My friend Suman Kalyan likes to call this the debate between a secularist and a fundamentalist. He jocularly addresses himself as the fundamentalist and me as the secularist, and I am proud of that label since I stand against all kinds of parochialism and sectarianism. I am posting the second installment of the debate that has taken place between Suman and me because I think there is a situation where others need to know about where these ideas are coming from, especially given the fact that I have been advocating a deliberative democracy. This thread actually emerged from the previous one where I made my opinions of Ramdev and his ilk very clear. The moment this debate becomes too personal or hurtful of others, I will stop posting it here and keep it a strictly personal thing between me and Suman. If anyone already has objections please let me know and I will remove this from the blog. Thank you.
Satish
P.S: What you may read is not a faithful reproduction of the debate on FB, I have changed a few things for what I thought is more prudent for everyone to read.
P.S: What you may read is not a faithful reproduction of the debate on FB, I have changed a few things for what I thought is more prudent for everyone to read.
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Suman,
I have posted replies to your questions on my blog. I did so for the sake of other people also participating in this discussion. Hope you do not mind, thanks.
MondaySuman Kalyan
no problem satish...I hope you do not take anything personally..I know you don;t but just wanted to check..
I will continue with the debate..It is getting interesting now..
YesterdayA. V. Satish Chandra
No I did not take anything personally. Please feel free to continue.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I have comments on all your observations..I will comment on your observation about spirituality first.
"My understanding of spiritualism you aver is immature and ill thought out. I seek to disagree. The whole idea of spiritualism is the apprehension and cognition of picture larger than the one that is perceived of by the senses. The spiritualist can make Cosmic connections and arrive at what is good and what is bad and what is morally sustainable and what is not. What you have done is to delink the connection between spiritualism based in moral understanding from politics. Politics are what they are today precisely due to their disconnect with all things spiritual. Be it Ramdev or Swami Agnivesh or the RSS; they have all failed here. In fact the brand of Hinduthva that is being pedalled today by the RSS, the Sangh Parivar for me is the Islamization and Christianization of a cosmology that was far superior than the proselytizing religions that I have mentioned. The intervention of the Arya Samaj actually transformed what was a brilliant cosmology into just another proselytizing religion. I also say that by the time the Arya Samaj had intervened there were several other interventions that sublated the cosmology and turned it into a monstrous social schema. I am referring to the intervention of Brahminical religion and its unwarranted intrusion into the Ancient Indian wisdom and cosmology reducing in the process the whole thing to dos and don'ts based in the utterly ridiculous. I stand by my idea that what we have as spiritualism is nothing but a made easy text of dos and don'ts and therefore I will say that any comparisons between the notions of dharma as practiced in the Mahabharatha and what we have today will only strengthen efforts at genocide and launching of pogroms against specific sections of populations."
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Spirituality is minimal intellectualism and the large part of it is action. You can theorize, give names to concepts, put things into various buckets and so on. From my own experience - both intellectual and experiential, the biggest realization was that intellectual understanding of Spirituality is not of much use. Let's come to your argument. First myth - One does not need to make any cosmic connections, go to Himalayas and meditate for years, become a monk, perform apll kinds of austerities, pretend to do holy things etc etc to be on the path of self / god realization.. Doing the above can certainly lead one down the path of self delusion. Life and everything around us is an expression of the same divine energy and Hinduism has always unambiguously stated this. So saying that something in life conforms to spirituality and something else like politics doesn't is "naive". The sum total of spiritual journey is whether an individual can transcend "I" through all the learnings/ opportunities offered by life.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I have not tried to delink but I actually say that Spirituality and politics are intimately connected. Krishna is the best example of this intimate connection. Politics offers an opportunity to make a difference at a level of society/ civilization. So your point about politics they way it is due to a spiritual disconnect is well taken..
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Now coming to Ramdev, RSS , BJP others who are always the favourite whipping boys in India. I see these ideologies as a response to the shameless brand of "secularism" propagated by Congress whose seeds were sown by none other than Gandhi. I will take this as a separate discussion and not elaborate on this thread. I do not have a problem with their ideology since I believe they do balance the political space. The problem I have with these folks is that they look at Hindutva as a political ploy as opposed to a genuine spiritual movement for creating a unified Hindu society.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I also do not agree with your observations on Mahabharata. Dharma is universal and I do not agree that what is Dharma in Mahabharata will lead to pogroms against specific sections of the population now. To me the message in Bhagavad Gita is the highest form of Spirituality that was achieved by man. Not something to be read in books but followed in Action. Spiritual truths and Dharma are not something that are valid at one point of time and then not valid at some other point of time. Then it is paradox for me..It can't be spiritual and not spiritual at the same time..
