Friday, January 27, 2012

Church calling shots in politics

Members of downtrodden and defeated communities are condemned to end up fighting with each other while the victors are occupied deciding their fate. Vanquished communities are unable to take the initiative on their own behalf, which is the dismal fate of Hindus today. In fact their in-fighting highlights attempts by individuals within the retreating Hindu community to reach accommodation with the victors. Interfaith dialogue and associated clandestine engagement with the church and its surrogates represent treasonous adaptation, intended to obscure the reality of warfare and subjugation. But this egregious conduct is completely predictable in the aftermath of defeat and evidence of such behaviour universal.




In 1816, Nepal was defeated by a British army and the Nepalese ended up as mercenaries, mainly used against fellow Hindus in India. The hapless Sikhs were also reduced to the role of British mercenaries after suffering defeat at the hands of imperial forces, having descended into utter chaos after the death of the astute Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In recent decades, both these communities were unceremoniously discarded since they had apparently outlived their usefulness to Britain. But even now these victims of exploitation as mercenaries pine for a return of the humiliation of servitude and harbour keen hatreds against the communities they were misused by imperialist Britain to discipline.



The political and economic agenda of the conquered society is dictated by victors in the aftermath of defeat. The direct and indirect dimensions of control over the vanquished include holding sway over the prevalent intellectual climate and the country’s institutions. The nature of the interaction between the defeated and the conquerors is under their careful purview as well. Focus on questions that expose the crimes of the conqueror become illegitimate and innocuous issues like the similarity of their social and religious customs dominate public discourse and curtailing reflection on hard truths. Contemporary inculturation, sponsored with supreme deviousness by church conspirators, represents precisely such a disingenuous phenomenon. Indeed this form of insidious infiltration behind enemy lines is intended to disembowel the foe while caressing its navel in bed.



Almost without exception, collaborators are identified among the defeated to help superintend their own community on behalf of the victors. In the process, a spurious impression is created that the conquered enjoy honour, even autonomy. But these illusory privileges are rationed for the select few, who serve the interests of conquerors. The distinction is between the few house niggers, the collaborators, and field niggers, who toil pitilessly. This is the origin of the house nigger syndrome of India’s Rajas, the Zamindars, tasked to collect and deliver revenues and Indian administrators who served the Raj. In contemporary Europe and the US today, one always observes Indians eager to betray their own for paltry personal gratification.



This is why the on-going advocacy of engaging with Christian churches is quite unreal. In full flight before the Christian evangelist enemy that has entered deep inside their homeland and is waging outright warfare, some Hindus are nevertheless determinedly preoccupied with lethal distractions like inter-faith dialogue. And they are apparently also exercised about how to engage in civilised debate among themselves while their proverbial grandmother is being auctioned!



Christian nations, whom their national churches serve unfailingly as instruments of conquest and subjugation, have pretty much ended Hinduism in the critical Northeast of India, expunged by force of arms. And a war has been waged without pause since Independence, with well-armed Christian terrorists now threatening to expand into adjacent regions. Hindu worship is virtually impossible in these regions, which only nominally belong to the Indian Union. Christianised communities of the Northeast unambiguously proclaim their dislike of India because of its Hindu ethos.



The evangelical churches failed to install their preferred candidate as Prime Minister earlier, but executed India’s first veritable coup d’etat by neutering India’s Prime Minister and its Cabinet government through surrogates. India’s executive authority is now in the thrall of the mendacious National Advisory Council (NAC), with its scandalous composition of practised Hindu-baiters, able to dictate to the Prime Minister on any matter it chooses. The Communal Violence Bill is the product of diabolical machinations of evangelists to de-legitimise opposition to their conversion activities by denouncing it as Hindu aggression. The rationale being insinuated that its enactment will influence Hindu-Muslim antagonism is a deliberate ploy to divert attention from the essential purpose of allowing the church acquire carte blanche.

Evangelists in India today are intensifying their age-old war against polytheists to accelerate their primordial political goal of world domination. This is the reason why even repugnant Islamic Jihadis like of the former ISI chief, General Hameed Gul and Laskhar-e-Taiba leader, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed are preferable adversaries. They unapologetically declare to the whole world their intention to kill and enslave Hindus en masse, the connotation of their ambition to restore Muslim rule across the entire sub-continent.



In parts of southern India, churches are mushrooming on a startling scale before our very eyes and the dominant political parties of Tamil Nadu are in essence instruments of Christian domination, incited to annihilate all that is sacred to Hindus. And Hindus, ignorant and self-seeking as ever, do not know that, historically, the Church regarded the establishment of bishoprics, in the shape of a physical church, as the political and military boundary of territory under the control of the ruler sponsoring them. Assiduous attempts are being made by the church to repeat the success of Christianising Nagaland and Mizoram and turning tribal communities across India against the Indian Union. New church buildings are designed to overawe local inhabitants by crude display of a political footprint and economic allurement in order to attract converts.



