Dr. Hari Prasad Kanoria, Chairman, Kanoria Foundation and Sri Hari Global School, Asansol, has organised an event on “Human Values in Education” at Srihari Global School, Asansol. The event was part of a series of events on universal human values in the education system between Kanoria Foundation and the International Meditation Foundation.
The chief guest at the event Swami Advaitananda Giri, Chairman of the International Meditation Foundation said that “Education is that which liberates, education is that which leads us to the flowering of our utmost potential as human beings. In order to achieve this Vision India has taken a major step forward with its National Education Policy 2020 by the addition of universal human values, making education practical with the inclusion of life skills, teaching the right history, nature education, a mechanism to address commercialization & corruption, connecting with the subconscious mind by education in the mother tongue, developing a scientific mindset, a mechanism for stress management, anger management, etc…”
For the effective implementation of the National Education Policy 2020, we must have one class period every day dedicated to the practical transmission of human values in our schools & colleges. This one class period every day will make Human Values as the foundation of the education system instead of ambition driven blind race right now. This is the ONLY practical way by which in 10-15 years we can have a peaceful world, he said.
Swami Advaitananda Giri further explained that “Just by losing a football match in Indonesia more than 174 people died in riots by fans. In the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Colombian player Escobar was murdered just for a mistake of a self-goal. In the world’s most developed nation America, US CDC 2022 reports that 32.3% overall population is affected with Anxiety or Depression disorders, out of this 50.9% of youth in the age group of 18-29 were also reported to be affected with Anxiety or Depression disorders.”
He further explained that If 32.3% population is having serious mental health issues like anxiety or depression then it can be safely presumed that to have an anxiety or depression rate of 32.3 %, there must be a need for at least 3 times more sad people in the population, this leads to 32.3% x 3 = 96.9% of the total population. If 96.9% population is sad then there is a likelihood that 99.99% population must be experiencing the emotions of worry, fear, the feeling of failure, etc.
The feeling of worry forms the basis of sadness, sadness leads to anxiety or depression, and further anxiety or depression results in the very serious act of suicide or violent behavior. Depression or anxiety doesn’t occur directly. It is caused in progressive stages out of the feeling of sadness or dejection etc… As the sadness or dejection type of emotions deepens then only it will take shape of depression or anxiety, not straightway. This means that depression or anxiety is an outcome of the prevalence of sadness among the larger population. For example, if one person has been diagnosed with depression or anxiety that means behind this there must be at least three people or more who were already experiencing sadness or dejection type of emotional imbalance, Swami Advaitananda Giri explained.
“What has gone wrong, and why we are like this,” he asked.
Dr. Hari Prasad Kanoria, Chairman, Kanoria Foundation and Sri Hari Global School, Asansol
said “The gap in the quality of teachers in the roll-out of this type of programme can be addressed by online video materials. All who specialize in it should come forward and help Government in the development of open-source training modules for teachers, students, and parents. The modules should be playful, maximum practical than theory & should cover different age groups. The training modules for human values should be able to practically transmit the wisdom to be loving, truthful, honest, and overall, a good human being. The National Education Policy 2020 is a great step forward in this direction however the policy will be as good as it gets rightly implemented”
Dr. Hari Prasad Kanoria emphasised on the need for “ Sanskara “ – natural values like work, righteousness, spiritual power, delight, service, humbleness, prosperity, and fearlessness are needed in education along with holistic, intellectual, technical, health, and moral development.
At Kanoria Foundation our tagline is “Work with devotion righteously, selflessly for welfare”. We involve the students in sustainable development. Life is a joyous adventurous journey. Students are being taught to treat all equally as they want to get treated themselves. They are divine and have oceanic strength and infinite knowledge, he said.
For more information, please contact:
Swami Aseemananda
Manager,
International Meditation Foundation,
Rishikesh, India.
Mobile: +91 9975675620
www.yoga1.org |hisholiness@www.yoga1.org
Mr. Kamlesh Mishra, CEO
SRIHARI GLOBAL SCHOOL
Shristinagar, Behind Sentrum Mall, Asansol – 713305, West Bengal, India.
Mobile: +91 70048 34829
srihariglobal.com enquiry@srihariglobal.com
The story of Congress leader Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who took oath as the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday, is in consonance with the contemporary anti-elitist narrative. The narrative has gained currency primarily because of the spectacular rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also of humble origins, in the Bharatiya Janata Party. In a way, it is an eternally elevating story—a person without many means reaching the top using their skills and diligence only. ‘A self-made person is admired everywhere. Son of a bus driver, Sukhu sold milk in his earlier days. He eventually got a law degree. Along the way, he got active in student politics at Himachal Pradesh University, rising through the ranks in the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India or NSUI and becoming the president of the student organisation. His elevation to the office of the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress chief, where he remained for a decade, helped him grow as a state leader. He went on to head the Himachal Pradesh Congress from 2013 to 2019, which is a record. Victory from Nadaun in the Assembly election in 2003, his first, was another important point in the rising graph. Since then, he has won every Assembly election, save that of 2012. He can also boast of executive experience, as he served twice as the chief of the Shimla Municipal Corporation.
