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Hinduism
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While reading this contribution and all the others I hope to write, we need to keep the context in mind. The context is this: many intellectuals, both in India and among the NRIs elsewhere, appear bent on transforming our multiple traditions into a single ?religion? called ?Hinduism?. The problem does not lie in the transformation of variety and diversity into a unity. Rather, it lies in trying to fit our traditions into the straightjacket of ?religion?. While calling ourselves ?Hindus? might be a convenient way of talking, the danger lies in going further and trying to develop ?doctrines?, ?theologies?, ?catechisms? and ?Ten Commandments? so that those around us in the West could recognize us as followers of a religion called ?Hinduism?. (These reflections are also applicable to ?Buddhism?, ?Jainism?, ?Saivism? and all such entities.) In the course of my future contributions, I will look at some of the compulsions that force us to manufacture ?Hinduism as a religion?. In this piece, I want to focus on the nature of traditions. What is a tradition? What differentiates religions from traditions? The second question will remain implicit until the end. By that time, we should have a better understanding of what it means to speak of a tradition.
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As I realize the sociological implications of the social engineering going on in the name of Secularism, I am filled with a sense of incredulity for the concept of Secularism as it is practiced in India today. This essay is an attempt to explain the reasons for my belief
Secularism in India today is bereft of any integrity and / or intellectual honesty, nor is there any internal consistency. What is good for the goose (the minority) is rarely good for the gander (the Hindu).
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Hindus have suffered a succession of setbacks in recent years, intensifying a retreat that dates back to the partition of India, indeed earlier. The electoral fortunes of their putative defenders seem to make little difference to their political circumstances. Their ethnic cleansing from Jammu & Kashmir continues unabated and the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh remains desperate, echoing the fate of Hindus earlier in Pakistan. Islamic terrorists are routinely attacking their places of worship within India itself. And elected political leaders have sought to crush one of their supreme spiritual leaders, the Kanchi Acharya. India?s religious minorities are also displaying a truculent assertiveness that underlines Hindu powerlessness and hints at yet darker times ahead. ...
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News flash: Indian-American parents have been working with California School authorities and textbook publishers for some years to improve what their kids are being taught about their heritage. In early November, they had just completed a set of small corrections to middle-school textbooks, when the whole process was derailed by a dung-throwing mob attack by so-called ?Prominent Academics? The duly-appointed committee, guided by the ?CRP? Professor- Emeritus Bajpai, were tossed out and superseded by a secretly-appointed ?Super-CRP? consisting of persons of blatant bias and hatred against the community.
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Cal Tech Professor Saffman remarked in the Preface to his book on Vortices that ?one cannot be a Scholar and a Researcher at the same time? ? but he was thinking of people who were actually one or the other. Come to think of it, no Scholar would claim to be a Scholar when s(he) is functionally illiterate in the language of the field of Scholarship. Let me now imagine the possibility that Witzel, Farmer and the rest of their mob are Researchers....
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Sankaracharya Arrest