Over a century ago, French sociologist Emile Durkheim undertook research on why individuals in cities tend to commit suicide more frequently than those who liked in closely knit rural societies. The answer was Anomie- the sense of dispossession. He said anomie exists in society:

….where the traditional sources of societal regulation — religion, government, and occupational groups — have all failed to exercise moral constraints on an increasingly unregulated capitalist economy.Religion, which once consoled the poor and at least partially restricted the material ambitions of the rich, has simply lost most of its power. Government, which once restrained and subordinated economic functions, is now their servant, thus, the orthodox economist would reduce government to a guarantor of individual contracts, while the extreme socialist would make it the “collective bookkeeper” — and neither would grant it the power to subordinate other social agencies and unite them toward one common aim. Even occupational groups, which once regulated salaries, fixed the price of products and production, and indirectly fixed the average level of income on which needs were based, has been made impotent by the growth of industry and the indefinite expansion of the market.

Basically a society where all the familiar have disappeared leaving the individual with no crutches or anchor to tether their lives, is one where all kinds of moral deviance - and suicide is an extreme form of moral deviance, remember this was 19th century Europe, very Christian, and suicide was a mortal sin, occur because state, religion and other social organisations no longer hold any influence or sway on the citizen.

This was, for a long time the dominant hypothesis as far as society is concerned. Which is why every so often we have people spouting the need for “family values”, “religious values” “moral straight and narrow” and so on. I tend to buy some of this argument. Though I believe that an overdose of family, religion, values are just as liable to send someone to slit their wrists, or go ballistic, as the feeling of being completely rootless. I also believe that an overdose of religiousity can lead people to go wrong. For example, not teaching sex education in school because it is against your religion/culture can lead to experimentation that can have fairly serious consequeces for children/teenagers , just as having no rules can lead to them going astray.

So, it was with amusement that I read an article in Murdoch’s Times (of London) about how “Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’

Quoting from a paper published in the Journal of Religion and Society, based on research conducted in the USA, the paper says:

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

The reason i found the report amusing, is because Murdoch’s other media vehicle’s - Fox - broadcasts probably encourages a great deal of false religiousity amongst people. If a people can have a God given right to invade another country, then they probably have the God given right to rob banks with God given guns, bonk all over the place without birth control (birth control is a sin - bonking is a divine right) , shoot their veins (or is it arteries) up with God given drugs and more:)

For any society or people who think that they have a ‘God Given Right’ to do as they please the above conclusion would probably be valid. The way Taliban behaved in Afghanistan is probably a case in point - they believed that they had the God given right to do what they wanted. Where the basic moral codes of society are violated - where killing is approved in the name of God, where subjugation of a gender (usually women) is justified in the name of God, where discrimination is encouraged in the name of God - sooner or later, unless you change, you are going to see a breakdown in society. My God loves me therefore I can get away with murder, discrimination, bombing, - seems to be the stance of fundamentalists everywhere. And if my God gives me a bigger gun than your god, then i can get away with more murder, bombing etal than you.

And at the other end is this entire thing of sexual morality, and women’s rights. Fundamentalists expect ‘chastity’ of everyone except themselves. And of course, they expect women to take the back seat on almost everything from their status in society to their role in the workplace. Just look at countries like Saudi Arabia to know what I mean. Look at the US and this entire idiocy on abortion. And, when you have this kind of restrictions, people are going to want to break free. Value education and Moral Brainwashing are two very different things. The former you imbibe, the latter you want to break. I have cousins with strict parents (everything is a sin school of parenting) who went so terribly astray, and i have cousins with ‘liberal’ parenting - who have turned out so well - that it teaches you that the easiest way to get someone to do something is to ban it.

There is a difference between faith and religiousity. And it is probably that difference that shows up in societal deviance.

Tags: Religion, Society

I am getting repetitive on this blog. Every 10 days or so I come across a flurry of articles - bloglines that way is very good - on violence against women. I come across articles almost on a daily basis - but on some days, it is almost as though the floodgates have opened up and you are reading about violence against women everywhere. I am not sure whether the amount of violence has increased, or is it the fact that more of it is getting reported. Either case is scary.