In his 40-year political career, Sukhu faced many challenges. As Shimla Municipal Corporation chief, he was often at odds with the late Virbhadra Singh, the party stalwart in the state who served as chief minister six times. His widow, Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee president Pratibha Singh, is still Sukhu’s rival. She reminded everyone after the party victory in the state that Virbhadra’s “legacy” could not be ignored. What was implied that she was the embodiment of that legacy? The Congress leadership, which was earlier worried about the poaching of its MLAs by the BJP, seems to have overcome that fear. It has tried to please all factions in the state’s party unit, with Pratibha Singh becoming its president and Mukesh Agnihotri, Deputy Chief Minister. Agnihotri, the journalist-turned-politician, is said to be a protégé of Virbhadra’s. Congress workers and supporters would hope that his arrangement works smoothly, but the party's top brass cannot afford to be complacent or laid back. It should not forget that a similar arrangement was made in Rajasthan four years ago but it came unstuck; there have been several flare-ups in the desert state, with neither of the two combatants, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlaut and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, willing to yield an inch. While the Congress high command should be vigilant about any dissidence or friction, the newly Himachal Chief Minister will also have to walk a tightrope. He has to keep the interests and sensitivities of his rivals in mind without compromising development. Neither he nor the top Congress leaders would like to have a repeat of the desert storm.
Our Asian neighbour, riding on the might of its economic muscle, doesn’t mind being brazenly expansionist even at the cost of global peace
George Fernandes was perhaps the first Indian politician to call out the Chinese as ‘enemy number one’. It had raised hackles, piqued debate and seen as a tad bit alarmist and premature, as the hyphenated relation with Pakistan was still consuming emotions. However, it didn’t take long for the neologism of Zhongguo shiji or Chinese Century, to confirm George Fernandes’s forewarning. The advent of Xi Jinping as the President of China in 2013 accelerated the portents of an expansionist and authoritarian Dragon that would threaten the peace of established global order.
Back in the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union was the centrepiece of its military strategy till its implosion with the Revolutions of 1989. A brief run of the US as the solo hegemonic power in the 90s ensued. However, it was the George Bush administration which recognised the emerging realities with the Pacific Ocean emerging as the theatre of tensions and focus of deployment in Cold War 1.0.2, with China having supplanted the Soviet Union/Russia, as the primary enemy. Given the physical distance between the mainland of US and China, constraints of a viable and sustainable ‘long-range power projection’ became inevitable, and therefore the urgency for establishing credible and strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific realm. This doctrinal evolution was the progenitor to the strategic conceptualisation of Sino-centric ‘blocs’ like QUAD (Quadrilateral – Japan, India, Australia and US) and AUKUS (Australia, UK and US), as indeed the ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy by the subsequent Obama Administration. Barack Obama was believed to have been sworn into the Oval Office as the ‘first Pacific President’. But it was Donald Trump who transformed the US-China narrative into open hostility – Trump spoke of Chinese expansionism in the geopolitical and geo-economic realm that needed to be checked, bluntly. From personally calling Xi an ‘enemy’, escalating trade wars, threatening Chinese allies like Pakistan and North Korea to even calling the Covid-19 virus as ‘Chinese Virus’, Trump opened the floodgates to China.
Incumbent Joe Biden administration has stayed the course on China and Biden himself described his conversation with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group 20 summit at Bali as, ‘very blunt with one another’. Even though it is the traditional cold war nemesis i.e., Russia, which is in a bloody conflict with the US-supported Ukraine, and is doing so in the midst of the earlier imagined theatre of Eastern Europe – US remains firm in holding the strategic view that it is China and not Russia (hence, Indo-Pacific theatre and not the European or the Middle Eastern region) that is going to be the ‘enemy number one’, going forward. Even the recently released 2022 China Military Power Report by the US Defense Department confirms China as, ‘the most consequential and systemic challenge to the US national security and a free and open international system’. It went on to add that Beijing was, ‘the only competitor with the intent, and increasingly, the capacity to shape the international order’. The dragon’s intent is underscored by the fact that despite the crippling financial implications of the Covid pandemic, China has managed to double its nuclear arsenal to 400 from 200 warheads in 2020. Even their ballistic missile testing in 2021 has been more than the sum total testing done by the rest of the world!
