Historians prevent us from becoming a people without history

It is hard to miss the irony in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effusive praise of Shashi Tharoor’s debating skills at Oxford University. The former minister of state for foreign affairs and human resource development (2012-2014) not only let fly a scorching and withering critique of British Imperialism but carried out the charge with such stirring eloquence that the word empire itself was ingloriously flung into the dustbin of history. And of course, this triumph was crowned when the debate went ‘viral’. The media in India too gushed with fulsome praise for delivering to the citizens of an erstwhile colony a total victory in a single afternoon of compelling prose and exemplary erudition.

In the fog of this oratorical victory, Modi seems to have failed to fully grasp the colour of the arguments that he was praising. History as the sword of choice in the Oxford University Union debates always comes encased in an ideological sheath. Tharoor was rehearsing, if not ably belabouring, a critique of British colonialism that drew upon rich scholarly contributions of Left-nationalist and Marxist historians. This avowedly Left-wing anti-colonial scholarship of the immediate post-Independence period not only built on the early economic criticisms made by Dadabhai Naoroji and RC Dutt but also further explained the complex financial mechanisms of colonial exploitation.

In the course of painstaking research, these scholars were able to credibly build a distinct anti-colonial historiography, which could convincingly explain independent India’s economic backwardness. Poverty and underdevelopment, they argued, could be squarely traced to historical injustice through notions such as the ‘drain’ of wealth from India to Britain, the de-industrialisation of the country by British manufacturing interests and the strategic colonial neglect of Indian industrialisation. Seminal contributions by Bipan Chandra, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Barun De and Sumit Sarkar, to name a few, were foundational in disproving the claim that gnawing economic underdevelopment in British India was simply a result of the Empire’s unsuccessful attempts to civilise South Asia.

Read | Tharoor: Modi talks of development but condones its opposite

These Left-wing nationalist and Marxist historians were able to very substantially upturn the ‘Orientalist’ and ‘Utilitarian’ histories that the likes of Alexander Dow, William Jones, Max Mueller or James Mill had assembled as a style of framing South Asia in terms of an unchanging, spiritual and passive ‘people without a history’. In such colonial interpretations, the South Asian subcontinent was essentially made up of a collection of loose internally contradictory cultural blocs comprising castes, religions, endogamous groupings and tribes who could not provide the social or political ingredients for modern nation-making.

This colonial view of the subcontinent’s pasts, moreover, was further undermined in the early decades of India’s independence with the emergence of modern professional history writing and the embrace of a decisive secular and material turn. In particular, a prolific set of pioneering publications dealing with the ancient and medieval periods by the likes of DD Kosambi, RS Sharma, Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib (to mention a few) made a strong case to understand Indian history as a rational project that was very open to non-spiritual reasoning. It is this rich legacy of Left-nationalist and Marxists scholarship that in fact made Tharoor’s unimpeachable facts and claims possible.

Ironically, Modi’s praise for the victory at Oxford University comes at a time when his government has been actively undermining these very same intellectually robust secular and material histories by trying to resuscitate instead the much-discredited Orientalist notion of an unchanging religious India.

Tharoor cannot entirely escape the accusation of strangling Indian scholarship. As minister for education, his tenure was more than lacklustre, even somewhat fatal, for social sciences research in India. The UGC, for example, was allowed to run riot with conflicting rules and instructions. Instead of helping augment the government’s ability to deliver on public education, especially for higher learning in the arts and humanities, what one saw was a drift and the steady dismantling of institutions. For the field of history, nothing was done to rebuild, restore or even revive the decrepit state of archives. The case of Delhi University is only too well known to bear repetition. History writing in India today happens under the most trying infrastructural and financial constraints. One wonders if there are ways to demand reparations from ministers of education who wreck and debilitate scholarship?

Read |  I was impressed by Modi's gesture: Tharoor

But the last laugh must still, ironically enough, belong to Oxford University and Britain in general. The fact is that the British library and its well-maintained collections still remain the premier archival holding on India’s colonial past. The British University system, moreover, continues to fund and maintain its historians and the study of history with superior infrastructure and commitment than what India offers to its relatively impoverished counterparts.

It is all well and good to play victim in the charmed environs of Oxford University or tickle the conscience of the British elite, but the real defeat of colonial arrogance would have been more meaningful if lesser-known Indian universities like Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University in Bihar or Indira Kala Sangit Vishwavidyalaya in Chhattisgarh had been given the infrastructure, the libraries and the resources to produce great scholarship and historians.

The ‘idea’ of India, at heart, is a project of history and any government that fails to nurture, develop or sustain this historical imagination by encouraging good and rigorous scholarship plays dangerously with its foundations. Already the better libraries, archives and collections on India lie abroad. Eliminating historians and their craft is but one step to becoming a people without history.

