope it was Platonic and not as implied in the classic Hindi story of Chitralekha.

To really understand the stuff, it all begins with the mother of North Indian and European languages (Proto-Indo-European, P-I-E) in which the root of the word (most nouns from Panini's Dhatupada) is the verb "vid" which in P-I-E meant to see. To see is to know and in Sanskrit, the primary meaning is to know and the secondary meaning is to see. The Vedas are at least 3500 years old, so any separation of meaning in sister languages must predate that. In Sanskrit's sister Latin, the verb vid means to see as in Vide Infra (see below) or Caesar's famous words, Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) and from the Latin, we get the English words Video and Vision and their derivatives.

The significance of Veda and Vedanta is great in Hinduism, which evolved over time. The original version with a lot of mumbo jumbo began with the chief deities being Indra with his Vajra (Zeus with thunderbolt, Norwegian - Thor with hammer) and Varuna (Ouranos or Uranus, the chief Titan, father of Cronos and grandfather of Zeus). These we know from the Treaty signed around 1500 BCE by the Mitannis in Syria, after defeat by the Hittites (then in Turkey) where they swore to uphold the terms, swearing by Indra, Varuna and Ashwini Kumaras (Ashwa= horse). Incidentally the Mitanni capital (still unfound) was called Vasu-Khanni, a compound word (meaning rich land). We still use those words in Sanskrit and Gujarati as In Vasu+Dha, giver of riches and Khani-Ja, meaning mineral or born of the land. There is much controversy about the migration of the Aryans but the defeated Mitanni, who also put great stress and pride in equestry (In 1600 BCE, Kikkuli, a Mitanni royal horse trainer wrote a treatise on the colors, breeding and training of horses, hence Ashwamedha Yagna), which derives from the Sanskrit Ashwa.

They became nomads, measured their wealth in cattle and migrated to Iran and India. In Iran, Zoroaster (Zarat+Ushtra meaning old or yellow+camel) named the main God as Ahur Mazda (Asura Maha). Ancient Persian is so similar to Sanskrit that anyone knowing Sanskrit well, can read and understand the holy books of the Parsis (Zend Avesta and Gathas). Incidentally you may remember that the Hindu myth says that the rishi Kashyapa had two wives Diti, whose children were collectively called Daityas and the other Aditi (the mother of gods), whose children were called Adityas. Both had the same father. Zoroaster, who first conceived of the Devil, which he gifted to Buddhism (as Mara) and Christianity (as Satan) called the devil, Ahirmanyu (Sanskrit -Abhiman or pride, but better still in Greek, Hubris which leads to the birth of a Nemesis which led to Satan's fall from heaven like in Milton's epic poem). Zoroaster's generic name for all demons was "Devas", the ones the Hindus worship.

The other branch of Aryans, who came to India in multiple waves, refined their language and called it Sanskrit (perfect creation) and wrote a standard and generative grammar. In religion, they emphasized chanting (mantras) and rituals (brahmanas) which formed the first and middle part of the Vedas. The more philosophical ones and some composed in the forest (aranyakas, the more metaphysical monotheistic philosophical distillation of the polytheistic mumbo jumbo, in the Upanishadas which form the end of the Vedas and hence Vedanta). You must understand that the Vedas were not written down for another 1000 years, just memorized, so you can't give a single date for the whole stuff.

Somewhere, along the lines, still in BCE,  they merged mentally and sexually with the native, but more civilized Dravidians (with drainage systems in Mohen-jo-Daro, which we are still missing in modern India) and adopted their god who is depicted as a male with a horned headgear and exposed priapism (like the Egyptian God Min) and named him Pashupatinath or Mahadeva. Hence the origin of Linga, Yoni and phallic worship. They than formulated a trinity from their original one god (Brahman, the creator who constituted the Advaita or non-dualistic philosophy, became Brahmaa, Vishnu, a former minor god was promoted to preserver and the newest acquisition by merger, the fierce Pashupatinath became Shiva, the destroyer. Eventually the formerly most worshipped and powerful female or fertility deities, which had been dethroned used the suffragette and feminist pathway to get a place in the pantheon, as Devis and hence the all encompassing form of Shiva, as Ardhanarishwara in the beautiful carvings of Ellora, matching those of Abu Simbel in Egypt. (the hermaphrodite form produced by the mating of Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek mythology).

