Total bankrupcy of ideas.

Sometime ago, we had asked whether there is any dialogue at the rajeev2004 blog or whether it is only jalpa or vitanda. Last week, a self-evident answer appeared. Some curious student enquired about cultural and religious clashes in India. We were hoping there would be useful answers so that the enquirer knows the truth. Unfortunately, not one straight answer has been forthcoming so far. We tried to post our answer but were unsuccessful four times. As you all know, the blogowner has a policy of deleting comments from some posters summarily. That is how much he cares about the status of Indian society and Hindus!

Charity begins at home

Mr. Rajeev Srinivasan cracked the biggest joke of this century earlier this week when he posted an item about freedom of expression.

This is what the article in the link says about freedom. "The principle is quite clear: it does not matter how you feel about what is being expressed, who is doing it, or who is gaining politically by it; .the right to free expression itself is sacred and a common good and nothing can be allowed to do anything even remotely like abridging it. "

And the article also says "The picture that emerges, then, is that of a people with various political and personal axes to grind, but all united in their authoritarian drive to use any handy tool--administrative, civil, political, or the lynch mob--to suppress any expression that they find inconvenient, distasteful or dangerous. And it's no use blaming politicians either: there has been no politician in history with the ability to exploit an urge that is not already present in the people. We're all perverse freedom fighters, in brief."

Mr. Rajeev Srinivasan, Practise what you preach. Stop deleting comments on the basis of the identity of posters. (It is quite ok to have general rules for posting and follow them fully, but it is not ok to delete comments based on poster's identity) Show the world that you really believe in freedom of expression. For once, act like a Hindu instead of acting like a muslim fundamentalist!!

Finally, a young leader from BJP says it straight.

Finally, BJP mustered enough courage to call the bluff of well managed economy.

"You the economic Prime Minister, cannot manage the economy, cannot manage India. Please quit," BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad told reporters in New Delhi.

I guess Advani and the old members must be quite friendly with the PM so they keep praising him for something or other - honesty for example. Younger leaders might take time to develop that friendship and so common people might have some chance of parties competing and hopefully ending up helping people.

My duty to take minorities in confidence: Yeddyurappa

The comment that we posted as a test case was as follows

"Congress will use these elections to formulate their plans for the 2009 show. They will have their own election commissioner then.

BJP will likely go all out to attract a few Muslim votes...that is a certainty.

Hopefully, we will be proven wrong."

The TOOTBWAHNP promptly deleted the comment. But then, Mr. Yeddiyurappa proved us right just in a matter of hours.

"Long back I had promised that I would give a Muslim senior leader the opportunity to be in my Cabinet (he said and he would fulfull his promise)"

On the Rajeev2004 blog, criticising BJP is heresy because the owner cares more about BJP than about Hindus. What else could explain the kid glove treatment of BJP?

Mr. Yeddiyurappa could have said the same thing in many different ways. For example, he could have said "I would cater to all sections of society or My governement will listen to the voters and help the poor or whatever". Using the word Minority, as per Adwani is Minorytism...why is BJP resorting to that? Perhaps BJP does not need to worry about Hindu voters now that the elections are over. Maybe there are other reasons. Our Hero who 'understands' game theory doesn't seem to have thought about BJP strategy and Hindu strategy.

Old hatred is still alive

As I had mentioned on the 2004-critique blog, I didn't expect to have a continuing interest in the rajeev2004 blog simply because of its undemocratic functioning.

That is what happened. In last few months, I hardly visited the blog a couple of times each month. Yesterday, I had this bright idea of checking whether anything had changed. I posted a comment to find out.

The comment was removed promptly!

I did try to find out why our hero is so revengeful and I found this rather nice piece. In particular, the following sentence - 'revenge is more common in relatively corrupt and undemocratic traditional societies based on authoritarian and parochial social institutions'.

I would not worry if the revengeful mind restricted itself to personal level. Unfortunately, that restriction is never present. Examine the latest post about BJP win in Karnataka and the comments under it, (Our comment got deleted from the bunch).

The revengeful mindset is on exhibition when they discuss Deve Gowda. Now that BJP has won and got to govern, their best strategy would be to forget the betrayal handed out by Devegowda and work towards keeping him afloat as a force to be used against Congress. The way the national politics works, BJP has only one enemy during the election time and that is congress. Congress has to work against all of them! After the election, the equation changes and it becomes BJP vs. the rest. The point is, BJP's best friends are the M&L Yadavas Paswans and Gowdas. Unfortunately, BJP often antagonises them unnecessarily and some of the staunch BJP supporters do it purely to indulge their revengeful mind.

You would have thought that the hero who claims to have studied his game theory would have enough brains to understand this aspect of politics. It seems he has forgotten his game theory. Strategy is not a word in his dictionary any longer. Let us hope his regular visitors ask a few uncomfortable questions and force him to be a little more democratic and a little more intelligent in his thinking.