Today’s lot included rape, stripping, molesting, violence.
a) Man held for raping sister-in-law

Jewel (31) had criminally assaulted the 21-year-old woman, his wife’s sister, on Thursday night in a park near Dhaula Kuan.The victim had recently come to Delhi in search of a job as a maid and Jewel had taken her to the park on the pretext of meeting a prospective employer.

b) Woman gangraped in East Delhi:

In yet another incident of gangrape in the capital, a woman was allegedly criminally assaulted by two of her husband’s friends in an East Delhi area, police sources said today.

c) Man shoots mother and daughter-in-law for resisting rape

A man allegedly attempted to rape his daughter-in-law and shot at her and his own mother when they resisted at Mojal village (UP) in the district, police said here today.

d) Woman gang raped in Chandigarh

A woman was allegedly gang raped by three men who first forced her into a car and then took her to a house here where the crime was committed last night, police said today.

e) Dalit women paraded naked in Orissa

A group of Dalit women belonging to the barber community have allegedly been paraded naked by upper-caste people in a coastal village on Monday last.The women’s fault: their husbands refused to wash the feet of bridegroom and members of barati during an upper-caste marriage a couple of months ago.

I had a blogged a couple of days ago about a Muslim Panchayat fining a rapist Rs.15,000/- and asking the victim to lick her ex-husband’s (he gave her triple talaq) spit as punishment.

The more I read about cases like this, the more the future depicted in a Handmaid’s Tale become’s a reality.
As I had written in June:

If it was a minority community facing the abuse that women do, then it would become a human rights issue. Now it is simply a ‘cultural’ issue or a ‘they will sort it out amongst themselves’ issue. Maybe, women ought to apply for minority status in India. Afterall, with the number of female foetus terminations we will soon become even more a minority than we already are

Update: This is Secular Right’s take on the issue of women being paraded naked in Orissa. Terrorism it is. About time we all made a hue and cry about it.

Tags: Caste, Gender Issues, Religion

A few months ago AP began the trend of reserving jobs for Muslims on the grounds that the community was ‘backward’.
Now the RJD and the Congress in Bihar have made a similar promise.

There is something fundamentally wrong, if in a secular nation, we introduce reservations on the basis of religion.

If a community is backward - there are other ways of bringing them on par with the rest of society. Compulsory education is a start- especially for the girl child. Business loans at favourable rates is another. Additional Tax breaks for companies that are equal opportunities employers is yet another. Ensuring that ministries concerned with rural development deliver. Penalise corruption that prevetns allocated funds from reaching targets. Ensure that the rule of law is followed. In fact the Government should be moving towards equal opportunites, and away from reservation. Equal opportunities is economics led. Quotas, on the other hand, are hand outs. The first empowers, the second allows for stagnation.

Incentivise companies to hire people. Incentivise banks to give loans to certain communities. Incentivise mentors to mentor these businesses. Incentivise schools and colleges to follow equal opportunites. incentivise self help groups that set in villages. facilitate the buying of land on easy installments.

Quotas are a bad idea. It leads to complecency - and the Government and industry and the rest of us get into this comfort zone that because reservation exists, the problem has gone away. It hasn’t. Which is why 58 years after independence political parties are still tripping over each other screaming reservation. Reservation has worked in a very, very limited manner - and the problem still remains. The communities in question have attained political weight, which has not translated into economic weight. (and in India - like elsewhere - economic weight is social weight).

If you travel around India - especially rural India - and talk to Dalit Activists - most of them tell you that the benefits of reservation are cornered by a few who don’t let the rest take advantage of it. Their argument is that if your parents are middle class, then you aren’t a Dalit. A dalit is someone who doesn’t know where the next meal is going to come from. Who doesn’t have money to buy books or pencils.

If You (as in the politicians) want to do something for economically backward groups in India - go right ahead. You need to . But, reservations may not be the solution. You need to start wtih providing security. Start with physical security, move on to economic security. The rest will automatically follow. Ensuring that the rule of law is followed when crimes are committed against weaker sections - and it economic deprivation that makes them weak - is a start. These crimes can be discrimination, rape, violence, . It could be companies that don’t hire people from a particular caste or community - or don’t promote them. Ensure that the full force of law is brought against the people who discriminate. But, no. Those who commit these crimes probably support some major Party or the other. The problems of the poor and the dispossessed remain unanswered until election time, when vague - and possibly unconstitutional - promises are made to them in return for votes.

Finally, if we are to continue with the reservation policy, and the parameter for reservation is “backwardness” surely then - reservation should be on the basis of economic status - not caste or religion. But under the income of x thousand per annum does not a vote bank form !

