Today India faces a great separatist and regional challenge one which threatens to destroy the fabric of India itself. All leaders who talk caste and regionalism, even if they are leaders of national stature should be sent to jail and all regional and caste based parties banned by the election commission if India is to survive as a country. Hari haters and Bihar Baiters, call them what you will for the Mumbai Madness is only growing in size and proportion. What began as a move to gain political space in the state of Maharashtra has resulted in making not only North Indians feel unsafe in their own country but has divided Indians again after 1984 and 1992 on the lines of caste, creed and colour. A shameful state of affairs indeed. It all began when the Samajwadi Party tried to organize a rally with the help of Abu Azmi a local Muslim leader. But then Azmi hails from Azamgarh as does every Azmi, which is a district of North India. Seeing this as a threat to the established Maharashtrian influence in the state of Maharashtra, local leader Raj Thackeray reacted with his Maharathi formula. But Raj Thackeray has raised very valid questions. He has brought to the fore a burning issue. Thackeray has pointed out that in every part of India there are lobbies which favour persons from their own state, which encourage and foment regionalism. A Bengali politician lobbies shamelessly for a Bengali sportsman to get him a berth in a national team, Biharis and UPites promote their own people outside the state and South Indians promote their own persons outside the state. This regionalism threatens national integration. It threatens the fabric of the Indian Union and it amounts to nothing less than waging war against the Union of India.
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This kind of regionalism exists because Indians lack a sense of identity as Indians. They only become Indians when they are outside their own country and in foreign soil. Then even Pakistanis and Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis and Indians are long lost brothers and will do anything for each other as they are from the same region. But here in their motherland they enjoy stabbing the mother in the womb with their petty parochialism.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Aryan-Dravidian Controversy
The British ruled India, as they did other lands, by a divide-and-conquer strategy. They promoted religious, ethnic and cultural divisions among their colonies to keep them under control. Unfortunately some of these policies also entered into the intellectual realm. The same simplistic and divisive ideas that were used for interpreting the culture and history of India. Regrettably many Hindus have come to believe these ideas, even though a deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or scientific basis.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter- skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southern ers were a different race.
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely ignored. We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical charac- teristics. The term Arya means "noble" or "spiritual", and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an epithet of respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot imagine that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages and dominated a different race because most of the people in power in the country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India in the third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or non-Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by many people to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the so-called Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but on the banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be renamed not the Indus but the "Saraswati Culture"), and that its language was also related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC. Hence the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must predate this period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to have been generally the same as those of north India today, and that there is no evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the Indus or post-Indus era.
This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion thoery or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically bo th the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharash- tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the "white" race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms that people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of color.
North and South Indian Religions
Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried to make some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there has been no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a superficial identifi- cation of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and therefore Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In the Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of the Yadus, a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there are instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant dark (like Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more prominent in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of Shiva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north. There never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not prominent in the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni and Soma are more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However, Rudra-Shiva is dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas, which are also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are often identi- fied with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra as the dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for example). While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and Shaivite or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or Shakta - and we would expect a religion to undergo some development through time - there is nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite traditions, and certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in fact is the deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is adorned with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in the so-call ed Dravidian Indus Valey civilization, with the existence of Shivalinga like sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further examination has also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with all the tradi- tional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again refuting such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati) culture appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic religion is north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same confused logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no real division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter- skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southern ers were a different race.
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely ignored. We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical charac- teristics. The term Arya means "noble" or "spiritual", and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an epithet of respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot imagine that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages and dominated a different race because most of the people in power in the country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India in the third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or non-Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by many people to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the so-called Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but on the banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be renamed not the Indus but the "Saraswati Culture"), and that its language was also related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC. Hence the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must predate this period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to have been generally the same as those of north India today, and that there is no evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the Indus or post-Indus era.
This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion thoery or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically bo th the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharash- tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the "white" race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms that people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of color.
North and South Indian Religions
Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried to make some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there has been no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a superficial identifi- cation of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and therefore Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In the Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of the Yadus, a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there are instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant dark (like Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more prominent in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of Shiva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north. There never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not prominent in the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni and Soma are more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However, Rudra-Shiva is dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas, which are also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are often identi- fied with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra as the dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for example). While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and Shaivite or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or Shakta - and we would expect a religion to undergo some development through time - there is nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite traditions, and certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in fact is the deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is adorned with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in the so-call ed Dravidian Indus Valey civilization, with the existence of Shivalinga like sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further examination has also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with all the tradi- tional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again refuting such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati) culture appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic religion is north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same confused logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no real division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
Monday, April 13, 2009
SCAMS - DR. MANMOHAN SINGH AT THE हेल्म Dr Tirath Garg on Jan 8 2009
It is an intrigue whether it is a coincidence or a deep rooted pathology that whenevevr Dr. Manmohan Singh is at the helm, country is plagued with historical scams. Dr. Manmohan took charge of Finance Ministry in 1991 and was there till 1996 and became Prime Minister in 2004 and is still holding the office and presently holding the portfolio of finance as well. Following are few of the biggest and historical scams of India:1- Latest in the news is Satyam Scam which is touted to be the biggest corporate scam of India when Dr. Manmohan Singh is Prime Minister as well as finance Minister. Though the CEO Mr. Raju has confessed the scam in his resignation but Dr. Singh's agencies are playing for time so that necessary home work is done so that the disclosure does not hurt the VIP's.2- Harshad Mehta Scam of 1992 which was touted to be the first ever scam of this magnitude and in fact aam aadmi of India came to know about this great word SCAM only after that.3- Ketan Parikh Scam of 1992.4- C. R. Bhansali Scam between 1992 to 1996.5- Cobbler Scam of 1995 where Shiv Daya was the main player.6- I.P.O. Scam of 2004-05 which is considered to be the biggest scam of its type.7- Dinesh Dalmia of DSQ Scam in 2000-01.8- A. K. Telgi's Stamp Paper Scam considered to be the biggest and most widely spread scam. The scam started in 1994 and was unearthed in 2000.9- Virender Rastogi Sacm in the year 1995-96.10- UTI Scam in year 2000.11- Uday Goyal's Plantation Scam started in 1995 and was revealed in 1998.With the exception of Dinesh Dalmia and UTI scams all other has the unique distinction of being committed when Dr. Manmohan Singh was at the helm. Not only this bribes were allegedly given to Honourable Members of Lok Sabha to save the P. V. Narasimah Rao government when Dr. Manmohan Singh was Finance Minister. At that time also the recipients were headed by darling of UPA none other than Guruji alias Shibu Soren who was Cabinet Minister in Dr. Singh's cabinet and was convicted and jailed for murder charges and had to quit.Then came the crisis in July 2008 to save Dr. Manmohan Singh government and allegedly bribes were given to honourable Members of Lok Sabha popularly known as Vote for Cash Scam and currency packets were tossed in sanctum Sanctorum of the country. Shibu Soren was made Chief Minister of Jharkhad is the bargain. And people have given a befitting reply to the UPA and its Chair-person and Prime Minister by defeating him convincigly in a by-poll for an assembly seat. Whether all this is a coincidence or a gift to the country by a great statesman called Dr. Manmohan Singh who has given new dirction to the polity of the country is any body's guess. So I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions. Here I wanted to share the grounds on which I predicted in 2004 that neither it will be Vajpayee nor Sonia Gandhi but Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister but am redraining from doing so.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
India: Congress and it's shameless hypocrisy
By Ashok K. Jha
(The Congress party was established on todays date. On this eve this article is being published to expose the
true face of Congress ! - Editor)
Addressing the All India Congress Committee session in New Delhi on Saturday, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh expressed determination to push all-round development with an aim of ensuring benefits for all
sections of the society. He said special focus was being given to education, health care, rural development
and infrastructure building besides upliftment of minorities and backward classes.
Describing the NDA government's ‘India Shining' campaign as a 'flawed concept,’ he asked: "Shining for
whom? Shining for which region? Shining for which class of people?" He referred to the incidents of terror
and communal riots during the BJP-led rule and said his government will not allow communal and divisive
forces to gain an upper hand. Communal tensions were at their peak throughout the country and attempts
were being made to divide people on the basis of religion, caste and language," the Prime Minister said. Dr.
Singh referred to the 2002 Gujarat riots, terror attacks on Parliament, Akshardham temple and Raghunath
temple. The Prime Minister painted a dismal picture on the economic front during the NDA rule.
The Prime Minister reiterated that till the time Congress was in power 'we will not allow communal and
divisive forces to gain an upper hand in any part of the country and we will ensure that every individual can
live in an environment of peace and security.’ Regarding minorities he said that his government had
appointed the Sachar Committee to find out the factual position about their conditions and the panel had
established that the same was unsatisfactory and a lot needs to be done to improve them. "We have started
a massive scholarship programme for minorities."