In Nepal, the church was able to use the contrivance of a Christian Maoist leadership to overthrow a decadent monarchy and greedy court elite easily, by exploiting widespread socio-economic unrest in the country. Of course India allowed itself to be manoeuvred into playing the role of midwife because India’s rulers are at best oblivious to all things Hindu and unwilling to recognise that a non-Hindu India will be a foreign country. This is the embittered legacy left by Jawaharlal Nehru and his patron, Mahatma Gandhi, who managed to wound Hinduism more than any invading iconoclast.



Contemporary India is ruled by a Catholic dynasty, which is facilitating the final assault against Hinduism. They are the rulers of choice of Western imperialists, led by the US, who perceive a consummate opportunity to change the religious demography of India permanently in favour of Christianity. And these American churches are nothing but neo fascist plunderers. An alarmingly large number of Christians, disproportionate in relation to their overall numbers in India, have been implanted by the dynasty, alongside fresh converts, careful to obscure their newly-established Christian identity and political loyalties, to destroy all vestiges of Hindu India.

Of course India’s secular elites, who have joined the genocidal campaign against Hinduism, are streetwalkers and possess no Hindu identity whatsoever and are merely available for deployment as shock troops of the ruling dynasty. This is the most shocking fifth column anywhere in the world, with endless permutations of assumed fidelities, from illiterate communist sympathies to supposed liberal sentiments, but all united as foes of Hinduism on behalf of Western imperialism and its chosen Catholic family.



The irony is that pre-eminent Christian nations are currently embarked on renewed imperial crusades in the Middle East and have already laid waste Iraq and Libya. During the earlier repudiation of Algeria’s national elections, Western intelligence agencies, led by the French secret service, pacified the country by instigating the killing of anything up to 500,000 civilians and cynically blamed it on militant Islam. In the case of India, the church is one of the crucial vehicles being used to destabilise it because the country is too complex to seize politically in one fell swoop, compared to a country like Egypt, or invade militarily.



What is occurring is an escalating seizure of key institutions in India although control of elite schools and institutions of higher learning was facilitated by a deracine Nehru, allergic to any manifestation of Hinduism. The English language media and its owners have already been subverted because they belong to a handful of business families, with whom foreign intelligence agencies established ties without difficulty. Individual journalists are routinely purchased and mostly emanate from Anglicised educational establishments that socialise them to espouse disdain for their national culture and the faith of their ancestors.



Yet supposedly intelligent Hindu religious leaders and activists are hell-bent on inter-faith dialogue while total war is being waged to erase Hinduism and cognate religions. Do Hindus not understand that proselytising is completely irreconcilable with inter-faith dialogue? Unabated no Hindus will be left to conduct dialogue with unless the duplicitous church is generously offering to end religious conversion when only a few Hindus remain to display as curiosities? It is equally perplexing that the Catholic Church in particular is considered a worthy partner for dialogue despite its deep animus against Hindu and violation of all decencies when any self-serving opportunity can be found. The disgraceful use of state subsidies for pilgrimages to Jerusalem is but one example.



This is the same church that today stands exposed as the biggest paedophile organisation in world history, also responsible for criminal mistreatment of children of unwed mothers, even while its criminal clergy was busy assaulting tens of thousands of children sexually. The monstrous treatment of babies forcibly removed by the church authorities from mothers and their subsequent fate shocks even the most hard-hearted. Catholic orphanages were truly a taste of the hell with which priests terrorised their congregations. They were finally deserted even by their unquestioning defenders, with the traditionally devout Irish people turning against them to support their government’s decision to break diplomatic ties with the Vatican. And some Hindus still look for crumbs from this Vatican table of gross iniquity, by seeking dialogue with them, which would be akin to Jews honouring unreconstructed Nazis.



Rahul Gandhi is the candidate of the Vatican and other sectarian church denominations to become Prime Minister of India. They look to him as their protector while the final assault against the Hindu citadel advances. In a parallel development, the Chinese, lacking any traditional source of cultural and spiritual sustenance of their own, are succumbing at remarkable pace to Christian evangelical allurements by converting, much like South Korea earlier.



Hindus are the sole remaining repository of an alternative world-view, which eschews the default urge for political and military domination that European peoples and their churches, embodying exactly such an impulse, seek to destroy. Only those who would sup with evil incarnate can wish to engage in dialogue with the Vatican or other evangelical church fraternities, all vultures readying to feast on the Hindu carcass.



Reangs: Victims of religious persecution in Mizoram

By Ram Madhav




They are popularly known in the North-East as Reangs. They are the non-Christian tribe, whose original name is Bru. They inhabited the southern parts of the Christian dominated State of Mizoram. Being non-Christian in a Christian State had its price. Repeatedly subjected to persecution at the hands of the Mizo population as well as the political dispensation. The Reangs—or the Bru people—were finally hounded out of the State during prolonged communal strife in 1997.