Months earlier, the US Defense Department had released the 2022 National Defense Strategy where it had explicitly noted, ‘The most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security is the PRC's coercive and increasingly aggressive endeavor to refashion the Indo-Pacific region to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.’ Importantly for India, it had specifically covered the Indian concerns as the conflict on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Summer of 2020 was one of the three specifically mentioned regions of concern, ‘a broader pattern of destabilizing and coercive PRC behavior that stretches across the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and along the Line of Actual Control.
Today, the haunting commonality of China underwrites the brewing Indo-US equation, and they feel mutually comfortable and impelled enough to do joint Military Exercise a la Yudh Abhyas (literally, War Practice) in the near vicinity of the exact flashpoints which were wounded in the Indo-Chinese standoff, recently. Even differing responses on Ukraine, Pakistan or even unsettled trade issues between US and India have not stopped Joe Biden from describing India as ‘indispensable partners’ – and the indispensability of the said relationship is essentially cemented and predicated on the perceived threat perception from China. Towards the same, leniency of overlooking Delhi’s legacy purchase of arms and oil from Russia, is par for course. Russia is a pale shadow of its past and China is the proverbial Dragon in the room for both Delhi and Washington DC to tame.
(Courtesy - The Pioneer: The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal.)
What is Global Warming?
Every one of us is familiar with the term Global Warming. But, we are still not clear of its meaning. Hence, in layman’s language, global warming means a gradual rise in the overall temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. There are various activities taking place which have been increasing the temperature gradually. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1*C. Controlling global warming; however, it is not unmanageable. The first and foremost step in controlling global warming is to identify its root cause.
Causes of Global Warming :
It can be either
Effects of Global Warming :
1) The increase in temperature and climate change disturbs the animal and plant reproduction cycle resulting in the disappearance of many endangered and endemic species of plants and animals.
2) Melting of ice at poles
3) Increase in the sea level
4) Scarcity of food and energy for consumption
5) Untimely and excess floods, drought, hurricanes, cloud bursts etc
Prevention of Global Warming :
Overcoming global warming is not an impossible task, but it can be controlled or stopped when combined efforts are put in. For that, both individuals and governments have to take steps to make it possible.
Our’s is a vast country with the biggest geographical area spread from Kashmir to Kanyamkumari and from Gujarat to Assam. At every point or corner of this country, there are many means and ways, where we can work to reduce global warming to restore the balance of nature.
For this, firstly we have to carry out a detailed study of the weather and soil condition of these areas and should grow commercial and traditional trees suitable to that habitat.
Secondly, there was a time, when our country was abundant in rivers and lakes. Now with the passage of time and in the name of development, deforestation took place by cutting trees and plants. This has resulted in lesser rain and the death of rivers and lakes. So, in order to restore these, all rivers are to be recharged and bought to life.
Thirdly, the boring of wells in hilly areas should be banned and stopped. Due to boring activity in hilly areas, the moisture level of soil below the ground becomes lower resulting in the weakening of the roots of the trees which leads to the uprooting of trees. All these results in the devastating of hills and the felling of mountainous rocks. To overcome this, we should build a retaining wall along the border of these hills while developing roads. Once these retaining walls are built, they will prevent the fall of these mountainous rocks and helps in maintaining the moisture of the soil. Also, provisions should be made to grow more and more creepy plants along these to hold the soil tightly and properly.
Fourthly, mangroves should be developed and maintained below the sea, so that the sea animals, reptiles, amphibians, and creatures should sustain their life and can maintain the ecology of nature.
With all these, we can reduce global warming of the earth and can restore the balance of nature for future generations.
Apart from all these, other common ways and means to reduce global warming is :
1) Reduction of greenhouse gas.
2) Moving towards renewable energy like solar, wind, biomass etc.
3) Use of energy-efficient equipment and water-saving techniques.
4) Encouraging the use of more and more public transport and carpooling.
5) Reducing CO2 by implementing electric and hybrid vehicles.
6) Reducing CO2 from building by using the sustainable infrastructure.
7) Develop a responsible consumption habit, may it be food, clothing, cosmetics etc.
8) Encourage them to use more and more natural resources.
Independent India’s first President stood for values and ideals for our contemporary politicians have little regard, a tribute on his 138th birth anniversary!
The illiterate and casteist political leadership has ruined the future of over 11 crore Biharis. The Bihari pride is severely dented by the few family-centric, feudal political parties claiming to be the champions of social justice. The state produced the legendary Dr Rajendra Prasad, a role model for the political class and common people alike, but alas, few received inspiration from him. Instead, we have seen the most pathetic leadership in the state.