Now that Our Prime Minister has started talking, behaving and addressing like a true Politician very loyal to
the Gandhi family there are few concerns and questions which the citizens of this country would like to be
answered. There are millions in this country more intelligent and smarter than the certain "Rahul Gandhi" for
whose coronation all this drama is being enacted. Does his lineage make him automatic choice for the
highest executive post of this country? There are several other anomalies too. Why is this?
Sikhs getting slaughtered in thousands was only a big mistake; Hindus getting killed in Kashmir is a grave
political problem; Muslims getting killed by a few hundred is no less than a holocaust; Poor protesters getting
shot in West Bengal under Left Govt is just a plain misunderstanding; Banning Parzania in Gujarat was
Communal; Banning Da Vinci Code and Jo Bole So Nihaal was indeed Secular; Kargil attack was
Government failure; Chinese invasion in 1962 was just an 'unfortunate betrayal'; Reservation in every school
and college on caste lines strengthen Secularism; Reservations in minority institutions is Communal; Fake
encounters in Gujarat [Sohrabuddin ] was Modi sponsored 'BJP' Communalism; Fake encounters under
Cong-NCP in Maharashtra [Khwaja Younus] was only an instance of Police atrocity; Talking about Hindus
and Hindu appeasement is dangerous and Communal; Talking about Muslims and Islam is Secular; BJP
freeing 3 terrorists to save Indian hostages was Shameful; Freeing 4 militants to save the life of the daughter
of a minister was a Natural Political dilemma; Attack on Parliament was the result of BJP ineptitude; Not
hanging Afzal Guru , the mastermind despite Supreme Court orders is due to Humanity and Political
dilemma; BJP questioning any religion is communal; Congress questioning Lord Rama's existence was
simply a Clerical Error.
1/2
Is there any end to Congress and it’s shameless hypocrisy ?
What about Mumbai local train blasts, Hyderabad blasts and Maharashtra blasts during UPA regime,
Nandigram violence, Tsunami rehabilitation fund misappropriation?
BJP had almost completed the "Golden Quadrilateral Project". UPA could not complete the rest of the work
left. Also, BJP did not name that project after their leaders name. That is the difference between BJP and
Congress. Even if a toilet complex is built in India, it is named after Sonia Gandhi , Rahul Gandhi, Rajiv
Gandhi, Indira Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru .
Just to refresh his mind, all riots, scams, terrorism, religious crimes, etc have been started by either the
congressmen themselves or in their tenure. Dr. Manmohan Singhs's term has also contributed to new
developments in India - caste reservations, exploitation & barter of violence in your favour (Nandigram),
protecting & justifying corruption (Laloo, Natwar Singh, etc), grabbing of state powers (initially Karnataka,
Goa, Bihar, Jharkhand) … and so on.
Why is UPA not able to move on National Highway projects, river joining project, etc? Why are we struggling
to get cooking gas under UPA rule?
He started on the wrong foot from the very beginning by accommodating several tainted ministers in his
cabinet and defending their appointment. Then coterie of Sonia Gandhi dismissed four governors appointed
by the previous government followed by a series of events that smacked of cynical disregard for constitutional
proprieties and democratic decencies in Jharkhand, Goa and Bihar.
It is a known fact that Mr. Singh is an stop-gap arrangement till the crown prince is firmly in command of both
the Party and the government. But its unbecoming of a person of the stature of him to be seen so submissive
and and lame. Mr. Singh might loose his credibility if he continue with "Darbari Politics".
(Ashok K.Jha is the Editor of 'Mithila Darpan', a Hindi Weekly News Magazine. He also contributes to several
International Online News Portals.)
(The Congress party was established on todays date. On this eve this article is being published to expose the
true face of Congress ! - Editor)
Addressing the All India Congress Committee session in New Delhi on Saturday, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh expressed determination to push all-round development with an aim of ensuring benefits for all
sections of the society. He said special focus was being given to education, health care, rural development
and infrastructure building besides upliftment of minorities and backward classes.
Describing the NDA government's ‘India Shining' campaign as a 'flawed concept,’ he asked: "Shining for
whom? Shining for which region? Shining for which class of people?" He referred to the incidents of terror
and communal riots during the BJP-led rule and said his government will not allow communal and divisive
forces to gain an upper hand. Communal tensions were at their peak throughout the country and attempts
were being made to divide people on the basis of religion, caste and language," the Prime Minister said. Dr.
Singh referred to the 2002 Gujarat riots, terror attacks on Parliament, Akshardham temple and Raghunath
temple. The Prime Minister painted a dismal picture on the economic front during the NDA rule.
The Prime Minister reiterated that till the time Congress was in power 'we will not allow communal and
divisive forces to gain an upper hand in any part of the country and we will ensure that every individual can
live in an environment of peace and security.’ Regarding minorities he said that his government had
appointed the Sachar Committee to find out the factual position about their conditions and the panel had
established that the same was unsatisfactory and a lot needs to be done to improve them. "We have started
a massive scholarship programme for minorities."
Now that Our Prime Minister has started talking, behaving and addressing like a true Politician very loyal to
the Gandhi family there are few concerns and questions which the citizens of this country would like to be
answered. There are millions in this country more intelligent and smarter than the certain "Rahul Gandhi" for
whose coronation all this drama is being enacted. Does his lineage make him automatic choice for the
highest executive post of this country? There are several other anomalies too. Why is this?
Sikhs getting slaughtered in thousands was only a big mistake; Hindus getting killed in Kashmir is a grave
political problem; Muslims getting killed by a few hundred is no less than a holocaust; Poor protesters getting
shot in West Bengal under Left Govt is just a plain misunderstanding; Banning Parzania in Gujarat was
Communal; Banning Da Vinci Code and Jo Bole So Nihaal was indeed Secular; Kargil attack was
Government failure; Chinese invasion in 1962 was just an 'unfortunate betrayal'; Reservation in every school
and college on caste lines strengthen Secularism; Reservations in minority institutions is Communal; Fake
encounters in Gujarat [Sohrabuddin ] was Modi sponsored 'BJP' Communalism; Fake encounters under
Cong-NCP in Maharashtra [Khwaja Younus] was only an instance of Police atrocity; Talking about Hindus
and Hindu appeasement is dangerous and Communal; Talking about Muslims and Islam is Secular; BJP
freeing 3 terrorists to save Indian hostages was Shameful; Freeing 4 militants to save the life of the daughter
of a minister was a Natural Political dilemma; Attack on Parliament was the result of BJP ineptitude; Not
hanging Afzal Guru , the mastermind despite Supreme Court orders is due to Humanity and Political
dilemma; BJP questioning any religion is communal; Congress questioning Lord Rama's existence was
simply a Clerical Error.
1/2
Is there any end to Congress and it’s shameless hypocrisy ?
What about Mumbai local train blasts, Hyderabad blasts and Maharashtra blasts during UPA regime,
Nandigram violence, Tsunami rehabilitation fund misappropriation?
BJP had almost completed the "Golden Quadrilateral Project". UPA could not complete the rest of the work
left. Also, BJP did not name that project after their leaders name. That is the difference between BJP and
Congress. Even if a toilet complex is built in India, it is named after Sonia Gandhi , Rahul Gandhi, Rajiv
Gandhi, Indira Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru .
Just to refresh his mind, all riots, scams, terrorism, religious crimes, etc have been started by either the
congressmen themselves or in their tenure. Dr. Manmohan Singhs's term has also contributed to new
developments in India - caste reservations, exploitation & barter of violence in your favour (Nandigram),
protecting & justifying corruption (Laloo, Natwar Singh, etc), grabbing of state powers (initially Karnataka,
Goa, Bihar, Jharkhand) … and so on.
Why is UPA not able to move on National Highway projects, river joining project, etc? Why are we struggling
to get cooking gas under UPA rule?
He started on the wrong foot from the very beginning by accommodating several tainted ministers in his
cabinet and defending their appointment. Then coterie of Sonia Gandhi dismissed four governors appointed
by the previous government followed by a series of events that smacked of cynical disregard for constitutional
proprieties and democratic decencies in Jharkhand, Goa and Bihar.
It is a known fact that Mr. Singh is an stop-gap arrangement till the crown prince is firmly in command of both
the Party and the government. But its unbecoming of a person of the stature of him to be seen so submissive
and and lame. Mr. Singh might loose his credibility if he continue with "Darbari Politics".
(Ashok K.Jha is the Editor of 'Mithila Darpan', a Hindi Weekly News Magazine. He also contributes to several
International Online News Portals.)
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Aryan-Dravidian Controversy By David Frawley
The British ruled India, as they did other lands, by a divide-and-conquer strategy. They promoted religious, ethnic and cultural divisions among their colonies to keep them under control. Unfortunately some of these policies also entered into the intellectual realm. The same simplistic and divisive ideas that were used for interpreting the culture and history of India. Regrettably many Hindus have come to believe these ideas, even though a deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or scientific basis.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter- skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southern ers were a different race.