(Rohan D’Souza is associate professor, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University. The views expressed are personal)

The dark side of pleasure

The question is not whether certain kinds of pleasure are innately bad but whether a society can reject forms of pleasure that arise from the exploitation of others.

The recent blocking of some pornographic websites by the government has set off some sharp criticism and mockery. Understandably, the unexpected and largely unexplained manner in which the step was taken was interpreted as one more instance of a conservative government seeking to impose its own version of morality on the people.

Like the ‘beef ban’, the ‘porn ban’ turned quickly into a slogan and symbol of oppression. Some observers went so far as to ask if the disappearance of pornography from the screens of Indian consumers would be followed by the disappearance of people too, on par with the actions of brutal and totalitarian governments elsewhere.

Now that the ‘porn ban’ has been effectively withdrawn and freedom restored, it might be helpful to ask ourselves if there is something in our humanity that we have forgotten in our rush to defend a fundamentally exploitative practice. After all, we are not talking here about the government intruding into a form of pleasure that is without cost to others, but about product from an industry often associated with violence and coercion against women. The key question here is not whether certain kinds of pleasure are innately bad or ‘sinful’ but whether society can teach its members to reject forms of pleasure that arise from the exploitation and degradation of a section.

‘Consuming’ women

Coincidentally, in the case of both the controversial Indian bans, there is one important work that is relevant to the present-day debate — Carol J. Adams’ The Pornography of Meat. Ms. Adams shows us the striking parallels between the representational practices of carnivorousness and patriarchy in Western popular culture.

While the generalised practice of referring to women as ‘meat’ is bad enough, what pornography does is to magnify the process of viewing women not as humans but essentially as ‘cuts of meat.’ Through an extensive study of advertisements that present women’s bodies as ‘meat’ to be consumed by men, Ms. Adams reiterates the key concerns that should be informing many of our debates today: “How does someone become something? How does someone come to be viewed as an object, a product, as consumable? How does her use to another as this product, this consumable object, become more important than her own inherent value, her own complete and unique self?”

The debate on animal subjectivity and suffering may still seem remote to too many self-assured ‘omnivores’ at the moment, but there should be no ambiguity at all on the morality of objectifying and ‘consuming’ women.

The irony is that often the same voices, who claim to speak for women when it comes to aspects like the debatable role of Rama in exiling Sita in the Ramayana, become oblivious to the real, ongoing, widespread brutality against women that exists in the culture industries today. After all, we seem to think nothing is wrong with Western cultural products that celebrate the denigration of women, like the50 Shades novels and movies being dumped into our markets and minds, because to protest such things might be deemed conservative, puritanical, maybe even Hindutva. Yet, we welcome uncritically contrived and specious ‘analyses’ and documentaries about how our culture, religion and tradition is responsible for the suffering of women in India, because that seems to be the progressive thing to do.

Critical reflection

The truth is that our critiques have not kept pace with the intensity and scale of the cultural changes brought about by new media technologies. We must recognise that we live in a world very different from that of Kama Sutra or Khajuraho monuments — despite the desire of some scholars to view that world through such orientalistic fantasies about violence. We also need to understand that we are yet to decolonise ourselves from some of the basic myths acquired through colonial encounters on nature, human nature, sex and violence.

Our liberal education has, at best, taught us to note that present-day Indian conservatism on such matters is really a Victorian inheritance, and a distortion of ancient Indian sexuality. It might be so. But have our schools and colleges been encouraged to teach us that the overblown sexual world that exists in the media and Internet today is no simple fact of nature, that it is an enormously distorted and distorting political creation, a craven, cannibalistic, commercialised machine almost beyond control?

We need to move beyond Kama Sutra and free speech talking-points and explore how we can offer a culturally rooted, yet universally ethical vision for young adults as they begin their journey into consuming pornographic entertainment. We need to find a way to tell them that these pictures you see are of real human beings, and some of them might even be dead now, or dying, given the brutal conditions many of those unknown millions unjustifiably face.

For our efforts, we might be deemed eccentrics and party-spoilers. True. But we cannot go on peddling platitudes, as we have been doing about sex — calling it a ‘need’ without balancing the right to pleasure with the duty to recognise and minimise pain.

One way to do this perhaps, since precedent exists, is to respect freedom and allow individuals to go where they wish, but include statutory warnings on the perils of the pleasure industry they are seeking to indulge themselves in. That way, there is no absolute restriction on freedom to consume pornography, but there is at least a token investment to make consumers informed and, eventually, ethical agents.

Language of dissent

Those who oppose pornography on religious or cultural grounds may not always have the rationale for their opposition. However, that cannot just be explained away as an innate antipathy to freedom. It is more because of their lack of education in reconciling traditional narratives on pleasure and duty with modern thinking. Secular critics of pornography would do well to recognise that a ‘Hindu stance’ against it comes from thoughts having greater depth than what the dichotomies of religion-modernity and oppression-freedom would allow.