During all this period, the Brahmins and to a lesser extent the Brahmakshatriyas, used their knowledge to exploit the superstition, prejudice and ignorance of the public, just like in American elections, to become rentiers, like the Pope selling pardons. The first rebellion was in the Gita as a Karmayoga or salvation by action and 1500 years later by the Bhaktimarga of Meera, Surdas, Tukaram, Chaitanya, Nanak etc (Lutheranism was a rebellion against Catholic saints and endorsed by the capitalist Barons, who resented the feudal rabble taking too many days off from work to honor saints.) In the last 500 to thousand years with colonization by foreigners, poverty and ignorance, a myriad more gods, demons, spirits and saints have crept in, as I remember being taken to a temple near Ghashiram's pol, when I had measles as a child and my mother and grandmother ate cold unrefrigerated stale food for two days to improve my health to the detriment of their own, just as the doctors bled Washington with leeches and hastened his death.

So my advice is beware of Hindu Wisdom or Caveat Emptor, because there are no  regulators in Hinduism, which is even worse than regulators like the SEC, FASB, FDIC, FSLIC, ECB and the Federal Reserve, who generated the sub-prime and European crises. Now you know that religion, like life, language and script has its own ontogeny and phylogeny, as your biologist wife will confirm. It is unregulated Islam, a gutter religion like most, if not all, that allows any and every lunatic to have a following and issue a Fatwa justifying suicide bombing, the last resort of the genuinely or imaginary oppressed, and the crazy, against perceived or genuine neo-liberal colonialism and imperialism.

And finally, here is another controversy deserving of an acrimonious debate for those who are unafraid to speak the truth. The cop out by America on rearming Taiwan for fear of Communist China and the debt we owe to it is already constraining US foreign policy and making us a banana republic. In addition our knuckling under to Israeli blackmail regarding a Palestinian State shows the extent to which US politicians are held hostage to financial support from an affluent Jewish Lobby to the point of betraying the interests of the US and even a mad and fanatic Israel and its unthinking rabid supporters.

Now let us see whether we are going to see some Indians with a spinal column have the guts to participate and express their opinons, whatever they be dissenting or agreeing or simply continue their existence for mere economic security as we did in apartheid South Africa and reveal what kind of sensible and pragmatic, but selfish unprincipled scum buckets we are, like our prime minister Manmohan Singh, more interested in personal aggrandizement, than the good of the nation.
 

27-Sep-2011

More by :  Gaurang Bhatt, MD

Top | Random Thoughts

Views: 3419      Comments: 10



Comment rdashby

If Gandhi was alive today you would have heard from his mouth how ashamed he would have been on people's ignorance/hypocrisy. There is no law but only "jungle raj" in India. The ones with money and power oppress the masses at a large scale. Just one small example - you can find hundreds of issues when you start searching online or on the streets - have you ever been to a traffic intersection in any large city and seen the beggars left to die while common citizens ignore it? We are conditioned for this behavior - everyone wants to get ahead by any means without any concern for fellow Indians. The "Indians" who fought the British or the Indians who faught the "Indians" working for the British?

Everything can be done in India if you know the right price/people.

Have you ever heard of millions of Americans or Westerners migrating to India in search of a better life??? Why is it that its the other way round? And the ones migrating are the "so called well educated class". Why is it so? Think honestly and you will know the answer.

Nothing in this world is perfect including the West. There are issues to struggle for everywhere - you cannot escape that.


The day three things change about India immigration to West will CEASE to exist:

1) Common Indian citizens do not hesitate to go to Police and Courts
for Justice (No issue of bribe corruption etc.) i.e. everyone is
treated equal in front of law and everyone respects and follows it.

2) Common Indian citizens do not have to struggle for basic needs
such as food/clean water/proper hygienic living conditions i.e. no
struggle/corruption in day to day activities (hospitals, jobs, health
programs etc.).

3) Basic education level for common citizens reaches a basic minimum
level so that everyone has a fair chance to make a decent living like
in the West.

Of course for the top thre to happen you need HONEST leadership and
TRUE Democracy and a change in people's "chalta hai (anything goes)"
attitude etc.


And until this happens you can live in past glory and not learn from our mistakes and continue living in the current mess which seems to be the future.