Tags: Caste, Education, Gender Issues, Poverty, Religion, Society

I find the Sangh parivar’s focus on ‘converting’ Adivasis’ to Hindusim very odd. But, even odder is the Sangh parivar’s dedication to a term used by Persian invaders to describe a geographical entity - the people of the Indu river. Indoos. Technically speaking the only Indoos are on the other side of the border
Hindu is a catch all term used to describe anything from animism to atheism and a whole of lot if ‘ism’s’ in between. Technically speaking - and technicality is both the soul of law and theology - when you have a term that describes multiple paths - then surely Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Douglas Adamism, Mormonism, Iskonism, etal - can be considered to be equally valid paths.

But, unfortunately the Hindutva movement has nothing to do with the broad canvas that is called Hinduism. It is a narrow one way path filled with hatred, fear and venom. It has anyone who does not adhere to their narrow view of the world in their crosshairs. In that sense, they probably have more in common with the Al Qaeda than with the bulk of people who practise “Hinduism”. (aside, you should see my driver on his way into town - there is a little namaskar - at a church, a mosque, a temple, a tree with a garland - practically anything that has ‘religious’ significance’. You should see some of the villages in Maharashtra - the mosque and the temple sharing a commong wall is not an invention of cinema, it exists.)

Instead of doing damn fool things like distributing tridents, burning churches and mosques, terrorising missionaries, burning libraries, breaking and looting business establishments - if the Hindutva movement focussed on service and karma yoga - then maybe people will join them without any compulsion.

This current rant of mine has been brought on by two very differnt stories in todays’ newspaper.
The first was on the poorest district in India. No it is not in Bihar or Orissa. It is in Gujarat. The district is Dangs.

The second story is also about Dangs. It is about how the Sangh parivar is going to hold the Sabari Kumbh Mela to convert Adivasis to Hinduism. Both questions can be asked here - Why, would you convert some one from “hinduism” to “hinduism”. or how can you convert someone to something that doesn’t exist. If Hindutva mean Vaishnavite tradition or Ram worship - then it is not “hinduism” it is Vaishnavitism (if such a word exists). On the other hand if you are going to accept the term “Hinduism” warts and all - then it already includes the religion of the Dang people - whether it is tree worship or the worship of Jesus and Mary.

Also, will it not be better for the Sangh Parivaar if they actually ended up expending their organisational effieciency - and the parivaar is one of the most organised political entities in Indian - on alleviating poverty rather than a mela. If they built schools, hospitals, and funded projects that generated employement - maybe they will get more converts to the cause, rather than having a bunch of aggressive hindutvadis descend on the area for a week and have a free for all party.

And finally, if they really wanted to do service to the cause of Ram, then they should leave the Adivasis alone. For if they remember the Ramayan - then they should know that Ram never imposes his values on Shabri. On the contrary, he accepts her traditions without judgement. Maybe, if the Hindutvadi’s read the Ramayan or the Mahabharat - they would realise that this thing that they call “hinduism” is not about temples and buildings and symbols. It is simply following the path of righteousness.

Tags: Religion

A story from the ToI about caste.
Students in a school in Bihar refusing to eat mid-day meals cooked by Dalit Women.

The incident occurred in the village of former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, a staunch socialist and champion of social justice.

Official sources said students of Laxmi Narayan Madhya Vidayalya in Thakur’s village in Samastipur district, belonging not only to upper castes, but backward castes and even Dalits, have refused meals cooked by two lowest ranked Dalit women for the last few days.

District officials are persuading:

…some students to take cooked food but a majority refused. Still we were trying to pacify them,”

Pacifying??? wtf - a) what kind of educaiton is the school providing that results in this kind of socialisation b) what kind of social justice mechanisms are in place in Bihar that allow for this kind of discrimination and c) what is the action that is going to be taken against the parents of these children for such bad behavior. After all parents’ are responsible for the behaviour of the children. A good heafty fine per household will probably do the trick a lot faster than involved legal action. Hit them where it hurts - and it hurts when it costs.

Coming soon on the heels of the Gohana atrocity - this is a wake up call for India. Everytime, some one says that caste no longer matters, get rid of reservation - look at incidents like this - and you will realise that caste is very much there. It is just not front page news because we are more interested in personality x shooting coke or personality y discussing their sexuality.

