transcending conflicts - Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony [PDF]

TRANSCENDING CONFLICTS Indian and Eastern Way

The Editorial Board Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony(India) Prof. Kireet Joshi (Chairman) Dr. Subhash C. Kashyap Shri Vijai Kapoor Shri Ajit K. Doval Prof. P. V. Indiresan Prof. R. Vaidyanathan Prof. J. S. Rajput Prof. Rajendra Dixit Prof. Adityanji Prof. Makkhan Lal Shri Abhaya Kashyap (Secretary)

TRANSCENDING CONFLICTS Indian and Eastern Way

Editors Kirit Joshi Rajendra Dixit Abhaya Kashyap

Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony [India]

© Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony [India] 2008

Published by GFCH (India) A-301 Gauri Sadan 5, Hailey Road New Delhi

First Edition: 2008

All rights reserved. This book is sold to the condition that no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission from the publisher.

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Contents Preface ............................................................................................. vii

Part I 1. Need for Civilisational Harmony ........................................................ 1 Vasant Sathe 2. The Challenge of Multiculturalism .................................................... 31 In the Context of Globalisation and Discrimination Doudou Diène 3. Conflict and Harmony Within Humankind: ....................................... 39 Diverse Dimensions D P Chattopadhyaya 4. Christianity and Western Civilisation ................................................ 53 P.C. Alexander 5. Indian Culture Beyond India ............................................................. 77 Non-Conflictual and Peaceful Lakhan Mehrotra 6. Dharma for Mutual Respect .......................................................... 131 Transcending Mere Tolerance M. Rama Jois 7. Jihad and Crusades ........................................................................ 149 The Concepts, Meanings and Adherence Afsir Karim 8. Religious Terrorism ........................................................................ 175 Civilisational Context and Contemporary Manifestations A.K. Doval

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9. Religion and Western Civilisation ................................................... 215 K. T. Thomas 10. India as a Global Economic Power ................................................. 225 Leveraging on the Civilisational Strengths R. Vaidyanathan 11. Interface of India with other Asian Lands ..................................... 259 Lokesh Chandra 12. Fusion of Cultures .......................................................................... 279 A Case of Abdul Wahid Radhu Claude Arpi 13. Religious Violence ...........................................................................311 Evolution in Islam and Christianity Vinod Saighal 14. Education, Colonialism and Attack on Culture ............................... 341 Need for Remedies J. S. Rajput 15. Dialogue Across Cultures: .............................................................. 377 Search for a Methodological Foundation Arvind Sharma 16. Towards Civilisational Harmony ..................................................... 387 Kireet Joshi Part II 17. Religious Faiths and Modern Civilisations ...................................... 403 Their Actualized Potential and Propensities to Promote, and to Avoid and Resolve, Conflicts S. Gurumurthy 18. Contributors .................................................................................... 597

Preface As the contemporary world situation is unfolding before our eyes, it is becoming clearer that humanity is in the grip of a grave crisis. This crisis has deep roots in the fact that while tremendous progress has been made by humanity in science, technology and in building up global organisations in the contemporary world, there has been no corresponding progress in developing global cosciousness that can truly be sustained by pursuit of moral and spritual values. Globalism and egoism, globalism and exclusivism, globalism and narrowness cannot go together. We have, therefore, to take concrete steps to mobilise a massive effort at cilvilisational harmony at the global level and advocate all that can sustain an unprecedented growth of values of mutuality, unity and harmony. Many civilisations have grown, declined and fallen but it is not surprising that the theme of civilisation itself has been continuing. This theme is extremely important and since human life has its raison d’être in promoting the ideals of order, justice and harmony, humanity has constantly endeavoured to ensure that these ideals continue to be fostered despite all conflicts, wars and pessimistic views of the future. A time has come when these ideals of civilisation and human existence are established unshakably. The alternative is perilous and it is best to eliminate it rather than elaborate it. One of the most important issues that confronts humanity is related to conflicts amongst civilisations themselves. It has been suggested that this conflict may occupy the next few decades in the 21st century, which has just begun. It is appropriate, therefore, that there is a widespread debate all over the world on the issues connected with civilisational conflicts and concerns for harmony. Debates are important, but they should be purposeful and must aim at suggesting practicable solutions. This means that there should be a concerted effort on the part of groups of people who dedicate themselves to a sustained

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search and engage themselves in worldwide exchange of ideas and aspirations as also concrete activities that aim at civilisational harmony. It is in the context of this need that GFCH has come to be formed under the leadership of several eminent personalities of India. The aim of this organisation is to encourage wide-ranging dialogue not only within the country but amongst countries and to evolve a climate of thought as also of action that will foster civilisational harmony. This aim is sought to be pursued through concrete activities, and our first efforts have been directed to bring together thoughts of thinkers and leaders of public life, who belong to various persuasions but who all share the deepest concern for civilisational harmony. In order to bring together the articulated thoughts on various issues and to transmit them to a larger public, we have thought of publishing this volume. It will be noticed that the contributors of this volume come from various backgrounds, and we have in this book some of their most mature thoughts which throw helpful light in understanding relevant issues and also in building up consensus that may contribute to the on-going search for avoiding conflicts, resolving conflicts, promoting peace, and promoting even a large synthesis in which the diversity of civilisations can flourish, while the higher aims of unity of civilisational values could be sustained. An important idea that seems to emerge from the papers collected in this volume is that amongst many models that can be conceived for civilisational harmony, the Indian model which has grown up over a long history of 5000 years without any serious break can provide not only insights but even practical methods by which civilisations can meet together and collaborate with each other in promoting the highest welfare of the people which is inseparable from amity and harmony. “Let all good thoughts come from all parts of the world, “ â no bhadrah kratavo yantu visvatah” This was one of the first messages of Indian culture that opened the gates of the Indian mind and spirit to universality. Another important concept that developed was concerning the highest reality which all religions have been seeking. On the basis of a long effort of arriving at stable realisations, a fruitful conclusion was reached and expressed in the formula

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“ekam sad viprâh bahudhâ vadanti” “Reality is one but wise people express it in different ways” It was on account of this overarching thought that, despite development of numerous religions that came to flourish in India, there is a preponderant feeling even amongst common masses of the country that what is important is not the forms or doctrines but the sincerity with which doctrines are practised, and that if there is spiritual practice, doctrinal differences tend to be not only tolerated, but even comprehended. A third helpful idea that has arisen in the course of the development of Indian culture is that even scepticism, agnosticism and atheism have behind them a sincere search for truth, and that instead of looking down upon them adversely, we should appreciate the sincerity of the search for truth which underlies them. There have been in India spiritual philosophies and even religions which are atheistic and which lay emphasis on the attainment of spiritual states of consciousness in which one can find states of liberation. These religions and philosophies have grown side by side with theistic and deistic religions and even with polytheist religions. There is, in other words, an Indian vision, and that vision needs to be articulated and presented to everyone who is concerned with the cause of civilisational harmony, for our own intention is to serve the presentation of the Indian vision of harmony, and, as will be seen, the contributors have their own varied concepts of the Indian vision. We cherish the differences; we maintain that there should be diversity, but we also urge that the diversities should be utilised for arriving at rich unity. It is impossible to summarise the views presented in this book, and each paper has its own unique character and special thought. But each paper vibrates with enthusiastic love for harmony. The data presented in various papers are extremely important; they impart to us a fresh awareness of the profundity of the issues that lie before us. The solutions which have been suggested provoke deeper insights and suggest new avenues of practicable programmes that should be launched in the world with a view to achieving civilisational harmony. The authors of the different papers have played eminent roles in their own fields of competence. On account of their extreme load of responsibility,

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the size of each paper has been limited to modest proportions. In the case of Shri Gurumurthy, on account of his detailed study of various aspects of the problems that confront humanity in its pursuit of civilisational harmony, his paper is comprehensive in many ways, and although it may seem to be too lengthy, the reader will find that the thoughts he is presenting have many aspects, and to each of them he has devoted an appropriate and brief statement. We wish to record here our indebtedness to the authors for their contributions to the volume. We are also grateful to all those who have rendered their valuable service in preparing the final typesetting of this volume and in getting it printed according to the schedule.

Part I

1

Need for Civilisational Harmony Vasant Sathe A very noble attempt to launch Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony is being made by universally and spiritually motivated citizens. This is an urgent need of the hour, because human communities are slowly but steadily slipping into an era of conflict either in the name of religion, civilisation or commercial interests. A way therefore has to be found to stop this slide of humanity which can lead to a human cataclysm if positive initiatives are not made to achieve harmony through peaceful methods of dialogue and mutual acceptance of unity in diversity. This is a huge task, because human interests are so diverse and widespread in many areas of knowledge and development, that even the idea of seeking synergy is mind boggling. The first and foremost task is to get together persons with likeminded objectives who would be keen to seek and achieve this ‘Global Harmony’. The next step would be to have a friendly dialogue among them. This is easier said than done. A mere academic discussion may be held but that would be only superficial as no one is required to give up his established position. The real test would arise when one will have to give up his aggressive stance of conflict in any field. This will mainly arise in areas such as religion or nationalism or power and linguistic cultural difference. Here mere tolerance will not do. Would we be in a position to give up our age old obstinate stand? It would therefore be useful to take a holistic and global view in these major areas of human conflict that have plagued human society throughout its evolution. First we must decide on the range and scope of our Global Foundation and only then shall we be able to find some solution both for ‘conflict avoidance’ and ‘conflict resolution’. Conflict in human society arises mainly because of clash of interest. Interest may be material or of ideas. Material interest has taken the form of

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personal gain through acquiring power on larger scale such as State or Community. On ideological field it has taken the shape of faith and religion or political ideologies. But, before we examine these various areas of possible conflicts, we need to take a really cosmic view, as an observer or witness and a perceiver of this entire universal drama, with its billions of light years and its unending expanse with its billions of galaxies and black holes and stars hundred times bigger than our sun. This at the macro level and then also the universe at the micro level of its molecular world and light waves as well as thought waves. This perspective has been beautifully put by our seers when they declared thousands of years ago, that the ‘Entire Universal Energy’ is complete at the macro level and also at the micro level and when you deduct one from the other what remains is also complete. This was stated in the oldest and grammatically the most perfect language of Aryans, ‘Sanskrit’ in these words: Poornamadah, Poornamidam, Poornatpoornamudachyate. Poornasya, Poornamadaya, Poornamevavashishyate.

This Indian Vision, or to be more precise, Vedic Vision of the Aryan people is seen in their Vedic chants right from the pronouncement in the earliest of the Vedas, i.e., the Rigveda. There was no idol worship in the Vedic period. Our seers worshipped the main natural phenomena like the Sun, the Dawn or Usha, Fire, i.e., Agni, Varuna, the rain god and Indra who fought against darkness and evil. In the Upanishads, the seers had visualized all the creation as one pervading Energy, i.e., Isha and they proclaimed that as this Energy permeates in everything that exists, the human philosophy of life should be non-covetous. The very concept of Dharma in the Vedic context has been very broad based. It does not correspond with the world religion which means faith which is equal to the word sampradaya or Panth. The word Dharma actually means whole way of life which involves obligation and duties towards fellow beings. Dharayate iti Dharmah, Dharanat Dharma Ityahan, Dharmo Dharayati Prajah. What upholds is Dharma. Entire wellbeing constitutes Dharma because Dharma ensures the welfare of the entire society. In fact all known and existing religions are less than three thousand years old. They deal mainly with organized and established human

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communities. They have religious institutions with acclaimed Head Priest and a whole hierarchy of priests and religious authorities to guide and control the customs, teachings and various religious festivals and organized prayer in religious places like temples, churches or mosques. The Semitic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam have common origin. They believe in one God but different Messengers and have had a history of conflict against each other. Parsi, Hindu and Buddhist religions have a common origin in Avesta and Veda. The Vedic religion believed initially in the concept of Nirakar (formless) and Nirguna (without attributes) God, yet its later development as Hindu religion started believing in countless gods and goddesses and started having idols of these deities in their respective temples. Similarly although Vedic society did not have birth based caste system, the Hindu society had thousands of birth based vocational castes and a deep rooted rigid structure with which the entire society is bound. Although the Hindu religion has its religious hierarchy with Shankaracharyas, but the life styles of all Hindus is governed by the rules and regulations of their respective castes traditionally laid down and established through religious scriptures. The Hindu society has its common customs and religious festivals like Diwali, Dashera etc. and there is great deal of harmony and common sharing. Yet, in matters of marriage, birth and death rites, the caste system and rules are strictly followed. In modern section of the society great deal of reforms have taken place, but deep down the caste system and customs still prevail. Thus, philosophically our religious and social leaders do talk of the oneness of God, brotherhood, compassion, love and harmony, yet when it comes to real personal relations and even power politics, the caste system has dominated. In Buddhism and Jainism, although the founders Buddha and Mahavir did not believe in the existence of a personalized God, their followers converted the founders into Gods and their entire communal life is based on the worshipping and following the religious system thus laid down. Parsi religious community is a small community of followers of Zarthustra, who migrated from Persia and came to India. They have their own religious scriptures, beliefs, customs and rituals and follow them strictly. They worship mainly Fire and consider Ahur Mazda as the main God. In Christianity, it was founded by Christ with his teachings 2007 years ago. His crucification and sermons became the main inspiration for his followers. His teachings got compiled in the form of a book called Bible and

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his followers formed a religious community with its rites and rituals and also priesthood hierarchy with Pope at its head and branches all over the world. Islam is last in the link of Semitic religions founded by Prophet Mohammad in Arabia in the year 570 with his birth. The object which Prophet Mohammad had in mind was to unite the Arab society which was hopelessly fragmented in many tribes, each having its own idol as god and considered each superior to others. These Tribes were constantly at war with each other. They had a common place of worship called Kaba in Mecca and each tribe had its idol placed in this Mosque. There were nearly 365 idols of different tribes. Once when after restoration of the Kaba the idol Sange Aswad, which was common to all, was to be reinstalled, the same was done at the hands of Mohammad who was known as a simple god loving man. Mohammad was about 40 years old then. Soon after Mohammad had a trance in Gare Hira, a cave in the nearby mountain. He had a vision of angel Gibriel who told him that he had been send by Allah who had chosen Mohammad as his Nabi and Paigambar to convey instructions to the people of Arabia for their well being and to show them the right path. Mohammad was thus chosen by Allah the only God, as his prophet and through Gabriel, Allah repeatedly gave instructions about the right path from time to time, which were repeated by Prophet Mohammad and which were compiled by his followers in the form of the book called Quran. The main theme of Quran was that Allah was the only God and no other God or Gods should be worshipped by the followers of Quran who would be called Muslims by acceptance of Islam as their faith and they would also have to accept Mohammad as the messenger and Prophet of Allah. Comparison of any other God with Allah, the biggest crime in Islam, is Shirk. And one who does not accept Mohammad as the Prophet of Allah commits Kufra and is condemned as a Kafir for whom the only punishment is death. In the Indian context, the main area of conflict continues to be one between the followers of Hindu religion and those who follow Islam. It is necessary to understand the deep rooted differences and distinction between these two faiths if we really want to seek areas of conflict avoidance or conflict resolution. It will be desirable to study and understand salient features of Islam before we take up those of the Hindu religion. The subject of the relevance of Islam in today’s situation in India acquires added importance and significance when we are faced with the phenomenon

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of a resurgence of rabid communalism, including casteism, which is threatening to divide Indian society not only into two parts, as was done at the time of partition on religious lines, but virtually into thousands of fragments, based on the birth-based caste system. But the main division of Indian society, particularly since colonial times, has been on religious lines, namely, between the followers of Islam and the followers of Vedanta. It is therefore essential to go to the roots of these two major religions to understand both their points of differences as well as similarities. Intolerance grows due to lack of knowledge and understanding about the basic principles and teachings of each other’s religion. People tend to be misled by outward symbols of ritualistic practices, and basing their fanatical adherence to their respective customs and practices, take hostile attitudes which lead to bitterness and strife. When Prophet Mohammad was born in the year 570 AD, the conditions in Arabia were such that the majority of its people were steeped in illiteracy and ignorance and were divided into a multiplicity of tribes, each worshipping its own deity in the form of a picture or idol, each considering itself superior to others and constantly clashing with each other, so much so that the main place of worship at Kaba, which was built by Prophet Abraham, had itself become a crowded place. Many idols and pictures including those of Ibrahim, Ismail, Mary and Jesus and others such as, Habul, Wad, Yahuz, Gahuk, Nassar, Udza, Lath, Manath, etc. were being worshipped. Prior to the 6th century AD, Christianity had started taking hold and spread from Israel to all sides including Europe and the Arab world. It must be remembered that the Holy Quran itself claims to be a reiteration of the earlier truths revealed by God, the Supreme, to the earlier prophets. Its story begins in the Semitic Old Testament with God sending a ViceRegent to earth in the form of Adam and Eve. In the very early Chapter called Al Baqarah (The Cow), we find a narration from Ayat 30 onwards mentioning Adam and Eve and the lapse committed by them at the instigation of Iblis (Satan) and then sending them from the Garden to Eden with a command: Get thee out from here for the new life that you have now to adopt. But remember, whenever a message of truth comes to you, you will have two ways before you. Whosoever shall follow my way, there shall come upon him no fear nor shall he grieve (Ayat 38).