It is 14 years since they had become refugees in their own land. Escaping from the marauders thousands of Reangs—men, women and children—fled into the neighbouring State of Tripura. For the last 14 years they have been living there in 7 different relief camps. A total population of nearly 35,000 these Reang refugees today lead a pathetic life. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are supposed to be the responsibility of the Union Government. However the Government at the Center is too busy placating the gun-weilding terror groups in the North-East and it has no time for these hapless Reang refugees.



The Tripura State Government tries to do its little but that is grossly insufficient for the thousands of Reangs. They live in most inhospitable mountainous region in the North Tripura district along the Mizoram border. There is no water or electricity facility. Thousands of thatched huts dot hill after the hill in the region. Obviously there are no schools or hospitals. For living they depend mostly on the forests in the region. Able men and women venture into the forests and fetch firewood or teak and sell it in the nearby town to make some earning. But that too is not possible during mansoon months and in any case very few among the refugees can endure such physical labour under such bad conditions. The ration that they get is shockingly low—Rs. 5 per day and 450 gms of rice per day for elders and half of it for the children. How on earth can anyone survive with Rs. 5 a day?



A total of around 35,000 people survive on that meagre ration in these inhospitable jungles today. There are seven camps in total. Details of the refugee population in the camps are as follows:



Camp Families Persons



1. Nayasinha Pada 3,052 17,668

2. Asha Pada 982 5,000

3. Hazachera 770 3,000

4. Kaisaka Pada 599 3,800

5. Khakchang Pada 208 1,300

6. Hansa Pada 312 1,925

7. Naisau Pada 231 1,500 



The travails of these Reangs began the day they demanded a separate Autonomous District Council for them in Mizoram. Sometime in the middle of 1997 organisations like the Young Bru Association (YBA) and Bru Social Cultural Organisation (BSCO) started talking about this Council. No sooner had this demand reached Mizo organisations the retaliation began. Groups like Young Mizo Association (YMA) and Mizo Zyalai Powl (MZP), a local Christian Mizo group, started threatening the Bru people to withdraw the demand for autonomous council.



Thereafter began the assault on the hapless minority Reangs. Their houses were attacked and ransacked, burnt down, looted, cattle were killed, elders were harassed, women folk abused and all this happened in front of the Government which chose to turn a blind eye. It is a known fact that several such autonomous councils exist in the states of the North-East for various tribes. In that sense there was nothing unconstitutional about the demand of the Reangs. In fact there was a reason behind Reangs making this demand. For a long time they had been facing acute hardships at the hands of the majority Mizos in the areas where they traditionally lived. This discrimination reached its crescendo when the lists containing the names of the Bru people as voters had been mysteriously burnt down in a fire accident. In the subsequent re-enumeration names of hundreds of Bru people were deliberately omitted. This forced the Bru leaders to go in for the demand of autonomous council in order to protect and preserve their identity.



Yet they had to face the brunt of the Mizo people and run away into the neighbouring State of Tripura seeking refuge. For the last 14 years they have been living in the jungles of the Kanchanpur sub-division of Tripura north district. Tripura Government under Shri Manik Sarkar does extend a lot of support to these refugees. In June this year a devastating fire had destroyed the thatched huts of these refugees in the densely populated Nayasinh Pada refugee camp 24 Reangs lost their lives while thousands became home and hearthless. The Tripura State Government immediately arranged for relief and rehabilitation. District Collector Ms Soumya Gupta camped in the forest for ten full days to ensure that the refugees are properly rehabilitated. When I visited the camp in August this years the refugees were full of gratitude for the Government and especially the District Collector.



What struck me the most was that in the meager rations that they receive. The Reangs have saved enough money collectively to build two temple—one for Bhagwan Shiva and the other for Bhagwan Ram. They were building those temples through their own contributions and voluntary labour. The District Administration is arranging for schools, water, rough roads etc.



However the central issue of their repatriation remains unanswered. The Central Government shows least interest in the plight of these refugees. Various international agencies too visit them from time to time but do little. For example representatives of the European Union visited the camps after the fire disaster. Many promises ensued. But nothing ever reached them. Their leaders understand that they shouldn’t expect anything from these international bodies as they are non-Christians and their tormentors are Mizos. Whatever help they get is from the Tripura State administration and organisations like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram only. Even after the recent fire accident also the Kalyan Ashram has arranged for substantial relief material to help the victims.



Apathy of the Central Government and reticence of the Mizoram Government make solution to the problem of the Reangs difficult. Last year the Mizoram Government succeeded in dividing the Reang leadership and buy over a section of the leaders. It came up with an oral repatriation plan according to which the people who return to Mizoram would be provided Rs. 80,000. Representatives of the Central Government force the refugees to accept the offer and return to Mizoram.



However the Reang leadership is genuinely concerned about this offer. Firstly it is just an oral offer. Secondly except the meagre sum of Rs. 80,000 the Mizoram Government is not giving any other assurance to these people. For example they want to go back to the constituencies and districts where they can create enough numerical strength to ensure their own safety. But the Government refuses to allow them to change their native district or constituency. The Reangs know nothing exists in their native villages for them. They had to flee those villages precisely because they lacked any support. Now they are being forced to go back to the same places. The Government is not even assuring return of their old property. That means they have to go back and work as labour in the very fields, which perhaps they owned some 20 years ago.