Racial Theories
The Nineteenth century was the era of Europeans imperialism. Many Europeans did in fact believe that they belonged to a superior race and that their religion, Christianity, was a superior religion and all other religions were barbaric, particularly a religion like Hinduism which uses many idols. The Europeans felt that it was their duty to convert non-Christians, sometimes even if it required intimidation, force or bribery.
Europeans thinkers of the era were dominated by a racial theory of man, which was interpreted primarily in terms of color. They saw themselves as belonging to a superior 'white' or Caucasian race. They had enslaved the Negroid or 'black' race. As Hindus were also dark or 'colored', they were similarly deemed inferior. The British thus, not surprisingly, looked upon the culture of India in a similar way as having been a land of a light-skinned or Aryan race (the north Indians), ruling a dark or Dravidian race (the south Indians).
About this time in history the similarities betweeen Indo-European languages also became evident. Sanskrit and the languages of North India were found to be relatives of the languages of Europe, while the Dravidian languages of south India were found to be another language family. By the racial theory, Europeans natuarally felt that the original speakers of any root Indo-European language must have been 'white', as they were not prepared to recognize that their languages could have been derived from the darker-skinned Hindus. As all Hindus were dark compared to the Europeans, it was assumed that the original white Indo-European invadors of India must have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though they left their mark more on north India where people have a lighter complexion.
Though the Nazis later took this idea of a white Aryan superior race to its extreme of brutality, they did not invent the idea, nor were they the only ones to use it for purposes of exploitation. They took what was a common idea of nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, which many other Europeans shared. They perverted this idea further, but the distortion of it was already the basis of much exploitation and misunderstanding.
Racial Interpretation of Vedas
Europeans Vedic interpreters used this same racial idea to explain the Vedas. The Vedas speak of a battle between light and darkness. This was turned into a war between light skinned Aryans and dark skinned Dravidians. Such so-called scholars did not bother to examine the fact that most religions and mythologies including those of the ancient American Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and Persians have the idea of such a battle between light and darkness (which is the symbolic conflict between truth and falsehood), but we do not interpret their statements racially. In short, the Europeans projected racism into the history of India, and accused the Hindus of the very racism that they themselves were using to dominate the Hindus.
European scholars also pointed out that caste in India was originally defined by color. Brahmins were said to be white, Kshatriyas red, Vaishyas yellow, and Shudras black. Hence the Brahmins were said to have been originally the white Aryans and the Dravidians the dark Shudras. However, what these colors refer to is the gunas or qualities of each class. White is the color of purity (sattvaguna), dark that of impurity (tamoguna), red the color of action (rajoguna), and yellow the color of trade (also rajoguna). To turn this into races is simplistic and incorrect. Where is the red race and where is the yellow race in India? And when have the Kshatriyas been a red race and the Vaishyas as yellow race?
The racial idea reached yet more ridiculous proportions. Vedic passages speaking of their enemies (mainly demons) as without nose (a-nasa), were interpreted as a racial slur against the snub-nosed Dravidians. Now Dravidians are not snub-nosed or low nosed people, as anyone can see by examining their facial features. And the Vedic demons are also described as footless (a-pada). Where is such a footless and noseless race and what does this have to do with the Dravidians? Moreover Vedic gods like Agni (fire) are described as footless and headless. Where are such headless and footless Aryans? Yet such 'scholar- ship' can be found in prominent Western books on the history of India, some published in India and used in schools in India to the present day.
This idea was taken further and Hindu gods like Krishna, whose name means dark, or Shiva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have originally been Dravidian gods taken over by the invading Aryans (under the simplistic idea that Dravidians as dark-skinned people must have worshipped dark colored gods). Yet Krishna and Shiva are not black but dark blue. Where is such a dark blue race? Moreover the different Hindu gods, like the classes of Manu, have diffe- rent colors relative to their qualities. Lakshmi is portrayed as pink, Saras- wati as white, Kali as blue-black, or Yama, the God of death, as green. Where have such races been in India or elsewhere?
In a similar light, some scholars pointed out that Vedic gods like Savitar have golden hair and golden skin, thus showing blond and fair-skinned people living in ancient India. However, Savitar is a sun-god and sun-god are usually gold in color, as has been the case of the ancient Egyptian, Mayan, and Inca and other sun-gods. Who has a black or blue sun-god? This is from the simple fact that the sun has a golden color. What does this have to do with race? And why should it be racial statement in the Vedas but not elsewhere?
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely ignored. We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical charac- teristics. The term Arya means "noble" or "spiritual", and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an epithet of respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot imagine that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages and dominated a different race because most of the people in power in the country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India in the third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or non-Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by many people to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the so-called Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but on the banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be renamed not the Indus but the "Saraswati Culture"), and that its language was also related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC. Hence the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must predate this period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to have been generally the same as those of north India today, and that there is no evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the Indus or post-Indus era.
This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion thoery or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically bo th the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharash- tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the "white" race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms that people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of color.
North and South Indian Religions
Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried to make some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there has been no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a superficial identifi- cation of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and therefore Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In the Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of the Yadus, a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there are instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant dark (like Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more prominent in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of Shiva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north. There never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not prominent in the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni and Soma are more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However, Rudra-Shiva is dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas, which are also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are often identi- fied with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra as the dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for example). While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and Shaivite or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or Shakta - and we would expect a religion to undergo some development through time - there is nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite traditions, and certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in fact is the deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is adorned with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in the so-call ed Dravidian Indus Valey civilization, with the existence of Shivalinga like sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further examination has also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with all the tradi- tional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again refuting such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati) culture appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic religion is north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same confused logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no real division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
Aryan and Dravidian Languages
The Indo-European languages and the Dravidian do have important differences. Their ways of developing words and grammer are different. However, it is a misnomer to call all Indo-European languages Aryan. The Sanskrit term Aryan would not apply to European languages, which are materialistic in orientation, bacause Aryan in Sanskrit means spiritual. When the term Aryan is used as indicating certain languages, the term is being used in a Western or European sense that we should remember is quite apart from its traditional Sanskrit meaning, and implies a racial bias that the Sanskrit term does not have.
We can speak of Indo-European and Dravidian languages, but this does not necessarily mean that Aryan and Dravidian must differ in culture, race or religion. The Hungarians and Finns of Europe are of a different language group than the other Europeans, but we do not speak of them as of a Finnish race, or the Finns as being non-Europeans, nor do we consider that their religious beliefs must therefore be unrelated to those of the rest of Europe.
Even though Dravidian languages are based on a different model than Sanskrit there are thirty to seventy per cent Sanskrit words in south Indian languages like Telugu and Tamil, which is much higher percentage than north Indian languages like Hindi. In addition both north and south Indian languages have a similar construction and phraseology that links them close together, which European languages often do not share. This has caused some linguists even to propose that Hindi was a Dravidian language. In short, the language compart- ments, like the racial ones, are not as rigid as has been thought.
In fact if we examine the oldest Vedic Sanskrit, we find similar sounds to Dravidian languages (the cerebral letters, for example), which are not present in other Indo-European tongues. This shows either that there were already Drvidians in the same region as the Vedic people, and part of the same culture with them, or that Dravidian languages could also have been early off-shoots of Sanskrit, which was the theory of the modern rishi, Sri Aurobindo. In addition the traditional inventor of the Dravidian languages was said to have been none other than Agastya, one of the most important rishis of the Rig Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text.
Dravidians in Vedic/Puranic Lore
Some Vedic texts, like the Aitareya Brahmana or Manu Samhita, have looked at the Dravidians as people outside of the Vedic culture. However, they do not look at them as indigenous or different people but as fallen descendants of Vedic kings, notably Vishwamitra. These same texts look upon some people of north India, including some groups from Bengal, as also outside of Vedic culture, even though such people were Indo-European in language.
Other texts like the Ramayana portray the Dravidians, the inhabitants of Kishkindha (modern Karnataka), as allies of Aryan kings like Rama. The Vedic rishi Agastya is also often portrayed as one of the progenitors of the Dravid- ian peoples. Hence there appears to have been periods in history when the Dravidians or some portion of them were not looked on with favour by some followers of Vedic culture, but this was largely temporary.
If we look through the history of India, there has been some time when almost every part of India has been dominated for a period by unorthodox traditions like Buddhist, Jain or Persian (Zoroastrian), not to mention outside religions like Islam or Christianity, or dominated by other foreign conquerors, like the Greeks, the Scythians (Shakas) or the Huns. That Gujarat was a once suspect land to Vedic people when it was under Jain domination does not cause us to turn the Gujaratis into another race or religion. That something similar happened to the Dravidians at some point in history does not require making something permanently non-Aryan about them. In the history of Europe for example, that Austria once went through a protestant phase, does not cause modern Austrians to consider that they cannot be Catholics.