Rajendra Babu was born in a village in Bihar, but his hard work and brilliance overcame the boundaries of his village. He was a brilliant student, getting his legal degree and later a Doctorate in Law from Calcutta University. He was very successful and had a lucrative legal practice at the Calcutta and Patna High Courts. In his own words “I had a very rich background and belonged to a scholarly family.”
He was drawn early into the non-cooperation movement, became a comrade of Mahatma Gandhi, and was imprisoned for a number of years during the freedom movement. He was President of the Indian National Congress in 1934, 1935, and 1939. A devout person, he had great respect for the ethos and traditions of Hinduism.
Rajendra Babu was a fiercely independent and strong-willed leader. It led to clashes with Pt Nehru on several occasions. The differences started even before the birth of the Indian Republic, with the Hindu Code Bill. Bhimrao Ambedkar presented the draft in October 1947 in the Constituent Assembly and Nehru strongly supported the Bill. They wanted this Bill to be part of the Constitution. Under this, a code for all Hindus was to be created. As the President of the Constituent Assembly, Prasad intervened. He believed religion in society is equally important as anything else and wanted to have a Uniform Civil Code for all Indians.
For the first Presidential election, Patel and the Congress party wanted Rajendra Prasad to be the President. Nehru, at that time, favoured the then Governor General Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari to be the first President of the nation. Rajagopalachari had not participated in the Quit India Movement and hence was not popular with the Congress Party cadre. Patel and Prasad had a strong hold on the organisation, even more than Nehru. The Congress chose Rajendra Prasad as the President of India. The Constituent Assembly elected him as the first President of India unanimously.
In yet another disagreement over the then President of India, Prasad, being invited to inaugurate the Somnath temple, Nehru advised the President “against participating in a significant function which unfortunately has a number of implications.” Prasad ignored Nehru’s advice and added, “I would do the same with a mosque or a church if I were invited.”
The first President’s contributions to the freedom movement and the stabilisation of Indian Democracy were immense. He steered the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly sagaciously and helped the unanimous adoption of the Indian Constitution. Prasad established good democratic traditions during the twelve long years he occupied the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He was a simple, elegant, unostentatious person and conducted himself with humility and dignity. Dr. Rajendra Prasad turned out to be perhaps India’s Great President.
The rise of OBC politics caused the decay of Prasad’s vision of a prosperous Bihar. Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar, and a host of caste-based leaders have systematically destroyed Prasad’s state. The false promise of development supplemented with social justice fueled the aspirations of backward classes, and merit was sacrificed which led to the total collapse of the system in the state.
Caste politics created several Robin Hoods of different castes in several districts of Bihar, leading to the largest migration seen in recent times from Bihar to other states. Employment opportunities vanished and the Bihari pride had to take shelter outside the range of the hinterland. It is a different matter that a large portion of Bihari has made success in India and even outside India but the pain of leaving the motherland is felt even today.
The golden age of Bihar was led by Shri Krishna Sinha, also known as Shri Babu, the first chief minister of Bihar (1946-61). Along with Prasad, Sinha is also among the 'Architects of Modern Bihar'. He was known as Bihar Kesari for his lion-like roars when he rose to address the masses.
However, in the Hindi heartland, people do not cast their vote but vote for their caste. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is no stranger to this brand of politics. Coming from the lineage of Ram Manohar Lohia, he too has once been a flag-bearer of Mandal. A Kurmi by caste, he stands on the second rung of the OBC ladder. During his previous tenure, he worked strenuously towards empowering the lower classes and appealing to socially privileged voters through his Vikas Purush persona.
The Mandal Commission polarised OBCs; they united politically to achieve their rights. It was in this era that Lalu Prasad Yadav turned into a political hero in Bihar. This became the watershed moment for Bihar. According to Lohia, in India, the basic unit of stratification is caste and not the class. This perverted philosophy crippled Bihar society, with caste trumping merit and a comprehensive institutional collapse of the state’s politics, bureaucracy, judiciary and media. The institutions were poisoned by the caste opium. On top of that, the JP Movement destroyed the education system of Bihar. JP targeted universities and colleges; youngsters disregarded education and indulged in reckless, hoodlum politics.
From an empirical perspective, the condition of backward groups, except for a few political families, has not improved. The bureaucracy opened up for those who were not socially privileged or came from humble backgrounds due to their position in the caste hierarchy. However, according to the bureaucratic representation report released in November 2014; the SCs, STs and OBCs account for less than 10 percent of the Central higher bureaucracy.
But things have improved from a psychological perspective in the political sphere. In the first four to five decades after Independence, the backward classes had little say in the system; the Mandal movement changed that at every level—from the local bodies to state Assemblies and Parliament. However, caste-based policies have had an adverse effect on the quality of governance.