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After that the Ayats of the Quran deal with the story of how the children of Israel were driven out of Egypt due to the cruelties of the Pharaohs and how Prophet Moses brought them out of Egypt and how God gave Moses the book, Torah, so that they might be rightly guided. Then we find the narration as to how the followers of Moses and the Torah, i.e. the Jews, became arrogant and deviated from the right path shown to them. This right path, as repeatedly stressed in the Quran, consisted of being good to parents and to kindred, especially to the orphans and the needy, to speak to others in a gentle manner, to observe prayer and to pay the prescribed poor rate (Zakat). Whenever people deviated from this right path, the Quran states that Allah, the Supreme, sent His messengers or prophets with a new book to bring them back to the right path. Ayat 87 in Sura II states, And indeed, Oh People of the Book, for your guidance we first gave to Moses the book Torah and after him sent many messengers in succession; and to Jesus, son of Mary, we gave clear proof of his mission and afforded him assistance of the Holy Spirit. But you opposed every call. Has it become a second nature with you that as oft as an apostle came to you with anything disagreeable to your mind, you should grow arrogant with him and that you should call some of them imposters and some you should kill.

When the Quran was revealed through Prophet Mohammad, the Jews and Christians questioned it saying, “We have a religion of our own. We do not need any new truth”. Allah, through Gabriel, declared to His Messenger, Prophet Mohammad, as follows in Ayat 91: When it is said to them, believe in what God had sent down, they say we believe only in what hath been sent down to us. And they disbelieve everything else, although it confirms what is already with them.Oh Prophet! Say, ‘If you really believe in your own book and refuse to respond to the call of The Quran, why have you indeed belief in your book, did you not slay the Prophets of God who had exhorted you to follow your own Book?

And it, goes on to state (Ayat 97) : Oh Prophet! This is the word of God which under his command, Gabriel had it entered thy heart, the word which confirms the word which was sent down hitherto.

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And yet the people refused to accept the new revelation and were raising doubts. To that the Quran answers (Ayat 106): For whatever regulation we abrogate or cause to fall into disuse, we substitute a better one or one similar to it. So it should not be a matter for disquiet if a new law is promulgated. Knowest thou not that nothing is beyond the power of God to effect.

The Quran repeatedly states that the truth of God is one and is meant for all and was indeed given to everyone. God had sent to each people a messenger from among themselves to tell them this universal truth in their own language so that they might understand it fully and properly. This truth emphasized the oneness of God and the righteous path of living which bring peace and happiness in this world as well as in the world hereafter. That is why it was termed ‘Al Islam’ and the Quran reasserted that it was not necessary for people to follow the faith of only a particular group like the Jews or Christians and everyone who is devoted to God and lives righteously, has a right to get salvation irrespective of the religious group to which one belongs. It says (Ayat 112): There is no doubt that the path of salvation is always open to all.But that path is one of faith and action and not of groupism. He who sets his face Godward with resignation and does what is right,his reward is with his Lord. On such no fear shall come, neither shall they grieve.

At that time, the followers of one faith and group would try to encroach upon, desecrate and destroy the places of worship of the others. The Quran specifically prohibits this and Ayat 114 of Sura II clearly states as under: And think over. Who commiteth a greater wrong than he who hinders God’s name from being taken in his places of prayer and attempts to ruin them? It is not for such as these to enter in them, save in fear of God. Remember that for such people, there is disgrace in this world and a severe punishment in the next. Ayat 115 states: And know, whether it is the East or the West, it is all Gods. The worship of Him is not conditioned by anyplace or direction. Whichever side you turn to, God is omnipresent and omniscient.

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The Quran clearly declares that all revelations sent through earlier messengers which declare the truth about the oneness of God and the righteousness of His path have been the same. In Ayat 136, it states: Oh Muslims! Declare! Our way is this: We believe in ‘God and we believe in the Quran which has been sent down to us and we believe in all those truths which’ were imparted to Abraham, Ismail, Jacob and his children. And we believe also in the scriptures which were delivered to Moses and Jesus. Not merely this, but we believe also in all those truths which were revealed to all the prophets of the world by their Lord and we make no distinction between any of them..... Ayat 137 continues: So, if they too believe even as you believe, then all dispute is at an end and they are guided aright. But if they turn away, then take it that there is no hope of their coming round; they are not inclined to seek the truth; they are stubborn. So avoid them and go your way; and God will suffice thee against them for He heareth and knoweth everything.

Even then, when people were disputing their own God and religion, the Quran states (Ayat 139): Oh Prophet! Say to these people our way is knowing but one of devotion to God. Do you then quarrel with us concerning God? Or do you disprove of all devotion to God, specially when you are aware that He is our Lord even as He is your Lord. To us then the result of our deed and to you the result of your deeds. For our part we are but his devoted servants.

The Quran’s famous statement is well known: Lukum de nukum walyadin, la ikrah fiddin (To you your faith, to me mine; in the matter of faith or belief, there can be no coercion.) Thus, the basic principles of Islam are based on (i) oneness of God (Tauhid), (ii) Nububiyat (sending His prophets or messengers to bring the people to the path of righteousness) and (iii) Aakhirat (the warning that the person will bear the consequences of one’s actions, both in this life and the life hereafter).

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We shall find that more or less the same principles have been reiterated in the Vedas and the Upanishads which, later , were beautifully summarized in the famous poem of the Lord, that is, the Bhagavad Gita. The symbol of the confused human being in the form of Arjuna, when faced with the most challenging situation of his life, is given the philosophy of the entire creation as well as the eternal truth about the perennial and imperishable nature of atman (soul) as well as the oneness of the Supreme (the Paramatman or Brahma). While describing this imperishable, permanent and indestructible character in Chapter II of the Gita, it states that the Supreme is not only indestructible but pervades everything and it is this Supreme who is the creator of all creation. One who acquires the knowledge of this truth and conducts himself in this life on the righteous path of his duty or karma, will obtain salvation. While dealing with the methods of achieving this realisation through intelligence (Gyan), through dedicated action (Karma) and through devotion (Bhakti), the Lord states in Chapter IV that this truth was declared by Him earlier to Vivaswan, Vivaswan taught it to Manu, Manu to Ikshwaku and from there it was handed down the line to many kings and sages and whenever there was deviation from the path of this truth that resulted in decay of righteousness, the Lord stated that he came forth Himself for the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil doers and for the sake of firmly establishing righteousness. The following is the famous saying of the Gita (Chapter IV, slokas 7 and 8): ;nk;nkfg/keZL;XykfuHkZofrHkkjrA vH;qRFkkue/keZL;rnkRekual‘tkE;ge~AA7AA Whenever dharma decreases, O Bharata, and when there is The arising of adharma, Then do I manifest Myself. (7)

ifj=k.kk;lk/kwukafouk’kk;pnqqq”d`rk~A /keZlaLFkkiukFkkZ;laHkokfe;qxs;qxsAA8AA For protection of the righteous And destruction of the wicked, For establishing dharma, I manifest from age to age. (8)

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Very much like what has been stated in the Quran that people have a right to follow their own faith, and whichever way they turn, God receives them, it has been stated in the Gita (Ch.IV, sloka 11): ;s;Fkkekaizi|UrsrkaLrFkSoHktkE;ge~A eeoRekZuqorZUrseuq’;k%ikFkZloZ’k%AA11AA In whatever way they resort To Me do I thus reward them. It is My path which ev’rywhere All men follow, O Arjuna. (11)

(Howsoever men approach Me, even so do I welcome them, for the path men take from every side is mine, O Partha.) Again, talking about the all pervasiveness of the Supreme, the Gita states (Chapter VI, sloka 30): ;ksekaIk’;frloZ=losZpef;Ik’;frA rL;kgauiz.k’;kfelpesuiz.k’;frAA30AA The one who sees Me ev’rywhere, And who sees all things within Me; I am never lost unto him, Nor is he ever lost to Me. (30)

(He who seeth Me everywhere, and seeth everything in Me, of him will I never lose hold, and he shall never lose hold of Me.) The oneness of the Supreme and the need to be devoted to this concept of oneness and all-pervasiveness of God, which is also emphasized in the Quran, has been repeatedly emphasized in the Gita, which, as has been stated earlier, is the essence of all Vedic thought. The Gita concludes (in Chapter XVllI) by telling Arjuna, who is the representative of the common man, that instead of deviating in the name of different paths and gods, he should put all his faith in the one single Supreme and then he will not have to worry about his salvation. It says: loZ/kekZu~ifjR;T;ekesda’kj.kaoztA vgaRokaloZikisH;kseks{kf;’;kfeek’kqp%AA6AA

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But even these works, Arjuna, Should still be performed, though leaving Attachment and the fruits; such is My best and certain conviction. (6)

When we consider the condition of the fragmented and illiterate tribal society of the Arab world in the 6th century and when we recognize the fact that the society was led by feudal tribal chiefs who mostly believed in the traditional family gods and hereditary customs and practices, we will then realize that Islam was the most revolutionary religion of its times. The format and the modus operandi of the coming of Islam was also very striking and simple. The Supreme Creator and Master of the Universe chose a very simple, humble, kind, honest and yet totally unlettered and illiterate person from among the Arab people in the person of Mohammad and made him His Messenger to convey to the Arab people the eternal truth about the oneness of God, Allah, about the righteousness of the path and to give them a stern warning that if they did not follow the right path, they would suffer severe punishment in this as well as in the life hereafter. At the same time they were promised that if they followed the right path believing in the supreme power of the Creator, then after the Day of Judgment they would get a place in heaven (Jannat) where they would have all the good things of life in perpetuity. The methodology chosen for conveying the eternal truth as well as to answer questions and problems about day-to- day life was that the Nabi Mohammad would go into a trance called Waihya and often wrapped in a blanket or a sheet would perspire profusely and in such a trance Allah Tala, through his angel Gabriel, would address the Messenger Mohammad, giving answers to various questions and problems, both about the fundamental principles of Islam as well as about day-to-day matters of life dealing with social customs like marriage, dealings in trade and business, taking and giving of loans, caring for the poor and the orphans, paying a certain portion of your income in charity as Zakat, regulations about the use of certain types of food and considering certain other types as banned, and various other details. A large portion of these Ayatl1, meaning the messages that were sent down, deal with behaviour in periods of war and attitude towards aggressors and non-believers. The Quran, as a practical way of life, very much like the Gita, teaches the followers of Islam to be firm, fearless and brave against aggressors and oppressors; and while fighting for their faith not to worry about death because dying in the

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grksokizkIL;flLoxZaftRokokHkks{;lseghe~A rLeknqfÙk’BdkSUrs;;q)k;d‘rfu’p;%AA37AA That which is like poison at first, But like amrita at the end; Born of self-realisation’s light– That happiness is called sattwic. (37)

The Quran started coming to him in the form of Ayats till his death at the age of 63. Prophet Mohammad did not perform any miracles to convince the people about the teachings that came through him. On the contrary, whenever they were asked if Mohammad could perform some miracle as a proof of his Prophethood, the Supreme God answered through him as under: To those who say: ‘God hath charged us that we believe not in any claimant to prophethood’ until he brings us an offering which a fire (from heaven) shall consume.’ Say: ‘Already have apostles come to you before me with clear signs and with that of which you speak. Wherefore then did you slay them, if ye be men of truth?’ (183) Then if they discredit thee, do not lose heart, for apostles before thee have been equally discredited, although they came with clear proofs and scriptures and the illuminating law. (184) (Chap. III, Part IV; titled AI-IImran). In fact, the Quran. is so rational that it condemns all obscurantist methods based on blind faith as well as irrational customs. The revolutionary character and rationality of the teachings in the Quran can be best understood in the reforms it brought about in the social customs of the then very backward and bigoted society. According to the Quran, although Allah the Supreme has no form and is Nirakar, like the Parabrahma in Vedanta, yet it is the higher attributes which a Supreme Creator should have. These well-known four attributes are: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

Rububiyat (the power of creation); Rahmat (supreme compassion and kindness) Hidayat (power of showing the right path) Adalat (doing justice according to the deeds of human beings, both in this life and the life hereafter.

It will be pertinent to study the Ayats which brought about a major transformation in the customs of this ignorant and backward (Zahil) society of the Arab world

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of that time. This was made possible as all changes came as instructions from God himself conveyed through Gabriel and via the Messenger Mohammad. Some Ayats dealing with behaviour with family members, with members in the community and particularly the poor, are worth noting. And that ye be kind to parents, Whether one or both of them attain old age, Say not unto them a word of contempt, nor repel them, But address them in terms of honour. (Quran: 17:23) .And do good unto your parents, and near of kin, And unto orphans and the needy, And the neighbours from among your people, And the neighbour who is a stranger, And the wayfarer, and those whom You rightfully possess. (Quran: 4:36) Say: To improve their (orphans’) conditions is best, And if you share their life, Remember that they are your brethren. (Quran: 2:220) Come not near the wealth of the orphan, Save to improve it, before he comes of age. (Quran: 17:34) Feed them, clothe them and speak kindly to them, Deal fairly with them. (Quran: 4:5)

The most revolutionary step taken by the Quran was to enfranchise the slaves and the Prophet repeatedly exhorted his followers in the name of God to free slaves as ‘there was not an act more acceptable to God’ and one in which lay ‘true piety’. There is a great misunderstanding about the provisions relating to women in the Quran. At that time, women were virtually treated as chattels in the tribal society. There was no limit to the number of women that could be kept as wives or as slaves. They had no rights or wealth of their own and they depended on the mercy of their master, the husband. Women as daughters

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had no right in the property of their father. It is in these conditions that the regulations and commandments relating to women, as stated in the Quran, need to be examined. The Quran, for the first time, gave equal rights to women, both as wives and as daughters. While it allowed a man to take more than one wife, it restricted the number to a maximum of four and at the same time directed that a man may take more than one wife provided he treats all of them equally. The greatest confusion relates to the right of divorce and it is stated that the Quran allows a man to divorce his wife by just uttering ‘Talaaq’ three times, even at one sitting. Nothing could he farther than the truth. Maulana Azad in his TarjumJn AI-Quran (Vol. II, pp. 99-109) deals with all the Ayats relating to divorce and the rights of both husband and wife. It is clearly stated that the pronouncement of divorce (Talaaq) has to be made thrice in three distinct sittings, in three successive months, i.e. three periods of Iddat. This was done to give the husband an opportunity after each pronouncement to reconsider his decision dispassionately, so that it could be rescinded and harmony restored between the husband and wife. Provisions are clearly made for the maintenance of a divorced wife as well as for the children. It is also important to note that if a wife offers to give up the right to her dowery or a part of it in lieu of divorce from her husband, and the husband agrees to it, then the wife can also seek a divorce which is known as Khula in Islamic law. The idea was not to force a man or woman on each other. A divorced woman had every right to marry again after a period of three Iddats. The basic questions, directions, problems and behaviour relating to day-today life were answered and dealt with in detail in the earlier period of receiving the Messages, which were incorporated in the first few chapters of the Quran. As stated earlier, the Ayats came down over a long period of 23 years of the Prophet’s life. They were noted down by his close associates who learned them by heart and also wrote them down. These were later properly compiled and authenticated. The Quran consists of 114 suras or chapters, each consisting of a number of Ayats. Most of the later Ayats, consist of repetitions of earlier questions and clarifications on the basic directions given previously. In some places, God has brought about a modification, such as in the matter of consumption of alcohol which, in the earlier Ayat, was not banned, but was later modified and considered Haraam or bad. The entire scheme of the Quran was to persuade the people of Arabia to give up their barbaric and divisive forms of belief and worship and to come together and unite, believe in the oneness of God, the Creator and His

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benevolence, and instructions about the righteousness of His path. The methodology of collective common prayer was to unite the entire people as one. All distinctions of hierarchy were abolished and everyone stood in one line as all collectively prayed and bowed before the Creator. The insistence on personal hygiene and purification as well as physical cleanliness before each of the five prayers (Namaaz), the sense of austerity and giving of charity with humility, were all directions to make the people well-behaved, noble and united together in the great cause. It was this principle of equality with simplicity that transformed and united the people, the majority of whom were exploited by the hierarchical structure of the feudal system and it was they who rallied around Prophet Mohammad. And, during his lifetime they enabled him to march from Medina with the army of the devoted followers of Islam to Mecca, which surrendered to him without a fight. One of the first acts of the Prophet was to clear the famous Kaba of all idols and pictures except the black stone known as Hazre Aswad which was installed by his hands at the age of 35 when the Kaba was reconstructed. This black stone, which is similar in shape to the Shiv Linga, is still the most worshipped symbol of the Supreme in the Kaba. Throughout the Prophet’s life, one basic theme that was most frequently repeated is the statement that the Prophet is only a messenger like the many other nabis or messengers or apostles who came earlier to convey the message of the Supreme to different people of different communities, speaking different languages. The people of Arabia often raised a question that while God had sent books for the Jews and the Christians, no book was sent to them and the Quran answers in Chapter VI titled ‘The Cattle’ in Ayats 156-157, as under: Likewise placed is this book also which We have sent down. So follow it and be mindful of God that happily you may find mercy. Oh people of Arabia this is sent down lest ye should say, ‘That the book was sent down only to two peoples, that is the Jews and the Christians, before us, but we are not aware whether they were read at all. (Ayat 158): Or lest you should say: ‘Had the book been sent down to us, we should have followed its guidance better than they.’ Now a clear exposition hath come to you from your Lord, guidance and a mercy. Who then is more wicked than he who treateth the revelations of God as lies and turneth away from them?