Incidentally, in Gohana the main accused seem to have political affiliation

Pradeep Sangwan and Ranvir Sangwan, son and brother respectively of Kishen Singh Sangwan, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament, have been named in the first information report (FIR) filed after the arson. The MP has denied his son’s involvement. However, as many as 15 of the 23 men booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act are BJP members, including the block president, a senior police officer said.

Atrocities against Dalits are on the rise across India. Politicians are so busy carving up the nation into caste & religious vote banks - recall Mulayam Yadav’s pronouncements on Imrana - that a lot of this kind of shit is excused in the name of tradition.

As i blogged earlier there needs to be some sort of concerted religious reform - with leading lights in Hinduism coming out and speaking out against caste & gender discrimination. It’s all very well for us to talk about uniform civil code and all that. But as a friend of mine would say woh to baad ki baat hai. It is a matter of constitutional reform. For now deliver what the constitution promises -t hat is equality. And there can be no apologies made for lack of equality on grounds of tradition. . There are too many people who make apologies for both caste and gender discrimination in the name of tradition. And that really needs to stop.

Maybe, it is time that we saw some concerted political action. Leaders of all parties fighting the elections in Bihar going to the school and talking about why the students’ stand is wrong. Why caste is wrong. Why discrimination is wrong. Instead of appealing for a caste vote bank, won’t this be more productive?

Tags: Gender Issues, Religion, Society

The Day has arrived. And after an extensive search through Indian blogdom - this week’s Bharateeya Blog Mela is finally in place. Thank you for all those who nominated. And as usual, this task would have been chaotic without Bloglines.

Announcements

JK at Varnam announces the setting up of the new History Blog - The Palm Leaf
Sid at Patang announces the release of the Carpool Beta - an interesting social software that helps you share vehicles in a geographical area. And with the price of petrol being what it is (almost Rs.49 per litre) in Mumbai, VC’s might start keeping a beady eye on this software

Business

Cerebral Shangrila sallivates about the new Visa Ad starring Richard Gere .

Object Petit M - in the CSF - writes about how Yahoo’s business policies in China have led to a Chinese journalist Shi Tao being sentanced to 10 years in prison.
Sambhar Mafia blogs about Tata’s 75% stake in Landmark in an all cash deal worth 103 crores. So can we see book stores with Chai bars soon?
Kartik has an interesting take on why the Tamil publishing industry is in the doldrums.

Caste

58 years after Independence, we still havent’ managed to shrug off the evil of caste. Somehow society and religion seem to tolerate it. And even today - Dalits face atrocities that would have us screaming “human rights violations” if it happened elsewhere.
As Aparna points out

Again an upper caste ire
Set Dalit homes on fire
What leaves me aghast
Is that the issue of caste
Even today can such violence inspire!

Uma at Indianwriting in the duty of the rich castes ponders about the difference betwen big crimes - setting fire to a row of houses - and little crimes - preventing a Dalit girl from cycling to college. She recommends that we read Viramma: Life of an Untouchable. To that I would add read Untouchable by Narendra Jadhav. It is an eye opener. Abi at Nanopolitan looks at the same atrocity that happened at Gohana - and observes wrly that individuals - even those who should know better - would worry about the impact of this incident on FDI. And Anand looks at the torching of Dalit homes in much ‘more enlightened’ Maharashtra.

Development

Ruth writing in CSF - talks about her work with the Tsunami Victims in Tamil Nadu, and how after almost 7 months they are nowhere near finished.

Arzan blogs about how post independence India allowed two brilliant architects - and town planners - Le Corbusier & Louis I. Kahn to help develop a new style of architecture.

Govindraj Ethiraj - in Dateline Bombay - A Reporter’s Tales looks at the disaster that is the urban landscape of Bangalore and asks compares the work ethic of the hi-tech IT firms there with that of those who provide public services - such as roads and desilted drains.

And, Nitin writing in the Acorn - has an analysis of the Human Development Index in India and our neighbourhood. He says,

India’s ranking is also a reflection of the inertia that has come to characterise its progress towards privatisation of industry, education and social services.

Akshay of Trivial Matters has a photograph that he clicked featured on United Children of the World. It is truly a picture that symbolises hope.