Our religious thought is concerned deeply about freedom too, and not just in some metaphysical sense. What an enlightened Hindu — or a Jain or a Buddhist or any other spiritual practitioner — may be striving for when he or she talks of kama, in conjunction with dharma, is not the suppression of human emotions in the name of celibacy but positive restraint.

Freedom, in this worldview, is less about rules and regulations and more about cultivating a way of living that ensures freedom from unnecessary debt to others for what we have taken from them. And the debt that we accumulate, as individuals and as a society, for suffering of women around the world whose images adorn our private spaces, is enormous.

(Vamsee Juluri is a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco and the author ofRearming Hinduism.)

Keywords: Pornography, Pornography ban, sex education, porn ban, freedom, The Pornography of Meat

Democracy’s essence

India’s fundamental belief in democracy is often taken as a given, but it is instructive to understand the basis and strength of this belief. A new national survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows that in 2013, under half the country unequivocally preferred democracy as the best form of government in all cases; the outcome was the same when a similar survey was conducted in 2005. The proportion of those who believe that an authoritarian government is acceptable in some cases has grown, but at 11 per cent it remains a minority view, and significantly lower than those with the same view in neighbouring Pakistan. Among the poor, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, the preference for democracy was not what was significantly higher, but indifference as to the type of government. Satisfaction in the functioning of democracy has declined sharply in India, and with it, presumably, the belief that a form of government in which one notionally has a voice is the most desirable. Preference for authoritarianism was higher among those with the highest media exposure, those who lived in metros, those who were rich and those who were college-educated — groups for which democracy has delivered much more than for the marginalised sections, yet among whom such conservative views are growing. Even among those who identify themselves as democrats, many believe a strong leader would do well to take decisions on his or her own and do away with elections and Parliament, the survey reveals. Perhaps this reflects frustration with a system which while representative is simply not delivering equally and efficiently to all.

India would do well to watch out for the growth of such authoritarian tendencies, especially when they come in the garb of patriotism. This is evident, for instance, in the branding of criticism of the death penalty as “anti-national” and in support, even among some journalists, for the government’s move to go after television channels which aired views against Yakub Memon’s hanging. Simultaneously, the government would do well to not misunderstand the nature of its democratic compact with its people, especially the poor. Top among the essential characteristics of democracy as rated by respondents in the survey was the freedom to take part in protests and demonstrations, evidence of a country that holds the right to dissent dear. Several welfarist ideals — provision of basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as a narrowing gap between the rich and the poor and job opportunities for all — came next in the list of most cherished tenets of democracy. The everyday experience of dealing with the state for these is no doubt frustrating — ration shops are ranked as being among the most corrupt, and the police are seen as the least trusted. Majoritarian and jingoistic notions of democracy are not what the people of India are looking for, but a welfarist democracy that delivers.

Keywords: Indian demcracy, electoral activities, Yakub Memon, jingoistic notions, 

THE SPEAKING tree - Highest Form of Giving

MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN





Experts say that the organs from one donor can save or help as many as 50 people.Most organ and tissue donations occur after the donor has died. But some organs and tissues can be donated while the donor is alive, without the slightest harm to the donor. People of all ages and backgrounds can be organ donors.Organ donation is allowed in every religious tradition, including Islam. According to Islam, organ donation is sadqa jariya, or continuous charity .For example, if a blind person receives another person's eyes after the person's death and is able to see, that is sadqa jariya, because even after his death, the benefits from his donation continue for another person.
Organ donation promotes a noble, humane spirit in society. It means that one is desirous of extending one's spirit of service to others even after one's death. Some Muslims may argue that organ donation is like `muthla', or disfigurement, and muthla is unlawful in Islam. But drawing this parallel is completely wrong. Muthla always involves extremely bad intentions, in terms of humiliation. Anything, including disfigurement, is unlawful only when it is done with bad intentions, otherwise it is lawful.
Organ donation is entirely an act of good intention. It is done with the best of wishes for fellow human beings. So, there is no similarity between disfigurement and organ donation.August 13 is Organ Donation Day. To sign up, go to http:www.organdonationday.in or give us a missed call on 08080055555