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A close study of the Holy Quran will show that repeated reference is made to the fact that the Quran is only a succession of earlier revelations and it has been sent down to reiterate the eternal truth about the oneness of God and His straight path. The Quran makes repeated mention of the succession beginning from Abraham, and narrates in great detail stories of the earlier prophets, such as, Ishaq (Isaac), Yakub (Jacob), Nooh (Noah), Dawood’ (David), Suleiman (Soloman), Yousuf (Joseph), Moosa (Moses), Haroon (Aaron), Yahya (John), Mariam (Mary), Isa (Jesus), etc. and many others belonging to the Jewish and Christian faiths. It repeatedly states that the truth revealed to all these prophets and the one contained in the books given earlier, like the Torah, is the same and that Allah makes no distinction among the prophets. This can be seen in sura II (AI Baqara) in Ayats 4, 87, 91, 97, 136, 285 and others. In fact, as can be seen in Sura III (AI-e-lmran) in Ayat 81, that Allah the Supreme had called together all prophets of all times and made them take an oath that whenever a Book is sent through any paigambar (messenger) to reiterate the truths of the books given to them, they will have faith in them and will help them. It is stated in the Ayat that all the prophets took the oath and affirmed their faith. It is often clarified that a prophet had been sent to each community so that justice may be done to them. (Sura 10 Yunus, Ayat 47). The people have been repeatedly warned not to differentiate among the messengers or the prophets sent by God and it is stated that those who do so shall be considered kafirs (non-believers) (Sura 4 Nisa, Ayats: 150 -151). Another pertinent feature of the Holy Quran is that it is repeatedly clarified, as in Sura 14 Ibrahim Ayat 4, which states: And we have not sent any messenger prophet except one who could speak the language of his people and community so that he may explain God’s commandments in detail…

Because of this there are many Ayats wherein the reason for the Quran being in Arabic has been explained. This can be seen in Sura 20 Twaha A:113, Sura 41 Hamin us Sazda A:44, Sura 41 Shura A:7 as also in Sura 46 Ahqa A:12. The Quran came down over a period of 23 years and this also has been explained under Sura 17 Bani Israel A:106 and Sura 25 Furkan A:32. It has been clearly stated that Prophet Muhammad is one of the messengers (Sura 36 Yashin A:3) and that he is not a magician or an angel (Sura 6: An Aam A:50).

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Even during his lifetime people repeatedly raised doubts about his authenticity as a prophet or a messenger and asked him to perform some miracle as was done by earlier prophets like Moses. To this a specific answer was given in Sura 17 Bani Israel A:59. It states: And we have stopped showing signs or miracles because the earlier people had disbelieved them as in the case of Prophet Samud’s female camel which they disbelieved and tortured him. It is repeatedly and logically argued that when the entire creation of the world and all that is in the skies like the sun and the moon as well as the very creation of man and putting life in him are such obvious miracles of the power of the Supreme, why should there be any need of miracles from His messengers?

When doubt was raised as to how an illiterate and unlettered Ummi like Mohammad could produce such lucid and profound Ayats, this itself was taken as a proof of the fact that the Ayats have indeed descended from God and the doubting and questioning people were asked to produce even a single Ayat like any that came through Mohammad. This itself was the best proof of the genuineness of his prophethood. All this has been stated in such detail to show that with reference to the context, people of every community in the world, speaking different languages would be favoured by the Supreme Allah or God with a messenger from amongst them, speaking their own language, to show them the straight path in the form of a book, produced for them in their own language. And as proof, it has been stated that many messengers and prophets have been sent earlier for different people and communities. The names of some have been given and of many others not, and the believers of Islam agree that there have been more than a hundred thousand messengers who came earlier. Prophet Mohammad himself came as a messenger after a gap of about 600 years, that is, after Christ, because, in spite of the propagation of Christianity the people of the Arab world had still remained in zahiliat (ignorance) and were divided into various tribes believing in different gods, worshipped in the form of idols and symbols. It was to enlighten these people and bring them to the straight path that Prophet Mohammad was chosen as a Nabi and a Messenger. If we divide the Holy Quran broadly, we will find that after having stated the basic principles in the earlier chapters, it narrates in detail the story of the earlier prophets of the Semetic religions to bring forth the rationality of its arguments. Secondly, a large number of Ayats in different Suras or

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chapters deal with the day-to-day problems of social life, such as marriage, behaviour during wars, the way to deal with slaves and captive women and various bad habits of the tribal Arab people, which were condemned and banned in the name of God, such as, usury, drinking and gambling and also the habit of sodomy (Sura 7 Araf A:81 and Sura 27 Naml A:55). The third major part which covers a large portion is devoted to warning the people to behave righteously and follow the straight path as shown in the Quran. If they do so they will have all the good things of life that they have wished for in heaven (Jannat); and various fruits, clean sweet water, delicious dishes, excellent wines and beautiful young girls with big eyes have been promised to them in perpetuity if they follow the path of God as shown by the Prophet. And similarly, there is a severe warning, that if they fail to do so, there will be severe punishments and tortures in Dojakh (Hell), where they will bum in the eternal fire. But in the entire Quran and indeed keeping in mind repeated reiteration of the authority of the Supreme, His mercy in sending messengers to different communities, speaking different languages, there is no mention anywhere from Allah Tala saying that Mohammad is the last Prophet even for the Arab people, leave alone for other communities speaking different languages. Indeed such a statement could not be attributed to the Supreme because it would amount to curbing His power and authority of sending messengers and also of denying the people of other communities, speaking different languages to have a messenger from amongst them to show them the straight path and instructions from the Supreme in their own language. If Allah the Supreme had indeed desired that after Mohammad there was no need to send any messenger for the entire human family consisting of different communities and peoples, it would have been the easiest thing for a clear statement on this point to appear in the Holy Quran. This would also have ended, once and for all, the power of Nububiyat of the Supreme, which is one of the major basic features of the Quran. Many interpreters of the Quran quote Ayat 40 from Sura 33 (Ahjab) where, dealing with the question relating to the wives of the Prophet and the manner of respect, treatment and behaviour with them and the behaviour of women among the faithful of Islam, the question arose about Zaid, who was once a slave whom the Prophet had bought and released from slavery. He had virtually adopted him. To confer on Zaid a greater respectability and acceptability in Arab society, the Prophet had persuaded Zainab, the daughter of his aunt, who was born of a higher family to marry Zaid. However, their

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marriage was not compatible and did not work and this saddened the Prophet. Ultimately, the marriage had to be dissolved and the blame for such a mismarriage was put on the Prophet. Zainab, as a divorcee of the erstwhile slave and adopted son of the Prophet, would not be accepted by any Arab. In those times, in the Arab world, the question of marrying a widow or a divorcee, even of an adopted son, was not acceptable. This then arose as a peculiar problem in the life of Prophet Mohammad, namely, that the rights of an adopted son were not the same as those of the real son and the position of a divorced wife of an adopted son must be treated on a different footing. It was to resolve this peculiar and special problem that the question was posed by the Prophet before God and an Ayat came down. In Ayat 37 of Sura Ahzab, it is stated: And when you were telling the person (Zaid) with whom God had shown favour and so did you, that he should keep his wife (Zainab ) and be fearful of God, and that you were having a secret fear in your heart (that the marriage will not last), but you were afraid of the people although God has a greater authority that you should only fear Him and then when Zaid gave divorce to her (Zainab), then We married her to you so that for the believers there should be no obstruction in marrying the divorced wives of the adopted sons. Ayat 38 states: As for the Paigambar or the Prophet whatever is decided by God is final and this has been the practice for earlier prophets as well. Ayat 39 states: That those who convey the message of God as it is and are afraid only of Him, God keeps him in his own reckoning.

Then follows Ayat 40, which says: Mohammad is not a father of any of your men and this is the final verdict, or seal as far as the prophets concerned.

The Arabic words of the Ayat are: Ma kaan muhammad un Aba a’hadim mirri zalikum Wa taqir rasool allahi Wa khataman nebe en wa Kanallahu bikulu sha-een alima

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Now these words Khataman Nebe en have been interpreted by some as meaning that prophethood or sending of Nabis ended with Mohammad. Taken in its right context, the word Khatim, meaning seal or finality in this Ayat can have reference only to the special problem that was being considered and as it was a specific dispensation made by the Lord for Prophet Mohammad and as it was meant to put an end to the doubts and controversy prevailing in society on that issue, God said that we should end this matter as far as the prophets are concerned by using the words Khataman Nebe en. Indeed, there can be no other rational interpretation which is in keeping with the logic of all earlier statements in the Quran about God’s power and practice of sending messengers to different communities and peoples to show them the right path by choosing a person from amongst them. No harm or disrespect can come to Islam or to the authority of the revolutionary Quran by not accepting the ill-conceived interpretation of the above Ayat to declare that Prophet Mohammad was the last Prophet not only for the Arab people but for the entire human race! It cannot be rationally believed that Allah’s power of Nububiyat or of sending Nabis for different communities to guide them in their own language is lost with the advent of Mohammad. The main strength of the Quran was in its appeal through its simplicity and rationality on the basis of its teachings of equality for the common people. It was the poor, illiterate masses of the Arab world who were exploited and harassed by the hierarchical feudal society, who found in Islam and the teachings of the Quran a path .to liberation. It is because of this as well as the transparent simplicity and honesty of Nabi Mohammad, who was very much like them an Ummi and one from amongst them, that they readily rallied round his flag and in his lifetime alone, the simple, straightforward and uniting message of Islam spread all over the Arab world. Hindu religion much before the word Hindu came to be applied to the religious way of life, and its people has its origin in the Vedas and the heritage of the Aryan people. The word Hindu is a Persian pronunciation of the word Sindhu. When the Persians came to Bharat and saw the river Sindhu, they called it Hindu Dariya. The nearby mountain range was also called Hindukush. In Persian the letter ‘S’ gets pronounced as ‘H’, hence Saptah becomes Haptah. Similarly, when Greek came to Bharat on the banks of river Sindhu, they called it Indus and for the entire European world, the Latin word for the land surrounding Sindhu River was India. In a highly well researched book titled ‘The Arctic Home in the Vedas’, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a famous patriot and scholar, had

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scientifically pointed out that the Aryans had lived in the Arctic region surrounding the North Pole, during the Inter Glacial period prior to about 8000 B.C. when for about similar period between the two Glacial epochs the climate in the Arctic region was habitable like an eternal spring and with its special arctic features like the long six months night and six months sun. The people known as the Aryan race had developed a language and culture of their own. This language, and the script had not yet been developed and the art of writing had not yet evolved, was called Sanskrit and the method evolved for retaining the poems and prayers for nature gods, was to retain them orally, by a systematic way of recitation and then pass it on from generation to generation. This is how the thousands of Vedic stanzas have been preserved. The earliest of the Vedas is Rig Ved. The word Veda itself means one that is known. All the knowledge about their experiences of the ever present Sun, the Surya revolving round the horizon, rising in the southern horizon and for six months rotating in a semi-circular manner, has been recorded in the form of poems and stanzas sung in praise of this magnificent phenomenon. Similarly, the beauty of the long period of the Dawn called Ushas which would come in advance of the sunrise and illumine the skies for about two months both before the sunrise and after sunset, has been recorded in highly poetic songs. So is the case with the nature gods of rain. They called their leader, who faught darkness and evil, Indra and as complete darkness also prevailed for nearly three months, in an era when there was no source of light and also cooking medium, it was the biggest task to provide light and also cooking medium, through a constant source of fire i.e. agni in a highly developed method of building and preserving community Fire called Yagnya Kund. An entire bond of specialized persons, called priests, was developed for this purpose. As Indra was the main protector and warrior, we find large number of stanzas in his praise and for his brave exploits in the Vedas. To please him they gave him an intoxicating drink called ‘Somras’ and large number of songs are in praise of ‘Som’. Similarly, the Vedic Aryan people had highly developed knowledge about astronomical observations of the period of their times and have recorded these in their prayers in the Vedas. Tilak has dealt with these positions of the stars, which could be seen only by people in the Arctic region, to authenticate his thesis that the Aryans must have lived in these regions. Then comes the close of the Intra-Glacial period and the advent of the Glacial epoch which has lasted for more than 10,000 years now and in

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which period slowly but steadily the arctic region, started getting covered by ice and the entire region became inhabitable. The Aryans migrated to warmer climate to the south with their families and cattle, which was the main source of their livelihood. The new generations had no knowledge of the habitable and beautiful arctic condition but as the knowledge had been transferred to them by the most scientific method of oral recitation, called Shruti & Smriti that which has been heard and remembered. It is now universally recognized that Vedas are the oldest literature and language known to civilisation, which has survived and has been preserved for thousands of years by the methodology of oral preservation. Even today we have Sanskrit scholars and priests, who can recite thousands of Vedic stanzas without making a mistake of a single letter or word. These in well developed method of recitation, which enables retention of this virtual art developed in a scientific manner. Now, because of the art of writing and printing, there is every danger of forgetting this traditional oral art and unless special effort is made to preserve this tradition it may be lost for the coming generations. The Aryans having migrated from the arctic region spread out in their movement to better climates in Europe, Central Asia where they must have settled for a few thousand years. Yet, as their population increased they had to look for new pastures for their cattle. We find this when they came down from Central Asia to Persia and settled down there. Even here their main worship is of Agni the Fire, which is kept burning throughout day and night and for the whole years. There was no idol worship in Vedic period. The word Iran is a derivative of the word Aryan. The main book of the Zoroastrian religion has been Avesta, which is based closely on Vedas and on the same method of oral tradition. There is a categorical description of the Airyana Vaeja or the paradise of the Iranians, where they regard as a day, what is a year. “Toecha ayara mainyaente yat yare” as quoted from the sacred book of the Parsis called Vendidad, Fargard II, para 40. Thus, there is ample evidence both in Vedic and Avestic scriptures, to prove that the ancestors of Iranian and Indian Aryans had lived in their original homes in the Arctic region. There is school of thought of scholars who believe that the Arctic region has been a cradle for various civilisations such as Greek, Roman, etc. However, suffice it to state that the Aryans in their journey came to the land of Indus where already an advanced civilisation, known as the Mohanjodaro-Harappan civilisation, with its fortified cities, drainage systems,

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canals, etc. existed. But compared to the soft character of life of these people, the Aryans had a greater mobility with horse-chariot and fire power and they conquered what they called the Asura Kingdoms. It is due to amalgamation with the local people and their culture, that when the nomadic, cattle breeding, Aryans settled down in the fertile and cultivable belt of the Sindhu and the Five rivers of Punjab that the Puranic period of various gods and mythology commenced. It is for a settled society that the Law of Manu was codified. After this came the period of Epics like Ramayana & Mahabharata, when the people still claiming their origin in the Vedas which according to them were eternal, settled down on the shores of Ganga & Yamuna started expanding further down into what they called Bharat Varsha. Some people do not like the thought of considering that the Aryan ancestors came from outside. They insist that the Aryans belonged to India and mainly grew in the Punjab and Sindhu belt. Their rich culture and language Sanskrit grew here. However, the simple question is if Sanskrit and the people Aryans were indigenous, then how is it that the Indus script still remains undeciphered and very little is known about its people and their civilisation, where people believed in gods and idol worship, which the Vedic Aryans did not. It is true that the Aryans in the post Vedic period absorbed much of the aspect of the Indus civilisation. But if Sanskrit as a language of Vedas survived, there is no reason why the indigenous language of the Indus valley civilisation should have disappeared. Just as many other people of different races attracted by the rich lands came from the side of Persia, like the Greeks, Shakas, Huns, Mangols, Pathans etc. similarly to believe that the Aryans, who had their original home in the arctic region, should have come to the land of Sindhu in about 2000 to 3000 B.C. is the most natural historical progression. Just as there was no idol worshipping in the Vedic period, the main reliance of Aryan society was on the Yagna System of community fire worshipping, which also provided them fire power with their bows and arrows against their enemy from this community dire place, each household took fire and it was called ‘agnihotra’ to be preserved day and night. The Aryans were not only meat eaters, but also beef eating people as the cattle was their main source of livelihood. It is only when these people settled down in the rich river vallies of Bharat Varsha, that they realized the utility of cattle more for cultivation as well as transportation. When grain from cultivated lands well irrigated by the large rivers was available in plenty the need for milk and milk products became greater and therefore ban mainly of the cow slaughter came to be introduced

