Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Truth About Caste System in India


  • It was commonly believed by the British that according to Hindu scriptures caste was hierarchical, determined by birth and could not be changed.

  • However, an overwhelming number of religious texts suggest quite the contrary, that caste was not determined according to an individual's parentage but according to his attributes.

  • Since Vedic times, caste has never been hereditary and in fact, even members of the same family pursued diverse vocations as the author of this verse from the Rig-Veda.

  • All Hindus, including those of low birth and even unknown lineage, had the choice of pursuing any occupation, including that of a Brahmin.

  • The word 'caste' is not of Indian derivation at all but is a derogatory epithet, meaning race or breed ('casta'),introduced to India by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century to incorrectly describe 'jati' or the Hindu community network.

  • Portuguese wrongly assumed the priestly class or Brahmins commanded the same authority and power as the Christian clergy did at that time in Europe. The reality is that the Brahmins in India have never commanded comparable authority and power to the Christian clergy. They controlled neither the economy nor the army, both of which the clergy did in Medieval Europe. Believing however in this authority, they developed contempt for the Brahmins – contempt that continues to this day within Christian evangelical circles.

  • As early as the eighteenth century successive British administrators attempted to categorize the Indian population, in addition to other parameters, according to religion and caste.

  • The question of caste became more specific in the 1901 Census, because by and large the Indian population did not understand what was meant by 'caste' and gave their occupation, religion and education, as their caste. This time the British insisted on compartmentalizing the population into the four varna categories, even if it was a loose fit.

  • Caste then became an important element in Indian politics after the British imperialists used caste-based taxonomy as the basis of classifying the colonized Indian inhabitants, particularly the Hindus, in the population census of 1872.

  • Gross misinterpretation of Sanskrit religious texts by some European scholars led to the assertion that the four categories of the 'varnashram' are based on skin colour. This contradicts Hindu scriptures, which depict Hindu icons Lord Rama and Lord Krishna as having dark complexions (shyama varna). The celebrated Brahmin sage and vedic scholar Vyas was himself of dark hue. The Brahmin sage Kanva, who contributed richly to the Rig-Veda, is too described as a dark skinned person vide.

  • Thus the British succeeded in binding the empirical reality of jatis (communities) with the Vedic theoretical construct of varna (categorization of occupations), as 'caste' (inherited social status),causing the popular contemporary perception of Indian society having been consistently divided into the four hereditary caste groups from time immemorial.

  • According to Rig-Veda (X.90.11-12) When they immolated Purusha, His mouth became the Brahmana,his arms became the Rajanya, his thighs became the Vaishya, and the Shudra was born from his feet.'

  • Foreigners commonly misinterpret these verses as meaning that because the feet are the lowest extremity of the body, the 'Shudra' must be inferior to other caste. Yet a verse in the same chapter (X.90.14) declares that Earth was born from the same feet of Purusha, thus implying that Shudras are closest to nature and mother earth (Prithvi Mata).

  • No one part of the human body (society) is inferior or superior to any other part of the body; each is dependent on the other, complementary to the other, there to support the other. Purusha Sukta commands Hindus to understand that none of the four classes is inferior or superior to the other but that each is dependent on the other for its survival.

  • Purusha is analogous to society, the message is clear: each member is integral to 'the body' as a whole; that acting singularly, as little more than severed limbs, we are ineffective. Crucially, these texts also demonstrate the principle that whenever synchronization between the different parts of the community is disturbed, that community becomes paralyzed and inoperative.

  • Rishi Narayan said that society can be empowered only if its intelligentsia (Brahmins), government (Rajanya/Kshatriya), mercantile and farming community (Vaishya) and laborers (Shudra) amalgamate and collaborate just as the components of a healthy body.

  • The celebrated authors of the foremost religious scriptures of the Hindus, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Valmiki and Vyas respectively, were Dalits. The narrator of the Puranas, Suta Maharishi, was a Dalit.

  • Maurya dynasty of ancient India was from the Muria tribe, whose primary profession was to gather peacock feathers. Likewise, the heroic King Ashoka was the son of a female servant.

  • Therefore, Dalits have always been an integral part of Hindu society and did not 'sprout from the earth;' neither are Dalits the remnants of a primitive race. The very word "Dalit" is a derogatory epithet for untouchables meaning 'broken' or 'crushed' eagerly used by some politicians, Christian missionaries and media corporations. The term is both offensive and inaccurate, even resented by those ascribed this label.

  • The Hindu faith has never condoned or supported slavery, unlike the Abrahamic faiths, and this is why, historically, India is distinctive in its ability to assimilate and tolerate migrants of diverse faiths and backgrounds, seeking sanctuary in its territory, simultaneously allowing them to live and practice their beliefs as free and equal citizens. Caste is a result of this spirit of freedom and pluralism allowing diverse communities to coexist rather than sacrifice their cultural identities and join the melting pot; quite a contrast to European colonization techniques resulting in the cultural and often physical extermination of diverse identities by one intolerant and powerful group.