Education
September 5th being Teachers’ day - there were a number of posts around that event. Patrix blogs about President Kalam’s message to create life long learners and enlightened citizens. Arzan tells us to take some time out to wish a teacher who made a difference to our life. Twillight Fairy looks at a sari wearing experience - which makes her look like chirpy Chawla (Juhi) - on the occassion of Teacher’s Day, a long time ago.

Anand writes about the need for a child inspired education system, without which learning may not be effective. Michael Higgins has an interesting post on who should guide Children’s Education.

On the occasion of International Literacy Day - Uma has a beautiful post - Post Card to Akka - her experiences of Karnataka’s adult literacy movement.

Charu writes about the need to strengthen the undergraduate programme
And finally, if it wasn’t true it would truly be funny. Sunil has a wry look at Pew’s latest survey on religion in education (in the USA). And Srikanth has a rib tickling account of how theologists want to introduce Creationism as part of the science curriculum. He quotes from Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert):

By definition, people with bad ideas cannot be swayed by logic. If they were logical, they wouldn’t have bad ideas in the first place - unless the ideas were based on bad data

Facism

Kamesh’s post on Hijacked Gods re examines the Gujarat riots after seeing Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution. He wonders : “Why do people forget that “Man can exist without religion, but religion cannot exist without man”.

Faderu of CSF looks at Police Fascism in Mumbai in cancelling the Independence Day Rock. Kunal of Ceteris Paribus expresses his outrage elequently on the same issue, as does Amit Varma of India Uncut in Rock is Evil.

Faith

Atanu Dey has an extremely well written out post on Faith and its multiple facets. He points out that only the feeble minded will use faith as a crutch to deal with what happens after death. He also looks at the connection between the Hindu concpet of time - kalpa - and cosmology. Methinks that he is reading too much Fritzof Capra. Ashsih says that we are so busy admiring what we did in the past that we are somehow stuck there, like a broken clock.
Subhas provides a rather impassioned defence on why he has faith but is not feeble minded.

And of course Saket talks about why he feels completely ‘intellectually arrogant‘ in his firm faith that there is no God. Reminds of an online exchange of ideas i had with Amit on whether atheism is a faith. of course it is
Nilu has an interesting set of posts about Advaita and futility.
Sunil talks about the most cuddly of all Gods - Ganesh - and about the goodies that were made during his child hood days. Somehow, theist or atheist - when it comes to good modaks and pedas, everthing is maaf.
And finally, Hemant of Instant Kaapi says that If A R Rahman turns Prophet for a new religion and promises to use his songs for sermons, he would be the first convert. Interesting faith that would be

Gender Issues

Annie writes about missing women. Women who are never ever born. Women who are killed before they are ever born.

there are at least a million women out there who agreed to, if not actively opted to, kill their girls - born or unborn. Mothers who are not facing starvation-level poverty. Mothers who, possibly, were neither unmarried nor raped. Grandmothers who pushed their daughters-in-law into getting rid of granddaughters.

I fail to emphathize, because my imagination completely fails me.

Charu writes about empowring Sita and Draupadi, and quotes Anand Bakshi - “Sita bhi yahan badnaam huvi”
Vikrum blogs about eve teasing at 35,000 feet on Kingfisher Airlines. And how, there was really no point in complaining - becuase Kingfisher Airlines used a marketing strategy that sells sex. All you have do is see the hoardings around Mumbai to know that he is right.
Primary Red blogs about how four women were paraded half naked over a property dispute and how the police refused to file a complaint.

Sakshi writes about Alimony and asks if some women are misusing the law.

Katrina
Katrina occupies the mind space of a number of Desi bloggers. Maitri from New Orleans has a day by day post on the situation there.
Amardeep Singh asks if the Government has the right to forcibly evacuate people who don’t want to move.
Gawker is furious with Michael Brown the head of FEMA - who blamed the victims for not getting out of town. Rueben feels much the same, especially to the US Govenrment response that they didn’t know how severe Katrina could be. And he quotes a pastor on the devestation:

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleansnow is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it’s free of all of those things now,” Shanks says. “God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we’re going to start over again.”

Ouch! It redefines compassion and charity.

And this seems to redefine grace - Uma has this blistering post on Boing Boing’s response to India’s aid (5 million dollars and army assistance).

Poverty
What is poverty seems to be the topic of a cross continental debate. It all began with John Scalzi’s Being Poor. Peter Griffin, comparing the post to his rear has this in reponse :). And Dina jams in with this - being Poor in India. And Madhoo recalling her earlier years in Vizag, talks about the fact that sometimes the poor don’t really want to be helped.