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Coming to "specific sections of the populations" by which you mean muslims, I'm not sure why you would hesitate so much to call them as such, since they are very comfortable and proud of their rich heritage that many of them believe to have originated somewhere in the lands of middle east ! I do have a huge problem with "Islam" though which is apolitical ideology disguised as a religion. I do not believe Islam is compatible to Indian ethos and must be fought tooth and nail on an ideological level. Appeasement and concessions to muslims or any other section of society for that matter will not get us anywhere. In this context I would expect RSS, BJP and other of this ilk to fight this ideological battle. Are they doing it ? I don't see it..BJP at one point of time even introduced a green color into their party flag I think..Net net - the point I'm trying to make is what is right and dharma has to be done at any cost ! We won our freedom at a huge cost didn;t we ? Appeasement, concessions etc is a sign of weakness and weakness always leads to ruin and eventual death as history as shown us..
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Comments on your observations on Satyagraha
About the philosophical basis of Satyagraha and the answer to the question of what more is it than fasting as a tactic of blackmail. The fasts taken up by anyone and everyone today and the birth of the system of relay fasts has detracted from the philosophical underpinnings of Satyagraha and fasting. A good beginning to a better understanding of what Satyagraha is the dissection of the term itself. Satyagraha is righteous anger or the anger born out of a moral conviction that what the other is doing to you is wrong and unsustainable by any system of morality. A Satyagrahi should first be convinced of the Truth of what he believes after due logical cogitation along the lines of morality and only then should take up an action on behalf of that truth which is universal. So when Mahatma Gandhi undertook a fast it was not to blackmail people. It was to impress upon them the idea that his was so convinced of the Truth of his thought and actions that for the perpetuation of that Truth he was willing to even give up his life. Gandhi was actually challenging the theory of Yuga Dharma, one that changed with every passing Yuga and went into the decline mode. Gandhi believed not in Yuga Dharma but in Sanatana Dharma, a Dharma which will not succumb to a degenerative cycle but remain constant even in the face of great adversity. Gandhi distinguished between Sanatana Dharma and religion. For him all religions are governed by the same Dharma and the tragedy was that people who had forgotten the basic morals of their religion (any religion) had strayed from the path of Sanatana Dharma. For him war, conquest and colonialism were a result of people's alienation from their religion and by extension from Sanatana Dharma
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
1) Gandhi was completely wrong that all religions are governed by same dharma. e.g: Hinduism and Islam are certainly not. Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma are synonymous with each other. You yourself have commented on nature of Hindu cosmology being far superior to abrahamic religions. Putting abrahamic religions that are not connected to our land on the same pedestal as Sanatana Dharma was misleading, mischievous and down right false..That in my mind was the biggest blunder made by Gandhi. He was shooting at his own foot and we carry this insane legacy to this day..
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
The message of Bhagavd Gita is integral to Sanatana Dharma and Gandhi's philosophy was divergent to the very ideals of Sanatana Dharma he claimed to propagate. I do not think he even understood the message of Gita for sure.
I do not care much about the Gandhi's motivations for fasting either. Whatever his truth maybe it was not the eternal truth in Sanatana Dharma. Nowhere does Sanatana Dharma teaches people to be weak and appease a section of the population.
My comments on your observation: " feel sad that Gandhi is so vociferously disowned in his own country, by the very people he fought for. It was his appeal for religious tolerance and fighting for it through fasts that led to whatever harmony we have in this country. For me the belligerence of the Hinduthva forces will destroy the country not build it. It is indeed a great pity that today the Godses of the country are becoming heroes and the Gandhis (the Mahatma type and not Indira, Sonia, Rajiv, Sanjay, Rahul and Priyanka types) are becoming villains."
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I also feel very sad that a country that has claims to be democratic cannot express criticism about Gandhi and not be branded as communal, right wing fanatic, hindu fundamentalist..
I beg to differ about the religious tolerance bit as well. To me it looks more like telling Hindus to commit suicide ! Yes in a perverted way this can be construed as religious tolerance for sure.
As I have said before we need to move on as a country from Gandhi era/ politics/ philosophy ! It has created enough damage already..
Gandhi was a great social reformer and let us leave it as that !
I would still say he is the greets social reformer of this era and he did what was necessary to reform in Hindu society..
I would anyway say Vivekananda and Aurobindo are the greatest Indians of the last century and certainly en example worth emulating in nation building..
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Have you hear Swami's vivekananda's speech at Chicago.. I think there is a copy of it in youtube. If you have not, then you should. It gives me goose pimples when I listen to it ! This is supreme nationalism infused with spirituality. Is that the vision I get from Gandhi ? Gandhi taught me that I should accommodate all kinds of jokers , bend over backwards and appease "certain sections of society", give legitimacy to alien faiths at the cost of my life and in general give up warrior spirit..I'm sorry that doesn't appeal to me..