  • It should be remembered that the policy of Christian invaders to the Americas, Australasia and South Africa has been to suppress and sometimes annihilate the host and their cultural practices, subsequently imposing their own regimen and colonizing the host's country with its own race.

  • Although the science of crosscontamination and the spread of disease is a relatively modern concept in western countries, the Vedas documents how disease proliferates through microbes. In order to avoid contracting life threatening diseases, some castes such as Brahmins, in order to maintain physical purity and remain functional, would shun physical contact not only with such persons engaged in ‘polluting’ work, but society as a whole.

  • Many westerners are highly critical of this behaviour, however are quick to comment on such practices and ignore them in their own countries. There are now record levels of homeless people in the UK, who are analogous with the outcastes of Indian society.

  • British menial workers seldom interact socially with those of the higher echelons and food and hygiene legislation strictly governs how food is handled, prepared and served to the public. Even in restaurants, chefs habitually wear disposable gloves when preparing food and more frequently, vendors handle fruit,vegetables and other produce, which are to be consumed with gloves. The discerning UK public would not tolerate anything less.



Sources:

  • The Cast System, Dr. Raj Pandit Sharma, Executive Member Hindu Council UK
















Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Aryan Myth


  • The first point to note is that the idea of the Aryans as foreigners who invaded India and destroyed the existing Harappan Civilization is a modern European invention; it receives no support whatsoever from Indian records - literary or archaeological.

  • The same is true of the notion of the Aryans as a race; it finds no support in Indian literature or tradition. The word 'Arya' in Sanskrit means noble and not a race.

  • The word Dravida in the Rig-Veda (III.61.6) means treasure or prosperity. In Atharva-Veda (XVIII.3.1), the word dravina alludes to property or wealth. Progressive societies rarely expel their wealthy citizens and it seems illogical that Aryans should have expelled Dravidians.

  • As far as ancient India is concerned, one may safely say that the word Arya denoted certain spiritual and humanistic values that defined her civilization. The entire Aryan civilization - the civilization of Vedic India - was driven and sustained by these values.

  • The word Arya, according to those who originated the term, is to be used to describe those people who observed a code of conduct; people were Aryans or non-Aryans depending on whether or not they followed this code.

  • The idea of the invading Aryan race can be traced to the aspirations of eighteenth and nineteenth century Europeans to give themselves an identity that was free from the taint of Judaism.The Old Testament gives the traditional history of mankind. It is of course a Jewish creation. The New Testament is also of Jewish origin.

  • Many scholars such as Kant and Herder began to draw analogies between the myths and philosophies of ancient India and the West. In their attempt to separate Western European culture from its Judaic heritage, many scholars were convinced that the origin of Western culture was to be found in India rather than in the ancient Near East.

  • 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. 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.

  • 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).

  • 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.

  • As Huxley pointed out long ago, there was never any scientific basis for the Arya race or their incursion. It was entirely a product - and tool - of propagandists and politicians. Giving it a linguistic twist was simply an afterthought, dictated by special circumstances and expediency.

  • 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.

  • Biologically both the north and south Indians are of the same 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.l

  • The grammar of Sanskrit and it's highly systematized alphabet also had little to do with any "Aryan" invasion. Sanskrit is a highly structured and methodical language, optimized for engaging in rational debates and expressing mathematical formulas. And it's skillfully organized alphabet bears little resemblance to the rather random and arbitrary alphabet of it's European cousins.

  • Well before the 1857 uprising it was recognized that British rule in India could not be sustained without a large number of Indian collaborators.Recognizing this reality, influential men like Thomas Babbington Macaulay, who was Chairman of the Education Board, sought to set up an educational system modeled along British lines that would also serve to undermine the Hindu tradition.

  • Religious conversion and colonialism were to go hand in hand. As Arun Shourie has pointed out in his recent book Missionaries in India, European Christian missions were an appendage of the colonial government, with missionaries working hand in glove with the government. In a real sense, they cannot be called religious organizations at all but an unofficial arm of the Imperial Administration. (The same is true of many Catholic missions in Central American countries who were, and probably are, in the pay of the American CIA. This was admitted by a CIA director, testifying before the Congress.)

  • It was Max Muller as much as anyone who popularized the notion of Arya as a race. Max Muller, though a scholar was an agent of the British government paid to advance its colonial interests.The British hired Max Muller to use this theory to turn the Vedas into an inferior scripture, to help turn educated Hindus into Christian collaborators.

  • The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan is thus confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family.
  • There is no solid evidence that the Aryans belonged to a nomadic tribe. In fact, to suggest that a nomadic horde of barbarians wrote books of such profound wisdom as the Vedas and Upanisads is nothing more than an absurdity and defies imagination.