And Finally

Jabberwock celebrates one year of blogging.
Neelakantan tells us how to identify anti - globalisation aunties.
Aparna has a limerical take on the Mangal Pandey fracas.
Nilu writes about the pissing contest that he has with himself Nilu, please let us know who won this one
Secrets of my Inner World has a litany on Apples.
Rashmi Bansal writes on a new form of ABCD - Apna Bharatiya Chinese Dish
Dinesh asks “to swear or not to swear is the question” (with all apologies to the bard).
Sulfury has a A to Z of the world according to George Bush.
And, Vishnupavan writes about a number of American Presidents who played cricket.
And the last one is on Bill Gates who wants his money back. Gawker blogs about how Billy Boy mistakenly donated 10 million dollars to an institute that worked in the area of Intelligent Design. They probably came up with the next version of the Microsoft OS, that crashed on start up and imploded taking everything with it.

That brings us to the end of this weeks blog mela.

Next week Amit Varma at India Uncut is your friendly host of the BlogMela. Drop off your nominations there.
Till then bye bye.
(roll credits)

Bharateeya Blog Mela can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear’s ÜberCarnival.

Tags: Blogging, Culture, Development, Economics, Gender Issues, Mumbai, Poverty, Religion, Reviews, Science, Social Software, Society, US, World

One of the saddest stories that I have read in a long time was the furore over singer Parvati Khan being prevented from singing at the sacred Jyotirlingas.
The temple loves her music but not the fact that her husband is a Muslim. The Express reports:

“She created such a beautiful atmosphere here,” gushes priest Upendra Shikhre, unaware of Khan’s real identity. “Her voice drew hundreds of devotees here every day, many more than the temple normally sees on an average day. The last five days were so serene.” But now, priest Ulhas Aaradi is a bitter man. “If only we had known earlier…If people of Trimbakeshwar had known, they would have told her to get out.” Only Hindus, are allowed in the temple.

Panditji, who is a Hindu? or to be more accurate who isn’t a Hindu. or for that matter fact who is a Muslim or who isn’t a Muslim. If you truly believe in God surely then all paths lead to the same end.
And what religion is Shankar Mahadev. For he is the parama yogi and for him there can be no religion, and all are same. By violating the basic principal of Shavism - the priests have desecrated the temple. I hope that all of us who are devout and believe can take a stand and say that you don’t speak for us. For in the home of God all are welcome, for in the eyes of God all are the same.

A few centuries ago they wouldn’t have allowed a Vaishnavite into the temple. Now Parvati Khan is being denied entry. Indra Gandhi - while she was PM - was not allowed entry into some temples because she was a widow. And Dalits till date are not allowed into many temples.

The last few months i have been virtually insomniac. And in that insomnia my constant companion has been Hindustani Classical Music, some Carnatic - but mostly Hindustani.
Listen to the Dagar Brothers of Udaipur - exponents of the Dhrupad style - sing the glory of Hari (incidentally their first names are Khan Sahib Ustad Nasir Moinuddin & Khan Sahib Ustad Nasir Aminuddin); or Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Sahib singing the love of Krishna or Radha in the amazing Jamuna ke Teer; or Pandit Malikarjun Mansur singing Pratham Allah in raag Shivmat Bhairav - and you will know that the Brahmin Priests know jackshit.
Urban legend has it that when partition happened, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib migrated to Pakistan. In the inaugural concert of Pakistan Radio he began his concert - as always - with Saraswati Vandana. When administrators objected to his singing the glory of Hindu gods - he migrated back. His rationale - where he can’t sing the glory of God - any God - he cannot stay.

Reading the article on Triambakeshwar has made me so very sad. This is not what we are about. And it is time that we spoke out against the hijacking of our eclectic traditions by medivialists. Let us not wait to become Saudi Arabia. Lets speak out now - if not for us, then for generations to come.

Finally, I leave you with Parvati Khan’s statement:

Khan says she was expecting the opposition. “I don’t feel bad because I know that God is with me in every move I make. I am moving as a messenger of peace and my devotion to Shiva is the same as that for Allah and Jesus.”

Tags: Culture, Religion, Society

My current read is Karen Armstrong’s History of God .