The Reang leaders want a proper repatriation and resettlement plan. It should be properly written and documented. Talks for drafting this plan should be held in a free and fair manner. So far the tripartite talks between the Mizoram Government, Central Government and the Reang leaders used to take place in Aizwal only. In an intimidating atmosphere in Aizwal the Reangs fear that they can’t get justice. The talks should take place in Agartala or Guwahati so that there can be free and frank discussion.



The political rights of the Reangs need to be safeguarded in any such agreement failing which the entire community would loose its identity. Failure of the governments for years in finding a solution to their pathetic plight led to some Bru youngsters turning to the gun. They had a brush with terrorism through Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), which made matters worse. While those who opted for the gun had been won over by the Mizoram Government through various offers and an MoU, while those who wanted a peaceful and democratic settlement faced the brunt of it by way of sidelining of the real problem that the refugees face.



The Reangs are another case of religious persecution after the Kashmiri Pandits. Both have been persecuted for being a religious minority in their respective states. But there is a major difference. The world knows about the plight of the Pandits. They have some rights in their State in which the majority of them live. Although refugees for almost same period the Reangs have not been successful in selling their story to the outside world. Hence they suffer.... mostly silently in a remote corner of our country.



(The writer is National Executive Member of Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh).

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Buddha and His Predecessors

1. The Buddha and the Vedic Rishis




1. The Vedas are a collection of Mantras, i.e., hymns or chants. The reciters of these hymns are called Rishis.

2. The Mantras are mere invocations to deities such as Indra, Varuna, Agni, Soma, Isana, Prajapati, Bramba, Mahiddhi, Yama and others.

3. The invocations are mere prayers for help against enemies, for gift of wealth, for accepting the offerings of food, flesh and wine from the devotee.

4. There is not much philosophy in the Vedas. But there were some Vedic sages who had entered into speculations of a philosophical nature.

5. These Vedic sages were: (1) Aghamarsana; (2) Prajapati Parmesthin; (3) Brahmanaspati, otherwise known as Brihaspati; (4) Anila; (5) Dirghatamas; (6) Narayan; (7) Hiranyagarbha; and (8) Visvakarman.

6. The main problems of these Vedic philosophers were: How did the world originate? In what manner were individual things created? Why have they their unity and existence? Who created, and who ordained? From what did the world spring up, and to what again will it return ?

7. Aghamarsana said that the world was created out of Tapas (heat). Tapas was the creative principle from which eternal law and truth were born. From these were produced the night (tamas). Tamas produced water, and from water originated time. Time gave birth to the sun and the moon, the heaven and the earth, the firmament and light, and ordained the days and nights.

8. Brahmanaspati postulated the genesis of being from non-being. By the term non-existence, he denoted apparently the infinite. The existent originally sprang up from the non-existent. The non-existent (asat, nonens) was the permanent foundation of all that is existent (sat, ens) and of all that is possible and yet non-existent (asat).

9. Prajapati Parmesthin started with the problem: "Did being come out of non-being?" His view was that this was an irrelevant question. For him water was the original substance of that which exists. For him the original matter--water--came neither under the definition of being nor under that of non-being.

10. Paramesthin did not draw any distinction between matter and motive power. According to him, water transformed itself into particular things by some inherent principle to which he gave the name Kama, Cosmic Desire.

11. Anila was another Vedic Philosopher. To him the principal element was air (vayu). It possesses the inherent capacity for movement. It is endowed with the generating principle.

12. Dirghtamas maintained that all living beings rest and depend ultimately on the sun. The sun, held up and propelled by its inherent force, went backward and forward.

13. The sun is composed of a grey-coloured substance, and so are lightning and fire.

14. The sun, lightning, and fire formed the germ of water. Water forms the germ of plants. Such were the views of Dirghatamas.

15. According to Narayana, Purusha (God) is the first cause of the universe. It is from Purusha that the sun, the moon, the earth, water, fire, air, mid-air, the sky, the regions, the seasons, the creatures of the air, all animals, all classes of men, and all human institutions, had originated.

16. Hiranyagarbha. From [a] doctrinal point of view he stood midway between Parmeshthin and Narayan. Hiranyagarbha means the golden germ. It was the great power of the universe, from which all other powers and existences, divine and earthly, were derived.

17. Hiranyagarbha means [=refers to] fire. It is fire that constituted the solar essence, the generating principle of the universe.

18. From the point of view of Vishvakarman, it was quite inadequate and unsatisfactory to hold that water was the primitive substance of all that is, and then to derive from it this world as a whole by giving it an inherent power of movement. If water be the primitive substance which is endowed with the inherent principle of change, we have yet to account for that from which water derived its being, and derived the motive power, the generating principle, the elemental forces, the laws and all the rest.