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and made a part of religion. Yet, meat of other animals, and that of birds like poultry and fish came to be a part of diet even till today. The Mrigaya, hunting of deer and other animals in forests, was the usual occupation and sport of the feudal lords. It is necessary to remove some of the myths relating to dietary habits of what later came to be known as the caste based society, dominated by the Brahmin class. It is only when an agro based society came into existence, that a social structure became necessary - its peaceful commerce and existence. First the society was structured into four main classes, based not on birth but according to aptitude and qualifications. These classes were Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya & Shudra. The task assigned to each class was for specialisation to meet the social requirements. Brahmin was supposed to be dedicated to learning of Vedas and other Shastras. A young boy had to devote nearly fifteen years of his life from the age of five to the age of twenty with his teacher i.e. Guru in his Ashram, before he could acquire proficiency in the different brand of learning. Same was true of Kshatriya, who had to devote ten to fifteen years learning various armed skills including horse riding, use of chariot, skill with bow and arrows as well as other administrative arts necessary for a ruler. Vaishya had to train himself for agriculture, dairy and other branches of production of daily requirement and trade. Shudra was one who could only utilize in manual skill to serve the first three classes. However, these classes were not birth based. This has been clearly stated in Bhagwat Geeta, which states, “Chatur Varnyam Maya Srushtam, Guna Karma Vibhagshaha” not Janma Jati-Vibhagashah. This was further clarified by Adi Shankaracharya when he stated that “Janmanah Jayate Shudra – Sanskarat Duijam Ucchyate”. By birth everyone is only a manual worker. It is by training and upbringing that a person becomes twice born. The training required by the pupils used to be very hard and they had to lead a Spartan life in the Ashram of the Guru and his family. A ceremony called Upanayana i.e. getting the additional eyes was held after which the child of five would leave his home and parents and go to stay with his or her teacher. In Vedic times, both boys and girls had equal opportunities and the thread ceremony was performed for both. Even today among the Parsis, who also inherit the Vedic traditions, both boys and girls are required to undergo this thread ceremony before they are launched on the road to become students. Initially, a society which got based on agriculture had the smallest unit a village or gram as the economic unit. All necessities of life were produced

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and provided for in the village itself on the basis of barter. This way those who cultivated land and produced food grains bartered them to those who produced milk or those who produced cloth and others who produced leather goods, or with ironsmiths and carpenters or those who crushed oil etc. All these avocations which fulfilled the mutual needs made the rural economy self reliant and although feudal lords and kings waged wars and destroyed villages or although famines and plagues caused havoc, yet the rural society with its experts in different fields would get back on its feet, with cultivable land as its base at the centre. This rural society also developed an organisation of its own based on the principle of self governance, called Panchayat which literally meant, five men elected by the entire village community to provide law and order and settle disputes. This came to be known as Gram Swaraj based on self governing Gram Panchayats. And although at the helm the kings and feudal landlords ruled, the village economy was seldom disturbed, as it was self sustaining and self-reliant. As time passed by this vocationally self-reliant economy based on barter, developed expertise in the families and communities practising these avocations. The skills were transferred from generation to generation and this developed into birth based castes, which were strictly vocational and they prevailed for centuries. In the society dominated by the Brahminical Priest class in collusion with the ruling class the whole way of life got dovetailed into a religious system where the priest class declared that the birth and vocations were determined by the destiny based on previous life and if a person was god fearing and followed the teachings of the priest class which represented gods and the scriptures, then the future birth may be fortunate. It is this theory of birth and rebirth which also got religious and philosophical sanction from authorities like Bhagwat Geeta supposed to be the pronouncement by God himself! To have vocational birth based castes served the feudal class which was supported by the priesthood who had the monopoly of knowledge of scriptures and they laid down the rules and rituals which could not be questioned by any individual as that would invite penal sanction in this life as well as the life hereafter. Thus a whole way of life based on fatalism and blind faith developed tying down the entire society into thousands of fragments called birth based castes from which no one could have any relief. This was exploited to the maximum by the upper castes as time went by. This led to exploitation of the lower castes who also had to suffer a life of humiliation at the hands of the upper castes. The worst was the condition of the class of those considered untouchables. All

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this was done in the name of what came to be known as the tyranny of the Brahminical class which worked hand in glove with the other two upper castes both rulers and traders. Not that there were no intellectual thinkers to raise their voice against this obscurantist domination as persons like Charvak did raise their voice by questioning the religious premises of the upper caste high priests. Yet there was no real rebellion against this rigid Priest dominated religious structure. Then came the first revolutionary leader in the name of Gautam Buddha, who like the earlier Upanishad seers raised the very fundamental questions not only about the existence of God the creator, but about entire birth based caste structure. His teachings had a wider appeal and soon he acquired large followings. Yet, a great spiritual thinker known as Adi Shankaracharya revised the Vedic thought and re-established Vedantic culture and philosophy. He went to the extent of calling Buddha the ninth incarnation of the supreme and absorbed him in the original sanatana stream of Vedic religion. He himself established chief seats of religious authority in four corners of the country. This gave a setback to the teachings of Buddha in India. Till the period of Ashok and thereafter the Guptas the word Hindu had not come in the land of Bharat Varsha. It is only with the advent of the Muslim conquerors that the Persian word Hindu was applied not only to the land surrounding Sindhu but also to the people and their religion. Thus the caste based society was now called the Hindu society by the alien conquerors who themselves believed in one name for their religion Islam and one god Allah with one Prophet Mohammad. They found it easier to dub all castes together as belonging to one religion which they called Hindu. Thus there is no such thing as a Hindu religion without its birth based castes. This is why Hindu religion could not spread to any other parts of the world. It is because of its narrow casteist structure that no one can really become a Hindu unless he or she is born in a caste. It is impossible to adopt a caste. Even by marriage a person cannot get the caste of his or her husband or wife. This is the only reason why Hinduism could not appeal to others and could not get any other people to come in its fold. Yet, it is pertinent to note that Buddhism which is an offshoot of Vedic tradition, because of its wider humanitarian appeal could easily find followers and spread throughout the world both in southeast Asia and in China, Mangolia, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and in other regions. Conversion in India has remained one way traffic throughout its history mainly because of its casteist watertight compartmental structure of religion.

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The worst example is the story of conversion of millions of its people to Islam. It is wrong to believe that people from India got converted because of the sword. The main reason was its broadbased appeal as it did not have discrimination amongst its followers. Majority of converts have been from the exploited lower castes. It is interesting that although Judaism is the forerunner of Semitic religions, because of its watertight structure where no one can become a Jew, it has remained stagnant restricted only to those who are born in that religion. Same is the case with the Parsi religion. It is absolutely wrong to boast that the Hindus have not wanted to spread their religion and therefore they remained restricted to India. They could not spread because of their narrow caste based structure. Now comes the question of secularism as far as India’s Constitution is concerned. The founding fathers incorporated the principle of equality for all its citizens without any discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. This has been made a fundamental right in terms of articles 14, 15 and 16 of India’s Constitution. Equality has been guaranteed in the Preamble itself. Yet, even before the ink of these articles had dried, the Constitution provided for discrimination on the basis of religious minority in terms of article 30 where minorities have been given right to establish their own educational institutions. This is how Madrassas, and convents have been allowed to get established and grow in a secular country like India. The entire concept of minority in a democracy which believes in equality needs to be honestly and seriously examined. ‘Minority’, in a democratic legal system has only reference to two factors (a) a person who is below the age prescribed by law for having a voting right,which is 18 years in India. Second connotation commonly understood in a democratic system (b) when a party during election gets lesser number of votes cast. Yet, in both these concepts a ‘Minority’ can change into a Majority. A person who crosses the limit of age prescribed becomes a ‘major’ and a party which has less number of votes when it gets majority of votes in the next election becomes a majority party. ‘Minority’ has not been defined in the Constitution. Therefore to consider a citizen belonging to a particular religion race or caste, or sex or place of birth as a minority only because of their number is to violate and contravene the right provided in the articles of equality. Again, if minorities on the basis of numbers of religion were to be given certain privileges, then why citizens belonging to ‘castes’ in India should on

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the basis of their numbers not be considered minorities. As has been explained above, to club all castes together as Hindus itself is a misnomer as there is no such thing as a ‘Hindu’ without a birth based caste. No legal luminary can show a single Hindu without his birth based caste. No Shankaracharya would accept a person as Hindu without his caste. Therefore, if the criterion of religion based numbers could be made a ground for consideration of ‘Minority’ inspite of clear declaration in Arts 14, 15 and 16, then on the same logic why should persons belonging to ‘race,’ caste and creed also not be considered as minorities or majorities in terms of their numbers? In fact the census in India should be on basis also of caste because this is the only irreversible and permanent reality of the Indian society. With this will logically follow the question of electoral and democratic rights. As was demanded by late Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar as a leader of the Schedule Caste Federation, there should be caste based separate electoral system where only the person of a particular caste will be entitled to vote and elect their own representatives to all democratic institutions under the Constitution. This alone will guarantee true representative democracy in India. This will also save us from the hypocracy of providing reservation and protection in terms of caste and religion. It should also be clearly understood that as far as the followers of Islam are concerned they do not believe in making any distinction between the state and religion. This is why wherever in the world in any state Muslims are in majority numbers that state has to be declared an Islamic state and has to follow Islamic laws. In an Islamic state no person having different faith can be given equal right because that will be shirk and a crime against Islam. It is only in countries where the followers of Islam are in minority numbers that they welcome the principle of secularism and ask for special rights for protection of their own religion and its people. In India also, it is clearly established on the basis of demographic study, that in next fifty years, the population of the followers of Islam in the subcontinent, i.e. in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will be larger in number than the population of so called Hindus and then ironically it is they who would demand formation of Akhand Hindustan i.e. united India at least as a confederation and in such India soon enough Islam will have to be accepted as a state religion of the confederation because of its majority number. All the discussion leads to the conclusion that as far as religions are concerned no followers of any religion would be willing to give up their positions and only those which have wider appeal will prevail in any dialogue and meeting of minds

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that may be brought about by Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony. As far as India is concerned the only thing that will have universal appeal is its Vedantic philosophy, which transcends all narrow, divisive aspects. This is the only philosophy which goes even beyond the concepts of God as a supreme creator and consequent belief in destiny. It is only the Vedantic Ocean which can absorb all smaller concepts based on different religions and ideologies. The only real difficulty is in our practising what we preach. Unless Indian society is willing and able to discard its most divisive and rigid deep rooted birth based caste structure, we shall not be able to convince others of the values of all embracing and universal philosophy that we try to preach. There is one aspect that may be considered in conferences that are held for Global Harmony. It is threats of natural calamities or manmade catastrophe, which make people sit-up and take note of the need for entire humanity to unite and rally together, transcending all traditional divisive factors and forces. One such real natural threat is that of Global warming. As has been mentioned above, and pointed out in a very well researched book by late Lokmanya B.G. Tilak, dealing with Arctic Home in the Vedas, the Intra Glacial period in which the Aryans lived in the Arctic region had closed about 8000 B.C. The Glacial period would last for about 10,000 years thereafter and again the Intra Glacial period where the Arctic region would start getting warmer would commence. This happens due to eccentricity of earth’s orbit. It is stated in his famous work on page 25 as under, “This eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit is not a constant quantity but varies, though slowly, in course of time, making the orbit more and more elliptical until it reaches a maximum value, when it again begins to reduce until the original value is reached. The duration of summer and winter in a hemisphere, therefore, varies as the value of eccentricity of the earth’s orbit at that time.”

It is this that causes glaciations when the earth’s axis tilts away from the sun for a longer period of about 7000 years. And the reverse takes place when it starts tilting towards the sun and faces it for another about 7000 years. This is a cycle of about 21000 years of tilting towards and away from the sun. This is known as precession of the earth’s axis. We are at present in a year when the earth has started tilting towards the sun and the process of warming up of the Arctic region has commenced.

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Slowly as months and years and centuries will roll by the Ice Cap of the Arctic region will start melting and flooding up the oceans endangering the low lying and bordering areas near the sea shores. This might result in great upheavals in the land-sea alignment and big cities adjoining the oceans may be severely threatened by the rise of ocean water. It is awareness of such natural calamities which require global action by entire human family that could influence the thinking people and those who are holding political and economic powers in the world enabling them to overcome various areas of conflict that is threatening present peace, when the very survival of humankind is under threat.

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The Challenge of Multiculturalism In Context of Globalisation and Discrimination Doudou Diène The cultural challenges of globalisation invite us to revisit the issue of multiculturalism, discrimination and xenophobia. The ethical and cultural questioning of globalisation feeds the reality or the perception that its manifestations follow a dynamic of cultural homogenisation that stems from the logic of a global market, -which ignores cultural identities and national specificities-, the predominance of material values, consuming and competition, and the erosion of spiritual and religious values and behaviours. As a reaction, these manifest trends foster the polarisation on and the exclusiveness of identities at the level of individuals, peoples and communities. The polarisation of identities, which is a defensive reflex against uniformity, deepens the self enclosure of the nation, the community, the ethnic group, the religion and the way of life around the paradigm of “us against them”. In the post 9/11 ideological and political context of the primacy of “fighting terrorism”, the “defence” of one’s identity deeply feeds a culture of hostility to diversity, discrimination and xenophobia. Ethnicity, culture and religion are subject to amalgamation and become privileged grounds for discrimination. The larger, more radical, violent and irreducible new conflicts of the day are constituted fundamentally of cultural antagonisms. Their common characteristic is the emergence of the view of the other as an alien threat. The culture of discrimination towards the other, notably in its present manifestations – the non-national, refugee and immigrant – feeds from a striking development: the resurgence of a new ethnocentrism that is selflegitimated by the interpretation of difference as antagonism. This perception of difference is read not only from its traditional expressions of physical appearance or even sartorial customs, but also in the level of development and ways of life. It is in the domain of culture that unawareness and the negative image

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of the other are constituted, justified and expressed in all their depth. The contempt, dismissal and profound ignorance of the culture of the “other” not only nourish the ideology of ethnocentrism but legitimize new and old forms of domination and exclusion. The “strange” foreigner, who could as well be yesterday’s neighbour, is becoming the main subject of polarisation of the political debate and a theme for manipulation by the media. The dominant ideology, discourse and practice of globalisation have also instrumentalized the new communication technologies like the internet. In this context, there is a mix of reality, imagination, fantasy and strategies of power, control and domination. This mix distorts the objective perception of the problem and the construction of profound and durable responses. In this context, in order to combat racism, discrimination and xenophobia, it is necessary to formulate new strategies that will shed light on the roots, mechanisms, processes, expressions and visible or subtle forms of discrimination and racism. In other words, the legal strategy against all forms of discrimination must be deepened by a cultural and intellectual strategy aiming at understanding and uprooting the profound roots of the culture and mentality of discrimination, racism and xenophobia. Thus, there is an urgent need to revisit two concepts at the heart of the challenge of globalisation: identity and diversity.

The Concept of Diversity The concept of diversity seems more and more the chief response to the risk of cultural homogenisation created by globalisation. However, this concept has a historical connotation. In effect, in the conceptual sphere, diversity is an established fact of a reality of a natural, social, cultural, ethnic or religious situation. It is thus translated, interpreted and instrumentalized by its context and its political, philosophical and ideological grounds. Diversity does not constitute in itself a value in the ethical sense of the term, but a mere fact. The notion of diversity is, thus, heavily influenced by the philosophical and scientific discourse of the 19th and 20th centuries. Philosophical and scientific reflexion on the diversity of species and races has produced theories that rationalized a hierarchical vision of species and races. They have served as ideological and philosophical basis not only for the elaboration of theories of racial, ethnic, social and religious discrimination, but also as the intellectual ground to justify practices of exploitation and domination such as slave trade and colonisation. This vision of diversity as a

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radical difference has been the ideological pillar of the expansion from the 17th century of European powers to other parts of the world. It legitimized and gave substance and meaning to the discourse of enlightenment and spreading of civilisation as the legitimacy of colonisation and domination. In this context, diversity is designed, thought and practised as a qualitative difference and as a framework to understand and legitimize a hierarchy among races, cultures and civilisations. It is precisely this instrumentalisation of diversity that lies at the heart of ethnocentrism. Every type of ethnocentrism has been historically, ideologically and culturally constructed on a particular interpretation of diversity as radical difference, discrimination and inequality of the other. Recent conflicts in the African Great Lakes region as well as in the Balkans confirm that the ideology of discrimination is not only contemporary but also that it can be translated into the ultimate and radical form of genocide, the physical elimination of the other, initially defined as inferior by its difference. Ethnocentrism is a historical heir of this ideology by the intermediation of colonial anthropology. The colonized men were conceived, presented and related to as deprived or incapable of a vision of national, cultural and religious identity that is coherent and constructed, but uniquely determined by the biological or ethnic factors. The theoretical construction of “ethnicity” – giving emphasis at times to cultural factors (language, religion) and at other times to physiological ones – were scientifically opportunistic in colonial times. They aimed solely to consolidate and justify discrimination, domination and exploration behind philosophical rhetoric and scientific clout. But in the post-colonial time they were subject to new intellectual and political adaptation, reinterpretation and manipulations. In the present context of a perceived cultural homogenisation fostered by globalisation, the interpretation of diversity as difference is not only historical, but also constitutes a factor to consolidate the rapid hardening of identities that lies at the heart of present ethnic conflicts and rejection of immigration. Thus, the promotion of diversity alone may lead to an instrumentalisation attempt that effectively consolidates discrimination and the hardening and enclosing of identities (ethnic, cultural or spiritual). At the heart of the challenge of multiculturalism in the context of globalisation lies a concept that is equally ambiguous: identity, a concept that must be urgently revisited in order to critically assess the reading of diversity as radical difference and hierarchy.