Theogony has always fascinated me. So has how Gods are born, grow unfashionable and then die out. . It is almost a peek back into society and figuring out how society evolved and with it evolved faith - especially organised faith.

I know a bit about the Semetic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and reading Armstrong’s account of how cultures essentially polytheistic cultures adopted rigid monotheism is fascinating. Her opening lines hook you:

In the begining, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and the Ruler of heaven and earth. He was not represented by images and had no temple or priests in his service. He was too exalted for an inadequate human cult. Gradually he faded from the consciousness of his people. He had become so remote that they decided that did not want him anymore. Eventually he was said to have disappeared.

And then she starts with the origin of religion in the ancient world - Babylon, Assyria, Persia ,- how they began as polytheistic religons that focussed on agriculture, fertility and the like. And, how over a centuries they moved on to being something quite different. How Yahweh - the god of the Jews - claimed supermacy over all other Gods. How Christianity took root, and how Islam came in to fill a need gap. In his beahviour God is not very nice. He throws tantrums, bullies the devout into worship, blackmails them for their loyalty - Forsake all other Gods for me, and I will help you. The period Armstrong describes also sees the end of the mother goddess worship in the region.

From me ‘Hindu’ gods and godesses have fascinated me far more than the distant monotheistic God of the Semetic religions. For obvious reasons, I have grown up with the mythologies, the stories, and feel a certain closeness to them But, Hindu gods are not what they were many millenia ago.

I am sure that the earliest Indian - the Adi Dravida - worshipped some tree somewhere. But, Dravidian Gods were far more in human form. Skanda, Shankara, Amman.
The Rigvedic gods - were Indra, Varuna, Vayu, Agni and Mitra. They were like the Greek Gods - not really nice. Angry, Selfish, coveting other men’s wives, generally badly behaved. A bit like football hooligans. It is no surprise that we dumped them enmasse. Apart from Agni in front of whom we do our havan - we really don’t have much truck with that lot. So, though we say we are an “aryan” culture - what ever that means - the Gods that we worship are not. They are much more animistic, personal and probably ‘Dravidian’ gods - Krishna, Shankara, Skanda, Uma, Kali, Vithala, Ganesha and the lot. Hindu fundamentalists may argue that Rudra was Shiva and Indra became Vishnu/Krishna - but that is more because they like this unified concept of Hinduism - that started at one point and continued rather than a confluence of wars, cultures, people, thoughts etal. And they would rather be nomads from the Volga than of African origin
There is a fascinating story that I had read about Jaganatha at the Jaganath Puri Temple. He is worshipped there along with his siblings - Balarama and Subadhra. And the gods claim kinship with the local tribals. It is the tribals who make the main offerings to this temple and the Brahmins consume that.

I had earlier read a book by Sandhya Jain called Adi Deo Arya Devata - A Panoramic View of Tribal Hindu Cultural Interface. It is a fairly easy read on how there is a close link between Tribal and Aryan Gods. She blames the British - they are an effective scapegoat - for creating a chasm between the ancient tribes - Adi Dravida - and the much more modern settlers - Aryans - in terms of being different cultures. It is a slightly light book and i am not really sure of its scholarship. Yet, it did give me a lot of triggers for thinking about.

But, by far the most engrossing book that i had read on this topic was The Indian Theogony: A Comparative Study of Indian Mythology from the Vedas to the Puranas. It was also the most difficult of all my reads. It is aslo an extemely good starting point if sociology and society interest you.

Society and History and who wins makes such an impact on who is finally worshipped. But the Hindu system has been a bit like the Borg - assimilating everyone in their path and adding their uniqueness to the over all system. So it is a bit difficult if not impossible to untangle where which God began his/her journey. And for me the fascination with Gods is a fascination with history and society. Who were these people. Why did they worship these Gods - with their unique properties? When did they stop ? Was their a war? Was there something else? Given the lack of written history it is a fascinating what if scenario- who knows

For the record I am a theist. Mostly a rampant Polytheist - I adore all my Gods with all their innate weaknesses. And in my pantheon Christ, and Allah and Yahweh can fit without any issues. Afterall, when you have a few million Gods - 3 more is not going to break the bank. But at the most fundamental level my faith is in the nirguna bhraman - the most incredible concept ever. A god without shape or form. without atributes. and who is beyond space and time. Try and visualise this on a rainy day adn it becomes very apparent why we go back to our cuddly idols.

Tags: Religion, Society