Please do read the link posted above. Here are two more paras from the same article about developed societies.

"But striking national differences then arose when freeloaders were punished for putting their own interests ahead of the common good."

"In countries such as the US, Switzerland and the UK, the freeloaders accepted their punishment, became much more co-operative and the earnings in the game increased over time."

"In societies where the modern ethic of co-operation with strangers is less familiar and the rule of law is perceived to be weak, revenge is more common and co-operation suffers, comments Dr Herrmann."

Read this carefully and you might get an idea why BJP suffers and why BJP supporters suffer. Often these individuals and groups have the best of intentions, intelligence, work ethic but they cannot cooperate simply because they lose the big picture the moment there is an opportunity to seek revenge against some member of their own group. Think about it.

When Buddhi is forced to sleep ..

Lack of critical thinking, lack of analysis, lack of vision, and a lack of basic honesty marks the current interaction that goes on on the blog that claims to be a Hindu Nationalist Perspective. To us, all these characteristics are Fundamentalist. Hardcore communists would be proud of them, so would be those who deny Holocaust, but Hindus?

Check this post. Our comment was "Come on, politics is not about honesty, it is about strategy and tactics. I am not a fan of MM Singh (Mr. L. K. Advani is - read about the recent praise showered on him by the leader who should have been following Vanaprasthashram, if he is a true believer in Hindu dharma.), but I won't complain if he is merely dishonest"

The comment was promptly deleted. We can now see why 5 years of BJP rule didn't ever help Hindu religion or weaken its opponents anytime. The ruling sages were busy raising their personal status as Sadhus by being honest, praising opponents, and censoring those who spoke the truth. Would Chanakya have approved that? Is being in active life at 80 the right thing to do as per Hindu way of life? Lastly, which Hindu philosophy approves censoring of ALL thought coming from a particular person or ID?

The Kaliyuga is here.

For long, I have suspected that those who claim to be concerned about Hindus have no respect whatsoever about Hindu philosophy. The Kaliyuga is here. By now, a dozen have voted that the discussion at Rajeev2004 blog is Samvaada. I doubt anyone had read the narrative we presented on the side or for that matter, the original Darshana (Nyaya or Vaisheshika) before voting. They seem to think they are bigger than the Hindu Philosophy. Here is the description of Samvaada again for their benefit.

Samvaada is the discussion between the teacher and the taught. Before the teaching starts, the teacher and the taught invoke the grace of the Lord, .Om Sahanavavatu... Ma vidvishavahai, OM Santi....etc. to make sure there is no hatred between the two so that teaching can take place. The student is allowed to question, and the questioning is not intended to test the teacher but to clarify student's understanding (or misunderstanding).

We can make it into Samvaada. I am willing to ask one simple question every week and let the Guru answer.. Who will take responsibility for making sure that the question is not deleted?

Masters of Inaction

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.The Jews have noticed the hateful writings of one person who claims to promote peace and have taken a Strong action agains one wrong-doer . Our own Hindu Nationalist has been writing for close to a decade, and has not yet come out with a single call for action. He has the cheek to call Hindus brain-washed though....
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The Hindu ideas about DISCUSSION

Hindu sages had thought about various ideas and possibilities. In one of the six Hindu Darshana's, the nature of Discussion and various types of discussions have been thoroughly discussed. One friend showed me this nice piece that captures the ideas.

"It is said that discussions are of four types: Samvaada, Vaada, Jalpa and Vitanda. Samvaada is the discussion between the teacher and the taught. All our scriptures are written in the form of samvaada. Before the teaching starts, the teacher and the taught invoke the grace of the Lord, .Om Sahanavavatu... Ma vidvishavahai, OM Santi....etc. to make sure there is no hatred between the two so that teaching can take place. The student is allowed to question, and the questioning is not intended to test the teacher but to clarify student's understanding (or misunderstanding).

They are no commandments that "that thou shall do this or that" but only declarations of what is required to reach the highest goal. The Bhagawad Geeta, as it says, is a KrishaArjun Samvaada, a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna on Brahmavidya.

Vaada is the discussion between any two (generally among equals) to establish the truth. As the English phrase "Let us sit down and discuss", implies the purpose is to resolve the conflict and to establish what is the truth. Both parties are open minded, even though they are convinced that they are right, they are ready to listen and to accept the opponents' version if they are convinced that other's interpretation is more correct based on whatever the pramana that they use as the authority. The famous dialogue that supposed to have lasted for many days between Sankaracharya and Mandana Mishra is a typical example. The level of honesty of the discussion was exemplified by the fact that Mandana Mishra's wife Umabharati who was believed to be the embodiment of goddess of Knowledge, Saraswati, was chosen as the Judge for the Vada. In the end she declares that her husband lost the contest. After 18 or so days of discussions, Mandana Misra was convinced to the validity of Sankaracharya's interpretation of the scriptures that he became his disciple. He was the well know Sureswaracharya who became the head of one of the four Mutts. Learning takes place at the end of even vaada since the truth is established to the satisfaction of both parties.