the speaking tree - Learning To See With Inner Vision

Francis Gonsalves





An old sage had become blind and could neither read nor recognise people who came to consult him.A doctor offered to cure him of his blindness. “There's no need of that,“ replied the sage, “I can see everything i need to see.“ Many of us have eyes that do not see reality as it truly is, and there are many , though physically blind, are blessed with insights that open our eyes to what we often fail to notice.Beyond the physical and emotional planes, eyes and eyesight belong to the common treasury of spiritual imagery .Since all our conceptualisations are limited by our human condition, our images of God are always anthropomorphic, meaning, we attribute to God ­ albeit to an infinite degree ­ qualities which are human. Thus, the Biblical God is omniscient: “The eyes of God are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good“ (Proverbs 15:3).
The first chapter of Genesis repeat edly asserts: “God saw“ that everything created was good. God's “seeing“ engenders divine nurturance and protection of people: “The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love“. But, God's eyes also detect evil and injustice, which are denounced. Interestingly , Indian popular art portrays Gods with big eyes; for they never fail to see! While God eternally oversees everything and everyone, human beings yearn to see God.This is expressed in Arjuna's humble plea to Lord Krishna: “I want to see your divine form“ (Bhagwad Gita, 11:3). He is then given a vishvarupa darshan ­ a panoramic, mystical vision of t the universe. Likewise, in the Gospel, Apostle Philip asks spe Jesus, “Lord, show us the tr Father-God,“ and Jesus answers, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father-God“ (John 14:8-9).
Mahatmas and prophets are called `seers' because they possess illuminative insights into all of reality . They are gifted with mystical consciousness or a `third eye', so to say. In response to Arjuna's petition, Lord Krishna grants him the gift of a `divine eye' (divyam dadami te chakshu, Gita 11:8), to perceive the Universal Divine Form. Similarly , Jesus stresses that his disciples must have the “eye of faith“ to look, see, believe, love and serve.
Anybody reading this page is blessed with fairly good eyesight. Presumably, we all also possess sufficient `sight' in the sense of understanding what we see and read. However, life's experiences constantly challenge us to gain deeper `insights' into our own inner selves, human behaviour, historical processes, sociopol itical movements, cosmic currents and spiritual matters. Here, true `seers' are not swayed by superficial appearances of persons and things but venture to go higher, deeper, further, wider to see how all of creation mirrors the Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent One.
Today , we increasingly live in an audio-visual world and communicate through cyberspace. We are bombarded with hundreds of images of people and places via internet, TV , computers and the like. But, are we truly wiser than our forebears who, due to limitations in transport and communication networks, hardly saw too much? Do we really `see' more than them?
In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God“ (Matthew 5:8). Just as the bottom of a pool can be seen if the water is pure and calm, so do goodhearted persons delve into the depths of reality ­ seeing not what `appears to be' but what life truly `is'.

Aug 10 2015 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Super 30 kid wins Tokyo varsity call

Patna: PTI





Kunal Kumar, a student of Super 30, hailing from unprivileged section of society, has been selected by the the University of Tokyo for higher education.Earlier this year, another student of Super 30, Abhishek Gupta, was selected for education in Tokyo after clearing the JEE-Mains.
Kunal Kumar's father is unemployed. “Till four years ago, I was struggling even for proper education, even though I had high dreams. It was sheer luck that I was routed to mathematician Anand Kumar's Super 30 through a friend of his and that changed my life,“ said an emotionally charged Kunal.
Impressed with the astounding performance of Super 30, officials of the Tokyo University had visited the institution last year and offered free education to its selected students.
“It is good that Kunal Kumar has got the opportunity .International exposure in a technologically advanced nation like Japan will help him a lot,“ said Anand Kumar, who could not go to Cambridge in his youth due to poverty .
Founded in 2002 , Super 30 has managed to send more than 300 students from extremely poor family to the IITs so far.

MHRD conducts survey on dropout rate of school children 

To ensure quality education in government schools, the Central Government through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has supported State and Union Territories on early grade reading, writing and comprehension and early mathematics programmes through a sub-programme ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’.

The SSA will also support states and UTs on sharing an exemplar on continuous comprehensive evaluation in elementary education developed by the NCERT, notifying learning outcomes by class and stage of education brought out by the NCERT, conducting the 3rd round of National Achievement Surveys for Class III, V and VIII to track student learning outcomes, provide funds and technical guidance to states for annual refresher training of teachers and lastly to provide academic support to teachers and schools through Block and Cluster Resource Centres.

The identification of Special Focus Districts (SFDs) is an important step in the direction of providing universal and quality education to SCs & STs student at elementary level. These districts are identified based on indicators like concentration of out of school children, high gender gap, low retention rate and infrastructure gap as well as concentration of SC, ST, Minority population. During 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 & 2015-16, 48 per cent, 48 per cent, 42.8 per cent & 49 per cent respectively of the funds under SSA were targeted to SFDs. As a result, the annual average dropout rate of boys has reduced from 5.89 per cent in 2012-13 to 4.68 per cent in 2013-14 and of girls from 5.34 per cent to 4.66 per cent during the same period.

A survey was commissioned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and was conducted by Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB) on “National Survey of Estimation of out-of-school children in age 6-13 in India” and completed in 2014. It was pointed out in the study report that children within the rural areas drop out of school earlier than those in the urban areas. Most of the drop-outs in the said age group from the rural areas have completed education up to Class-II, while those from the urban areas have completed class V.