RK
01-Oct-2011 00:26 AM

Comment Mr Bhatt and RK, the latter in somewhat more explicit terms, jointly condemn Indians for accepting all things without protest: but, in stark contradiction, was it not the Indian people that fought under Gandhi's leadership in a sustained campaign against the British using the exemplary method of non-violent protest?

The characterisation of a people as, in this case, spineless, is always made from one of its own kind, whether in nationality or religion, as an exclusive trait: thus, Indians are adjudged lazy, the American people are adjudged resilient above all others, the British are uniquely large-hearted, each an appraisal by one of its own kind. This stereotyping by nationality of what are universal human traits should by now, post Hitler and the German master race, be obsolete, even as the notion that red-haired Irish people are hot-tempered, given that we live in a world that recognises all men as equal and with individual characteristics that are common, varying only as individual temperaments vary. One therefore cannot speak of Indians as being uniquely lazy, when the same can be said of any person in any country where high expectation shows up this as a fault: for example, in Greece, the Greeks. Likewise, one cannot, except in rhetorical terms, speak of the superiority in tenacity of the Chilean miners, as evidence of a national trait, that would distinguish them from others in the same predicament anywhere in the world.
Indians living in the modern world are no different to anyone else, as can be proved by their presence in large numbers in all parts of the world, where they are, for the most, anything but lazy, but being highly motivated become high achievers.

Finally, it is odd that Mr Bhatt expects great things from a people he roundly appraises as incapable of protest. This surely is the greatest flaw to his argument, not the foundation of expected reform.




rdashby
30-Sep-2011 10:39 AM

Comment Dear RK, Apropos to your comment about Indians. Satya was perplexed, maybe even annoyed at the lack of adequate coherence and connectivity in my ramblings. His comment was questioning, may have been criticizing, but also seeking clarification. The one line exultation of Basu is an ecstatic confession of his schadenfreude and the widely prevalent nature of Indians, merely to bring down others and shove them into a lower status compared to their own miserable bottom scrounging life, which they have no hope of escaping and no ability to improve.

It is in the same class as the half baked criticisms by some few people who crammed a few verses of Sanskrit to put themselves on the judgment seat of Vikramaditya to pillory my views of Hinduism and its myths. My interpretation of Hindu myths maybe wrong or far fetched and deserving of scathing criticism. If so they should line up their arguments and state their case and not resort to name calling or booing.

Let me give you some examples. There is an important story in the Ramayana about Angada, who is sent as a messenger by Rama to Ravana. Angada plants his foot on the ground of righteousness and challenges anyone to merely move it. Indrajit, the conqueror of Indra, the king of the gods fails. From wikipedia below---
At Ravana's court, after Angada explained the divinity of lord Rama and the message he carried, Ravana paid no heed to it. Angada then planted his foot firmly on the ground and challenged anybody in the courtroom to uproot his foot. If anybody were to accept the challenge and was successful, Rama would concede defeat and return without Sita. All the rakshasa commanders of Ravana's army and even his son Indrajit tried to lift Angada's leg but none succeeded.
On a similar basis, Lakshmana tells Sita not to cross the circle of Lakshmanrekha, which he has drawn with a confident assertion that no power on earth or heaven which is not upright and benevolent has the ability to overcome the barrier.

Equally beautiful are the stories of Nachiketa and Savitri, in which Yama, the god of death retreats in defeat against the virtue of a child and a dutiful wife. This is what Hindu myths, Sanskrit and our civilization were all about, the triumph of truth and virtue. Hence Ashoka's words and the motto on the lion pillars, "Satyam Eva Jayate". The reality never met the hope, but as I have often quoted Browning, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, for what was heaven made for"; certainly not to pull everyone down to a hell of envy that Pradip Basu gets his ecstatic kicks from.

A great story that Joseph Campbell quotes in his writings is about a new Indra (it was a term limited position based on merit unlike the US presidency). The new Indra orders Vishwakarma, the celestial architect (like the Egyptian Imhotep) to redecorate his White House. During inspection of the new modifications, the new Indra notices and is annoyed at an army of ants crawling out from the Oval office and proceeding to the outhouse, and asks the architect with overt annoyance, what this means? Vishwakarma replies," Mr. President, these are former presidents (Indras), whose Punya is exhausted and have to vacate the premises.