The kings of south India, like the Chola and Pandya dynsties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryas, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence there are not only traditions that make the Dravidians descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of north India descendants of Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that it is difficult to say which came first. Any differences between them appear to be secondary, and nothing like the great racial divide that the Aryan-Dravidian idea has promoted.
Dravidians as Preservers of Vedic Culture
Through the long and cruel Islamic assault on India, south India became the land of refuge for Vedic culture, and to a great extent remains so to the present day. The best Vedic chanting, rituals and other traditions are preser- ved in south India. It is ironic therefore that the best preservers of Aryan culture in India have been branded as non-Aryan. This again was not something part of the Aryan tradition of India, as part of the misinterpretation of the term Aryan fostered by European thought which often had a political or religi- ous bias, and which led to the Nazis. To equate such racism and violence with the Vedic and Hindu religion, the least aggressive of all religions, is a rather sad thing, not to say very questionable scholarship.
Dravidians do not have to feel that Vedic culture is any more foreign to them than it is to the people of north India. They need not feel that they are racially different than the people of the north. They need not feel that they are losing their culture by using Sanskrit. Nor need they feel that they have to assert themselves against north India or Vedic culture to protect their real heritage.
Vedic and Hindu culture has never suppressed indigenous cultures or been opposed to cultral variations, as have the monolithic conversion religions of Christianity and Islam. The Vedic rishis and yogis encouraged the develop- ment of local traditions. They established sacred places in all the regions in which their culture spread. They did not make everyone have to visit a single holy place like Meca, Rome or Jerusalem. Nor did they find local or tribal deities as something to be eliminated as heathen or pagan. They respected the common human aspiration for the Divine that we find in all cultures and encouraged diversity and uniqueness in our approach to it.
Meanwhile the people of north India also need not take this north-south division as something fundamental. It is not a racial difference that makes the skin of south Indians darker but merely the effect of climate. Any Caucasian race group living in the tropics for some centuries or millennia would eventually turn dark. And whatever color a person's skin may be has nothing to do with their true nature according to the Vedas that see the same Self or Atman in all.
It is also not necessary to turn various Vedic gods into Dravidian gods to give the Dravidians equality with the so-called Aryans in terms of the numbers or antiquity of their gods. This only gives credence to what is superficial distinction in the first place. What is necessary is to assert what is truly Aryan in the culture of India, north or south, which is high or spiritual values in character and action. These occur not only in the Vedas but also the Agamas and other scriptures within the greater tradition.
The Aryans and Dravidians are part of the came culture and we need not speak of them as separate. Dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interests of neither but only serves to damage their common culture (which is what most of those who propound these ideas are often seek- ing). Perhaps the saddest thing is that modern Indian politicians have also used this division to promote their own ambitions, though it is harmful to the unity of the country.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter- skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southern ers were a different race.
Racial Theories
The Nineteenth century was the era of Europeans imperialism. Many Europeans did in fact believe that they belonged to a superior race and that their religion, Christianity, was a superior religion and all other religions were barbaric, particularly a religion like Hinduism which uses many idols. The Europeans felt that it was their duty to convert non-Christians, sometimes even if it required intimidation, force or bribery.
Europeans thinkers of the era were dominated by a racial theory of man, which was interpreted primarily in terms of color. They saw themselves as belonging to a superior 'white' or Caucasian race. They had enslaved the Negroid or 'black' race. As Hindus were also dark or 'colored', they were similarly deemed inferior. The British thus, not surprisingly, looked upon the culture of India in a similar way as having been a land of a light-skinned or Aryan race (the north Indians), ruling a dark or Dravidian race (the south Indians).
About this time in history the similarities betweeen Indo-European languages also became evident. Sanskrit and the languages of North India were found to be relatives of the languages of Europe, while the Dravidian languages of south India were found to be another language family. By the racial theory, Europeans natuarally felt that the original speakers of any root Indo-European language must have been 'white', as they were not prepared to recognize that their languages could have been derived from the darker-skinned Hindus. As all Hindus were dark compared to the Europeans, it was assumed that the original white Indo-European invadors of India must have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though they left their mark more on north India where people have a lighter complexion.
Though the Nazis later took this idea of a white Aryan superior race to its extreme of brutality, they did not invent the idea, nor were they the only ones to use it for purposes of exploitation. They took what was a common idea of nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, which many other Europeans shared. They perverted this idea further, but the distortion of it was already the basis of much exploitation and misunderstanding.
Racial Interpretation of Vedas
Europeans Vedic interpreters used this same racial idea to explain the Vedas. The Vedas speak of a battle between light and darkness. This was turned into a war between light skinned Aryans and dark skinned Dravidians. Such so-called scholars did not bother to examine the fact that most religions and mythologies including those of the ancient American Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and Persians have the idea of such a battle between light and darkness (which is the symbolic conflict between truth and falsehood), but we do not interpret their statements racially. In short, the Europeans projected racism into the history of India, and accused the Hindus of the very racism that they themselves were using to dominate the Hindus.
European scholars also pointed out that caste in India was originally defined by color. Brahmins were said to be white, Kshatriyas red, Vaishyas yellow, and Shudras black. Hence the Brahmins were said to have been originally the white Aryans and the Dravidians the dark Shudras. However, what these colors refer to is the gunas or qualities of each class. White is the color of purity (sattvaguna), dark that of impurity (tamoguna), red the color of action (rajoguna), and yellow the color of trade (also rajoguna). To turn this into races is simplistic and incorrect. Where is the red race and where is the yellow race in India? And when have the Kshatriyas been a red race and the Vaishyas as yellow race?
The racial idea reached yet more ridiculous proportions. Vedic passages speaking of their enemies (mainly demons) as without nose (a-nasa), were interpreted as a racial slur against the snub-nosed Dravidians. Now Dravidians are not snub-nosed or low nosed people, as anyone can see by examining their facial features. And the Vedic demons are also described as footless (a-pada). Where is such a footless and noseless race and what does this have to do with the Dravidians? Moreover Vedic gods like Agni (fire) are described as footless and headless. Where are such headless and footless Aryans? Yet such 'scholar- ship' can be found in prominent Western books on the history of India, some published in India and used in schools in India to the present day.
This idea was taken further and Hindu gods like Krishna, whose name means dark, or Shiva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have originally been Dravidian gods taken over by the invading Aryans (under the simplistic idea that Dravidians as dark-skinned people must have worshipped dark colored gods). Yet Krishna and Shiva are not black but dark blue. Where is such a dark blue race? Moreover the different Hindu gods, like the classes of Manu, have diffe- rent colors relative to their qualities. Lakshmi is portrayed as pink, Saras- wati as white, Kali as blue-black, or Yama, the God of death, as green. Where have such races been in India or elsewhere?
In a similar light, some scholars pointed out that Vedic gods like Savitar have golden hair and golden skin, thus showing blond and fair-skinned people living in ancient India. However, Savitar is a sun-god and sun-god are usually gold in color, as has been the case of the ancient Egyptian, Mayan, and Inca and other sun-gods. Who has a black or blue sun-god? This is from the simple fact that the sun has a golden color. What does this have to do with race? And why should it be racial statement in the Vedas but not elsewhere?
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely ignored. We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical charac- teristics. The term Arya means "noble" or "spiritual", and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an epithet of respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot imagine that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages and dominated a different race because most of the people in power in the country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India in the third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or non-Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by many people to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the so-called Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but on the banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be renamed not the Indus but the "Saraswati Culture"), and that its language was also related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC. Hence the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must predate this period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to have been generally the same as those of north India today, and that there is no evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the Indus or post-Indus era.
This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion thoery or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically bo th the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharash- tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the "white" race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms that people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of color.
North and South Indian Religions
Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried to make some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there has been no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a superficial identifi- cation of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and therefore Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In the Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of the Yadus, a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there are instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant dark (like Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more prominent in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of Shiva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north. There never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not prominent in the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni and Soma are more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However, Rudra-Shiva is dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas, which are also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are often identi- fied with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra as the dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for example). While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and Shaivite or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or Shakta - and we would expect a religion to undergo some development through time - there is nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite traditions, and certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in fact is the deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is adorned with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in the so-call ed Dravidian Indus Valey civilization, with the existence of Shivalinga like sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further examination has also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with all the tradi- tional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again refuting such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati) culture appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic religion is north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same confused logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no real division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
Aryan and Dravidian Languages
The Indo-European languages and the Dravidian do have important differences. Their ways of developing words and grammer are different. However, it is a misnomer to call all Indo-European languages Aryan. The Sanskrit term Aryan would not apply to European languages, which are materialistic in orientation, bacause Aryan in Sanskrit means spiritual. When the term Aryan is used as indicating certain languages, the term is being used in a Western or European sense that we should remember is quite apart from its traditional Sanskrit meaning, and implies a racial bias that the Sanskrit term does not have.