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Revisiting Identity The history of relations between peoples reveals the decisive character of the misunderstanding concerning identity. A Janus-concept, identity is both the affirmation of oneself and the negation of the other. In the light of the long memory of history, and the central dynamic of the process of multiculturalisation – movement, encounter, interactions that profoundly structure the “ethno-genesis”, i.e. the formation of peoples, civilisations and cultures – it is imperative to promote a new understanding and practice of identity (ethnic, cultural or spiritual) so that it is no longer conceived as a ghetto or an enclosure, but rather assumed and practised as a process, an encounter, a dynamic synthesis. In the context of the inherent tension between cultural homogenisation and the deeply rooted impulse for one’s identity (individual, national, cultural, religious) when, as highlighted by many modern conflicts, today’s enemy is yesterday’s neighbour, one should understand that identity is texture, movement, interaction and fundamentally plural as the thread of a tapestry. In this regard, identity expresses that mysterious chemistry through which, in the permanent dialectic relation of giving and receiving, peoples receive, transform and make conspicuous the influences and contributions coming from outside their confines. The question is thus to promote the idea that identity may be the foundation of an ethics and rediscovery of proximity.

Identity Tension: the Permanent Basis of the Process of Multiculturalism The cultural, ethnic or religious diversity of communities, groups and peoples, when put in contact by diverse historical processes, always translates into an encounter of different identities. The political and historical context of the encounter - migration, conquest, war, trade- determines the perception, interpretation and reading of that diversity. The intercultural encounter always generates an identity tension -attraction, repulsion, fear or hostility - that constitutes the core of the process of multiculturalism. Indeed, according to the nature of the initial perception of diversity - be it cultural, ethnic or religious-, identity tensions are subject to an interpretation or instrumentalisation according to the basic value systems of each group, community or people. The perception of diversity is never neutral or innocent. By its very nature, diversity triggers an identity tension. The combination of the historical context and the cultural, spiritual, political and ideological

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interpretation by the concerned societies create a permanent process through which the intercultural encounter always works through cultural lenses that filter the way in which groups and communities perceive, compare, measure, oppose or recognize each other. Identity tension constitutes the driving force of a permanent process of reciprocal reconstruction of identities between communities that are put in contact. Identity tension, inherent to cultural diversity, constitutes the dynamic base for the construction of multiculturalism. Its permanence is a reflection of the existence of cultural specificities of different communities or groups of multicultural societies. Its plasticity expresses the constant dynamic of cultural interactions and feedback between communities that operate within the multicultural process. The recognition and management of identity tension constitute the indispensable conditions to determine a balance in the preservation of each community’s specificities and the promotion of unity in a multicultural society. Identity tension is underlined by two main challenges at the core of the identities of the different groups and communities and thus constitutes the basic material for waving the different threads of the society’s tapestry, the construction of the living together on the basis of the principle of unity and diversity: memory and value systems. The Centrality of the Work of Memory in the Multicultural Process This issue is articulated around the question of the place of the singular memories of different communities and groups of a multicultural society in the national collective memory. Since memory is the long-term expression of each community’s history and identity, multicultural societies should be structured around plural memories of their components. But historically, memories, instrumentalized by the cultural and ideological lenses of societies, can be a matter of conflict, antagonism or alternatively consensus and harmony between communities. Identity tension is in this context the result of the conflict between the construction of a national memory by the dominant group or community and the demand by other groups and communities, minorities or not, for the full-fledged recognition of their particular memories. The memory of the dominant community or social class is generally legitimized in the writing and teaching of the national history. The construction of the national history is often based on two principles: the negation, oblivion or caricaturizing of the specific memories of the dominated groups, communities or minorities and the promotion of the memory of the dominant community, group or social class. This long term process is achieved in

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most societies through the instrumentalisation of the basic building blocks of identity construction: history, archaeology, language, religion, arts, culture or physical heritage. The end result of this process is a national history legitimized by two features: the image of the society as a harmonious, united and stable entity beyond differences and inequalities, and the wiping out of any historic instances of domination, discrimination and oppression of one group over another. The concept of nation state is the historical and political expression of this process. National identity and citizenship are thus organized around symbolic and emblematic events, representative figures and places of memory highlighted and ingrained by education, art and culture. Through their celebration and inscription in the individual, national, social and cultural landscape, the model citizen is called upon to recognize such memories. The multicultural process carries therefore a fundamental dimension: the interactions and dialogue of memories and consequently the writing and teaching of a national multicultural history.

The Importance of the Interactions of Value Systems in the Multicultural Process: the Ethical Value The ethical challenge and the question of values constitute a central dimension in the multicultural process and a particularly sensitive aspect in the construction of the national identity. The identity tension in a multicultural process is more deeply expressed, in effect, in the realm of values. The multicultural encounter is not only a process of contacts between individuals and peoples but more deeply and meaningfully a confrontation of value systems. The identity tension is here expressed in the most sensitive layer of a group or community ontological singularity. Values are the long term pillars of the living together and the humanity of a community. It is in the realm of cultural, spiritual or religious values that the identity of each group, community or people finds its most profound and sensitive roots. The initial and permanent identity tension triggered by the diversity of groups and communities engaged in a multicultural process is interpreted through their dominant cultural glasses into the recognition or rejection of the humanity of the other. The mission of civilisation or enlightenment constitutes throughout history a recurrent legitimation or justification of domination and discrimination, the imposition of one group’s cultural or religious values on other groups or minorities. The civilisational discourse and the transmission of cultural and scientific progress constitute the ideological justification of colonial and imperial domination. Identity tension is driven in multicultural

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societies by the opposition between, on the one hand, the definition of the values of a group, community or class as national values and, on the other hand, the demand by minority groups and communities that their values be recognized and be a part of the national value systems. This tension is translated in modern societies into the two dominant approaches and policies of multiculturalism in general and of immigration in particular: integration– assimilation or dialogue and interactions between communities. The integration-assimilation approach, dominant in the history of civilisations postulates national identity as a final, untouchable reality. The option of multiculturalism as a process of interactions and dialogue recognizes identity as a permanent construction of give and take between communities. The first is preoccupied by the need to protect, preserve and defend a predefined national identity; the second is nourished by the desire to enrich national identity considered as a dynamic process. The problem of integration and/or preservation of cultural identity in a multicultural society is structured by this identity tension. According to the dominant multicultural model, the political alternative entails first an acceptance of “national values” as a fundamental criterion for the national integration and in consequence the non-recognition of specific, different, foreign, minority values. Second, it entails the recognition of cultural pluralism and thus of the interactions between the values of all national communities in the dynamic of living together. The political choice presented to every multicultural society is between integration-assimilation with the rejection of minority’s values or the choice of a cultural pluralism that postulates that national identity is an open-ended process reflecting a dynamic construction of identity based on the dialectic relation between unity and diversity. This interaction in turn links the recognition of specificities of the diversity of the different communities to the promotion of values that they build together. The dominant historical trend is that of integration-assimilation, that is translated by the rhetoric of the “defense of our values” and the design of racist and xenophobic political platforms in the process of “multiculturalisation” as colonisation, imperialism and immigration. Memory and values, the two fundamental forces of any identity –be ethnic, cultural or religious– are the foundational bases and raw material of the construction and interactions of identities and constitute the major challenge in the multicultural process. In order for diversity not to be culturally seen or ideologically instrumentalized as an irreducible enclosure, exclusion or hierarchy and

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consequently constitute an ideological foundation for discriminatory practices, it is essential that the dialectic relation between unity and diversity prevails in each society and at the international level. In this line, a sustainable strategy to suppress the culture and ideology of discrimination could be inspired by the fundamental modern lesson of biodiversity: the existence and interaction of different species is a source and condition of life of the whole system. Furthermore, the disappearance of any species is deadly for the ecosystem as a whole. If one translates this lesson from biodiversity to the “living together” - challenge of multicultural societies-, the interactions between communities should be based on the dialectic relation between unity and diversity as well as the understanding and promotion of the value that focuses on the interaction of cultures, peoples, ethnicities and religions as an essential condition of vitality and even survival in every society. The dialogue of cultures and civilisations would thus be expressed as a sort of “bio culture”. The eradication of the deep root sources of discrimination necessarily requires a conceptual leap from diversity as a mere fact with historical and ideological connotations into a value that is dialectically linked to unity and diversity. This value is pluralism. Pluralism – be it ethnic, cultural or spiritual – constitutes a fundamental value to fight all forms of discrimination, notably in the context of globalisation. Pluralism could be defined as a recognition, protection, promotion and respect of the fact of diversity as the expression of non hierarchy. Pluralism is expressed, in its deepest sense, in the recognition and protection of specificities as well as the acceptance of values that, in any given society, transcend and unite these specificities. It is in this sense that pluralism constitutes the dynamic value of the unity-diversity dialectic relation, which is the most solid basis for the permanent management and harmonisation of the identity tension of multicultural societies. The promotion of pluralism could thus constitute the central value around which a long-term strategy of eradication of discrimination in all its forms should be built. A global strategy implies that, in the spirit of pluralism, policies and programmes be elaborated democratically aiming at both strengthening the threads of the tapestry, the singularities of the different communities, and at promoting the interactions - the unity of the tapestry, i.e. the societyat the national, regional and international levels.

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Conflict and Harmony within Humankind: Diverse Dimensions D. P. Chattopadhyaya

1. Pre-historic Diasporic Movement of the Humankind. The very word Diaspora rooted in the Greek word, Diaspora, means scattering or dispersion. When we speak of “pre-historic” Diaspora, we say so remaining within the knowable bounds of history. For example, most of the West Asian people, the Jews in particular, are inclined to the view that their ancestors had to disperse in different directions because of internal demographic compulsion and external pressure. But this is a very limited view of the totality of the phenomenon known as Diaspora. Ethnographers are not all unanimous in endorsing the single-origin of global dispersal of humankind. The modern ethnographers are of the view that for the origin of human race we should not stick to the hypothesis of its single origin. Both empirical findings, geological details and anthropological views suggest that the different segments of humankind emerged in different parts of the world like South Africa, North and North West Africa, Celtic Europe, China, Indonesia, India and the western hemisphere, comprising both North America and South America. Obviously the modern names and identities of these areas have undergone a long chain of changes due to ethnic dispersion and ascertainable historical causation. Taxonomically speaking, the evolution of modern human beings has gone through at least several stages, viz., Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. Only Homo sapiens and their descendents are living now. The ancestors of the Homo sapiens are now extinct and the concerned scientists only speculate on them from their fossil remains. For the point from which we refer to them is that these fossils are found in different

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parts of the world, lending some support to the hypothesis that the origin of the human race is not singular or unique. It is not very difficult to reconstruct speculatively the ground of this view. What makes nature possible also makes humans possible. The elements of nature and the elements of culture are identical at the bottom. A parallel and supportive hypothesis is available in philosophy, particularly in that branch of knowledge which is known as Theory of Knowledge or Epistemology. The innate ideas are believed to be universal. Only their articulation and formulation have taken different forms. The considerations favouring globalism and negating localism are abundant, obliging us to accept the view that the essential identity of nature and culture accounts for the unity of humans, their bodies and minds.

2. Another very Important Route to Globalism is Language. It is not an accident that humans have been described as Homo semiotic. Details and taxonomy of languages, extinct and still in use, can be brought together under a few family heads. Under each family several sub-families are either available or reconstructable. This view lends support to the hypothesis of linguistic universals which are defended, among others, by structural linguists and philosophers of language like Roman Jakobson, Levi Strauss, and Noam Chomsky. The major languages of the world, which have been brought to the knowledge of linguists and studied carefully, may be viewed, broadly speaking, under 12 heads or families, viz., (1) Indo-European Languages, (2) Uralic Languages, (3) Turkish and Turkic Languages, (4) Afro-Asiatic Languages, (5) Tamil and the Dravidian Languages, (6) Tai Languages, (7) Vietnamese Languages, (8) Sino-Tibetan Languages, (9) Japanese, (10) Korean, (11) Astronesian Languages, and (12) Niger-Kordofanian Languages. The first point of foremost importance in classifying the major languages is this. This classification is neither quite exclusive nor exhaustive. Under every major language group there are several languages. For example, under the Indo-European Languages, one comes across several other languages like (i) Germanic, (ii) Latin and Italic, (iii) Roman language, (iv) Slavonic languages, (v) Greek languages, (vi) Indo-Aryan languages, and (vii) Iranian languages. The speakers of this group of languages seem to be the largest. Both their grammatical structures and lexicons are very wide and affine. Under every language there are several dialects marked by family resemblance.

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Each one of the Indo-European languages indicated by number (i) to (vii) has under it several other languages. English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish fall under the Germanic group of languages. Similarly, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian come under the umbrella of Romance group of languages. Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak and Servo-Croat display close familial affinity. Many linguists believe that Greek, Sanskrit, Hindi-Urdu and Bengali are very closely related. The closeness of relation is evident in Persian and Pashto. Careful analysis of the traceable history of the speakers of these languages makes it very clear that ethnic migration and historical compulsion largely account for their similarity and proximity. The same general principle applies to the AfroAsiatic languages like the Semitic, Arabic, and Hebrew. The Uralic languages like the Hungarian and Finnish also illustrate the same principle. The expert ethno-linguists also point out the proximity of the relation between (i) Tamil and Dravidian languages, and (ii) Sino-Tibetan languages. Some counter examples to this general rule of linguistic proximity are illustrated by what experts designate as “language isolates”, viz., Brahui (in Baluchistan of Pakistan), Basque (on the border between Spain and France), Ket (North-East Siberia), and Burushaski (near Gilgit in Pakistan). Brahui is often cited as an example to buttress the hypothesis that Tamil people crossed this place before they, under political and demographic pressure, were forced to move to the Deep South. Caldwell’s book on the subject (1873) is taken as an example of this counter-intuitive but heavily documented work. A case of Basque is less intractable but very difficult nevertheless. The learned researchers on these grey areas of social linguistics shed a lot of light on some obscure problems of the hypothesis that all languages are socially rooted and have been influenced by culturally neighbouring languages. When some of us rush hastily to the view that languages are almost organically, i.e., internally, related, tend to forget these “strange” or counterintuitive cases which are there for centuries. Language isolates are not like dysfunctional nervous ties, i.e., located within the (human) body but not functionally related or interactive. The defenders of the organicist hypothesis of languages and their families are of the view that closer structural and lexical analyses reveal the internal relations obtained between them. In this context the voluminous works of Linguistic Survey of India: Comparative Vocabulary, by G.A. Grierson, running into 11 volumes, recognize more than 400 languages and their dialects in India of the pre-

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partition time (around 1920s). Dialects shed into languages. Neighbouring languages are also found to be affine. These linguists, rightly understood, suggest that cultural species, comprising languages and dialects within them, know no boundaries between them. It is illustrated from the facts of repeated re-drawing of the same boundaries under different political dispensations. The history of India, Poland, Russia and several other countries of the world makes it very clear that political boundaries, conceptually defined mainly in terms of territory, have little relevance to understand the boundaries of a language, including boundaries between the cultures, comprising the languages and dialects found therein. Recorded history of different countries makes it abundantly clear that political boundaries and cultural boundaries do not coincide. During the ages of different imperial expansion it is found that one and the same people have either opted for or forcibly compelled to accept and use the language of the ruling power or people. It may be pointed out that all the cases of linguistic switch over are not political, military or religious. At times the richness of language also accounts for its strength, acceptability and expansion. Languages have been studied in very many ways. The main two ways or methods which are relevant to the context to globalisation are structural and cultural.