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Comments on your Chanakya observation: "I do not see a place for Chanakya in the present scheme of things. The reasons are straightforward, it is like saying Niccolo Machiavelli can solve the problems of present day Italy. Chanakya is about as spiritual as Osama Bin Laden and to complicate it all, despite the popular perception of who Chanakya was, historically there is very little to connect three names-Chanakya, Kautilya and Vishnu Gupta; all of whom are presumed to be one person but in reality may not be. The relevance of the Arthashastra is purely confined to its times, present day politics being far more different, complicated and bigger for the Arthashastra to be of any consequence. If you are referring to the fact that he created a "pragmatic" system of governance, even that will be beset by the same problems that I have referred to in the previous sentence. Cunning and astute political strategies are already leading the nation to its demise. You give it 50 years, I give it 10 if things continue like this."
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I'm actually shocked to see a comparison between Osama Bin Laden and Chanakya. Chanakya built an India nation unifying all the kingdoms and warded off external aggressions from the Greeks. and you are comparing him to an Islamic thug who wanted to emulate Mohammed and establish an Islamic caliphate by killing as many unbelievers as possible and in modern language called a terrorist. wow !
21 hours agoSuman Kalyan
When I say a Chankya is needed in India today ..I mean the following - Can someone unify and energize an entire nation that is so fragmented right now to make them work towards a common goal ? Can we get our act together and not be labeled as a soft state and be a strong deterrent to our enemies ? Can we get our internal house in order and fix all the fault lines in society ? All of these challenges were faced by Chanakya during his times as well. So the spirit of Chanakya is absolutely valid even in the current times. Of course a pragmatic system of governance will help for sure. Cunning and astute politics by itself is not a problem but has a potential to become one if it is not dharmic. For establishing dharma, if cunning methods and guile needs to be adopted, where is the problem with that ? Sanatana Dharma has again stated in clear terms - "Truth is that which establishes Dharma".
21 hours agoSuman Kalyan
As I previously stated spirituality is not about sitting in a cave and dreaming about the cosmos..It is right action, right dharma and how the "I" can be transcended. Chanakya put every ounce of effort that he had for raising the consciousness of an entire nation and in doing so transcended his self ! an example of how the highest level of selfless, desire less and ego less states can transform a nation. The impact was at the civilizational level. If this is not spirituality what is it ? It is supreme spirituality demonstrated in action and not in words or intellectual monologues. Infact the concept of nationalism is extremely important from a spiritual perspective since it gives a glorious opportunity to transcend "I" . Why do you think the nation has been described as Bharat mata ? Because it is worthy of devotion and one can realize self through dedication to motherland .
19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I have a few questions for you to ponder about . 1) Is Gandhi bigger than the nation ? 2) Manmohan singh's statement about muslims in India having the first right on resources - Do you smell gandhianism in this statement ? I do and I think if Gandhi were alive he would have made Manmohan singh his prime disciple and given him a medal for religious tolerance 3) Are endless arguments in our democratic nation helping our cause ? Again is democracy more important than the nation ? 4) Is fierce sense of nationalism, pride in one's country and the rich spiritual heritage communal ? 5) Is Gandhianism more important than the survival of a country ? Soon we will be in life support mode in India the way we are headed.6) How many people in India will proudly stand up and say they are Hindus and the followers of the eternal wisdom of Sanatana Dharma ? We still debate about fundamental issues like this in India more than 65 years after Independence going on endlessly about this..It is time to do whatever it takes to see India as a world power and have the political will and courage to take hard decisions ..There will always be some people who will be upset, but that cannot hijack a country's agenda !
19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Have you heard the national anthem of Israel ? You should if you have not and also read the translation.You will find it in youtube..It is soul stirring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjfFpFW9OdA
Hatikva-The National Anthem of Israelwww.youtube.com
Hatikva-The National Anthem of Israel
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19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
The point is Jews have a sense of history that is unparalleled in the world. They have been abused, spit on, genocide committed against them, still they have survived. Are there any lessons for India considering our short lived memory of our own history ?
17 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I will end this phase of debate with a note on religious tolerance. Gandhi's ideals on religious tolerance did not work even in his own lifetime. Why did the muslims want their own state ? and in the newly created state of Pakistan how tolerant were they towards their minorities ? or even how tolerant is Bangladesh towards its minorities ? Tolerance to me does not mean tolerance towards intolerant. Tolerance is for people who deserve tolerance. People who can live in peace and not create separatist movements. Not for people who will refuse to integrate with the nation, not for people who will eventually want to enslave other people one day. Tolerance for the intolerant is equivalent to suicide
14 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Satish I have an idea..Let's keep this debate going.. I leave it to you if you want to put it on your blog..But we can do something different..we will generate quite a lot of content in the process of debate. we can compile and publish this later as conversations between a secularist and a fundamentalist ! let me know..