We can speak of Indo-European and Dravidian languages, but this does not necessarily mean that Aryan and Dravidian must differ in culture, race or religion. The Hungarians and Finns of Europe are of a different language group than the other Europeans, but we do not speak of them as of a Finnish race, or the Finns as being non-Europeans, nor do we consider that their religious beliefs must therefore be unrelated to those of the rest of Europe.
Even though Dravidian languages are based on a different model than Sanskrit there are thirty to seventy per cent Sanskrit words in south Indian languages like Telugu and Tamil, which is much higher percentage than north Indian languages like Hindi. In addition both north and south Indian languages have a similar construction and phraseology that links them close together, which European languages often do not share. This has caused some linguists even to propose that Hindi was a Dravidian language. In short, the language compart- ments, like the racial ones, are not as rigid as has been thought.
In fact if we examine the oldest Vedic Sanskrit, we find similar sounds to Dravidian languages (the cerebral letters, for example), which are not present in other Indo-European tongues. This shows either that there were already Drvidians in the same region as the Vedic people, and part of the same culture with them, or that Dravidian languages could also have been early off-shoots of Sanskrit, which was the theory of the modern rishi, Sri Aurobindo. In addition the traditional inventor of the Dravidian languages was said to have been none other than Agastya, one of the most important rishis of the Rig Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text.
Dravidians in Vedic/Puranic Lore
Some Vedic texts, like the Aitareya Brahmana or Manu Samhita, have looked at the Dravidians as people outside of the Vedic culture. However, they do not look at them as indigenous or different people but as fallen descendants of Vedic kings, notably Vishwamitra. These same texts look upon some people of north India, including some groups from Bengal, as also outside of Vedic culture, even though such people were Indo-European in language.
Other texts like the Ramayana portray the Dravidians, the inhabitants of Kishkindha (modern Karnataka), as allies of Aryan kings like Rama. The Vedic rishi Agastya is also often portrayed as one of the progenitors of the Dravid- ian peoples. Hence there appears to have been periods in history when the Dravidians or some portion of them were not looked on with favour by some followers of Vedic culture, but this was largely temporary.
If we look through the history of India, there has been some time when almost every part of India has been dominated for a period by unorthodox traditions like Buddhist, Jain or Persian (Zoroastrian), not to mention outside religions like Islam or Christianity, or dominated by other foreign conquerors, like the Greeks, the Scythians (Shakas) or the Huns. That Gujarat was a once suspect land to Vedic people when it was under Jain domination does not cause us to turn the Gujaratis into another race or religion. That something similar happened to the Dravidians at some point in history does not require making something permanently non-Aryan about them. In the history of Europe for example, that Austria once went through a protestant phase, does not cause modern Austrians to consider that they cannot be Catholics.
The kings of south India, like the Chola and Pandya dynsties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryas, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence there are not only traditions that make the Dravidians descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of north India descendants of Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that it is difficult to say which came first. Any differences between them appear to be secondary, and nothing like the great racial divide that the Aryan-Dravidian idea has promoted.
Dravidians as Preservers of Vedic Culture
Through the long and cruel Islamic assault on India, south India became the land of refuge for Vedic culture, and to a great extent remains so to the present day. The best Vedic chanting, rituals and other traditions are preser- ved in south India. It is ironic therefore that the best preservers of Aryan culture in India have been branded as non-Aryan. This again was not something part of the Aryan tradition of India, as part of the misinterpretation of the term Aryan fostered by European thought which often had a political or religi- ous bias, and which led to the Nazis. To equate such racism and violence with the Vedic and Hindu religion, the least aggressive of all religions, is a rather sad thing, not to say very questionable scholarship.
Dravidians do not have to feel that Vedic culture is any more foreign to them than it is to the people of north India. They need not feel that they are racially different than the people of the north. They need not feel that they are losing their culture by using Sanskrit. Nor need they feel that they have to assert themselves against north India or Vedic culture to protect their real heritage.
Vedic and Hindu culture has never suppressed indigenous cultures or been opposed to cultral variations, as have the monolithic conversion religions of Christianity and Islam. The Vedic rishis and yogis encouraged the develop- ment of local traditions. They established sacred places in all the regions in which their culture spread. They did not make everyone have to visit a single holy place like Meca, Rome or Jerusalem. Nor did they find local or tribal deities as something to be eliminated as heathen or pagan. They respected the common human aspiration for the Divine that we find in all cultures and encouraged diversity and uniqueness in our approach to it.
Meanwhile the people of north India also need not take this north-south division as something fundamental. It is not a racial difference that makes the skin of south Indians darker but merely the effect of climate. Any Caucasian race group living in the tropics for some centuries or millennia would eventually turn dark. And whatever color a person's skin may be has nothing to do with their true nature according to the Vedas that see the same Self or Atman in all.
It is also not necessary to turn various Vedic gods into Dravidian gods to give the Dravidians equality with the so-called Aryans in terms of the numbers or antiquity of their gods. This only gives credence to what is superficial distinction in the first place. What is necessary is to assert what is truly Aryan in the culture of India, north or south, which is high or spiritual values in character and action. These occur not only in the Vedas but also the Agamas and other scriptures within the greater tradition.
The Aryans and Dravidians are part of the came culture and we need not speak of them as separate. Dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interests of neither but only serves to damage their common culture (which is what most of those who propound these ideas are often seek- ing). Perhaps the saddest thing is that modern Indian politicians have also used this division to promote their own ambitions, though it is harmful to the unity of the country.
ARYAN GODS
Religion and worship dawned in India with the birth of man. Reverence for the divine is revealed in the fragments of early history.
People of the Indus Valley Civilisation (7,000 to 1,600 BC), prayed to a Mother Goddess. Ritual and religion played a large part in their daily life. The famous Mohenjodaro statue of the Priest King affirms the primal power conferred on a religious leader. Seals engraved with inscriptions of animals avow the ancient veneration of the cow. Fire and trees were also worshipped.
While their civilisation flourished, the signs of belief were expressed in daily living, until the elements changed their fortunes. The rain that had once graced their grain, shunned their land. The earth shook. A massive earthquake changed the course of the river, Saraswati. Eluded by water the people migrated east when prosperous trade shrank and robbed them of their riches.
About this time, a people of Central Asia, the Aryans invaded India (about 3,000 BC). They were confronted by the original inhabitants of India, the Dravidas and the Nagas.
The Dravidas and Nagas were defeated when they were besieged by wave upon wave of Aryan invasion. They became a colonised people and the Aryans settled in the plains of Northern India.
The Aryan religion was primitive and consisted of the worship of the powers of nature. The Vedas, a collection of hymns were composed in pre-classical Sanskrit during the second millennium BC.
These Vedic hymns created the first stage of Hindu mythology as we know it. The original Veda is the Rig Veda. The Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, were composed later. The hymns addressed the elements- Surya (the Sun), Agni (fire), Indra (thunder), Vayu (the Wind) and Varuna (Ocean).
The elements were the early gods, of whom Surya, the Sun -God, is the most important. He is the son of Aditi (the Sky Goddess) and Dyaus (the God of light in the sky). His radiance energy which sustained the day gave him his other name Din-Kara (day-maker).
In the Vedas Surya is depicted as a handsome golden youth (like Apollo), who rides a chariot drawn by seven red mares, each named for a day of the week. His twin sons, the Ashvins often precede him in their golden chariot. His capital is Vivasvati, the Sun City.
The swastika, is the sign of Surya, a symbol of his generosity. The direction of the swastika indicates the four cardinal directions in which sticks were placed for Vedic sacrificial fires
Agni (the Fire God) was worshipped with great devotion. His seven arms span the seven continents. He is portrayed with an extended stomach representing his ability to devour. His belly is also a reminder of the time when Agni consumed the magnificent forests of India to bring land under the plough. He is coloured red and rides a ram. His tongue is a flame that licks up sacrificial ghee (butter).
Sacrifice was a central concept to the Aryan religion and fire played an important role. Present in every dwelling of the rich or the poor, Agni was the sakshin (witness) of the holy trinity of rituals, sacrifice, marriage and the funereal rites. During a Vedic wedding ceremony the bride and groom walk around the fire seven times to sanctify their marriage, for Agni is considered witness and representative of all gods.
Indra (God of the sky). Rainmaker, bearer of thunder and conductor of lightning. Indra was the creator of storms with his Vajra (thunderbolt). His powers liken him to Zeus-Jupiter.