19. Vishvakarman held the view that it was God which was the motive power. God is first and God is last. He is earlier than the visible universe; he had existed before all cosmic forces came into being. He is the sole God who created and ordained this universe. God is one, and the only one. He is the unborn one (aja) in whom all the existing things abide. He is the one who is mighty in mind and supreme in power. He is the maker--the disposer. As father he generated us, and as disposer he knows the fate of all that is.

20. The Buddha did not regard all the Vedic Sages as worthy of reverence. He regarded just ten Vedic Rishis as the most ancient, and as the real authors of the Mantras.

21. But in the Mantras he saw nothing that was morally elevating.

22. In his view the Vedas were as worthless as a desert.

23. The Buddha, therefore, discarded the Mantras as a source from which to learn or to borrow.

24. Similarly, the Buddha did not find anything in the philosophy of the Vedic Rishis. They were groping to reach the truth. But they had not reached it.

25. Their theories were mere speculations, not based on logic nor on facts. Their contributions to philosophy created no social values.

26. He therefore rejected the philosophy of the Vedic Rishis as useless.





2. Kapila— The Philosopher



1. Among the ancient philosophers of India, the most pre-eminent was Kapila.

2. His philosophical approach was unique, and as philosopher he stood in a class by himself. His philosophy was known as the Sankhya Philosophy.

3. The tenets of his philosophy were of a startling nature.

4. Truth must be supported by proof. This is the first tenet of the Sankhya system. There is no truth without proof.

5. For purposes of proving the truth, Kapila allowed only two means of proof--(1) perception, and (2) inference.

6. By perception is meant mental apprehension of a present object.

7. Inference is threefold: (1) from cause to effect, as from the presence of clouds to rain; (2) from effect to cause, as from the swelling of the streams in the valleys to rain in the hills; and (3) by analogy, as when we infer from the fact that a man alters his place when he moves that the stars must also move, since they appear in different places.

8. His next tenet related to causality--creation and its cause.

9. Kapila denied the theory that there was a being who created the universe. In his view a created thing really exists beforehand in its cause, just as the clay serves to form a pot, or the threads go to form a piece of cloth.

10. This is the first ground on which Kapila rejected the theory that the universe was created by a being.

11. But there are other grounds which he advanced in support of his point of view.

12. The non-existent cannot be the subject of an activity; there is no new creation. The product is really nothing else than the material of which it is composed: the product exists before its coming into being ,in the shape of its material of which it is composed. Only a definite product can be produced from such material; and only a specific material can yield a specific result.

13. What then is the source of the empirical universe?

14. Kapila said the empirical universe consists of things evolved (Vyakta) and things that are not evolved (Avyakta).

15. Individual things (Vyakta Vastu) cannot be the source of unevolved things (Avyakta Vastu).

16. Individual things are all limited in magnitude, and this is incompatible with the nature of the source of the universe.

17. All individual things are analogous one to another, and therefore no one [of them] can be regarded as the final source of the other. Moreover, as they all come into being from a source, they cannot constitute that source.

18. Further, argued Kapila, an effect must differ from its cause, though it must consist of the cause. That being so, the universe cannot itself be the final cause. It must be the product of some ultimate cause.

19. When asked why the unevolved cannot be perceived, why does it not show movement which would make it perceivable, Kapila replied:

20. "It may be due to various causes. It may be that its fine nature makes, it imperceptible, just as other things of whose existence there is no doubt, cannot be perceived; or because of their too great a distance or proximity; or through the intervention of a third object; or through admixture with similar matter; or through the presence of some more powerful sensation; or the blindness or other defect of the senses or the mind of the observer."

21. When asked, "What then is the source of the universe? What makes the difference between the evolved and unevolved part of the universe?

22. Kapila's reply was: "Things that have evolved have a cause, and the things that have not evolved have also a cause. But the source of both is uncaused and independent.

23. "The things that have evolved are many in number, and limited in space and name. The source is one, eternal and all-pervasive. The things evolved have activities and parts; the source is imminent in all, but has neither activities nor parts."

24. Kapila argued that the process of development of the unevolved is through the activities of three constituents of which it is made up, Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. These are called three Gunas.

25. The first of the constituents, or factors, corresponds to what we call as light in nature, which reveals, which causes pleasure to men; the second is that [=what] impels and moves, what produces activity; the third is what is heavy and puts under restraint, what produces the state of indifference or inactivity.

26. The three constituents act essentially in close relation; they overpower and support one another, and intermingle with one another. They are like the constituents of a lamp, the flame, the oil, and wick.

27. When the three Gunas are in perfect balance, none overpowering the other, the universe appears static (Achetan) and ceases to evolve.

28. When the three Gunas are not in balance, one overpowers the other, the universe becomes dynamic (sachetan), and evolution begins.

29. Asked why the Gunas become unbalanced, the answer which Kapila gave was [that] this disturbance in the balance of the three Gunas was due to the presence of Dukha (suffering).