With someone from their own community safeguarding their interests, psychological empowerment was achieved to an extent. But the merit in governance became the causality, an epidemic that ruined the state of Bihar permanently. Here it is important to mention that everyone must get the right to prosper in a flourishing democracy, the poorest of the poor must be given an equal platform by the state to compete in a dignified life.
In Prasad’s words, “In attaining our ideals, our means should be as pure as the end.” So the current generation of native Biharis must have taken a tough call—to imbibe the ideals preached by Prasad. The alternatives are non-meritorious, casteist, corrupt, mafia, and selfish leadership. Now is the time for the people living in Bihar to do serious soul searching whether they want to endure the status quo or opt for change. Rajendra Babu’s legacy can be of great help.
Mohan Bhagwat’s definition of a Hindu may not go down well with many
RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat has reiterated that all people living in India were by definition Hindus. He further added that anybody who agrees to sing Sanskrit verses in praise of Bharat Mata and is committed to the preservation of the culture of the land is a Hindu. Bhagwat said this while addressing RSS workers before concluding his four-day tour of Bihar. While his stand is welcome in that he sees Hindus in a larger context and does not limit his definition of a Hindu to a religious identity but on the other hand it is an unnecessary classification that is neither required nor warranted. True, Arabs gave this name to all people residing across Hindukush Mountain and it meant a geopolitical identity rather than a religious one but that time has long gone and now a Hindu is a religious identity, legally. Moreover, calling everyone Hindu without their consent is not a bright idea. Labeling anyone as per your convenience is fraught with dangers. Many religious groups would have reservations about being called Hindu. “Hindu” does not denote Indian and that is a fact. There is a difference between ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hindustani’, ( of course the word Hindustani is now obsolete). And we are not even talking about ‘Hindutva’ which has political connotations.
Besides, even many Hindus would have objections to somebody branding them and giving them a certificate of being a Hindu. There must be millions of people who call themselves Hindus but cannot recite a single verse in Sanskrit so it is utterly insolent to test people for their identity on the basis of your own preconceived notions. Though his statement deserves merit when he says that identities have been made possible because of the Hindu ethos of acceptance. India has been an assimilating culture and its mighty diversity is living proof of it. Categorizing it and labeling it kills every nuance of Indian culture which made India that is Bharat what it is today - a bouquet of different identities, religions, languages, and creeds living as neighbours and working shoulder to shoulder to build a country that has seen some worst periods in history but with its resilience came over it. The contention that those whose ancestors happened to be Hindus is debatable. There may be people who had the same ancestors but now they have branched out as different groups and we should respect their divergences, no matter what.
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Church of Wokeism
Liberal Arts Becomes Dogmatic
Excerpts from Snakes in the Ganga by Rajiv Malhotra & Vijaya Viswanathan
The stated goal of liberal arts education is to equip students to process complex and diverse ideas, engage in abstract thinking, and consider opposing opinions with open minds. The teacher should provide students theoretical grounding from multiple perspectives and encourage them to engage each other and the faculty, and debate opponents with mutual respect. Such education should enable them to challenge beliefs, assumptions, and conventions. In practice, however, liberal education has become the exact opposite. Students are no longer encouraged to think for themselves but are tutored in the teacher’s specific ideology and social justice morality. Academic institutions are not sanctuaries for open inquiry and alternative viewpoints. The conservative thinker Allan Bloom was blunt in his influential book, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students, attacking American universities for spreading dogma as theory and for indoctrinating in the guise of scholarship. Ironically, in the name of ridding society of its power structures, academicians have created their own enormous power structure. Since the old structures are seen as stumbling blocks, they are to be demolished. This includes not just dismantling structures like religions, nation-states, and traditional values, but also objectivity, rationality, and meritocracy.
Genuine science is about formulating hypotheses and subjecting them to empirical testing, debate, contestation, and falsification. The social sciences, however, too often blur the boundaries between
facts and moral values. The power of social sciences in society comes not from their ability to theorize like the hard sciences, but from their ability to undermine societies. In addition, the globalization of liberal arts has had a colonizing effect. To be truly liberal, each society should develop its own content with its own cultural underpinnings and resist global homogenization. But domination by American scholars, institutions, theories, and funding sources has undermined local cultures. The system of academic rankings and global evaluation indices is also controlled by the West and undermines local excellence. We use the terms social sciences, humanities, and liberal arts interchangeably because of the inter-disciplinary movement to cross fertilize across them.