3. Pre-historical and historical movements of mankind underline the cultural studies of language, highlighting their layered as well as geographical continuity. Subsuming the discipline of comparative linguistics under the wider discipline called human geography we may get new insights into how different languages over the centuries and millennia have assumed global dimension. Secondly, another approach or method of linguistic study is basically structural. Cognitive innatism is the bedrock of this view. Cartesian linguists, already referred to before, are strong adherents of this view. One classic example of more than one languages belonging to one family is provided by the Eskimo-Aleut languages. Eskimos, spread over many continents — Asia, Europe, and North America, speak different languages, forming a family. Eskimo and Aleut which had been neighbouring languages on the Alaska Peninsula are now, though related, but remain distinct. The relationship of the Eskimo-Aleut language families is there between

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Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Uralic, and/or Indo-European groups of languages. This relationship is partly evident from the concerned speakers’ ways of speaking the language and partly conjectural. The term Eskimo is blanket, comprising two groups — Inuit and Yupik. The languages of different Eskimo groups, though notionally believed to be members of the same family, are mutually unintelligible. The name Aleut means to the Russians the fur traders of the Aleutian Islands. Interestingly enough, the said people describe themselves as Unangan which denotes the people of the Pacific Yupiks. To the people who live in Greenland the word Inuit means people. These people live in Arctic Canada, Northern Alaska, US, West to the Berring Strait, and South to the area called Norton Sound. In these areas local dialects, interestingly enough, are found to be mutually intelligible. Yupik is a dialect comprising five local variants. The Aleut language is found there in two mutually intelligible dialects — Eastern Aleut and Western Aleut. These two groups of Aleuts are very small in size. The largest group of the Eskimo population, Inuit, consists of nearly 50,000 people. The second largest group consists of Yupik population of 25,000 people (approximately). My reference to the Eskimo family of languages is primarily intended to indicate the non-coincidence between the physical geographic areas and the cultural demographic aggregates. Incidentally, another point which comes out from these geo-cultural factors is that physical or climatic conditions do not restrict human affairs and aggregation. Travellers and traders from the pre-historic era to the middle ages have contributed much to bring the distant places and peoples near to us. From the time of Columbus and Vasco da Gama even the distant seas have been crossed. It is claimed that long before Columbus the Vikings from the Nordic countries reached North America. Legends are there that the people from the South Pacific Islands on their straw boats managed to reach the western coast of South America and northern parts of the Pacific, including the Hawaii Islands. Much later during 1770s and 1780s sailors like Captain Cook managed to reach the Pacific Ocean, both its northern and southern parts, including Australia and New Zealand. The mapping of the sea routes through the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and particularly the Pacific Ocean opened up, geographically speaking, countries and peoples not known before.

4. From Boat to Ship. Every littoral country for understandably compulsive reasons had to develop boats of different types. It is believed that boat-building technology was

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known to people even 6000 years back. Riparian countries like India, China, Egypt and Russia had to know of boat-building technology and materials under pressing compulsion. The history from sailing ships to steamship is very long and interesting. When the extent and nature of the world’s oceans was known the final stage of the sailing boat had been reached. Both American Independence and opening up of the sea routes from Europe to the East Indies and the West Indies played very important role in expanding shipping. The United States and Europe started competition between themselves to increase their import from, and export to, of different types of merchandise to the distant countries and provided the necessary impetus to promote shipping. Imperialism, colonialism and expansion of navigation between Europe, on the one hand, and Asian, African and American countries, on the other, started going up. The process had two main aspects – expansion of trade and domination of the countries and controlling their markets producing raw materials for industrial production. With the emergence of the eastern trade merchant ship had grown impressively. When Europeans began trading voyages to the Middle East and the Far East they started encountering ancient and economically developed world. Competition proved fierce between the naval powers of Europe, — Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British. This was collateral to their colonial ambition and expansion. In the South East Asian countries the contest, to start with, centred mainly round the Dutch and the Portuguese, and later on between the British and the French. This gave a boost to the ship-building industry in Europe in general and in Britain in particular. Interestingly enough, much ship building activities started also in India for the East India Company. The Dutch competitors of England had also been building and operating the sailing ships in general service. The Anglo-Dutch trading company gradually proved to be very political during the 17th century. Shipping assumed both very notable military and commercial significance during the 19th century. The reason is easy to understand. Both Britain and France were in competition to capture the North American market, England, the Netherlands and France. Naturally these European countries got involved in fierce battle between themselves. In the process they also got involved in the internal politics of the countries like India, China, Indonesia in the East and North America in the West. The most significant change which was brought into force in transportation was the introduction of machine power to the traction or propulsion of big

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boats. The earliest engines were not very efficient. Later on, during the first half of the 18th century powerful seagoing vessels came into operation. Most of the earlier steam boats, which had been relatively slow, were gradually replaced by more powerful steam engines. This fallout of industrial age in the area of transportation importantly contributed to the process of globalisation, drawing, in the process, more and more countries into contact with each other through war, commerce and related activities. Besides steamship the modern form of very fast moving railway transportation also significantly contributed to the expansion of trans-national trade and commerce. Also to be mentioned in this context are the extensive networks of highways facilitating fast movement of the passenger cars and large trucks.

5. Growth of Aviation industry and the shrinkage of the globe. The growth of aviation industry during the last one hundred years or so is astounding. The speed and size of the aircrafts, both military and civil, are unbelievable. Their introduction for carrying passengers and freight facilitated the process of globalisation in an unprecedented manner and scale. The concept of national boundary in many cases was rendered almost inconsequential. Particularly the large aircrafts which can fly non-stop 16 to 22 hours or so could not be conceived of even before a quarter of a century. One can be almost sure the future of this aviation industry will open up new vistas. Production and operation of relatively small-scale aircrafts and helicopters have brought the metropolitan towns within the easy reach of business and travel requirements. I mention all these things only to highlight their contribution to the process of globalisation both in terms of its extensity and intensity.

6. Telecommunication. Perhaps the most important factor and force in bringing together the peoples of the world are the system of telecommunication and its various forms. From telegraph and telephone to the latest forms of electronic mail communication have not only annihilated the concept of spatial distance between the peoples but, one might say, made them members of one single species in terms of accessibility. The implications of fast transportation and the most modern forms of telecommunication have incredibly revolutionalized the forms of inter-human relationship, — both positively and negatively. Its positive aspects, already

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noted above, have been further refined in various ways. Super fast and efficient communication, as said before, almost negates the concepts of both separation and isolation in the fields of private and public space. Its negative fallout, often unintended, must not be underestimated. One of the most negative effects of fast electronic communication is increase in size and number of cyber crimes. Positively speaking, the right uses of the benefits of telecommunication are enormous. All forms of ideologies, — from spiritualism to political creeds can now be instantly transmitted. In this way the world can be brought closer to each one of us. This is an unprecedented gift of the modern technology, provided it is used constructively and with imagination. Telecommunication is one of the very central planks of modern technology. It may be, in fact it has been, used for various purposes, strategic, propagandist, commercial and even terrorist. Tele waves may be used for confusing the air routes of flying aircrafts, — both civil and military. That telecommunication is used for promotion of different types of goods, commercial, consumer and industrial is well known. For entertainment industry the extensive use of television is now becoming increasingly popular.

7. Ideological uses of electronic communication In the 20th century, particularly during the years of Cold War between the Super Powers like America and Russia the concerned official organs extensively used both secret and open electronic equipments. Almost every country used and also misused the electronic media for collecting, storing and transmitting intelligence inputs through this media. Notwithstanding every form of disavowal, secret use of electronic media is still extensively in vogue. Both for the promotion of the ideal of one World and also for debunking it mass media, including the electronic ones, are being continuously used. All sorts of ideologues and counter-ideologues have their different bases, (i) material, (ii) ethnic, (iii) economic, and (iv) technical. These bases, it may be noted, are neither exclusive nor exhaustive. Both for peaceful and military purposes material resources are extremely important. Petrol, electricity and nuclear power are main forms of power. While their right types of use are essential to our civil life and do promote it in very many ways, its misuse did and can create serious problems, and even crises. It is in this context that we have to understand the necessity of setting up of international bodies under the UN for regulating, or at least to try to

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regulate, the forms of permissible uses of power. The regulatory functions of these bodies have various ramifications, official or/and unofficial. Excessive use of such forms of natural power as petrol may create artificial scarcity, raising the prices of concerned commodities. High price of petrol and petrolrelated products is the cause of concern for both the consumer and the producer. It is not surprising that petrol production and sale are often cartelized. Many of the recent world crises, particularly those that took place in the Arab countries, caused severe hardship, both political and economic, for the developing countries like India. The industrialized countries which are capable of producing and consuming their enormous oil resources pose a serious environmental threat in the form of global warming. Global warming implies, among many other things, thinning of the ozone layer in between the atmosphere and stratosphere, exposing the earth thereby to excessive heating due to solar energy. This, in turn, raises the water level of all water bodies, from oceans, seas and those which are sustained by them. The result is obvious. The coastal areas of the littoral countries and islands in the seas and oceans experience mortal threat. There are some islands, particularly in the south Pacific areas which depend for their potable water on the natural lagoon-like water bodies which are in many cases separated from the saline water of the ocean only by a few inches high coral reef. If the rate of energy consumption in the world, due to increasing industrialisation, is not regulated effectively, many coastal areas of the world and many low-lying islands in the ocean will be flooded, rendering human habitation in the concerned areas impossible. Excessive use of power in hot houses for artificially increasing agricultural products is also bound to increase global warming. It will have adverse bearing upon the supply of sea food. As land supply is relatively inelastic the human dependence on sea food is foreseeable. If the serious problems are not immediately and effectively addressed and remedied, the dream of one world would continue to sound as a mockery. To tackle these problems international cooperation is an absolute imperative. If the material base of human civilisation is not protected, its human super-structure is bound to be under serious threat. To contain this threat different forms of technical and economic cooperation between all countries are urgently called for. Under the circumstances, mankind is increasingly called upon to gradually switch over from the use of conventional forms of energy to the nonconventional ones, and we are sure to face uncontrollable danger.

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Fortunately, the technology of (a) non-conventional forms of energy is now available at least in principle, (b) the technology of de-salinisation of sea water is also available, although its cost is proving very high, beyond the reach of poor countries, (c) and the technology of peaceful use of nuclear power has been reducing overdependence of the industrial countries on the use of conventional forms of energy. But practical benefits of these technological innovations depend, to a great extent, on the human factor, i.e., cooperation between different countries equipped with the goodwill of mutual cooperation for the integral benefits of mankind as a whole.

8. From smaller human aggregates to larger human aggregates. It may sound counterintuitive that humans in their infancy of collective living had been basically individualistic. At the same time, it has been pointed out by social philosophers and political thinkers, that they had been by their very innate nature self-exceeding. It is in this speculative context that it has been affirmed that, to start with, humans, though naturally lonely, felt gravitated to each other, man to woman, woman to man, all men and women to their neighbours. The resulting social aggregates, at the earliest or pre-historic past were small. Thinkers like Rousseau and Sri Aurobindo are of the view that the initial human aggregation had been atomic or very small. Only with the passage of time from the socially related individuals emerged family. Family gave rise to commune or kauma. From commune emerged tribe; from tribe emerged congeries of tribes, from the common ownership of what is necessary for sustenance of life tribe came into existence. Ethnically related tribes formed the nation. Nations of the same or similar ethnic groups gave rise to larger human aggregates. Thinkers like Hegel, Karl Lamprecht, and Sri Aurobindo, apparently influenced by Lamprecht, believed that Nation, unlike State, has a soul of its own. To Sri Aurobindo Nation is therefore a spiritual entity, not to be confused with its territorial or physical existence which is only its outer identity. It is to be noted here that according to Sri Aurobindo, India, for example, is not its physical geographical features consisting of mountains, rivers, meadows, and the like. The underlying philosophical monism of Sri Aurobindo is bound to remind one of Hegel. In the latter’s concept of patriotism “the soul of German Nation” occupies a very central place. It is to be remembered that when his main book on the subject was being delivered in the form of class lectures during the years 1827 – 1830, Germany was only a country consisting

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of many relatively smaller countries like Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover and Saxony. It was yet to be a State. The ideal of German unification was yet to be realized. Hegel’s dream of united Germany may be found in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. In fact the actual or historical unification of Germany as an independent State took place much later only in the mid-1850s. But the subsequent expansionist philosophy of the Nazi Germany attests the philosophical aftermath of Hegelian Theory of the State. That the Nazi view of the State was not exclusively Hitler’s personal view and that it was rooted in the Statistic Theory of Nation, anticipated by pre-Hegelian thinkers like Fichte finally, and propounded by Hegel has been persuasively argued by Karl Popper in his famous book The Open Society and Its Enemy, Vol. II (1944). However the negative picture of Hegel that emerges from this book, the critics have pointed with some justification, is not entirely attested by records and available texts.

9. Aggregation, Dis-aggregation and Globalism. During the last two hundred years or so, strictly speaking from the year of American Independence, 1776, we have been witnessing two important, not necessarily converging, trends of relation between the neighbouring groups of States. Firstly, from the late 18th century till the date, beginning of the 21st century, several international processes which deserve special mention are aggregation of the States like the USA, the German Unification, the Italian Unification, and the formation of Greater Russia, including some Central Asian States and Baltic States, and Ukraine. Secondly, the gradual formation of the United States of Europe after the IInd World War and the emergence of some other loose aggregation of States like the SAARC, comprising the South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Also some other countries of neighbouring South East Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and Brunei are coming together and named ASEAN. The process and composition of ASEAN and SAARC, closely scrutinized, exhibit contrary movements, both of pull and of push, of further aggregation and disaggregation. For example, the pre-partition India did not have in it Pakistan and since 1971, the establishment of Bangladesh as a Sovereign State, the former Pakistan has got pulverized. A somewhat similar process has been witnessed by South East Asia, marked by coming together at one time of Malaysia and Singapore and then separation of the same into two sovereign entities.

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The fact that in each of these aggregates there is lingering tension between centripetal and centrifugal tendencies makes it clear that a sort of national or sub-national egoism is there, in some form or other, in most of the countries. That partly accounts for the division between two Koreas, South Korea and North Korea, and fissures, if not open antagonism, between the Arab countries. These complexes of political facts and forces strongly suggest that the ideal form of globalism is still a distant cry. To buttress the point one may cite the case of the relation between the UK, on the one hand. and the United States of Europe, on the other. It is true that in many matters they have come close to one another but in some very important issues like common currency the difference between the two continues to persist. If we enter into micro political analysis of all these facts, factors and the related processes, one thing that becomes apparent is this. Political aggregation, military alliance, religious affiliation, common language, ethnic affinity, geographical proximity and the like by themselves cannot account for the durable forms of globalism. The forms of globalism which are prevalent today and may come up tomorrow, unless the same would be put on a sounder and comprehensive basis, are not likely to be very real and long lasting. This may not survive through historical vicissitudes due to divergent and changing economic interests, political aims and ambitions, military strength and their surrogates.

10. In search of a durable form of globalism. Unless and until the exterior political body of globalism can authentically reflect the innermost reality of the human species, the truest form of the ideal of global unity is not likely to come into existence and stay for a long time. If economic or military hegemonism cannot be really contained and if the real motive force for globalism does not come up from the spiritual depth of the human species, the ideal of globalism or universal humanism, though earnestly solicited by the minority of the pro-idealist section of humankind, may not be heartily and effectively endorsed by the rest. However, the signs of the beginnings of the positive side of globalism should not be neglected or underrated in the wake of world-wide waves of migration from the east to the west and from the west to the east, from the south to the north and from the north to the south. The manifold implications of these migrations are gaining increasing momentum in terms of their technological, statistical, political, religious and cultural manifestations. The international initiatives to regulate these migrations in different directions

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and to give the same a normative orientation many UN-sponsored steps have been undertaken. Individually many nations have been trying to effectively address these issues. They have already referred to the imbalancing and disturbing change in the climatic conditions of the world. Unless these local initiatives could be globally orchestrated the inner urge of human unity is bound to be impeded. The required global orchestration has its different aspects like steps (i) to preserve bio-diversity, (ii) to give a rational and moral orientation to the issues related to many-sided and massive demographic migration, (iii) not to pursue the aim of global economic growth de-linking it from the causes promoting bio-diversity. The balance of eco system needs to be preserved in the long term interest of humankind itself. But it is disturbing to note that the positive steps like the Kyoto Protocol (Japan), which came into force in 2005, is not being endorsed by many industrialized countries. One of the main aims of the Protocol was to not only maintain but also expand, to the maximum possible extent, the movement of the environmental motto, “a more clean and more green earth”. It is interesting to note that while the spokespersons of the poor and developing countries, in most cases, are wholeheartedly supporting it, the industrialized countries like the US, are opposed to it. For example, while the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maa Thai speaks loudly in favour of this constructive environmental programme, it is opposed by the US and its allies. We may note how the CO2 (Carbon dioxide) emissions, expressed in metric tons of carbon, in top 10 industrial countries, from the US [1592], China [957], Russia [390], India [333] and Japan [328], Germany [219], the UK [148], Canada [141], South Korea [122], and Italy [118], have been disturbingly going up. This means, among other things, that the conventional energy-based propulsion for recklessly boosting industrial production is bound to endanger human health and biodiversity. It may further be additionally noted that the figures are very misleading to the extent one keeps in mind that the figures of annual CO2 emissions are somewhat relatively low only in those countries where population is relatively small, countries are large, but industrial production is relatively low. The enormity and complexity attending the problems obstructing the desired and officially professed ideal of human unity are to be understood in concrete and modern terms. Life-world is to be taken to the matrix of the method for rightly addressing the problems of global unity. Merely statistical

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figures, production indices and the like de-linking the same from such substantive world population in general and problems of bio-diversity, attempts to increase the availability of food and health care to the poor peoples in particular of the world will be not only short-sighted but also self-defeating in the long run. Leaving a large section of the world population below the poverty line the rest cannot prosper on a sustainable basis. The material requirements of life, the related environmental issues, and the ethical approach to economic issues need to be simultaneously and integrally addressed. For the purpose, as I have already said before, the human aspiration for true globalism has to be really authentic and effective.