14 hours agoSuman Kalyan
6 hours agoA. V. Satish Chandra
Suman,
I never said or implied that spiritualism is the establishment of a cosmic connection by going to Himalayas or sitting in a cave. I am fully aware that cosmologies are established by engaging oneself with the cosmos and not by dissociating oneself from it.
2. The overcoming of the "I" or tatvam asi is possible only through the correct understanding of dhyana and not the "populist meditation" ideas that are freely floating in society today. It also means that one has to go through all the phases of the varnashrama dharma and only then will it be possible to reach that stage of transcendence. Adi Shankara was supposed to have been given divine consent to move to sanyasa by passing grihastha ashrama and vanaprastha. To me that kind of spiritualism is something that only great practitioners of the ashrama dharma are capable of. Also one has to be careful in the definition of the "I". Do we talk about a collective self or do we talk about an individual self when we say I? I think the issue is firmly located in a philosophical problematique that throws up a full fountain of problems that cannot be explained away with one big sweep of the broom.
3. My comparison of the Chanakya to Osama was only to the extent of spiritualism in their thought or lack of it. Like I said no one even knows who Chanakya really is.
4. You talk about how tolerance is a weakness. I will quote Gandhi here. "An eye for an eye makes the world blind". I know that Gandhi had his weaknesses yet had his greatness as well.
about an hour agoSuman Kalyan
I would like to elaborate on "Tolerance" since I do not believe that I have articulated it well enough. One cannot and should not judge any actions like tolerance, violence, non violence, benevolence etc without a context and the context is clearly Dharma. India has always been tolerant of new thought processes, new faiths, new cultures and to give you some great examples - communities like jews, parsis (ancient persians) lived happily in India and integrated very well. We integrated muslims too after a massive genocide in India. From a dharma point of view one should always have tolerance for the weak, for the someone who means no harm and protect them. Now tolerance for all and sundry without understanding the dharma behind it, is surely not wise. Let's take the example of prophet Mohammed himself - What happened to all the jews and christians in middle east who were very tolerant about his ideologies ? In his own lifetime, he wiped out a large population of jews and christians in middle east. I have a lot of jewish friends - Try telling them about religious tolerance. They will tell you that they will not have a land to live in anymore. But they do have tremendous respect and tolerance for Hindus since they know India is the only country where they were not persecuted. The point I'm trying to make is we have to be judicious in whom to be tolerant towards. Indiscriminate tolerance is not only not dharma but also a sure way of inviting disaster.
40 minutes agoSuman Kalyan
Let also address why there needs to be discretion in tolerating muslim community in India. Of course what is happening on the ground is open appeasement and dishing out unwanted sops. As most of the muslim world keeps reminding us on a daily basis the condition of minorities in any Islamic country is huge cause for concern. There is a reason why there are no great examples of democracies in Islamic countries. An analysis of Quran explains it. It is a totalitarian political ideology expansionist in nature. It encourages the killing of unbelievers and is very clear about the political motives. It is extremely unfortunate that our great leaders like Gandhi et al either did not understand Islam or deliberately hid the truth. Islam has to be fought ideologically in India since peaceful co-existence with other faiths is not something that Islam understands at all. What is the way forward ? Can you wish away muslim population in India ? No. But surely we can take steps to safeguard the country from a situation where it can become a huge problem and threaten the very existence of the nation. The way out is to take on Islam on a ideological level and open it to rational enquiry. Appeasement is not the solution. Hiding the truth is not the solution..
4 minutes agoA. V. Satish Chandra
The answer to your question about Muslims lies within your question. Let us remember that India has had centuries of Islamic rule culminating in the Mughal Empire. If all that they wanted to do was to convert India into a Muslim land and tried to do so for centuries why has that not happened?. The reason is because Hinduism did not fight Islam with Crusades like Christianity did. You have talked about Jews fighting Muslims. Do the Jews live in peace anywhere in the world? Look at what America has done in the name of dissolving the Axis of Evil and antagonizing every Muslim in the world. Now nobody can live in peace, all because of intolerance. If the Jews want to be intolerant, so be it. That is no reason to convert India into an Israel. I think communal parties on both sides in India have raised the bogey of one dominating the other community. But the truth is a majority of Indians irrespective of their religions live peacefully enough. I do not subscribe to the RSS view that Islam has declared war on India. Such utterances in conjunction with religious bigotry will get the nation into trouble which does not exist now. Anyway you cannot hold Gandhi responsible for the policies of appeasement that the Congress follows. Like I have said, Gandhi believed that the Congress had to be disbanded immediately after attaining independence. The Congress today is only carrying the agenda of Sonia Gandhi and not even Indira-Rajiv-Sanjay Gandhi agenda. It long ago lost its connect with Nehru as well. So what it does today is the outcome of the filth and muck of what the country has today become due to unscrupulous goons and thugs running the country. To me it does not matter which party or person is in power and I do not elect anybody for the simple reason that I see no reason why I have to choose one lout over another. That is why I have been arguing through my blog for a deliberative democracy that supplements the weaknesses of electoral democracy. What we need today is a relook at democratic strategies in India since it is now obvious that the present system enables and empowers only thugs.