Lord of the skies, Indra has a white elephant called Airavat. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by horses whose flying manes imply the speed with which they draw him. Indras weapons are the Vajra, bow (the rainbow), net, and a hook. As Weather-God and sustainer of life he battles against the God of Drought and Death.
Hindus aspire to live in Swarga (heaven) with Indra after death, for despite his dazzling weapons Indra is a peaceful God, who offers refuge to all who follow the path of Dharma (righteousness).
Vayu is the god of the wind like the Greek God Aiolos. He is the father of the monkey god Hanuman and of the Pandava Prince Bhima. Flighty and swift he often carried Indra through the skies. His mount is a deer and he carries a wheel in his hand as a symbol for speed.
Vayu is revered for he signifies a vital sign of life - breath. Vayu is also called Pavan, one who enlivens prakriti (nature). As Pavan, he is the bearer of life dispersing seeds. He scatters pollen to bring flowers to bloom and clouds the air with floral perfumes. Whimsical by nature, he is a god of violent character. After a quarrel with Indra who lived on Mount Meru, Vayu broke off the top of Mount Meru and hurled it in the ocean. The peak surfaced at the Southern tip of India and is now said to be Sri Lanka.
Varuna is the God of the oceans and is identified with Poseidon. He is the element vari (water).His chariot is drawn by the fluid strength of ocean waves.
Varuna was the earlier rainmaker, until Indra took over his function. Under the oceans Varuna lives in an underwater palace called Pushpagiri (mountain of flowers). His mount is a fish called Makara. In the oldest hymns he was described as the creator. He fixed the orbit for planets and the directions of the winds and the flight of the birds.
The Vedic Gods were worshipped with prayer and sacrifice. Their very conception was Aryan, most of the Gods drove chariots drawn by horses. The Aryans had introduced the horse to India. The highest sacrifice was the Ashvamedha (the Horse Sacrifice). When a king had no male heir, he would consign his finest stallion to the flames. His wives would then spent the night close to the smouldering remains of the carcass. It was believed that the spirit of the animal would make the queens fertile. The Aryans also believed that a hundred such Ashvamedhas would make the king, emperor of the world.
People of the Indus Valley Civilisation (7,000 to 1,600 BC), prayed to a Mother Goddess. Ritual and religion played a large part in their daily life. The famous Mohenjodaro statue of the Priest King affirms the primal power conferred on a religious leader. Seals engraved with inscriptions of animals avow the ancient veneration of the cow. Fire and trees were also worshipped.
While their civilisation flourished, the signs of belief were expressed in daily living, until the elements changed their fortunes. The rain that had once graced their grain, shunned their land. The earth shook. A massive earthquake changed the course of the river, Saraswati. Eluded by water the people migrated east when prosperous trade shrank and robbed them of their riches.
About this time, a people of Central Asia, the Aryans invaded India (about 3,000 BC). They were confronted by the original inhabitants of India, the Dravidas and the Nagas.
The Dravidas and Nagas were defeated when they were besieged by wave upon wave of Aryan invasion. They became a colonised people and the Aryans settled in the plains of Northern India.
The Aryan religion was primitive and consisted of the worship of the powers of nature. The Vedas, a collection of hymns were composed in pre-classical Sanskrit during the second millennium BC.
These Vedic hymns created the first stage of Hindu mythology as we know it. The original Veda is the Rig Veda. The Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, were composed later. The hymns addressed the elements- Surya (the Sun), Agni (fire), Indra (thunder), Vayu (the Wind) and Varuna (Ocean).
The elements were the early gods, of whom Surya, the Sun -God, is the most important. He is the son of Aditi (the Sky Goddess) and Dyaus (the God of light in the sky). His radiance energy which sustained the day gave him his other name Din-Kara (day-maker).
In the Vedas Surya is depicted as a handsome golden youth (like Apollo), who rides a chariot drawn by seven red mares, each named for a day of the week. His twin sons, the Ashvins often precede him in their golden chariot. His capital is Vivasvati, the Sun City.
The swastika, is the sign of Surya, a symbol of his generosity. The direction of the swastika indicates the four cardinal directions in which sticks were placed for Vedic sacrificial fires
Agni (the Fire God) was worshipped with great devotion. His seven arms span the seven continents. He is portrayed with an extended stomach representing his ability to devour. His belly is also a reminder of the time when Agni consumed the magnificent forests of India to bring land under the plough. He is coloured red and rides a ram. His tongue is a flame that licks up sacrificial ghee (butter).
Sacrifice was a central concept to the Aryan religion and fire played an important role. Present in every dwelling of the rich or the poor, Agni was the sakshin (witness) of the holy trinity of rituals, sacrifice, marriage and the funereal rites. During a Vedic wedding ceremony the bride and groom walk around the fire seven times to sanctify their marriage, for Agni is considered witness and representative of all gods.
Indra (God of the sky). Rainmaker, bearer of thunder and conductor of lightning. Indra was the creator of storms with his Vajra (thunderbolt). His powers liken him to Zeus-Jupiter.
Lord of the skies, Indra has a white elephant called Airavat. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by horses whose flying manes imply the speed with which they draw him. Indras weapons are the Vajra, bow (the rainbow), net, and a hook. As Weather-God and sustainer of life he battles against the God of Drought and Death.
Hindus aspire to live in Swarga (heaven) with Indra after death, for despite his dazzling weapons Indra is a peaceful God, who offers refuge to all who follow the path of Dharma (righteousness).
Vayu is the god of the wind like the Greek God Aiolos. He is the father of the monkey god Hanuman and of the Pandava Prince Bhima. Flighty and swift he often carried Indra through the skies. His mount is a deer and he carries a wheel in his hand as a symbol for speed.
Vayu is revered for he signifies a vital sign of life - breath. Vayu is also called Pavan, one who enlivens prakriti (nature). As Pavan, he is the bearer of life dispersing seeds. He scatters pollen to bring flowers to bloom and clouds the air with floral perfumes. Whimsical by nature, he is a god of violent character. After a quarrel with Indra who lived on Mount Meru, Vayu broke off the top of Mount Meru and hurled it in the ocean. The peak surfaced at the Southern tip of India and is now said to be Sri Lanka.
Varuna is the God of the oceans and is identified with Poseidon. He is the element vari (water).His chariot is drawn by the fluid strength of ocean waves.
Varuna was the earlier rainmaker, until Indra took over his function. Under the oceans Varuna lives in an underwater palace called Pushpagiri (mountain of flowers). His mount is a fish called Makara. In the oldest hymns he was described as the creator. He fixed the orbit for planets and the directions of the winds and the flight of the birds.
The Vedic Gods were worshipped with prayer and sacrifice. Their very conception was Aryan, most of the Gods drove chariots drawn by horses. The Aryans had introduced the horse to India. The highest sacrifice was the Ashvamedha (the Horse Sacrifice). When a king had no male heir, he would consign his finest stallion to the flames. His wives would then spent the night close to the smouldering remains of the carcass. It was believed that the spirit of the animal would make the queens fertile. The Aryans also believed that a hundred such Ashvamedhas would make the king, emperor of the world.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's letter to Jawaharlal Nehru
My dear Jawaharlal,
Ever since my return from Ahmedabad and after the cabinet meeting the same day which I had to attend at practically fifteen minutes' notice and for which I regret I was not able to read all the papers, I have been anxiously thinking over the problem of Tibet and I thought I should share with you what is passing through my mind.
I have carefully gone through the correspondence between the External Affairs Ministry and our Ambassador in Peking and through him the Chinese Government. I have tried to peruse this correspondence as favourably to our Ambassador and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as a result of this study. The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intention. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed to instill into our Ambassador a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means. There can be no doubt that during the period covered by this correspondence the Chinese must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of perfidy. The tragedy of it is that the Tibetans put faith in us; they chose to be guided by us; and we have been unable to get them out of the meshes of Chinese diplomacy or Chinese malevolence. From the latest position, it appears that we shall not be able to rescue the Dalai Lama. Our Ambassador has been at great pains to find an explanation or justification for Chinese policy and actions. As the External Affairs Ministry remarked in one of their telegrams, there was a lack of firmness and unnecessary apology in one or two representations that he made to the Chinese Government on our behalf. It is impossible to imagine any sensible person believing in the so-called threat to China from Anglo-American machinations in Tibet. Therefore, if the Chinese put faith in this, they must have distrusted us so completely as to have taken us as tools or stooges of Anglo-American diplomacy or strategy. This feeling, if genuinely entertained by the Chinese in spite of your direct approaches to them, indicates that even though we regard ourselves as the friends of China, the Chinese do not regard us as their friends. With the Communist mentality of "whoever is not with them being against them", this is a significant pointer, of which we have to take due note. During the last several months, outside the Russian camp, we have practically been alone in championing the cause of Chinese entry into UN and in securing from the Americans assurances on the question of Formosa. We have done everything we could to assuage Chinese feelings, to allay its apprehensions and to defend its legitimate claims in our discussions and correspondence with America and Britain and in the UN. Inspite of this, China is not convinced about our disinterestedness; it continues to regard us with suspicion and the whole psychology is one, at least outwardly, of scepticism perhaps mixed with a little hostility. I doubt if we can go any further than we have done already to convince China of our good intentions, friendliness and goodwill. In Peking we have an Ambassador who is eminently suitable for putting across the friendly point of view. Even he seems to have failed to convert the Chinese. Their last telegram to us is an act of gross discourtesy not only in the summary way it disposes of our protest against the entry of Chinese forces into Tibet but also in the wild insinuation that our attitude is determined by foreign influences. It looks as though it is not a friend speaking in that language but a potential enemy.