Bibliography 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialetic Sociology, Motilall Banarsidass, Delhi, 1988 D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Societies, Cultures and Ideologies, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 2001 Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, tr. From the Polish by P.S.Falla, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978 Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Golden Age, tr. From the Polish by P.S.Falla, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978 Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: The Breakdown, tr. From the Polish by P.S.Falla, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978 Bernard Comrie, The World’s Major Languages, Croom Helm, London & Sydney, 1987 Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, Macmillan, London & New York, (4th Edn.), 1923 L.T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State, Allen & Unwin, London, 1918. This book contains a famous attack on Bosanquet’s political philosophy. Before Karl Popper’s scathing attack against the Hegelian Theory of the State this book proved to be very influential. Sri Aurobindo, Social and Political Thought: The Human Cycle, the Ideal of Human Unity, and War and Self-Determination, Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 15, Pondicherry, 1971. For extensive references and notes on the themes of this book the reader may consult the books quoted above, from 1 to 9.

4

Christianity and Western Civilisation P.C. Alexander

What is Western Civilisation? Western civilisation as it is known today is the product of a long period of evolution, expansion and transformation of the civilisations of the Mediterranean region of Europe beginning with the Hellenic and Roman civilisations. The rise of Europe as a continental identity and the expansion of the Graeco-Roman culture to the wider level of a civilisation covering practically all countries of the West were a process spread over several centuries following the fall of the Roman empire. The name civilisation came to be applied to people who had an identifiable way of life and distinctive value systems of their own. Such people claimed themselves to be ‘civilized’ as different from others who had no identifiable culture, literature or religion of their own like the Barbarians who were not even settled down in a particular territory. Some historians have tried to fix the exact period in history when the Hellenic culture came to be known as a distinct civilisation. The general view among these historians is that this identity for the Hellenic civilisation arose when it came into conflict with the Persian civilisation which was at that time one of the advanced civilisations of the Orient. Till the period of the Persian wars covering the 5th and 4th centuries BC, there were very little contacts or inter-action between the Hellenic and the Oriental civilisations. The wars against a common enemy, the Persian empire, helped in strengthening the bonds of unity among the City states which had begun to blossom in the Hellenic region from the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. and in creating a consciousness of a common heritage for them. The institution of the City states was one of the important contributions of the Hellenic civilisation, in addition of course, to the development of arts, science and philosophy. The idea that people had the right to govern themselves gained acceptability in most parts of the Hellenic

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region and in this sense the Hellenic civilisation became the cradle of democracy. In due course another Mediterranean territory, namely, Rome developed into a new centre of civilisation. The main sources for the strength and spread of the Roman civilisation were the institution of the Army and a network of roads. Roman culture had fostered the skills of people to be administrators, engineers and scholars in law and very soon Rome became the headquarters of a far flung empire with a well developed legal system and military establishment. The Romans soon turned their attention to Western Europe heralding the westward advance of the Mediterranean culture. The words ‘culture’ and ‘civilisation’ are generally used to mean intellectual development and social progress. If a distinction between culture and civilisation is to be drawn, it is that civilisation is a broader geographical concept than culture. Even villages, regions or small ethnic groups may have distinct cultures of their own, while civilisation has a much larger identity which may include within its ambit many cultures and sub cultures. Sometimes a distinction between civilisation and culture is sought to be made on the criterion that civilisation denotes material progress, advancement in technology, etc. while culture means the values and artistic and moral qualities of the people. However, such a distinction is not widely recognized and the main basis for distinguishing civilisation from culture is that civilisation is culture on a wider scale, and that it includes both the material and moral aspects of culture. The history of civilisations during the last several millennia shows that some have survived for long periods in strength and influence while some others had relatively shorter span of life. For example, some of the civilisations which were once considered great and flourishing like the Mesopotamian, Cretan or Byzantine civilisations have disappeared into the limbo of history while some others like the Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Islamic civilisations have continued into the modern age retaining their vibrance. Western civilisation is another among such durable civilisations of the world though its geographical reach has had many changes over the years. Even though the name ‘Western civilisation’ connotes a geographical identity it does not mean that it is co-terminus with the Western hemisphere. In geographical terms the prefix ‘Western’ includes Europe, North America and the countries of Latin America, but in civilisational terms it includes in addition to these continents, Australia and New Zealand also. Latin America which is contiguous to North America is less ‘Western’ than Australia and New Zealand on the basis of its civilisational characteristics. The people of

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Australia and New Zealand were mainly immigrants from Europe, particularly England and they continued to follow the religions and forms of worship of their home countries in their new lands as well. A common bond for all the countries covered by the name Western civilisation is the Christian religion. The prefix Western historically came into common use with the broad division which arose between the Western Churches and the Orthodox Churches of the East. Even the name Western Churches did not mean that all churches in the West formed part of the same Christian denomination. With the advent of Reformation in Europe in the 16th Century a new Church known as the Protestant Church was born and in due course several denominations under the category of Protestantism came into existence, with their distinctive faiths and forms of worship. However, the name Western civilisation came to be applied to all groups included in the group of Western Churches. Broadly, it can be said that the Latin American countries of the Western hemisphere are mainly Catholic while other countries in the Western Christendom have both Catholic and Protestant followers. There are also vast differences among the countries included in the category of Western civilisation based on political ideologies and the levels of social and economic progress of the people. Latin American countries for example are far behind their North American neighbours in economic progress and their interests clash frequently with those of the advanced countries of the West in the forums of international organisations like the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, etc., particularly when development issues come up for discussion. Often the Latin American countries identify themselves with the developing countries of Asia and Africa, in such forums thereby creating a distinction between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’, cutting across civilisational boundaries. Australia and New Zealand, though geographically located in the South generally identify themselves with the North in international forums. There had also been differences in political ideologies between the Americans and Europeans till the end of World War II. The Americans used to believe that their political ideologies were far more liberal than those of most countries of Europe. They claimed that America was a land of equality and freedom while Europe had on it the stigma of colonial exploitation and imperialism. World War II marked an end to these distinctions and America and Western Europe came closer together in the post war period to form a common bulwark against the onslaught of Marxism led by the Soviet Union.

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During this period known as the period of the cold war, a new name ‘Free world’ came into vogue in countries which belonged to the category of Western civilisation. Ironically the concept of ‘Free world’ included several allies of the US and the West in Latin America, Africa and Asia ruled by dictators who found anti communism and the label of the Free world a convenient cover for their authoritarian rule. There were also new classifications of nations based on their economic progress and ideology. America and the economically advanced countries of the world were referred to as the First World, the communist countries as the Second World and the developing countries irrespective of their location as the Third World. These were not groupings based on civilisational identity even though the First World could be described as the main citadel of the Western civilisation. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of the communist ideology, America came closer to Europe and several former communist countries of Europe came to be considered as part of Western civilisation.

II. The impact of Christianity on Western civilisation: A significant feature of the Graeco-Roman civilisation before the advent of Christianity in Europe was that it lacked the support of a strong and vibrant religion with a profound spiritual content. People had innumerable gods and different forms of worship to propitiate the gods. They believed that there were continuing rivalries between the gods for primacy and thus several fanciful legends about one god acquiring supremacy over another through combats or wars also arose in this period. There were temples and oracles where people could consult their deities for advice and prophesies on their problems. While the oracles gave answers in an ambiguous form which could be interpreted either way, people could also influence the priests to give the answers which they wanted to hear. People believed that the particular god whom they worshiped would side with them in their battles with their enemies and thus religion for them was a means for settling their personal and family problems and for assisting them to score victories in their quarrels with their rivals. It was into this world of multiplicity of gods and goddesses, myths and magic and innumerable religions that Christianity was introduced within a very short period of its birth in Asia. During the period when the might of the Roman empire was at its zenith, emperor worship was almost the compulsory religion of all citizens. One of the reasons for the extremely

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cruel persecution of Christians in the early years of Christianity in the Roman empire like throwing them for physical combats with hungry lions, etc., was that the new religion had proclaimed as its central theme that Jesus Christ was Lord and God. This was taken as a direct challenge to the authority of the Roman emperor and as blasphemy deserving the punishment of death in the most cruel way. The Graeco-Roman civilisation, in spite of its great achievements in arts, law, administration and in subjects like logic, philosophy, etc., was very shallow in its spiritual content. The position of the Barbarians who had established their hegemony in the Western and Northern regions of Europe during the declining years of the Roman empire was worse. They however did not make any claims regarding their contributions in the field of art and religion; they were interested more in the pursuit of war than of arts. In spite of the extreme savagery with which the imperial might of Rome tried to suppress Christianity within its territories, the power of the State could not do much about it because of the inherent weaknesses of the religions they followed and the superior code of ethics and morals of the new religion which could create a strong appeal for the people. The basic difference between the religions of the people of Europe during the declining years of the Roman empire and of other vibrant religions of the East like Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., was the bankruptcy of spirituality in the former. A study of the progress of the Hindu religion in India which retained the allegiance of the common people as well as the intellectual classes will show how important spiritual depth is in a religion. India had to go through the vicissitudes of conquests and colonisation for several centuries, but the Hindu religion was not destroyed or weakened by such adversities. There was no Asoka or Constantine to provide imperial patronage to Hinduism, nor had it the backing of institutions like those of Popes and Patriarchs. But Hinduism had the strength of spirituality through which it could retain the loyalty of its followers over the millennia. A lesson one learns from the history of the Indian civilisation is that if a civilisation is rooted in the strength of spirituality, there need be no doubt about its durability. The converse is also true and that is that without spiritual strength no religion can survive for long, and its people will turn to other religions if they find a choice. The Graeco-Roman civilisation had made great contributions to the development of law, art, literature, architecture and technology in the Western world, but since it lacked the spiritual strength of the Christian religion with which it came into close contact in the latter part of its history, the process

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of its withering and decline got accentuated. Christianity which originated from the older and richer civilisation of Asia had not presented itself before the people of the Roman Europe as a conquering religion. It avoided direct conflict with the existing religions and used the existing institutions of the Roman empire as a foundation to build on. The Roman empire had during its long existence grown into a massive political entity straddling western Europe, the Balkans and the areas surrounding the Mediterranean sea. Christianity by getting a foot-hold at the centre of the empire, could use it for the wide dissemination of its spiritual message and its code of ethics and values in all its constituent territories. When Roman Emperor Constantine started extending his patronage to Christianity and himself became a Christian (the presumed dates are 316 or 320 AD) the ground was clear for Christianity to develop into the dominant religion of Europe. Christianity from then on became synonymous with European civilisation. The adoption of Judeo-Christian ethics by the rulers and people of the Roman empire marked a new phase in the history of Western civilisation. What is meant by Judeo Christian ethics? ‘Ethics’ is used to refer to what is morally right and good. Generally there should not be any difficulty for people to know what is morally right and good because the concept of ethics has a fundamental or absolute standard about it. There cannot be anything ‘partially good’ or ‘partially bad’. A civilized society is one which has made a correct choice between right and wrong and good and evil without any reservation. There may be deviations from the standards of ethics in the lives of individuals, but ethics remains the basic standard in individual, social and political life in a civilisation. An important dimension of ethics and values is the spiritual dimension, though all people may not agree with the view that spirituality is an essential ingredient of the concept of ethics and values. Those who believe in the importance of spiritual values however hold the view that it is the spiritual dimension which provides a stable basis for individual, social and political values. The concept of ethics and values is not the monopoly of the Christian religion; it is the basis of every great religion. Even the Graeco Roman civilisation which preceded the Christian faith had several elements of ethics and values followed by all the great religions of the world. However, the Christian religion had from the very beginning emphasized the importance of love and compassion as preached and practised by Jesus as the most important ingredient of the religion.

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It was this concept of love which was presented by the pioneers of Christianity as the most distinguishing contribution of the new religion to the people of the Graeco-Roman world. The Ten Commandments claimed by the Israelites as having been given to them by God Himself through Moses, are often described as forming the core of the Judeo-Christian ethics. The Jews believed that they were chosen by God to form a model society centred round the supreme Commandant of love of and obedience to God. The Commandments and Covenants as described in the Old Testament spelt out the duties and obligations of God’s chosen people and the rewards and punishments for disobedience. There are besides the Ten Commandments, as many as 613 instructions in the Old Testament on matters of personal conduct, rites and rituals, do’s and don’ts and some of them do not have any special ethical or moral content in them but, for the Jews all Commandments and Covenants emanated from God himself and were therefore binding on the people. When Christianity was introduced into the West by the great scholars of the East like Paul, Iraneus, Athanasius and others, their emphasis was not so much on Covenants and Law as on the supreme Commandment of love, preached and practised by Jesus. The core of ethics which can be called the main contribution of the Christian religion was the new Commandment which Jesus gave the people when he declared, “I give you a new Commandment - love each other”. The Old Testament gives also several Commandments outside the set of Ten Commandments and one of the most important of these is the Commandment which says, “Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself”. The Commandment of “love thy neighbour” has been fully elaborated and explained by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount when he said among other things, “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”. He said: “Ye have heard that it hath been said thou shall love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you”. The acme of perfection in the ethics and value systems established by Jesus is seen when he prayed from the Cross for God’s forgiveness for his tormentors. “Father forgive them”, Jesus had prayed “for they do not know what they are doing”. The freshness and ethical content of the new religion and the intense sufferings and martyrdom of several early believers gave to Christianity a unique appeal and it became acceptable to both the rulers and the ordinary people who till then had believed only in the logic and justice revenge.

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A question raised by some of the writers on the developments of this period of history is how Christianity could survive the break-up and fall of the Roman empire. One of the important reasons for this was that Christianity had not closely associated or identified itself with the empire, even though it had been adopted as the religion of the rulers from the 4th Century AD. Christianity saved itself by maintaining a separate identity and making a clear distinction between the sphere of the earthly rulers and the sphere of God. The fall of the empire therefore did not become the fall of the Church. On the other hand, while the empire was getting weaker and was well on its course of disintegration, the Church was getting stronger and becoming organisationally a more durable institution than the State. The monastic movement which had been started by the Church in Western Europe during this period was another important contributory factor for the rapid growth of the Church. The Church had adopted monasticism from the African continent, but it had made substantial modifications in its application to Europe. In Africa monasticism was born as a protest against the worldly culture of the Greek and Roman civilisations. In its original form it stood for total renunciation of pleasure and wealth and even family and society and relied on the most austere and ascetic type of living for its sustenance. Monasticism had been a major source of strength to the Hindu religion in India also. But Indian monasticism was much less ascetic and was focused on the pursuit of learning and acquisition of spiritual strength in order to unravel the mysteries of life and death and man’s relations with the Super Being. The Rishis of India who had left behind the legacy of the Vedas, the Upanishads, etc., were men of great learning and spiritual insight and while they led a life of seclusion in mountainous regions they were engaged in finding answers to the problems of men wherever they were living and whatever their occupations in life were. In short, they had not renounced the world but only worldliness. The monasticism adopted by the Christian Church was a mid-path between the extreme asceticism of the Africans and the ‘Asrams’ of the Rishis of India. In due course the Christian monasteries, which were great centres of spiritual knowledge also became schools for general education. The State at that time was too weak to exercise any control or influence over institutions like the monasteries and therefore they developed their own independence without either patronage or hostility from the State. The monastic movement proved to be an important source of strength and sustenance for the Church in Europe particularly at a crucial period of its history when the Barbarians were trying to establish their power in the western and northern regions of Europe and the Roman empire had become

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too weak to resist them. Christianity did not face the type of hostility and persecution it had faced from the Roman empire when it started spreading its gospel among the Barbarians. A special source of strength of the monastic movement was that it had the strong support of the peasants. Monasteries were generally located in rural areas and therefore were actively involved in the life of the rural folk. In due course the monastic movement became a great source of help to the rural folk in their daily life and particularly in their education and in turn found enthusiastic supporters in the rural communities. With the collapse of the Roman empire and the acceptance of Christianity by the Barbarians in the northern territories, the monastic movement became a pillar of strength for the Church for its becoming a strong institution for stability and peace in an otherwise disturbed region. Even though the Church became an institution of stability in Europe, European Christendom when it emerged as a distinct civilisation in the 8th and 9th centuries, was not then one of the strongest civilisations of the world. On the other hand it lagged behind many other world civilisations for several hundred years. By the beginning of the medieval period, European Christendom had started extending its influence from the Hellenic and Roman world to new territories like Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia and the Baltic coast. By the end of the 15th Century, the whole of the Iberian peninsula had been liberated from the Moors and Spain had started establishing its hegemony over Latin America. Also Portugal had begun its entry into Asia. It took another two and a half to three centuries for the entire Western hemisphere to come under the influence of Christianity and for Western Civilisation to become synonymous with Western Christendom. However, there has been no homogeneity about the Christianity which had become the dominant religion of the countries of the Western hemisphere. Several new Protestant denominations arose in the Western hemisphere, particularly in United States. Some of them had very limited following even in the land of their origin, America, but they have been trying to introduce their brand of Christianity into Africa and Asia and to convince people that theirs was the authentic version of the Christian Church as originally conceived and established by the Apostles of Jesus. Latin America, though generally belonging to the Catholic denomination, has its own civilisational characteristics distinct from those prevalent in North America and Europe. The Pope had assigned Latin America to the responsibility of Spain during the period of rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the race for colonies but Christianity in the countries of Latin America