I have posted replies to your questions on my blog. I did so for the sake of other people also participating in this discussion. Hope you do not mind, thanks.
MondaySuman Kalyan
no problem satish...I hope you do not take anything personally..I know you don;t but just wanted to check..
I will continue with the debate..It is getting interesting now..
YesterdayA. V. Satish Chandra
No I did not take anything personally. Please feel free to continue.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I have comments on all your observations..I will comment on your observation about spirituality first.
"My understanding of spiritualism you aver is immature and ill thought out. I seek to disagree. The whole idea of spiritualism is the apprehension and cognition of picture larger than the one that is perceived of by the senses. The spiritualist can make Cosmic connections and arrive at what is good and what is bad and what is morally sustainable and what is not. What you have done is to delink the connection between spiritualism based in moral understanding from politics. Politics are what they are today precisely due to their disconnect with all things spiritual. Be it Ramdev or Swami Agnivesh or the RSS; they have all failed here. In fact the brand of Hinduthva that is being pedalled today by the RSS, the Sangh Parivar for me is the Islamization and Christianization of a cosmology that was far superior than the proselytizing religions that I have mentioned. The intervention of the Arya Samaj actually transformed what was a brilliant cosmology into just another proselytizing religion. I also say that by the time the Arya Samaj had intervened there were several other interventions that sublated the cosmology and turned it into a monstrous social schema. I am referring to the intervention of Brahminical religion and its unwarranted intrusion into the Ancient Indian wisdom and cosmology reducing in the process the whole thing to dos and don'ts based in the utterly ridiculous. I stand by my idea that what we have as spiritualism is nothing but a made easy text of dos and don'ts and therefore I will say that any comparisons between the notions of dharma as practiced in the Mahabharatha and what we have today will only strengthen efforts at genocide and launching of pogroms against specific sections of populations."
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Spirituality is minimal intellectualism and the large part of it is action. You can theorize, give names to concepts, put things into various buckets and so on. From my own experience - both intellectual and experiential, the biggest realization was that intellectual understanding of Spirituality is not of much use. Let's come to your argument. First myth - One does not need to make any cosmic connections, go to Himalayas and meditate for years, become a monk, perform apll kinds of austerities, pretend to do holy things etc etc to be on the path of self / god realization.. Doing the above can certainly lead one down the path of self delusion. Life and everything around us is an expression of the same divine energy and Hinduism has always unambiguously stated this. So saying that something in life conforms to spirituality and something else like politics doesn't is "naive". The sum total of spiritual journey is whether an individual can transcend "I" through all the learnings/ opportunities offered by life.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I have not tried to delink but I actually say that Spirituality and politics are intimately connected. Krishna is the best example of this intimate connection. Politics offers an opportunity to make a difference at a level of society/ civilization. So your point about politics they way it is due to a spiritual disconnect is well taken..
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Now coming to Ramdev, RSS , BJP others who are always the favourite whipping boys in India. I see these ideologies as a response to the shameless brand of "secularism" propagated by Congress whose seeds were sown by none other than Gandhi. I will take this as a separate discussion and not elaborate on this thread. I do not have a problem with their ideology since I believe they do balance the political space. The problem I have with these folks is that they look at Hindutva as a political ploy as opposed to a genuine spiritual movement for creating a unified Hindu society.
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
I also do not agree with your observations on Mahabharata. Dharma is universal and I do not agree that what is Dharma in Mahabharata will lead to pogroms against specific sections of the population now. To me the message in Bhagavad Gita is the highest form of Spirituality that was achieved by man. Not something to be read in books but followed in Action. Spiritual truths and Dharma are not something that are valid at one point of time and then not valid at some other point of time. Then it is paradox for me..It can't be spiritual and not spiritual at the same time..
YesterdaySuman Kalyan
Coming to "specific sections of the populations" by which you mean muslims, I'm not sure why you would hesitate so much to call them as such, since they are very comfortable and proud of their rich heritage that many of them believe to have originated somewhere in the lands of middle east ! I do have a huge problem with "Islam" though which is apolitical ideology disguised as a religion. I do not believe Islam is compatible to Indian ethos and must be fought tooth and nail on an ideological level. Appeasement and concessions to muslims or any other section of society for that matter will not get us anywhere. In this context I would expect RSS, BJP and other of this ilk to fight this ideological battle. Are they doing it ? I don't see it..BJP at one point of time even introduced a green color into their party flag I think..Net net - the point I'm trying to make is what is right and dharma has to be done at any cost ! We won our freedom at a huge cost didn;t we ? Appeasement, concessions etc is a sign of weakness and weakness always leads to ruin and eventual death as history as shown us..