30. Such were the tenets of Kapila's philosophy.

31. Of all the philosophers, the Buddha was greatly impressed by the doctrines of Kapila.

32. He was the only philosopher whose teachings appeared to the Buddha to be based on logic and facts.

33. But he did not accept everything which Kapila taught. Only three things did the Buddha accept from Kapila.

34. He accepted that reality must rest on proof. Thinking must be based on rationalism.

35. He accepted that there was no logical or factual basis for the presumption that God exists or that he created the universe.

36. He accepted that there was Dukha (suffering) in the world.

37. The rest of Kapila's teachings he just bypassed as being irrelevant for his purpose.





 3. The Bramhanas



1. Next to the Vedas are the religious books known as the Bramhanas. Both were held as sacred books. Indeed the Bramhanas are a part of the Vedas. The two went together and were called by a common name, Sruti.

2. There were four theses on which the Bramhanic Philosophy rested.

3. The first thesis was that the Vedas are not only sacred, but that they are infallible, and they are not to be questioned.

4. The second thesis of the Bramhanic Philosophy was that salvation of the soul--that is escape from transmigration--can be had only by the due performance of Vedic sacrifices, and observances of religious rites and ceremonies, and the offering of gifts to Brahmins.

5. The Brahmins had not only a theory of an ideal religion as contained in the Vedas, but they also had a theory for an ideal society.

6. The pattern of this ideal society they named Chaturvarna. It is imbedded in the Vedas, and as the Vedas are infallible, and as their authority cannot be questioned, so also Chaturvarna as a pattern of society was binding and unquestionable.

7. This pattern of society was based upon certain rules.

8. The first rule was that society should be divided into four classes: (1) Brahmins; (2) Kshatriyas; (3) Vaishyas; and (4) Shudras.

9. The second rule was that there cannot be social equality among these four classes. They must be bound together by the rule of graded inequality.

10. The Brahmins to be at the top, the Kshatriyas to be kept below the Brahmins but above the Vaishyas, the Vaishyas to be below the Kshatriyas but above the Shudras, and the Shudras to be the lowest of all.

11. These four classes were not to be equal to one another in the matter of rights and privileges. The rule of graded inequality governed the question of rights and privileges.

12. The Brahmin had all the rights and privileges which he wished to claim. But a Kshatriya could not claim the rights and privileges which a Brahmin could. He had more rights and privileges than a Vaishya could claim. The Vaishya had more rights and privileges than a Shudra. But he could not claim the rights and privileges which a Kshatriya could. And the Shudra was not entitled to any right, much less any privilege. His privilege was to subsist without offending the three superior classes.

13. The third rule of Chaturvarna related to the division of occupations. The occupation of the Brahmin was learning and teaching and the performance of religious observances. The occupations of the Kshatriya was fighting. Trade was assigned to the Vaishyas. The occupations of the Shudras was service of the three superior classes. These occupations assigned to different classes were exclusive. One class could not trespass upon the occupation of the other.

14. The fourth rule of Chaturvarna related to the right to education. The pattern of Chaturvarna gave the right to education to the first three classes, the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. The Shudras were denied the right to education. This rule of Chaturvarna did not deny the right to education to the Shudras only. It denied the right to education to all women, including those belonging to the class of Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.

15. There was a fifth rule. According to it, man's life was divided into four stages. The first stage was called Bramhacharya; the second stage was called Grahastashram; the third stage was called Vanaprasta and the fourth stage was called Sannyasa.

16. The object of the first stage was study and education. The object of the second stage was to live a married life. The object of the third stage was to familiarise a man with the life of a hermit, i.e., severing family ties, but without deserting his home. The object of the fourth stage was to enable a man to go in search of God and seek union with him.

17. The benefits of these stages were open only to the male members of the three superior classes. The first stage was not open to the Shudras and women. Equally the last stage was not open to the Shudras and women.

18. Such was the divine pattern of an ideal society called Chaturvarna. The Brahmins had idealised the rule and had realised the ideal without leaving any cracks or loopholes.

19. The fourth thesis of Brahmanic Philosophy was the doctrine of Karma. It was part of the thesis of transmigration of the soul. The Karma of the Brahmins was an answer to the question, "Where did the soul land on transmigration with his new body on new birth?" The answer of the Brahmanic Philosophy was that it depended on a man's deeds in his past life. In other words, it depended on his Karma.

20. The Buddha was strongly opposed to the first tenet of Brahmanism. He repudiated their thesis that the Vedas are infallible and their authority could never be questioned.

21. In his opinion, nothing was infallible and nothing could be final. Everything must be open to re-examination and reconsideration, whenever grounds for re-examination and reconsideration arise.

22. Man must know the truth--and real truth. To him freedom of thought was the most essential thing. And he was sure that freedom of thought was the only way to the discovery of truth.

23. Infallibility of the Vedas meant complete denial of freedom of thought.

24. For these reasons this thesis of the Brahmanic Philosophy was most obnoxious to him.

25. He was equally an opponent of the second thesis of the Brahmanic Philosophy. The Buddha did admit that there was any [=some] virtue in a sacrifice. But he made a distinction between true sacrifice and false sacrifice.