Popular Wokeism
The term ‘Woke’ was already popular in Black culture, but it became mainstream in the aftermath of George Floyd’s (a Black) killing by a White policeman. Becoming Woke is a general-purpose term
referring to being aware of social injustice according to the framework of Critical Race Theory. It means fighting all the invisible power structures that govern societies. We will use the terms Wokeism and Critical Race Theory are interchangeably; the latter is the more formal academic system, while Wokeism is its popular, informal version. Though we empathize with the oppressed and support movements that help them, we disagree with many of the methods being suggested by Critical Race Theory. We find that activist leaders are not persecuted innocent freethinkers but advocates of censorship, Cancel Culture, and aggressive evangelism of their newly founded religion. For instance, we disagree with Wokeism’s premise that rationality is a problem because the clever, upper-class elites have been using it as a tool for exploitation. The movement is not interested in constructive engagements. It is not open to free speech, debate, discussion, challenge, evidence, etc. This will be elaborated in a later section of this chapter. It is reasonable to think in terms of the Gospel of Wokeism as a dogma belonging to a new kind of Church. The high priests of Wokeism are the autocrats deciding who is underprivileged and entitled to special treatment. This is a powerful new institution with its own ideas of blasphemy. Those who disagree are to be attacked viciously. Dissent is not allowed. Woke is a form of groupism and tribalism, seeing society in terms of us/them, and waging an all-out war against its opponents. The table below shows some of the similarities between this movement and the dogmatic structure of some Churches.
Just as Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin that has inflicted everyone ever since so also systemic racism is the Original Sin of the founding fathers and all others involved in nation-building.
Individual merit is overshadowed by the structural Original Sin. Another similarity we find with organized Christianity is the use of victimhood. Wokeism inherited this from Marxism’s Frankfurt School whose leaders defined a new class called ‘the subaltern’ as ‘the oppressed’. This was a new kind of proletariat defined as those deprived of cultural power. This cultural hegemony has many names and forms: feminists call it patriarchy; sexual names and forms: feminists call patriarchy; sexual minorities call it heteronormativity, and racial minorities call it White supremacy.
Indians' concept of religious tolerance does not necessarily involve mixing religious communities.
For quite some time, opinion makers from different quarters have been asking the Narendra Modi government to scrap the Ministry of Minority Affairs and replace it with a new Ministry of Religious affairs. There is a great deal of justification for such a demand. India is a growing international power, and its identity of India can be secured globally by presenting its culture and religion from a global perspective. The proposed Ministry of Religious affairs could be headed by a practicing spiritual leader to propagate the face of India's spiritual strength.
India has all along respected all religions, but major religious groups see little in common with Hinduism and want to live separately. A learned spiritual leader at the head of the proposed ministry could bridge this gap and integrate the communities together.
In the West, some people could argue that Hinduism is an old-styled religion with huge baggage to reconcile with the contemporary world. Modernity, which emphasises the relegation of religion firmly to an individual's private life, is a challenging idea for any culture. In India, it faces a particularly unusual problem: the persistence of numerous traditional and religious practices means that religion and modernity have to cohabit here in a complex, plural, transient, and historically evolving relationship.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has already passed a resolution seeking an "immediate scrapping of both the Minority Commission and the Minority Affairs Ministry" as the “very idea” of these institutions "gives credence to a separatist mindset."
The resolution noted that “the Jehadis and Missionaries are not the persecuted but the persecutors,” and “with the help of the Minority Commission, separate Ministry, they gather sympathy and carry out their anti-Hindu and anti-national activities." It said that the National Human Rights Commission is "more than enough to take care of the rights of all citizens of the country.”
It contended that “the Minority Commission creates a false feeling that the Muslim and Christian communities are being persecuted,” whereas “the reality is that it is they who are responsible for the persecution of not only Hindus but on other minority communities like the Sikhs and the Buddhists.”
The main functions of the Ministry of Religious Affairs should be:
a) Extending overall co-operation in implementing development activities, providing grants, taking initiatives for resource mobilization, introducing online registration, and utmost use of ICT in religious affairs management;
b) Assisting research and publications in the field of religion, and providing cooperation in the management of charitable institutions;
c) Arranging and participating in international conferences, seminars and dialogues on matters relating to religions and religious affairs and establishing connections and improving relations, and signing contracts, agreements, conventions with different countries and international organizations/ institutions;
d) Conducting various programmes in the religious and educational institutions for social development, conducting research and strengthening anti-terrorism campaigns, religious values, integrity, brotherhood, and communal harmony;
d) Providing grants-in-aid including reforms of different religious organisations and institutions, matters relating to moon sightings and celebration of important religious festivals; and supporting the destitute people for their rehabilitation with financial assistance.
More than 70 years after India became free from colonial rule, Indians generally feel their country has lived up to one of its post-Independence ideals: a society where followers of many religions can live and practice freely. India's massive population is diverse as well as devout. Not only do most of the world's Hindus, Jains and Sikhs live in India, but it also is home to one of the world's largest Muslim populations and to millions of Christians and Buddhists.