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Comments on your observations on Satyagraha
About the philosophical basis of Satyagraha and the answer to the question of what more is it than fasting as a tactic of blackmail. The fasts taken up by anyone and everyone today and the birth of the system of relay fasts has detracted from the philosophical underpinnings of Satyagraha and fasting. A good beginning to a better understanding of what Satyagraha is the dissection of the term itself. Satyagraha is righteous anger or the anger born out of a moral conviction that what the other is doing to you is wrong and unsustainable by any system of morality. A Satyagrahi should first be convinced of the Truth of what he believes after due logical cogitation along the lines of morality and only then should take up an action on behalf of that truth which is universal. So when Mahatma Gandhi undertook a fast it was not to blackmail people. It was to impress upon them the idea that his was so convinced of the Truth of his thought and actions that for the perpetuation of that Truth he was willing to even give up his life. Gandhi was actually challenging the theory of Yuga Dharma, one that changed with every passing Yuga and went into the decline mode. Gandhi believed not in Yuga Dharma but in Sanatana Dharma, a Dharma which will not succumb to a degenerative cycle but remain constant even in the face of great adversity. Gandhi distinguished between Sanatana Dharma and religion. For him all religions are governed by the same Dharma and the tragedy was that people who had forgotten the basic morals of their religion (any religion) had strayed from the path of Sanatana Dharma. For him war, conquest and colonialism were a result of people's alienation from their religion and by extension from Sanatana Dharma
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
1) Gandhi was completely wrong that all religions are governed by same dharma. e.g: Hinduism and Islam are certainly not. Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma are synonymous with each other. You yourself have commented on nature of Hindu cosmology being far superior to abrahamic religions. Putting abrahamic religions that are not connected to our land on the same pedestal as Sanatana Dharma was misleading, mischievous and down right false..That in my mind was the biggest blunder made by Gandhi. He was shooting at his own foot and we carry this insane legacy to this day..
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
The message of Bhagavd Gita is integral to Sanatana Dharma and Gandhi's philosophy was divergent to the very ideals of Sanatana Dharma he claimed to propagate. I do not think he even understood the message of Gita for sure.
I do not care much about the Gandhi's motivations for fasting either. Whatever his truth maybe it was not the eternal truth in Sanatana Dharma. Nowhere does Sanatana Dharma teaches people to be weak and appease a section of the population.
My comments on your observation: " feel sad that Gandhi is so vociferously disowned in his own country, by the very people he fought for. It was his appeal for religious tolerance and fighting for it through fasts that led to whatever harmony we have in this country. For me the belligerence of the Hinduthva forces will destroy the country not build it. It is indeed a great pity that today the Godses of the country are becoming heroes and the Gandhis (the Mahatma type and not Indira, Sonia, Rajiv, Sanjay, Rahul and Priyanka types) are becoming villains."
23 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I also feel very sad that a country that has claims to be democratic cannot express criticism about Gandhi and not be branded as communal, right wing fanatic, hindu fundamentalist..
I beg to differ about the religious tolerance bit as well. To me it looks more like telling Hindus to commit suicide ! Yes in a perverted way this can be construed as religious tolerance for sure.
As I have said before we need to move on as a country from Gandhi era/ politics/ philosophy ! It has created enough damage already..
Gandhi was a great social reformer and let us leave it as that !
I would still say he is the greets social reformer of this era and he did what was necessary to reform in Hindu society..
I would anyway say Vivekananda and Aurobindo are the greatest Indians of the last century and certainly en example worth emulating in nation building..
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Have you hear Swami's vivekananda's speech at Chicago.. I think there is a copy of it in youtube. If you have not, then you should. It gives me goose pimples when I listen to it ! This is supreme nationalism infused with spirituality. Is that the vision I get from Gandhi ? Gandhi taught me that I should accommodate all kinds of jokers , bend over backwards and appease "certain sections of society", give legitimacy to alien faiths at the cost of my life and in general give up warrior spirit..I'm sorry that doesn't appeal to me..
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Comments on your Chanakya observation: "I do not see a place for Chanakya in the present scheme of things. The reasons are straightforward, it is like saying Niccolo Machiavelli can solve the problems of present day Italy. Chanakya is about as spiritual as Osama Bin Laden and to complicate it all, despite the popular perception of who Chanakya was, historically there is very little to connect three names-Chanakya, Kautilya and Vishnu Gupta; all of whom are presumed to be one person but in reality may not be. The relevance of the Arthashastra is purely confined to its times, present day politics being far more different, complicated and bigger for the Arthashastra to be of any consequence. If you are referring to the fact that he created a "pragmatic" system of governance, even that will be beset by the same problems that I have referred to in the previous sentence. Cunning and astute political strategies are already leading the nation to its demise. You give it 50 years, I give it 10 if things continue like this."