Gaurang Bhatt

I have no passport or shortcut to virtue and innumerable faults, but despite being a non-believer in god and afterlife, a fervent desire to learn, improve and at least know the difference between right and wrong, and try hard to do what is right, though not always successfully. All faults maybe forgiven or overlooked, but those who do wrong and harm and still maintain false pretenses of being good and benevolent are the worst and unfortunately America is on that path. Hinduism is neither right, nor correct, but it does contain one truth. At some point, if not in this birth then in the next ones, everyone , no matter how selfish and greedy will achieve nauseating satiety, such as to crave renunciation, and come to realize the Mithya (false myth) and limits of material happiness and pleasures.

Gaurang Bhatt

Gaurang Bhatt
29-Sep-2011 18:58 PM

Comment Dear RK, Thank you for your kindness, I have some old writings on sulekha.com and ivarta,com. There are serious writings at the website southasiaanalysis.com where you have to punch bhatt@@ to access them, but due to the kindness of Rajender Krishan, I have consolidated most of them at boloji.com but not the southasiaanalysis.com ones.. There were a whole lot at the Zmag.org website, including poems, but they got wiped out when the website reconfigured their hierarchy to eliminate the children of lesser gods. I have no complaints. It is still one of my favorite websites. Not all flowers have to blossom and proclaim their glory, there are many destined to blossom and die unseen, as Milton's poem says," they also serve who only stand and wait". Ego has ceased to be my problem many years ago.
When I was a young college student in India, I was fascinated by an apocryphal story, which unfortunately is not true. Sir Humphrey Davies was asked what his greatest discovery was and he is supposed to have said Michael Faraday. It is however true of one non-egoistic Indian (I am not comparing myself to him, because I am completely undeserving). It was Buddha who passed the torch to Bhikhu Ananda.
I want to be the proverbial one who taught my readers to think independently by not giving a fish, but by guiding them how to fish.
Gaurang Bhatt

gaurang bhatt
29-Sep-2011 10:50 AM

Comment I am deeply appreciative of those who like my articles, but the articles are not about me, because I maybe self-loving up to a point, opinionated, but I am not narcissistic. My articles are about building an Indian pride and collective consciousness to make us aware of our past follies and like other intelligent ethnic groups, to swear never to be oppressed or humiliated ever again. It is to raise the spirit of regret, remorse, anger, but even more a unity that we are not Bengalis, Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, Tamilians etc., but Indians. It is to atone for the sins of our fathers, who collaborated with the invaders to betray our people and our nation, because they were so stupid, ignorant, unthinking or worse uncaring, to become mercenaries for the French under Dupleix, British under Clive, Rajputs under the Moghuls, to fight either as mercenaries for their own selfish pecuniary benefits. I want them to fulfill the obligation of Bhagirath, who in Hindu mythology by his Herculean effort brought the Akash Ganga to earth, to atone for the sins of his forebears. In this I do not wish to exclude the Muslims, even though my opinion of Islam and all religions is low. I protest for Tippu Sultan, who like all kings was not a complete decent egalitarian but resented foreign oppression. The British indulged in the unforgivable crime of kidnapping his children to intimidate him and proved him to be more decent than the current West with its selective drone assassination and contrived insurgencies to capture energy resources. Beware of those preaching virtue after committing atrocities for eons. "Sau Sau Chuhe khaa ke billi haj ko challi" or "Wo karam unglion pe gintey he jin ke jhulmon ka koi hisaab nahi". I even protest for the Chinese, who have been nasty to India, for the British exploitation of them by forcing Indian peasants to grow opium, ( like the present Colombian and Mexican drug lords),the British and the American Boston Brahmins sold forcibly to the Chinese.
I protest for the Sikhs, who as British citizens came to immigrate to Canada, a British colony on a Japanese ship and were denied entry on the flimsy basis, that citizens of the same country, Britain, could not move within its world jurisdiction, if they were brown and had not boarded a direct ship from India to Canada.
I protest for the Sikhs who were forced to marry Mexican women in the US, to claim the right of owning a property for which they had paid for by honest sweat, and to pass it on to their children, even though I think the Sikh religion is as stupid as Islam, and was more a political movement and its obsession with hair and imitation of Islam, because of Nanak's gratitude to a Muslim benefactor showed his limited intellect, despite his just resentment of Brahmin blackmail by money for forced rituals in birth, death and marriage ceremonies..
I resent the fact that the British compelled everyone, not just offenders, but those who lived in the neighborhood where a British woman was unjustly molested, to crawl like a serpent for a whole block to get out of their house to reach the main road. I, intellectually appreciate the philosophical parsing of Bankim Chandra about independence and liberty, but equally see it as a rational defense of justification for pragmatic co-operation with the colonizing power elite. I do laud him for sowing the seeds of independent thinking and more for stimulating us to think. That is what I am desperately and futilely trying to do with my drastically lesser talent, but with no lesser effort.
That is why, I try to point out the glaring hypocrisies in US policies. I intellectually understand that they are based on amoral pragmatic strategy called realpolitik, and because of that protest, highlight, criticize and condemn, for I, living here and having affection for both the US and India, want them to be better. Who wants their mother to be a prostitute and be proud of it, or even blind to it?