26. Sacrifice in the sense of self-denial for the good of others, he called true sacrifice. Sacrifice in the sense of killing an animal as an offering to God for personal benefit, he regarded as a false sacrifice.

27. The Brahmanic sacrifices were mostly sacrifices of animals to please their gods. He condemned them as false sacrifices. He would not allow them, even though they be performed with the object of getting salvation for the soul.

28. The opponents of sacrifices used to ridicule the Brahmins by saying, "If one can go to heaven by sacrificing an animal, why should not one sacrifice one's own father? That would be a quicker way of going to heaven."

29. The Buddha wholeheartedly agreed with this view.

30. The theory of Chaturvarna was as repugnant to the Buddha as the theory of sacrifices was repulsive to him.

31. The organization of society set up by Brahmanism in the name of Chaturvarna did not appear to him a natural organization. Its class composition was compulsory and arbitrary. It was a society made to order. He preferred an open society and a free society.

32. The Chaturvarna of the Brahmins was a fixed order never to be changed. Once a Brahmin always a Brahmin. Once a Kshatriya always a Kshatriya, once a Vaishya always a Vaishya, and once a Shudra always a Shudra. Society was based on status conferred upon an individual by the accident of his birth. Vice, however heinous, was no ground for degrading a man from his status, and virtue, however great, had no value [=ability] to raise him above it. There was no room for worth, nor for growth.

33. Inequality exists in every society. But it was different with Brahmanism. The inequality preached by Brahmins was its official doctrine. It was not a mere growth. Brahmanism did not believe in equality. In fact, it was opposed to equality.

34. Brahmanism was not content with inequality. The soul of Brahmanism lay in graded inequality.

35. Far from producing harmony, graded inequality, the Buddha thought, might produce in society an ascending scale of hatred and a descending scale of contempt, and might be a source of perpetual conflict.

36. The occupations of the four classes were also fixed. There was no freedom of choice. Besides, they were fixed not in accordance with skill, but in accordance with birth.

37. On a careful review of the rules of Chaturvarna, the Buddha had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the philosophic foundations on which the social order was reared by Brahmanism were wrong if not selfish.

38. It was clear to him that it did not serve the interests of all, much less did it advance the welfare of all. Indeed, it was deliberately designed to make [the] many serve the interests of the few. In it man was made to serve a class of self-styled supermen.

39. It was calculated to suppress and exploit the weak, and to keep them in a state of complete subjugation.

40. The law of Karma as formulated by the Brahmins, thought the Buddha, was calculated to sap the spirit of revolt completely. No one was responsible for the suffering of man except he himself. Revolt could not alter the state of suffering ; for suffering was fixed by his past Karma as his lot in this life.

41. The Shudras and women--the two classes whose humanity was most mutilated by Brahmanism--had no power to rebel against the system.

42. They were denied the right to knowledge, with the result that by reason of their enforced ignorance they could not realize what had made their condition so degraded. They could not know that Brahmanism had robbed them completely of the significance of their life. Instead of rebelling against Brahmanism, they had become the devotees and upholders of Brahmanism.

43. The right to bear arms is the ultimate means of achieving freedom which a human being has. But the Shudras were denied the right to bear arms.

44. Under Brahmanism the Shudras were left as helpless victims of a conspiracy of selfish Brahmanism, powerful and deadly Kshatriyas, and wealthy Vaishyas.

45. Could it be amended? Knowing that it was a divinely ordained social order, he knew that it could not be. It could only be ended.

46. For these reasons the Buddha rejected Brahmanism as being opposed to the true way of life.





4. The Upanishads and Their Teachings



1. The Upanishads constituted another piece of literature. It is not part of the Vedas. It is uncanonical.

2. All the same, they did form a part of religious literature.

3. The number of the Upanishads is quite large. Some important, some quite unimportant.

4. Some of them were ranged against the Vedic theologians, the Brahmin priests.

5. All of them agreed in viewing Vedic study as a study of nescience or ignorance (avidya).

6. They were all agreed in their estimate of the four Vedas and the Vedic science as the lower knowledge.

7. They were all agreed in questioning the divine origin of the Vedas.

8. They were all agreed in denying the efficacy attributed to sacrifices, to the funeral oblations, and the gifts to the priests which are the fundamentals of the Brahmanic philosophy.

9. This, however, was not the main topic with which the Upanishads were concerned. Their discussions centred round Brahman and Atman.

10. Brahman was the all-pervading principle which binds the universe, and [they maintained] that salvation lay in the Atman realizing that it is Brahman.

11. The main thesis of the Upanishads was that Brahmana was a reality and that Atmana was the same as Brahmana. The Atmana did not realize that it was Brahmana because of the Upadhis in which it was entangled.

12. The question was, Is Brahmana a reality? The acceptance of the Upanishadic thesis depended upon the answer to this question.

13. The Buddha could find no proof in support of the thesis that Brahmana was a reality. He, therefore, rejected the thesis of the Upanishads.