Jalpa is the discussion between the two who are also convinced that each one is right and the opponent is wrong. Unlike in vaada, the purpose is not to discover or establish the truth, but only to convert the other guy. The outcome of this whole jalpa is lot of noise. Even if it appears that one has lost an argument, he will not accept it, instead he goes back to get some more materials or concocts some other arguments only to establish he is right and other is wrong.
But even in Jalpa, the discussions are still objective, each is strongly convinced (some times bordering to beliefs) that he is right and the other is wrong.

Jalpa arises in vedanta because of (1) the apparent contradictions (please note the word apparent) in the scriptures and (2) flexibility of Sanskrit to split the words in a way that suites the basis of theargumentation (because the same word in sanskrit can be construed usingseveral Dhatus or roots) (3) multiple meanings for several important words and the interpreter's preference to choose a particular meaning over the other and (4) contextual meaning that changes with phrase, sentence and the topic. Typical example is the word Dharma - Any good sanskrit dictionary will give at least 3 to 4 pages of meaning for this two syllable word. Confusion for example could arise since the word Atma has been interpreted to denote Jeeva and sometimes the Brahman.

Just to say that Sri Prabhupada's or any one else's is "As it is" and the rest are all interpretations or misinterpretations only borders to fanaticism and does not establish a fact. Everyone can make the same statement about their interpretation. That obviously cannot be a basis for argument.I will come back to this topic of what then is the pramana or basis for discussion.
Jalpa may not be of use to the two who are arguing, in terms of their learning. But the bystanders who are carefully following the two arguments can get lot of benefit. It helps to establish their own convictions provided the arguments are scholarly.

The fourth and the last (recognized) type of discussion is Vitanda. The sole purpose is only to defeat the opponent. In contrast to Jalpa, neither one may have any conviction other than to prove that Mr. iamfordemocracy is wrong, why because he is Mr. iamfordemocracy and not Mr. R. The same statement from Mr. R would be right. This type of arguments have been used as valid means to establish that the opponent is not qualified to discuss the subtleties of the logic. There is no leaning experience out of this kind of arguments even to the bystanders other than the learning that either or both of them are not worth listening to!

Name calling (those that disagree with their notions are idiots and rascals and the profanity ) unfortunately does not fall in any one of these four established discussion types, because our ancestors never imagined that our culture will degrade to that".

Please let me know your opinion in the accompanying poll.

Like all bullies, XXX is basically a coward

Where there are no ideas, beer bar culture prevails. How will ideas help? Read this latest post. There is a school close to Vatican wherein students dont like the pope.

You could react in two ways to that news. You could celebrate and say a few more bad words about the Pope or you could wonder why students acted that way. What would happen if these students come to know about the atrocities evangelicals are commiting in India? Would you not have more partners in your effort of delivering justice to poor Hindus in India?

But then, you (the JL Nehru of the blogworld) have to keep your ego aside. We like these lines from the post.

Like all bullies, XXX is basically a coward. He canceled the visit to the University apprehending a threat from University professors and students, hardly violent insurgents!

Make a little change to them.

Like all bullies, Ra... is basically a coward. He deletes posts apprehending a threat from others with better ideas, hardly violent insurgents!

Tendulkar and the (Indian) Nationalist perspective.

You can judge whether a person is a nationalist by following his actions, not words. There are people shouting from the rooftop that they are nationalists and have a nationalist perspective. On closer examination, you often find that they have done little for the nation.

There are others who let their deeds do the talking. All of us have watched the farce that the second Australia-India test match was. We have seen the beligerent Austalian players throw all decorum to the wind. We also saw a classy innings from Tendulkar. But all that was about cricket.

When ICC chose to reprimand Harbhajan for the alleged racial slur, the Nationalist in Sachin came to the fore. Sachin has SMS'd BCCI. The team has stayed put in Sydney. The matter has come to a boil and I am certain some Australian players as well as some Umpires are going to have to pay for their 'Papa'. This was the proverbial 100th crime of the Shishupal.

I am waiting to see the reaction of one Hindu natioanlist. Perhaps, he might realise the big mistake he did in singling out Tendulkar for cricket criticism. One of the commentators has even referred a Lalu Quote to belittle Tendulkar. (He too claims he is a hindu nationalist. I guess he believes Godhra fire was lit from inside the train). In another post, The Jawaharlal Nehru of the blogworld had called Tendulkar names. I once again deplore the tendency of the TOOTBWAHNP to throw mud at our icons.

I hope some of his readers demand a more careful and responsible posting from you know who.

As for cricket, make no mistake about what to expect. The full force of the Indian might will be felt by those who played pranks. India will demand justice and it they will get it. Don't forget the presence of the ICL, the other cricket body. They will fan nationalistic feelings. BCCI cannot afford a negative reaction in this issue. Democracy and market forces will ensure the deliverance of justice in this issue.