Gaurang Bhatt

gaurang bhatt
29-Sep-2011 10:23 AM

Comment If you will pardon my bluntness, erudition is nothing but an allotrope of plagiarism, as diamond is to carbon. The simile is apt, as the former does give the impression of brilliance. The truth is that Mr Bhatt's article, typically, is all repeated fact; and compulsively presumes the ignorance of the reader, who is unfairly expected to comment on what is already known, or let us allow, becomes divulged. It is in short an exercise in vanity, which raises concern for, in this case, the Indian, for it is so characterised, trait of 'basic selfishness', in the lack of comment to his articles..

Of course, Mr Bhatt makes comment - but on comments to his own articles only, and at some length, exceeding the reader's comment as trunks on a coolie's head. Are we to assume he is giranted special immunity from commenting on other boloji articles, to practice what he preaches, because he is so wrapped up in the flaunting of his erudition/plagiarism that seems to fall on deaf ears?


rdashby
29-Sep-2011 09:44 AM

Comment Love you Satya for that !!!!!!

Pradip Basu
29-Sep-2011 08:08 AM

Comment Indians are the most selfish/ignorant people on the planet. Nothing will change until there is HONEST leadership and TRUE Democracy and a change in people's "chalta hai (anything goes)" attitude. Everyone is busy in their day-to-day struggle of Roti Kapda aur Makaan. Nobody has the time to think of these issues.

I am a regular follower of your articles mostly every week for at least the past one year or so. I learn/agree a lot from the articles you write (even though sometimes it is a bit tough to understand everything - nothing wrong in your writing, just that I am slow sometimes to grasp everything :D )

Keep up the good work. You have at least one follower on this website. BTW - any other websites you "daan" your articles to as well?

Also, it would help if all your articles on the main "Random Thoughts" page had the date when they were published on this website. Right now they are just in alphabetical order.