  • "Everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc." Voltaire

  • "Our archaeologists' dreams of India being full of dark-eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryans came from - the Lord knows where. According to some, they came from Central Tibet; others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the Aryans were all red haired. Others, according to their idea, think that they were all black-haired. If the writer happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-haired. Of late, there was an attempt made to prove that the Aryans lived on Swiss lake. I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations! As for as the truth of these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends..." Swami Vivekananda.

Sources:




























Tuesday, December 9, 2008

  • British Education In India

  • An important aspect of British rule in India was the psychological indoctrination of an elite layer within Indian society who were artfully tutored into becoming model British subjects. This English-educated layer of Indian society was craftily encouraged in absorbing values and notions about themselves and their land of birth that would be conducive to the British occupation of India, and furthering British goals of looting India's physical wealth and exploiting it's labour.

  • Colonial exploitation had created a new imperative for the colonial lords. It could no longer be truthfully acknowledged that India had a rich civilization of its own - that its philosophical and scientific contributions may have influenced European scholars - or helped in shaping the European Renaissance. Britain needed a class of intellectuals meek and docile in their attitude towards the British, but full of hatred towards their fellow citizens. It was thus important to emphasize the negative aspects of the Indian tradition, and obliterate or obscure the positive.

  • Indians were to be taught that they were a deeply conservative and fatalist people - genetically predisposed to irrational superstitions and mystic belief systems. That they had no concept of nation, national feelings or a history. If they had any culture, it had been brought to them by invaders - that they themselves lacked the creative energy to achieve anything by themselves.

  • The British were not content to influence Indian thinking just through books written in the English language. Realizing the danger of Indians discovering their real heritage through the medium of Sanskrit, Christian missionaries such as William Carey anticipated the need for British educators to learn Sanskrit and transcribe and interpret Sanskrit texts in a manner compatible with colonial aims.

  • In this manner, India's awareness of it's history and culture was manipulated in the hands of colonial ideologues. Domestic and external views of India were shaped by authors whose attitudes towards all things Indian were shaped either by subconscious prejudice or worse by barely concealed racism.

  • What was important to Western civilization was deemed universal, but everything Indian was dismissed as either backward and anachronistic, or at best tolerated as idiosyncratic oddity. Little did the Westernized Indian know what debt "Western Science and Civilization" owed (directly or indirectly) to Indian scientific discoveries and scholarly texts.

  • British-educated Indians grew up learning about Pythagoras, Archimedes, Galileo and Newton without ever learning about Panini, Aryabhatta, Bhaskar or Bhaskaracharya. The logic and epistemology of the Nyaya Sutras, the rationality of the early Buddhists or the intriguing philosophical systems of the Jains were generally unknown to the them.

  • Lord Curzon (governor general of India 1895-1899 and viceroy 1899-1904) was told by the Secretary of State for India, George Francis Hamilton, that they "should so plan the educational text books (in such a manner) that the differences between community and community are further strengthened."


India's image prior to British Rule:

"We find among the Indians the vestiges of the most remote antiquity.... We know that all peoples came there to draw the elements of their knowledge.... India, in her splendour, gave religions and laws to all the other peoples; Egypt and Greece owed to her both their fables and their wisdom." (Pierre Sonnerat, a French naturalist)


Sources:







Saturday, December 6, 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

Mossad-CIA Behind Mumbai bomb blasts

Below are some articles which suggest that Mossad and CIA have orchestrated the Mumbai bomb blasts. They are not my personal opinions but solid facts based on evidence.



  • The US officially has the greatest army of mercenaries in the world, Blackwater, with 140,000 "contractors"(That's the official number which as we all know is always understated)


  • "I saw 6 to 7 boats coming in on Wednesday evening and about ten people unloaded many bags from these boats and then gradually took them into the building, Nariman House', Vitthal Tandel, a fisherman in the area said. "The building has many rooms and these are used as guest houses by travelers, largely Israeli residents. None of us know what their names are", he said. http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/nov/281108-Nariman-House-terror-hub.htm

  • Israeli agents responsible for destabilizing a large number of countries as well as possibly operating within some radical Islamist movements, such as a group in Yemen styling itself 'Islamic Jihad', said to be responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Sanaa, and which is said to have close links with the Israeli intelligence. http://www.mouthshut.com/diary/bijdnunqm/CIA-or-Mossad-Time-for-sanity4

  • Washington is intent on using the Mumbai attacks to:

  1. Foster divisions between Pakistan and India and shunt the process of bilateral cooperation and trade between the two countries;

  2. Promote internal social, ethnic and sectarian divisions in both India and Pakistan;

  3. Justify US military actions inside Pakistan including the killing of civilians in violation of the country's territorial sovereignty;

  4. Provide a justification for extending the US led "war on terrorism" into the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20081129&articleId=11217

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