RAISE THE SHUDRA, LOWER NOT THE BRAAHMAN ... UNFINISHED AND EXPANDING
The neglect of martial power has been the bane of our country. The kshatriya spirit must be revived and so must be resurrected the brahmanical characteristics of the race, never in tyrannical terms but in terms elevated and enlightening.
The uplift of the masses ought not to be at the expense of our spiritual heritage. Culture must be preserved even as hundreds of millions of the dispossessed are lifted out of poverty and provided with decent means of livelihood. A degradation of culture in the attempt to lift the masses out of degradation itself is a self-defeating venture that will have catastrophic cultural consequences in the long run.
The Dalits are Hindus and must not be subverted from their svadharma by proselytising cults. The modern mischievous attempt to preach unto them that they are not Hindus but are a people apart from the mainstream of Hinduism must be countered effectively. The fact that they have been historically deprived of many basic human rights for ages does not detract from the fact they are part and parcel of Hindu society, nonetheless. Their grievances are to be met, their rights restored and they are to be integrated in the vast body of mainstream Hinduism. In it lies the well-being of Hinduism and the solidarity of the Hindu race. Governmental reservation policy for the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes and the Other Backward Communities is geared to this end, and it is good that it should be so despite the difficulties such arbitrary reservation imposes on better qualified individuals outside of these categories. It is but historical justice now being dispensed towards the deprived classes at long last, although, the measure ought to be time-bound till they are on their feet once and for all.
Overall, the decadence that we see in the world is affecting India as well. It is a global trend, this lowering of culture with the rise of the proletariat or the masses everywhere. This must be arrested here in our motherland and this can best be done by strict adherence to the teachings of Swami Vivekananda who in every sense ought to be called the Father of Modern India, not the Father of the Nation by any stretch of imagination for that would be blasphemous, considering India's hoary heritage from millenia before. But Swamiji must be studied by every Indian and his principles of individual and national living applied so that we can avert grossness from creeping into our spiritual national culture and are able, thus, to avoid the material degeneracy that is fast eroding our urban civic life.
Ever since then advent of Adi Shankaracharya, this national renaissance is on though the trial and tribulations of the times. The ancient civilisation had first to be rescued from the stranglehold of Buddhism which had, after its period of rise and eminence for the first thousand years, had degenerated into the most horrendous form of material culture with its concomitant carnal components to boot. Shankara, the Acharya from the south of the Vindhyas, took it upon himself to resurrect the ancient civilisation of the Vedas and spread the truths freshly rediscovered by him across the length and breadth of India. Buddhism adversaries in debate were pulverised by his pointed arguments and the entire citadel of decadent Buddhism collapsed under its hollowness and up rose pristine Vedanta which gradually established its supremacy after a millenium, perhaps, in its true sense after millenia.
But historical developments beyond the borders of India were brewing up fresh challenges for which Aryavarta was not prepared. The rise of Christianity was one and then came the hordes of Mohammedan invaders with their coarse culture of conversion by the sword from which India is still recovering even as fresh inroads are being made to subvert our national spiritual culture even at this moment. While Hinduism was rediscovering itself from the onslaught of Buddhism which had converted two-thirds of our population to its fold, Islam was waging its wars across the Middle-East and setting its eyes on the Indian subcontinent to finish off its unfinished business of the destruction of the 'idolatrous infidel' (the kaffir) and the conquest of his land as the last bastion of the Almighty's terrestrial empire.
Adi Shankaracharya had set Hinduism on its spiritual feet, true, but in the political plane their were grave threats to our nation's existence whose unholy fallout would also be the desecration of our national spiritual culture -- this was not realised by the Hindu kings of the day who were ever warring with each other for petty temporal gains within the mainland of the subcontinent and did not bother to venture beyond to witness how the world was fast marching ahead technologically and would soon prove to be, thus, superior in military might to the Hindus who were constrained within their homeland by dubious self-restrictions on movement. This was the challenge faced by the nation and the nation was unaware of it.
Unfinished and expanding still...