RK
29-Sep-2011 00:58 AM

Comment Thanks Satya for your perspicacious detection of the disjointedness of the article. I have noticed much greater debate and critical comments at websites I surf to inform myself and the passivity of boloji readers stands out in stark contrast. No one is expected to reveal his true identity or location in comments, so fear or embarrassment are unlikely to be inhibiting factors. I have always felt that the selfishness of humanity in general, but of Indians in particular, and their experience of their own rulers and a millennium or more of foreigner colonization, has made them seek safety in avoiding the light. That is how in evolution, the mammals survived the tyranny of the dinosaur age. They kept their size small, hid in the dark and faded into the background.
The newer fear is that the authorities may be able to monitor us by their sophisticated technology, and as long as we, one of the many weaker minority groups of a given society are not being targeted. it is best to keep quiet. A policy of that sort was favored by the Indian diaspora in Africa. In East Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, it led to eventual eviction or being discriminated against when the Africans gained independence. In South Africa, because of its strict apartheid, those Indians who aligned with the ANC have been included in the government, but those who kept a low profile are worse off.
In Nazi Germany, when the Roma, who are of Indian origin were being targeted, the Jews kept quiet. Eventually their turn came and non-Jewish Germans kept quiet, even though some of them realized the unfairness and tragedy of the holocaust.
In America, since most of Indian immigrants are highly educated and earn six figure incomes, when we see injustice, we hide under our newly acquired honorary white status as the Japanese did by forcing South Africa to grant them one. Yet earlier peaceful, patriotic, native born American citizens of Japanese origin, mainly from California, were interned in concentration camps by the liberal president FDR.
Interestingly, the laughable anomaly was that the US citizens of partial or total Japanese origin in Hawaii, where Pearl Harbor which was attacked is located, were not interned. Why? because there were too many persons of mixed ancestry and it would have upset the Hawaiians and Philipinos too. Lest any reader be fooled again, it is not because the US was more benignly inclined towards the other Asians, but because the whole population had too many Asians laboring in the plantations of companies like Dole, owned by the whites, and they were not as dumb as the "W" republicans willing to shoot their own selves in the foot. Hence my warning to the Indian community to unite behind truth and justice and not by income tax brackets.
Taiwan was an entity created by the US support of Communist defeated, Chiang-Kai-Shek's nationalist government and nurtured by America, but was thrown under the bus by Nixon to extricate himself from the Vietnam War and ensure his eventual reelection. Now, once again, an America beholden to its huge creditor, Communist China, refused to sell Taiwan new modern planes. That is what banana republics do. Read your Thucydides or my article on international relations.
On the other hand, the despicable US Congress and the disgusting American presiden, voted against the Palestinian state and showed how they had sold their very souls for campaign finance for reelection. In doing so, they betrayed their own nation's interests and even those of the nation of Israel, which are not the same as those of its rabid fanatic American supporters.
It all brings us back to fundamental statements of a former British ministers, Lord Palmerston and Lord Acton. The first said, "Nations have no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests". The second said, "Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely".
Under these circumstances India would be foolish to make critical offensive or defensive arms purchases from America which would throw India under the bus by witholding critical parts or resupply, because of its debt obligation to China. America has already become a banana republic, though it may take years before the sycophantic and stupid public loudly admits, that the emperor has no clothes.
It is also time for India to wake up and understand that the US support of Pakistan is from self-interest and China's support of Pakistan is consistent with the strategy of Chanakya or Machiavelli, and thus Manmohan Singh's idiotic foreign policy and slavery to Sonia Gandhi, is detrimental to India.
This is why one has to admire someone like Chomsky, who is a Jewish American, but more importantly an honest, intelligent human being with integrity, as his just condemnation of Israel and America's unjust policies prove. As his dead colleague and Jewish Howard Zinn so aptly said,"You cannot be neutral on a moving train". They stand on a plinth on which stand the two greatest Americans of all time, John Dewey and John Rawls.
I want my fellow Indians not to crawl for survival subject to the tyranny of an unjust government, as they did in Amritsar in the galli, where they had the indecency to attack an isolated British woman, but to be willing to die like Bhagat Singh for a just cause. I also want them not to be religious fanatics. I think Islam is a rotten religion, but so are others to a varying degree. There is little doubt that the West is carrying out a war against Muslims, not for their religion, but for their oil, as overlooking Bahrain and Syria's corrupt leaders, attacking crazy Qaddafi and mugwamping on Egypt and Tunisia shows.
There is a rising Hindutva fundamentalist movement and it is against this that the last part of my article emphasizes caution, by showing the changing character of Hinduism from its origin and history. Finally all religions are bad and have some good, but those with the arrogant certainty of one god and their being his chosen people with a mission to convert all others by the sword, bribes, threats or differential taxes or chicanery are the worst Those who look for god to explain their own state or inadequacy are like most philosophers, blind men in a dark room searching for a black cat, which is not there. At least polytheists leave room for uncertainty, doubt, agnosticism and inclusiveness.
I wrote the latter part of the article as an answering e-mail to a friend and being naturally frugal and misguidedly self-opinionated, to prevent wasting of my mental effort, decided to impose it on readers like you in the style of Listeria contaminated melons, a restricted privilege of compassionate capitalist do-gooders. I hope this tirade answers your genuinely intelligent query and encourages others to question, rail against and even trash, what some people including me, write with a mixture of audacity and hope.
I hope, Satya, that I have answered your question and even enough to satisfy you and quest for coherence.

Gaurang Bhatt


gaurang bhatt
28-Sep-2011 10:01 AM

Comment But I didn't get the whole point, Sir..what this whole article is about..

Satya
28-Sep-2011 01:21 AM




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