In the background of this, we have to consider what new situation now faces us as a result of the disappearance of Tibet, as we knew it, and the expansion of China almost up to our gates. Throughout history we have seldom been worried about our north-east frontier. The Himalayas have been regarded as an impenetrable barrier against any threat from the north. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble. The Chinese were divided. They had their own domestic problems and never bothered us about frontiers. In 1914, we entered into a convention with Tibet which was not endorsed by the Chinese. We seem to have regarded Tibetan autonomy as extending to independent treaty relationship. Presumably, all that we required was Chinese counter-signature. The Chinese interpretation of suzerainty seems to be different. We can, therefore, safely assume that very soon they will disown all the stipulations which Tibet has entered into with us in the past. That throws into the melting pot all frontier and commercial settlements with Tibet on which we have been functioning and acting during the last half a century. China is no longer divided. It is united and strong. All along the Himalayas in the north and north-east, we have on our side of the frontier a population ethnologically and culturally not different from Tibetans and Mongoloids. The undefined state of the frontier and the existence on our side of a population with its affinities to the Tibetans or Chinese have all the elements of the potential trouble between China and ourselves. Recent and bitter history also tells us that Communism is no shield against imperialism and that the communists are as good or as bad imperialists as any other. Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include the important part of Assam. They have their ambitions in Burma also. Burma has the added difficulty that it has no McMahon Line round which to build up even the semblance of an agreement. Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers. The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national or historical claims. The danger from the north and north-east, therefore, becomes both communist and imperialist. While our western and north-western threat to security is still as prominent as before, a new threat has developed from the north and north-east. Thus, for the first time, after centuries, India's defence has to concentrate itself on two fronts simultaneously. Our defence measures have so far been based on the calculations of superiority over Pakistan. In our calculations we shall now have to reckon with communist China in the north and in the north-east, a communist China which has definite ambitions and aims and which does not, in any way, seem friendly disposed towards us.
Let us also consider the political conditions on this potentially troublesome frontier. Our northern and north-eastern approaches consist of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal areas in Assam. From the point of view of communication, there are weak spots. Continuous defensive lines do not exist. There is almost an unlimited scope for infiltration. Police protection is limited to a very small number of passes. There, too, our outposts do not seem to be fully manned. The contact of these areas with us is by no means close and intimate. The people inhabiting these portions have no established loyalty or devotion to India. Even Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are not free from pro-Mongoloid prejudices. During the last three years, we have not been able to make any appreciable approaches to the Nagas and other hill tribes in Assam. European missionaries and other visitors had been in touch with them, but their influence was in no way friendly to India or Indians. In Sikkim, there was political ferment some time ago. It is quite possible that discontent is smouldering there. Bhutan is comparatively quiet, but its affinity with Tibetans would be a handicap. Nepal has a weak oligarchic regime based almost entirely on force: it is in conflict with a turbulent element of the population as well as with enlightened ideas of the modern age. In these circumstances, to make people alive to the new danger or to make them defensively strong is a very difficult task indeed and that difficulty can be got over only by enlightened firmness, strength and a clear line of policy. I am sure the Chinese and their source of inspiration, Soviet Union, would not miss any opportunity of exploiting these weak spots, partly in support of their ideology and partly in support of their ambitions. In my judgement the situation is one which we cannot afford either to be complacent or to be vacillating. We must have a clear idea of what we wish to achieve and also of the methods by which we should achieve it. Any faltering or lack of decisiveness in formulating our objectives or in pursuing our policies to attain those objectives is bound to weaken us and increase the threats which are so evident.
Side by side with these external dangers, we shall now have to face serious internal problems as well. I have already asked Iengar to send to the External Affairs Ministry a copy of the Intelligence Bureau's appreciation of these matters. Hitherto, the Communist Party of India has found some difficulty in contacting communists abroad, or in getting supplies of arms, literature, etc., from them. They had to contend with the difficult Burmese and Pakistan frontiers on the east or with the long seaboard. They shall now have a comparatively easy means of access to Chinese communists and through them to other foreign communists. Infiltration of spies, fifth columnists and communists would now be easier. Instead of having to deal with isolated communist pockets in Telengana and Warrangal we may have to deal with communist threats to our security along our northern and north-eastern frontiers, where, for supplies of arms and ammunition, they can safely depend on communist arsenals in China. The whole situation thus raises a number of problems on which we must come to an early decision so that we can, as I said earlier, formulate the objectives of our policy and decide the method by which those objectives are to be attained. It is also clear that the action will have to be fairly comprehensive, involving not only our defence strategy and state of preparations but also problem of internal security to deal with which we have not a moment to lose. We shall also have to deal with administrative and political problems in the weak spots along the frontier to which I have already referred.
It is of course, impossible to be exhaustive in setting out all these problems. I am, however, giving below some of the problems which, in my opinion, require early solution and round which we have to build our administrative or military policies and measures to implement them.
a) A military and intelligence appreciation of the Chinese threat to India both on the frontier and to internal security.
b) An examination of military position and such redisposition of our forces as might be necessary, particularly with the idea of guarding important routes or areas which are likely to be the subject of dispute.
c) An appraisement of the strength of our forces and, if necessary, reconsideration of our retrenchment plans for the Army in the light of the new threat.
d) A long-term consideration of our defence needs. My own feeling is that, unless we assure our supplies of arms, ammunition and armour, we would be making our defence perpetually weak and we would not be able to stand up to the double threat of difficulties both from the west and north-west and north and north-east.
e) The question of China's entry into the UN. In view of the rebuff which China has given us and the method which it has followed in dealing with Tibet, I am doubtful whether we can advocate its claim any longer. There would probably be a threat in the UN virtually to outlaw China, in view of its active participation in the Korean war. We must determine our attitude on this question also.
f) The political and administrative steps which we should take to strengthen our northern and north-eastern frontier. This would include the whole of the border, ie. Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal territory in Assam.
g) Measures of internal security in the border areas as well as the states flanking those areas such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Assam.
h) Improvement of our communication, road, rail, air and wireless, in these areas and with the frontier outposts.
i) The future of our mission at Lhasa and the trade posts at Gyangtse and Yatung and the forces which we have in operation in Tibet to guard the trade routes.
j) The policy in regard to the McMahon Line.
These are some of the questions which occur to my mind. It is possible that a consideration of these matters may lead us into wider question of our relationship with China, Russia, America, Britain and Burma. This, however, would be of a general nature, though some might be basically very important, e.g., we might have to consider whether we should not enter into closer association with Burma in order to strengthen the latter in its dealings with China. I do not rule out the possibility that, before applying pressure on us, China might apply pressure on Burma. With Burma, the frontier is entirely undefined and the Chinese territorial claims are more substantial. In its present position, Burma might offer an easier problem to China, and therefore, might claim its first attention.
I suggest that we meet early to have a general discussion on these problems and decide on such steps as we might think to be immediately necessary and direct, quick examination of other problems with a view to taking early measures to deal with them.
Vallabhbhai Patel, 7th November 1950
Ever since my return from Ahmedabad and after the cabinet meeting the same day which I had to attend at practically fifteen minutes' notice and for which I regret I was not able to read all the papers, I have been anxiously thinking over the problem of Tibet and I thought I should share with you what is passing through my mind.