Written by Sugata Bose
The neglect of martial power has been the bane of our country. The kshatriya spirit must be revived and so must be resurrected the brahmanical characteristics of the race, never in tyrannical terms but in terms elevated and enlightening.
The uplift of the masses ought not to be at the expense of our spiritual heritage. Culture must be preserved even as hundreds of millions of the dispossessed are lifted out of poverty and provided with decent means of livelihood. A degradation of culture in the attempt to lift the masses out of degradation itself is a self-defeating venture that will have catastrophic cultural consequences in the long run.
The Dalits are Hindus and must not be subverted from their svadharma by proselytising cults. The modern mischievous attempt to preach unto them that they are not Hindus but are a people apart from the mainstream of Hinduism must be countered effectively. The fact that they have been historically deprived of many basic human rights for ages does not detract from the fact they are part and parcel of Hindu society, nonetheless. Their grievances are to be met, their rights restored and they are to be integrated in the vast body of mainstream Hinduism. In it lies the well-being of Hinduism and the solidarity of the Hindu race. Governmental reservation policy for the Scheduled Tribes, the Scheduled Castes and the Other Backward Communities is geared to this end, and it is good that it should be so despite the difficulties such arbitrary reservation imposes on better qualified individuals outside of these categories. It is but historical justice now being dispensed towards the deprived classes at long last, although, the measure ought to be time-bound till they are on their feet once and for all.
Overall, the decadence that we see in the world is affecting India as well. It is a global trend, this lowering of culture with the rise of the proletariat or the masses everywhere. This must be arrested here in our motherland and this can best be done by strict adherence to the teachings of Swami Vivekananda who in every sense ought to be called the Father of Modern India, not the Father of the Nation by any stretch of imagination for that would be blasphemous, considering India's hoary heritage from millenia before. But Swamiji must be studied by every Indian and his principles of individual and national living applied so that we can avert grossness from creeping into our spiritual national culture and are able, thus, to avoid the material degeneracy that is fast eroding our urban civic life.
Ever since then advent of Adi Shankaracharya, this national renaissance is on though the trial and tribulations of the times. The ancient civilisation had first to be rescued from the stranglehold of Buddhism which had, after its period of rise and eminence for the first thousand years, had degenerated into the most horrendous form of material culture with its concomitant carnal components to boot. Shankara, the Acharya from the south of the Vindhyas, took it upon himself to resurrect the ancient civilisation of the Vedas and spread the truths freshly rediscovered by him across the length and breadth of India. Buddhism adversaries in debate were pulverised by his pointed arguments and the entire citadel of decadent Buddhism collapsed under its hollowness and up rose pristine Vedanta which gradually established its supremacy after a millenium, perhaps, in its true sense after millenia.
But historical developments beyond the borders of India were brewing up fresh challenges for which Aryavarta was not prepared. The rise of Christianity was one and then came the hordes of Mohammedan invaders with their coarse culture of conversion by the sword from which India is still recovering even as fresh inroads are being made to subvert our national spiritual culture even at this moment. While Hinduism was rediscovering itself from the onslaught of Buddhism which had converted two-thirds of our population to its fold, Islam was waging its wars across the Middle-East and setting its eyes on the Indian subcontinent to finish off its unfinished business of the destruction of the 'idolatrous infidel' (the kaffir) and the conquest of his land as the last bastion of the Almighty's terrestrial empire.
Adi Shankaracharya had set Hinduism on its spiritual feet, true, but in the political plane their were grave threats to our nation's existence whose unholy fallout would also be the desecration of our national spiritual culture -- this was not realised by the Hindu kings of the day who were ever warring with each other for petty temporal gains within the mainland of the subcontinent and did not bother to venture beyond to witness how the world was fast marching ahead technologically and would soon prove to be, thus, superior in military might to the Hindus who were constrained within their homeland by dubious self-restrictions on movement. This was the challenge faced by the nation and the nation was unaware of it.
Unfinished and expanding still...
Written by Sugata Bose
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