Indians see religious tolerance as central to who they are as a nation. Across the major religious groups, most people say it is very important to respect all religions to be “truly Indian.” And tolerance is a religious as well as a civic value: Indians are united in the view that respecting other religions is a very important part of what it means to be a member of their own religious community.
These shared values are accompanied by a number of beliefs that cross religious lines. Not only do a majority of Hindus in India (77%) believe in karma, but an identical percentage of Muslims do, too. A third of Christians in India (32%) - together with 81% of Hindus - say they believe in the purifying power of the Ganges River, a central belief in Hinduism. In Northern India, 12% of Hindus and 10% of Sikhs, along with 37% of Muslims, identify with Sufism, a mystical tradition most closely associated with Islam. And the vast majority of Indians of all major religious backgrounds say that respecting elders is very important to their faith.
Yet, despite sharing certain values and religious beliefs - as well as living in the same country, under the same constitution - members of India's major religious communities often don't feel they have much in common with one another. The majority of Hindus see themselves as very different from Muslims (66%), and most Muslims return the sentiment, saying they are very different from Hindus (64%). There are a few exceptions: Two-thirds of Jains and about half of Sikhs say they have a lot in common with Hindus. But generally, people in major religious communities see themselves as different from others.
Moreover, Indians generally stick to their own religious group when it comes to their friends. Hindus overwhelmingly say that most or all of their close friends are also Hindu. Of course, Hindus make up the majority of the population, and as a result of sheer numbers, may be more likely to interact with fellow Hindus than with people of other religions. But even among Sikhs and Jains, who each form a sliver of the national population, a large majority say their friends come mainly or entirely from their small religious community.
Indians, then, simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres - they live together separately. These two sentiments may seem paradoxical, but for many Indians, they are not. Indeed, many take both positions, saying it is important to be tolerant of others and express a desire to limit personal connections across religious lines. Indians who favor a religiously segregated society also overwhelmingly emphasize religious tolerance as a core value.
In other words, Indians’ concept of religious tolerance does not necessarily involve mixing religious communities. While people in some countries may aspire to create a “melting pot” of different religious identities, many Indians seem to prefer a country more like a patchwork fabric, with clear lines between groups. Most Hindus in India say being Hindu, and being able to speak Hindi are very important to be ‘truly’ Indian.
Against this backdrop, the time has come to scrap the Ministry of Minority of Affairs without any further delay and create a unifying Ministry of Religious affairs.
Reportedly, there are some 50 petitions pending in the country’s courts protesting the demonetization of currency notes that was implemented on November 8, 2016; we just passed its eighth anniversary. Understandably, this move by the Narendra Modi government continues to generate much talk. In all, I have witnessed three demonetizations and therefore feel qualified to comment on the subject. In 1946, the old 1000-rupee note was demonetized. In 1978, high denomination notes were rendered invalid. We are today debating the 2016 decision.
In the pre-Modi era, it was widely believed that approximately 50 per cent of the Indian economy generated in the country could not be tapped at all for purposes of development. The black money had to be spent in less productive activities like land deals, property transactions and what not. Such money had to be spent quickly in order to keep it away from thieves and from income tax vigilance; its mention in any legal document was not possible. The tax-evaded money could neither be legally invested nor safely saved for even one’s children, not to speak of national development. In brief, black was money only for the time being, in contrast to bankable money, which was actual wealth.
What was unusual about Indian black money was that it was reported to be manufactured in our neighbouring countries. For example, superannuated Bihari cows used to have a ready market at fancy prices. West Bengal traders used to buy our toothbrushes readily; more especially if one did not write a bill and accepted cash. In the event the notes paid happened to be jaali (counterfeit) one would had been informed at which shop one could change it back to a valid note. When the thunderbolt of the 2016 demonetization burst upon India, everyone up to the upper middle class was able to change their cash. Those who were hit were the people who had hoarded large sums of black money and could not change their notes. On the morrow of the occasion, many an economist or an intellectual began using the term “informal economy” for the black economy, because it is inappropriate for a respectable person to plead for something illegal.
The result of the action was to get rid of the hoarded cash lying wastefully. However, its greatest service was to interrupt for a long time, if not forever, the printing of Indian currency notes in neighbouring countries. Simultaneously, the smuggling of goods was significantly reduced. Nevertheless, demonetization would have been a fleeting event, had it not been followed by the introduction of the Goods & Services Tax (GST).