I have carefully gone through the correspondence between the External Affairs Ministry and our Ambassador in Peking and through him the Chinese Government. I have tried to peruse this correspondence as favourably to our Ambassador and the Chinese Government as possible, but I regret to say that neither of them comes out well as a result of this study. The Chinese Government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intention. My own feeling is that at a crucial period they managed to instill into our Ambassador a false sense of confidence in their so-called desire to settle the Tibetan problem by peaceful means. There can be no doubt that during the period covered by this correspondence the Chinese must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of the Chinese, in my judgement, is little short of perfidy. The tragedy of it is that the Tibetans put faith in us; they chose to be guided by us; and we have been unable to get them out of the meshes of Chinese diplomacy or Chinese malevolence. From the latest position, it appears that we shall not be able to rescue the Dalai Lama. Our Ambassador has been at great pains to find an explanation or justification for Chinese policy and actions. As the External Affairs Ministry remarked in one of their telegrams, there was a lack of firmness and unnecessary apology in one or two representations that he made to the Chinese Government on our behalf. It is impossible to imagine any sensible person believing in the so-called threat to China from Anglo-American machinations in Tibet. Therefore, if the Chinese put faith in this, they must have distrusted us so completely as to have taken us as tools or stooges of Anglo-American diplomacy or strategy. This feeling, if genuinely entertained by the Chinese in spite of your direct approaches to them, indicates that even though we regard ourselves as the friends of China, the Chinese do not regard us as their friends. With the Communist mentality of "whoever is not with them being against them", this is a significant pointer, of which we have to take due note. During the last several months, outside the Russian camp, we have practically been alone in championing the cause of Chinese entry into UN and in securing from the Americans assurances on the question of Formosa. We have done everything we could to assuage Chinese feelings, to allay its apprehensions and to defend its legitimate claims in our discussions and correspondence with America and Britain and in the UN. Inspite of this, China is not convinced about our disinterestedness; it continues to regard us with suspicion and the whole psychology is one, at least outwardly, of scepticism perhaps mixed with a little hostility. I doubt if we can go any further than we have done already to convince China of our good intentions, friendliness and goodwill. In Peking we have an Ambassador who is eminently suitable for putting across the friendly point of view. Even he seems to have failed to convert the Chinese. Their last telegram to us is an act of gross discourtesy not only in the summary way it disposes of our protest against the entry of Chinese forces into Tibet but also in the wild insinuation that our attitude is determined by foreign influences. It looks as though it is not a friend speaking in that language but a potential enemy.
In the background of this, we have to consider what new situation now faces us as a result of the disappearance of Tibet, as we knew it, and the expansion of China almost up to our gates. Throughout history we have seldom been worried about our north-east frontier. The Himalayas have been regarded as an impenetrable barrier against any threat from the north. We had a friendly Tibet which gave us no trouble. The Chinese were divided. They had their own domestic problems and never bothered us about frontiers. In 1914, we entered into a convention with Tibet which was not endorsed by the Chinese. We seem to have regarded Tibetan autonomy as extending to independent treaty relationship. Presumably, all that we required was Chinese counter-signature. The Chinese interpretation of suzerainty seems to be different. We can, therefore, safely assume that very soon they will disown all the stipulations which Tibet has entered into with us in the past. That throws into the melting pot all frontier and commercial settlements with Tibet on which we have been functioning and acting during the last half a century. China is no longer divided. It is united and strong. All along the Himalayas in the north and north-east, we have on our side of the frontier a population ethnologically and culturally not different from Tibetans and Mongoloids. The undefined state of the frontier and the existence on our side of a population with its affinities to the Tibetans or Chinese have all the elements of the potential trouble between China and ourselves. Recent and bitter history also tells us that Communism is no shield against imperialism and that the communists are as good or as bad imperialists as any other. Chinese ambitions in this respect not only cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include the important part of Assam. They have their ambitions in Burma also. Burma has the added difficulty that it has no McMahon Line round which to build up even the semblance of an agreement. Chinese irredentism and communist imperialism are different from the expansionism or imperialism of the western powers. The former has a cloak of ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous. In the guise of ideological expansion lie concealed racial, national or historical claims. The danger from the north and north-east, therefore, becomes both communist and imperialist. While our western and north-western threat to security is still as prominent as before, a new threat has developed from the north and north-east. Thus, for the first time, after centuries, India's defence has to concentrate itself on two fronts simultaneously. Our defence measures have so far been based on the calculations of superiority over Pakistan. In our calculations we shall now have to reckon with communist China in the north and in the north-east, a communist China which has definite ambitions and aims and which does not, in any way, seem friendly disposed towards us.
Let us also consider the political conditions on this potentially troublesome frontier. Our northern and north-eastern approaches consist of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal areas in Assam. From the point of view of communication, there are weak spots. Continuous defensive lines do not exist. There is almost an unlimited scope for infiltration. Police protection is limited to a very small number of passes. There, too, our outposts do not seem to be fully manned. The contact of these areas with us is by no means close and intimate. The people inhabiting these portions have no established loyalty or devotion to India. Even Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas are not free from pro-Mongoloid prejudices. During the last three years, we have not been able to make any appreciable approaches to the Nagas and other hill tribes in Assam. European missionaries and other visitors had been in touch with them, but their influence was in no way friendly to India or Indians. In Sikkim, there was political ferment some time ago. It is quite possible that discontent is smouldering there. Bhutan is comparatively quiet, but its affinity with Tibetans would be a handicap. Nepal has a weak oligarchic regime based almost entirely on force: it is in conflict with a turbulent element of the population as well as with enlightened ideas of the modern age. In these circumstances, to make people alive to the new danger or to make them defensively strong is a very difficult task indeed and that difficulty can be got over only by enlightened firmness, strength and a clear line of policy. I am sure the Chinese and their source of inspiration, Soviet Union, would not miss any opportunity of exploiting these weak spots, partly in support of their ideology and partly in support of their ambitions. In my judgement the situation is one which we cannot afford either to be complacent or to be vacillating. We must have a clear idea of what we wish to achieve and also of the methods by which we should achieve it. Any faltering or lack of decisiveness in formulating our objectives or in pursuing our policies to attain those objectives is bound to weaken us and increase the threats which are so evident.
Side by side with these external dangers, we shall now have to face serious internal problems as well. I have already asked Iengar to send to the External Affairs Ministry a copy of the Intelligence Bureau's appreciation of these matters. Hitherto, the Communist Party of India has found some difficulty in contacting communists abroad, or in getting supplies of arms, literature, etc., from them. They had to contend with the difficult Burmese and Pakistan frontiers on the east or with the long seaboard. They shall now have a comparatively easy means of access to Chinese communists and through them to other foreign communists. Infiltration of spies, fifth columnists and communists would now be easier. Instead of having to deal with isolated communist pockets in Telengana and Warrangal we may have to deal with communist threats to our security along our northern and north-eastern frontiers, where, for supplies of arms and ammunition, they can safely depend on communist arsenals in China. The whole situation thus raises a number of problems on which we must come to an early decision so that we can, as I said earlier, formulate the objectives of our policy and decide the method by which those objectives are to be attained. It is also clear that the action will have to be fairly comprehensive, involving not only our defence strategy and state of preparations but also problem of internal security to deal with which we have not a moment to lose. We shall also have to deal with administrative and political problems in the weak spots along the frontier to which I have already referred.
It is of course, impossible to be exhaustive in setting out all these problems. I am, however, giving below some of the problems which, in my opinion, require early solution and round which we have to build our administrative or military policies and measures to implement them.
a) A military and intelligence appreciation of the Chinese threat to India both on the frontier and to internal security.
b) An examination of military position and such redisposition of our forces as might be necessary, particularly with the idea of guarding important routes or areas which are likely to be the subject of dispute.
c) An appraisement of the strength of our forces and, if necessary, reconsideration of our retrenchment plans for the Army in the light of the new threat.
d) A long-term consideration of our defence needs. My own feeling is that, unless we assure our supplies of arms, ammunition and armour, we would be making our defence perpetually weak and we would not be able to stand up to the double threat of difficulties both from the west and north-west and north and north-east.
e) The question of China's entry into the UN. In view of the rebuff which China has given us and the method which it has followed in dealing with Tibet, I am doubtful whether we can advocate its claim any longer. There would probably be a threat in the UN virtually to outlaw China, in view of its active participation in the Korean war. We must determine our attitude on this question also.
f) The political and administrative steps which we should take to strengthen our northern and north-eastern frontier. This would include the whole of the border, ie. Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal territory in Assam.
g) Measures of internal security in the border areas as well as the states flanking those areas such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Assam.
h) Improvement of our communication, road, rail, air and wireless, in these areas and with the frontier outposts.
i) The future of our mission at Lhasa and the trade posts at Gyangtse and Yatung and the forces which we have in operation in Tibet to guard the trade routes.
j) The policy in regard to the McMahon Line.
These are some of the questions which occur to my mind. It is possible that a consideration of these matters may lead us into wider question of our relationship with China, Russia, America, Britain and Burma. This, however, would be of a general nature, though some might be basically very important, e.g., we might have to consider whether we should not enter into closer association with Burma in order to strengthen the latter in its dealings with China. I do not rule out the possibility that, before applying pressure on us, China might apply pressure on Burma. With Burma, the frontier is entirely undefined and the Chinese territorial claims are more substantial. In its present position, Burma might offer an easier problem to China, and therefore, might claim its first attention.
I suggest that we meet early to have a general discussion on these problems and decide on such steps as we might think to be immediately necessary and direct, quick examination of other problems with a view to taking early measures to deal with them.
Vallabhbhai Patel, 7th November 1950
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