14. It is not that questions on this issue were not put to the authors of the Upanishads. They were.

15. Such questions were put to no less a person than Yajnavalkya, a great seer who plays so important a part in the Brahadarnyka Upanishad.

16. He was asked, "What is Brahmana? What is Atmana " All that Yajnavalkya could say, "Neti! Neti! I know not! I know not! "

17. "How can anything be a reality about which no one knows anything?" asked the Buddha. He had, therefore, no difficulty in rejecting the Upanishadic thesis as being based on pure imagination.



Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Life worse than death for Hindus in Pakistan-III


Traumatised faces glow after some help from NGOs

The Government of India might have shown reluctance to grant asylum to the agonised Pakistani Hindus living in refugee camps at Majnu Ka Tilla and Bijwasan in Delhi for the last three months, the local Hindus wholeheartedly came forward to help them. Soon after the news of their plight spread, a number of voluntary organisations, lawyers and social activists stepped in to arrange for food, sanitation and even education for them. Noted spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Guruji also met them and assured every possible help.


After decades long persecution in Pakistan these traumatised Hindus had entered India in September 2011 with no plans to go back. Though their visa has expired on October 6, 2011, they are adamant not to return. Some human rights activists also have come to their rescue. “We have moved applications for long-term visa and subsequently the Indian citizenship. They need to be granted the status of refugees immediately so that they can earn livelihood, as under visa extension nobody is allowed to work. In such cases for applying Indian citizenship it is mandatory to stay here for at least 7 years,” said senior advocate and general secretary of Human Rights Defense (India) Shri Rajesh Gogna. He pointed out that over 5000 Pakistani Hindus, presently staying in Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana and Delhi, are waiting for asylum and Indian citizenship.


“It is purely a matter of human rights and not the religious one. Protecting the Hindus living in any part of the world is the duty of Government of India. Israel had enacted a law during the forties allowing the Jews living in any part of the world to settle in Israel at any stage of life, provided one is not involved in any criminal activity. There should be a similar law for Hindus in India. If we can offer red carpet to Bangladeshi infiltrators why can’t we do it for the Pakistani Hindus who are the sufferers,” asked Shri Gopal Agrawal, vice president of the HRDI.


The refugees are overwhelmed with the support they are receiving in India. “We are surviving only because of the help from generous people here. We have food and shelter and our children too are studying. Now we need help from the Government,” said Rukma Devi (70), one of the refugees. The refugees are keen to educate their children. There are daily classes in the camps. Not only the children, but the elders are also learning Hindi and mathematics.

Many people as well as organisations including the Akshardham Temple Trust, Bharat Swabhiman Trust of Swami Ramdev, Art of Living of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Ghaziabad-based Shiv Shakti Trust of Devi Maa, Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, Arya Samaj, Sewa Bharati, VHP, etc. have provided generous help. The HRDI had adopted them in the very beginning and is fighting for their cause. Recently, a delegation of the refugees met senior BJP leader Shri LK Advani who assured every possible help. They are also planning to meet the leaders of other political parties. “Our overall objective is to ensure protection and safety of the 30 lakh Hindus presently living in Pakistan. The Government of India must take concrete steps for their safety,” added Shri Gogna.

Delhi High Court stays refugee deportation


The interim relief granted by Delhi High Court on December 21 has generated a hope for the refugees. The Court directed the Centre not to deport them till it decides the matter. Taking note of a PIL seeking grant of asylum or Indian citizenship to these Pakistan nationals, the High Court sought the response from the Centre by February 29. “Let notices be issued to the Union Home Ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs for response by February 29,” said a bench of acting Chief Justice AK Sikri and Rajiv Sahai Endlaw.



The PIL was filed by Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha leader Rakesh Ranjan. “The Constitution of Pakistan is based on religious preferences and the Hindus have remained denied of any civil, political or fundamental rights there. The forcible deportation of these people will not only be against the centuries old cultural heritage of India but also against Article 21 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees fundamental right to life and liberty to every person residing within the boundaries of India,” he said in the petition.

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Dera Dhuni Baba volunteer Naveen Jain, who has been looking after their needs since the very first day, observes that the women and girls have blossomed in this short stay in India. “When they had arrived two months ago, they used to cover behind black chadors; the volunteers literally tore these ‘masks’ off and told them to live and breathe freely. They have adapted beautifully,” he said adding that those who were habitual of saying Qasam Khuda Ki and some other similar words with every dialogue, now greet everyone with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ or ‘Namaskar’. “Earlier these women were very frightened. But now they freely serve the Ashram and also offer puja daily. Now they also look healthy,” he said.



The women also feel a change. “Now we can freely wear mangalsutra and use bindi, which was a distant dream in Pakistan. The greatest thing which makes us secure is that everybody around us seems our own, therefore no question of fear,” said Geeta (23). These refugees do not want to become a burden on the local people. They want the government to allow them to work, as majority of them are skilled labourers and are able to earn their livelihood. “Dozens of us are trained drivers, electricians, motor mechanics, etc. and the rest can work as agricultural labourers,” said Sagar Rai.