I would like to bring in a personal experience in this particular regard. The sale of our toothbrushes increased within a fortnight. It was indeed a welcome surprise. Upon thinking further, we realized that quite a few of our competitors might not have maintained systematic records. Some of them were making brushes by simply sticking nylon into the plastic handles; they had brought these in on a friendly basis from, say, China. The history behind all this was that toothbrush manufacturing was for decades, reserved for the small scale sector. In short, overnight, an informal activity turned into a formal sector one. Apart from sales tax, the additional fear was that the GST website and the income tax department could also monitor how much of what product was being sold by whom.
An incidental but substantial advantage that emerged from the introduction of the GST was the drastic reduction in lorry transport time. Post-GST, an interstate lorry no longer has to stop at every state border. The lorry’s photograph and registration are recorded by CCTV. Earlier, the vehicle had to queue up at the state border to obtain clearance from the state's sales tax authorities. Up to 40 per cent travelling time has thus been saved.
Without the GST, the demonetization move of eight years ago would have been said, a birth without life to follow up. And without demonetization, the GST might have been a life without birth. Yet another advantage of GST has been the abolition of most other indirect taxes, starting from the excise duty. Imagine the expenditure saved to the taxpayer on the one hand and the governments, beginning with the Centre, and ending with the states, small and big. As a guess, at least one-third of India’s lorry time would have been saved. Above all, the tax has taken India towards its goal of one country one tax. Moreover, demonetization has helped India avoid its exploitation by its neighbours. The veteran political analyst and economist S. Gurumurthy has likened the 2016 demonetization to a “financial Pokharan”, i.e., a nuclear strike against not only black money but covert financial war against the nation.
Assuming that in the pre-Modi era, 50 per cent of India’s economy was black; at least half this amount is currently being ploughed back into the economy as white money. In that sense, India’s economy has become 25 per cent larger spontaneously. It is also a necessary step towards making India a more modern economy, which is the first necessary step, if we aspire to make the rupee into a convertible currency.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer - The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal)
Rahul Gandhi has finally entered the election battle, addressing a rally at Mahuva in Surat district, Gujarat. Even though it’s too late, it may encourage Congress cadres, as its campaign did not have many top leaders, whereas the arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving no stone unturned. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are leading the battle. The Aam Aadmi Party is also trying hard, with its chief Arvind Kejriwal and other senior leaders canvassing for votes in the western state. Himachal Pradesh still remains neglected by the Congress top brass. Sonia Gandhi is not there because of health issues. Priyanka Vadra is campaigning but not as much as the state leaders want her to. A few weeks earlier, the BJP’s prospects in the hill state, which is known to change the government every five years, were dim. Apart from anti-incumbency, there is the problem of rebels. A video went viral showing PM Modi beseeching a rebel BJP leader to stand down. BJP detractors were gleeful, saying that the party was so desperate that the PM had to intervene. What they failed to notice was the steadfastness of the BJP: party cadres do get a fillip when they see that the country’s biggest leader is so serious about a state poll.
Compare and contrast this with the GOP top leadership’s approach to the state Assembly elections. The top leader, Rahul Gandhi, remains occupied with his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Then he rakes up an unnecessary controversy, on VD Savarkar, annoying his ally in Maharashtra, the Uddhav Shiv Sena. Soon after, Medha Patkar’s joining the yatra attracts criticism from the BJP. Without naming Rahul and Patkar, Modi attacked the Congress leader, questioning his (Rahul’s) proximity with “those who were against Narmada dam.” It seems that Rahul is trying to build a counter-narrative to that of the BJP’s hyper-nationalist, Hindu-centric one. Hence the name Bharat Jodo, and hence Patkar’s publicised presence at the yatra. The counter-narrative may be the thread that would help his party have some sort of understanding with NGOs and activists, most of whom are Left-leaning. It may be pointed out here that these activists had played a key role in discrediting the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2004, which resulted in the return of the Congress to power after eight years in the wilderness. Therefore, Rahul’s wanderings may have a theme; there may be a long-term plan. But a political party cannot afford to ignore short- and medium-term matters; it must fight elections seriously; good intentions and noble sentiments must never be lost sight of; but realpolitik too cannot be ignored. And it is here that Rahul’s leadership has been lacking. What the country has witnessed in the last nine years is the unstoppable march of the Modi juggernaut and the concomitant diminishing of the Congress. Rahul and other Congress leaders like party president Mallikarjun Kharge must get serious about fighting elections and act accordingly.
The United Nations (UN) on Tuesday announced that the world population meter recorded the eight billion mark. In a statement, the UN attributed the growth to human development, with people living longer thanks to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine.
It also added that it is the result of higher fertility rates, particularly in the world's poorest countries, as well.
Now amidst this announcement, internet users reacted to this news with hilarious memes and messages. While some users shared live recordings of the moment when the count hit the eight billion mark, others jokingly wrote, "8 Billion people and I'm still alone".
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