22 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I'm actually shocked to see a comparison between Osama Bin Laden and Chanakya. Chanakya built an India nation unifying all the kingdoms and warded off external aggressions from the Greeks. and you are comparing him to an Islamic thug who wanted to emulate Mohammed and establish an Islamic caliphate by killing as many unbelievers as possible and in modern language called a terrorist. wow !
21 hours agoSuman Kalyan
When I say a Chankya is needed in India today ..I mean the following - Can someone unify and energize an entire nation that is so fragmented right now to make them work towards a common goal ? Can we get our act together and not be labeled as a soft state and be a strong deterrent to our enemies ? Can we get our internal house in order and fix all the fault lines in society ? All of these challenges were faced by Chanakya during his times as well. So the spirit of Chanakya is absolutely valid even in the current times. Of course a pragmatic system of governance will help for sure. Cunning and astute politics by itself is not a problem but has a potential to become one if it is not dharmic. For establishing dharma, if cunning methods and guile needs to be adopted, where is the problem with that ? Sanatana Dharma has again stated in clear terms - "Truth is that which establishes Dharma".
21 hours agoSuman Kalyan
As I previously stated spirituality is not about sitting in a cave and dreaming about the cosmos..It is right action, right dharma and how the "I" can be transcended. Chanakya put every ounce of effort that he had for raising the consciousness of an entire nation and in doing so transcended his self ! an example of how the highest level of selfless, desire less and ego less states can transform a nation. The impact was at the civilizational level. If this is not spirituality what is it ? It is supreme spirituality demonstrated in action and not in words or intellectual monologues. Infact the concept of nationalism is extremely important from a spiritual perspective since it gives a glorious opportunity to transcend "I" . Why do you think the nation has been described as Bharat mata ? Because it is worthy of devotion and one can realize self through dedication to motherland .
19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I have a few questions for you to ponder about . 1) Is Gandhi bigger than the nation ? 2) Manmohan singh's statement about muslims in India having the first right on resources - Do you smell gandhianism in this statement ? I do and I think if Gandhi were alive he would have made Manmohan singh his prime disciple and given him a medal for religious tolerance 3) Are endless arguments in our democratic nation helping our cause ? Again is democracy more important than the nation ? 4) Is fierce sense of nationalism, pride in one's country and the rich spiritual heritage communal ? 5) Is Gandhianism more important than the survival of a country ? Soon we will be in life support mode in India the way we are headed.6) How many people in India will proudly stand up and say they are Hindus and the followers of the eternal wisdom of Sanatana Dharma ? We still debate about fundamental issues like this in India more than 65 years after Independence going on endlessly about this..It is time to do whatever it takes to see India as a world power and have the political will and courage to take hard decisions ..There will always be some people who will be upset, but that cannot hijack a country's agenda !
19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Have you heard the national anthem of Israel ? You should if you have not and also read the translation.You will find it in youtube..It is soul stirring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjfFpFW9OdA
Hatikva-The National Anthem of Israelwww.youtube.com
Hatikva-The National Anthem of Israel
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19 hours agoSuman Kalyan
The point is Jews have a sense of history that is unparalleled in the world. They have been abused, spit on, genocide committed against them, still they have survived. Are there any lessons for India considering our short lived memory of our own history ?
17 hours agoSuman Kalyan
I will end this phase of debate with a note on religious tolerance. Gandhi's ideals on religious tolerance did not work even in his own lifetime. Why did the muslims want their own state ? and in the newly created state of Pakistan how tolerant were they towards their minorities ? or even how tolerant is Bangladesh towards its minorities ? Tolerance to me does not mean tolerance towards intolerant. Tolerance is for people who deserve tolerance. People who can live in peace and not create separatist movements. Not for people who will refuse to integrate with the nation, not for people who will eventually want to enslave other people one day. Tolerance for the intolerant is equivalent to suicide
14 hours agoSuman Kalyan
Satish I have an idea..Let's keep this debate going.. I leave it to you if you want to put it on your blog..But we can do something different..we will generate quite a lot of content in the process of debate. we can compile and publish this later as conversations between a secularist and a fundamentalist ! let me know..
14 hours agoSuman Kalyan
6 hours agoA. V. Satish Chandra
Suman,
I never said or implied that spiritualism is the establishment of a cosmic connection by going to Himalayas or sitting in a cave. I am fully aware that cosmologies are established by engaging oneself with the cosmos and not by dissociating oneself from it.
2. The overcoming of the "I" or tatvam asi is possible only through the correct understanding of dhyana and not the "populist meditation" ideas that are freely floating in society today. It also means that one has to go through all the phases of the varnashrama dharma and only then will it be possible to reach that stage of transcendence. Adi Shankara was supposed to have been given divine consent to move to sanyasa by passing grihastha ashrama and vanaprastha. To me that kind of spiritualism is something that only great practitioners of the ashrama dharma are capable of. Also one has to be careful in the definition of the "I". Do we talk about a collective self or do we talk about an individual self when we say I? I think the issue is firmly located in a philosophical problematique that throws up a full fountain of problems that cannot be explained away with one big sweep of the broom.
3. My comparison of the Chanakya to Osama was only to the extent of spiritualism in their thought or lack of it. Like I said no one even knows who Chanakya really is.
4. You talk about how tolerance is a weakness. I will quote Gandhi here. "An eye for an eye makes the world blind". I know that Gandhi had his weaknesses yet had his greatness as well.
about an hour agoSuman Kalyan
I would like to elaborate on "Tolerance" since I do not believe that I have articulated it well enough. One cannot and should not judge any actions like tolerance, violence, non violence, benevolence etc without a context and the context is clearly Dharma. India has always been tolerant of new thought processes, new faiths, new cultures and to give you some great examples - communities like jews, parsis (ancient persians) lived happily in India and integrated very well. We integrated muslims too after a massive genocide in India. From a dharma point of view one should always have tolerance for the weak, for the someone who means no harm and protect them. Now tolerance for all and sundry without understanding the dharma behind it, is surely not wise. Let's take the example of prophet Mohammed himself - What happened to all the jews and christians in middle east who were very tolerant about his ideologies ? In his own lifetime, he wiped out a large population of jews and christians in middle east. I have a lot of jewish friends - Try telling them about religious tolerance. They will tell you that they will not have a land to live in anymore. But they do have tremendous respect and tolerance for Hindus since they know India is the only country where they were not persecuted. The point I'm trying to make is we have to be judicious in whom to be tolerant towards. Indiscriminate tolerance is not only not dharma but also a sure way of inviting disaster.
40 minutes agoSuman Kalyan
Let also address why there needs to be discretion in tolerating muslim community in India. Of course what is happening on the ground is open appeasement and dishing out unwanted sops. As most of the muslim world keeps reminding us on a daily basis the condition of minorities in any Islamic country is huge cause for concern. There is a reason why there are no great examples of democracies in Islamic countries. An analysis of Quran explains it. It is a totalitarian political ideology expansionist in nature. It encourages the killing of unbelievers and is very clear about the political motives. It is extremely unfortunate that our great leaders like Gandhi et al either did not understand Islam or deliberately hid the truth. Islam has to be fought ideologically in India since peaceful co-existence with other faiths is not something that Islam understands at all. What is the way forward ? Can you wish away muslim population in India ? No. But surely we can take steps to safeguard the country from a situation where it can become a huge problem and threaten the very existence of the nation. The way out is to take on Islam on a ideological level and open it to rational enquiry. Appeasement is not the solution. Hiding the truth is not the solution..
4 minutes agoA. V. Satish Chandra
The answer to your question about Muslims lies within your question. Let us remember that India has had centuries of Islamic rule culminating in the Mughal Empire. If all that they wanted to do was to convert India into a Muslim land and tried to do so for centuries why has that not happened?. The reason is because Hinduism did not fight Islam with Crusades like Christianity did. You have talked about Jews fighting Muslims. Do the Jews live in peace anywhere in the world? Look at what America has done in the name of dissolving the Axis of Evil and antagonizing every Muslim in the world. Now nobody can live in peace, all because of intolerance. If the Jews want to be intolerant, so be it. That is no reason to convert India into an Israel. I think communal parties on both sides in India have raised the bogey of one dominating the other community. But the truth is a majority of Indians irrespective of their religions live peacefully enough. I do not subscribe to the RSS view that Islam has declared war on India. Such utterances in conjunction with religious bigotry will get the nation into trouble which does not exist now. Anyway you cannot hold Gandhi responsible for the policies of appeasement that the Congress follows. Like I have said, Gandhi believed that the Congress had to be disbanded immediately after attaining independence. The Congress today is only carrying the agenda of Sonia Gandhi and not even Indira-Rajiv-Sanjay Gandhi agenda. It long ago lost its connect with Nehru as well. So what it does today is the outcome of the filth and muck of what the country has today become due to unscrupulous goons and thugs running the country. To me it does not matter which party or person is in power and I do not elect anybody for the simple reason that I see no reason why I have to choose one lout over another. That is why I have been arguing through my blog for a deliberative democracy that supplements the weaknesses of electoral democracy. What we need today is a relook at democratic strategies in India since it is now obvious that the present system enables and empowers only thugs.
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