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was not patterned strictly on what it was in their parent country, Spain. This was largely because of the strong influence of the indigenous ‘Red Indian’ populations in these countries, some of which had very strong and ancient cultures of their own. When the nationalist movements started in Latin America aimed at their liberation from the Spanish rule, the Latin American countries tried to create a composite civilisation incorporating the culture of the ‘indigenous’ population into the European civilisation which had been deeply influenced by Christianity, and this had affected the forms of worship, rites, rituals, festivals, etc., originally adopted from Europe. The incorporation of the indigenous cultures created a new brand of Christian civilisation for Latin America distinct from the North American or European civilisation. Thus though the Latin American culture is a part of the Western Christendom, it always had a special identity of its own. Within Latin America itself there are several strong cultural variations depending mainly on demographic factors. Countries like Argentina, Chile, etc. which have had a larger influx of European population have more features of the European culture than countries like Peru, Mexico or Central America where there are a good number of indigenous people. In spite of such variations, Latin America is in religious terms a Catholic continent and culturally part of the Western civilisation. In North America there has been very little integration of the indigenous culture with that of the immigrants from Europe. Even in areas where fairly large numbers of indigenous people lived their cultures were either dominated by the European culture or systematically eliminated by the immigrants. North American Christendom is more ‘European’ than Latin American Christendom, though both are part of Western civilisation. Australia and New Zealand which fall under the category of Western Christendom were mainly lands of immigrants from England and other West European countries and therefore their culture maintained close affinity with that of Europe. The indigenous populations in Australia and New Zealand have been converted to the Christian denominations followed by the immigrants, though there are a few settlements of the original inhabitants who continue to retain some aspects of their indigenous culture. The integration process which has been going on actively in these two countries has served to create a replica of the European civilisation, with some marginal influence from the indigenous cultures. Even though the countries of Africa in the modern period have tried to create a pan African identity, they are mostly distinct entities with their own culture, religions and forms of worship. However, broadly it can be said that

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the Northern region of the African continent and its Eastern coast have been greatly influenced by the Islamic civilisation while the rest of the continent had come under the influence of the Western civilisation. The conquest and colonisation of the African countries by European nations in the 18th and 19th centuries had resulted in the establishment of the Christian denominations of the conquering countries on the African soil. With the liberation of the African countries from the colonial rule during the post World War II period, they have tried to revive their distinctive cultural identities. However, most of them appear to be contented with the religions which the colonial masters had brought in from Europe. One major change after attaining independence by these countries has been that indigenous priests and bishops have taken the place of the ecclesiastical dignitaries from the West in the African churches. Most of the Christians of Africa belong to the main denominations of Catholics or Protestants, and retain close links with their respective ecclesiastical hierarchy in the West. Some African countries have also produced very eminent theologians and scholars who have made great contributions to Christian thought and philosophy not only in Africa, but in the Christian world as a whole.

III. Western Civilisation and Islam One of the most unfortunate features of the history of civilisations has been the continuing rivalry if not hostility between the Western and the Islamic civilisations. Ever since the establishment of Islam in the 7th century, the Western countries have been feeling apprehensive about the possible threat from this religion to their own religion and interests. The spectacular success achieved by Islam in establishing Islamic rule in North Africa, the Middle East, Persia and even in the Iberian Peninsula had created a sense of insecurity among the followers of the Christian faith which till then had no serious rivals from any other religion in Europe. However, after the Christian powers regained control over the Western Mediterranean region and conquered Sicily, they began to feel confident that the surge of Islam could be checked through the use of superior force. This encouraged them to increase their military power and to engage the Islamic countries in a series of wars. The most important of these were the Crusades which started towards the close of the 11th century and continued for a period of one to one and a half centuries. The Crusades were given the character of a holy war as their professed objective was to establish Christian rule in Palestine, a land holy to both the Christians and the Muslims. The symbol of the cross and

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the name of Jesus Christ were used by the Crusaders in their mission of killing and robbing people and destroying the places of worship of the Muslims. As the Crusaders marched out of Europe to capture Palestine and other territories controlled by the Muslims, they were blessed by priests and prelates giving the adventure the character of a sacred duty demanded by their faith. Even the lootings and killings perpetrated by the soldiers of the ‘holy war’ in various places on their march to the East were given the respectability of a task performed for the glory of God. They left a legacy of antagonism between the followers of the two faiths which has continued in some form or the other from the medieval to the modern times though there have been long periods without any open conflict. Even the similarities between Islam and Christianity, such as monotheism and the shared respect for several patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, did not help to promote brotherly relationship between the followers of the two faiths. Instead, they only served to foster dislike and intolerance because of the claims by both the faiths to exclusiveness of truth for themselves. The Christian powers of Europe had by the end of the Crusades to reckon with a new centre of Islamic power, the Ottoman Turks. By the middle of the 15th century the Turks had conquered large chunks of territories in the Balkans and in North Africa and, what is more significant, captured Constantinople thereby considerably weakening the influence of Christianity and of the Byzantine Churches in particular. However, the Christians succeeded in recovering Iberia from the Muslims and pursued a strategy of confronting the Islamic powers in the regions of their influence by the display of their new military might. This period had witnessed considerable increase in the economic and military power of some of the European countries through the acquisition of new technology for industrial production and new arms and equipment for war. Very soon bitter rivalries and conflicts broke out among the European nations themselves for trade and territories. The increased economic and military clout of the Europeans led to the escalation of clashes with Islamic countries in which the latter became the main losers. The discovery of new sea routes to India by Portugal and Vasco Da Gama’s success in landing on the South Western coast of the Indian peninsula in 1499 marked a major turning point in establishing the dominance of the West over the Islamic countries. The failure of the Ottomans in their attempt to lay siege to Vienna in 1683 has been described by historians as the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman power and its eventual fall to the position of the “Sick Man of Europe”.

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The final blow to the Ottoman power came with the defeat of Germany by Britain and its allies in World War I. Turkey which was one of the important allies of Germany suffered considerable loss of territories in Africa and the Middle-East and the blow sustained by the Ottomans became a blow to the ambitions of the Muslims for dominance in Europe. Turkey itself went through a major revolution by which the Ottoman rule was abolished and the country became a republic under Kemal Ataturk. With the fall of the Ottomans, there was no leader of great eminence and influence in the Islamic countries in their conflicts with Western Christendom and a new era of the unchallenged dominance of the Christian powers started in the West. World War II which ended in a devastating defeat for Germany and its allies confirmed the set back suffered by the Islamic countries in their confrontation with Western Christendom, though Turkey was not an ally of Germany this time. The settlement of territories after the end of World War II clearly demonstrated that the dominance of the Islamic powers in the post war world had become a lost dream. The new conflict for the Western powers in the period of the Cold War which followed World War II was with the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union. The West started seeing communism, and not Islam, as the main threat to Western civilisation and started its strategy of containment of communism through a series of military and political alliances. The CENTO, NATO and other such alliances formed under the leadership of the US had no specific anti-Islamic objectives. In fact some of the Islamic authorities were happy to become allies of the Western bloc in the undeclared war against the common enemy, communism. In the war in Afghanistan which had come under a Soviet controlled communist regime, the Western powers had been able to enlist the support of several groups of Islamic fundamentalists and some Islamic nations as allies. However, this was only a temporary phase. Certain important developments in the last few decades of the 20th century again started fuelling antagonism between the Islamic and the Western civilisations. The most important was the concerted action of the oil producing countries, the majority of whom were Islamic countries, to increase the price of crude oil. This had considerably increased the economic clout of these countries and given them a bargaining strength which they had never possessed before. Suddenly the oil producing Islamic countries who were economically very poor till then found that they could wield great influence as major players on the world scene and the West saw this as a new challenge to its dominant

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position in the world. The US itself is an important oil producing country, but its economy also requires heavy imports of oil and therefore the rising prices of oil and frequent threats of cuts in production became new causes of concern for the US. Some of the oil producing countries, notably Iran and Libya started adopting a policy of defiance towards the Western powers particularly the US and this started creating tensions in the relations between the Islamic countries and the West. The overthrow of the Shah and the abolition of the institution of monarchy in Iran as a result of the Khomeini revolution became not merely a movement against the authoritarian regime of the Shah, but also for ‘saving Islam’ from the corrupting influence of westernisation. The outstanding success of the Khomeini revolution gave a great impetus to the nascent forces of fundamentalism all over the Islamic world. Militancy fuelled by religious fundamentalism from then on became as serious a threat to the Western civilisation as communism was till the collapse of the Soviet power. The growing influence of the extremist Islamic movement was also a source of threat to the hereditary sultanates and monarchies of the Islamic world, and some of them started moving closer to the US for their own protection. This led to the worsening of the tensions between the Western civilisation led by the US and the Islamic civilisation. The US became the main target of hatred for the extremist sections in the Islamic countries and in their eyes the US was the “big Satan” out to destroy Islam and its influence in the world. Some of the foreign policy postures of the United States in the post World War II period had also contributed a great deal to the growth of the anti-West attitude of the Islamic countries as they were perceived as part of a strategy to keep them under the subjugation of the Christian West. The most important among them has been the undisguised support of the US to Israel in its persistent refusal to recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. A feeling rapidly grew among the people of the Islamic world that the Western powers and in particular the United States had been deliberately encouraging Israel to take an intransigent stand in the negotiations for a settlement in Palestine as part of a global strategy to check Islam. Even the active role played by the US and its Western allies in the ousting of the Taliban government in Afghanistan was seen by the extremist sections in the Islamic world as part of the Western agenda to denigrate Islam and eliminate its influence. The military intervention of the US and its allies in Iraq became another major source of bitter hostility between the Islamic world and the West. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein through military

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might and his execution and the massive presence of Western military forces in Iraq became a festering canker in the relations of the Islamic countries with the Western countries. These grievances could easily be used by the extremist forces to justify their acts of terrorism which they have been carrying out against all those who they considered the enemies of Islam. Terrorism which had caused the death of several thousands of people and the destruction of valuable properties on a colossal scale started getting the religious label of Jihad. The most serious incident of terrorist violence was the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in September 2001 resulting in the death of several hundreds of people. It was intended to be a demonstration of the will and ability of the militants to strike at whoever was seen by them as the enemy of Islam anywhere in the world. The victims of terrorism have almost in all cases been innocent people who had nothing to do with the policies of the governments in these countries, but the jihadis believe that violence in any form against any target is justifiable when it is done for the protection of their religion. The leaders of the Islamic militant movements believe that the West has become arrogant because of its unquestioned military power after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is pursuing a new Crusade against Islam as it considers Islam as the only threat to its dominance. The declared policies of the Western powers that their aim is to promote democratic form of government in all countries has only served to give another weapon in the hands of the extremists. They claim that sponsoring of democracy is an excuse put forward by the capitalist forces of the West to discredit Islam and that the type of democracy sought to be introduced in Islamic countries is un-Islamic and anti-people. Many Islamic countries in the Middle East have authoritarian governments which had come to power through revolutions overthrowing the dictatorial rule of hereditary monarchies. Once in power these revolutionary governments continued to be led by people claiming to be representing the true voice of the people, but without conducting free elections to prove their democratic credentials. In most such cases the succession to power has remained in the families of the leader who overthrew the hereditary rule. Any attempt on the part of the Western powers to encourage liberalism and free choice is stoutly suppressed by these governments on the theory that the Western type of democracy is anti-Islamic. In the background of all these facts some Western writers have of late been expressing the view that harmonious co-existence of Western and

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Islamic civilisations is no longer possible and a clash between the two is inevitable. They do not explicitly say that an open war between the Islamic forces and the Western countries is inescapable; instead most of them continue to express the view that a clash or conflict is unavoidable. Samuel Huntington, in his book “The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order” has identified several reasons why the differences between the two civilisations have become irreconcilable. An important one is the demographic factor. Muslim population has been growing very fast ever since the founding of Islam. Even in the modern period where population control has been accepted by most countries, the Muslim population has increased very fast compared with the population of other religions. The Christian population declined from a share of 33.7% of world population in 1970 to 32.4% in 2000 while the Muslim population increased from 15.3% to 19.2% during this period. The high rate of population growth among the Muslims according to Huntington generated unemployment on a large scale in the Islamic countries and the large numbers of unemployed youth started migrating to the West in search of employment. They became ready recruits to extremist causes sponsored by militant movements. In the countries to which they have migrated, they find themselves isolated from the society and they seek identity for themselves by trying to retain the practices, forms of worship, etc., of their home countries without allowing any change. Thus they grow up in alien surroundings without assimilating any of the good aspects of the new civilisation to which they have been now exposed. Such people become easy targets for indoctrination and brain washing by the extremists and willing tools for acts of violence and terror against the West. An important cause for the growing sentiment of intolerance among the Islamic countries against the Western civilisation is the perception in these countries that Western civilisation has become materialistic, irreligious and even immoral. The increasing trend of the break down of the family system, the devaluation of the institution of marriage and other such features of the modern Western society are perceived by most people in the Islamic countries as symptoms of decadence of the Western civilisation. The rapid strides in modern technology achieved by the West particularly in the fields of information, transport, communication etc. have brought about radical changes in peoples’ attitude to morals and social behaviour in the West, but this has accentuated the revulsion among the Muslims against the whole process of modernisation.

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They are averse to accept modernisation as practised in the West as progress and instead become more convinced in their belief that the values of the Islamic civilisation in every respect are far superior to those of the Western civilisation. Another cause which has been identified for the growing alienation between the two civilisations is the basic difference in the beliefs of the people about the role of religion in the society and the State. Christianity from the very beginning of its founding has subscribed to the theory of separation of the realms of the State and of the Church. Muslims on the other hand believe that religion and politics cannot be separated and that the ideal to be aimed at is the unity between the two. This difference in the cultures between the Christian and Islamic religions could have continued in a spirit of toleration towards each other, but when the West started taking upon itself the mission of introducing democracy in Islamic countries which involves separation of religion and the State, the Muslims took it as a sinister attempt to impose on the Islamic civilisation an altogether alien concept. This helped the militant leaders in Islamic countries to give the call for resistance to the very idea of modernisation. Islamic leaders like Osama Bin Laden have been successful to a large extent in spreading the message among the Muslims that modernisation of the Western type is irreligious and, if unchecked, will lead to the destruction of the purity and sanctity of their religion. Even though some prominent writers in the West have been propounding the theory of inevitability of the clash of Western and Islamic civilisations, there is little chance of the clash of religious ideologies deteriorating to a war between the two. Religion has been a cause of many wars in history, but the chances of a new war on religious grounds are very remote in today’s world. Ever since the Crusades, most major wars between nations have been caused by non-religious factors, though the name of religion has been invoked in many internal revolutions. Acquiring more influence and power rather than ‘Saving souls’ has been the cause of wars in the modern period and therefore a war on religious grounds has to be ruled out. World War I was fought because of the challenge of the rising power of Germany to the dominance of the most powerful country in the world at that time, namely, Britain. In the period after the defeat of Germany in World War I, the confrontation between nations was largely because of the challenge thrown by the rise of fascism in countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany. World War II had little to do with the traditional Christian-Islamic tensions, but was mainly a conflict between

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democracy and fascism. The post World War II conflicts were largely between Western democracy and the rising power of communism under the leadership of the Soviet Union. It was a clash between capitalism and communism and not of any religious ideologies; at any rate the clash did not lead to a war between the major powers involved. It will not be fair to describe the present tensions caused by the rise of militancy in a few Islamic countries as even a clash between Western and Islamic civilisations. There have been several acts of terrorism sponsored by some movements of Islamic militants causing loss of life and properties on a large scale, but this should not lead to the conclusion that acts of terrorism have the support of most Muslims or even a significant section of Muslims. There is no such phenomenon as a Pan Islamic movement against the West. Some of the large Islamic countries of the world today like Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., do not support the militant movements, nor have they any special reasons for antagonism against the West. The leading monarchies of the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and the Sultanates of the Gulf region consider Islamic militancy as the main threat to their power and are in fact banking on the US to come to their help if any serious danger arises to their security. Terrorism is on the agenda of a few Islamic organisations in some countries, but they have neither the resources nor the ability to launch any large scale open confrontation against the Western countries. They may be able to organize serious terrorist attacks in a few places, and since the targets in such operations are unarmed civilians, the number of people killed in such incidents may be large. Such terrorist acts have no doubt caused panic and scare among the people, but they are also causing strong revulsion among the sections of peace loving Muslims all over the world against the misuse of religion for terrorism. Many ardent believers in Islam consider such acts of violence and terror as a shame on the fair name of Islam and freely opine that they will prove to be counter productive. It is important to note that the terrorist acts against some of the Western countries were not attacks on them because they were followers of Christianity but because the militants had considered some of the policies and actions of these countries as inimical to Islamic interests. There have been no allegations against the Western countries even by the militant groups that they had been supporting any proselytizing activities in the Islamic countries or attempting to capture the territories of the Muslims as was the case with the Crusades. ‘Crusade’ has become a word for bitter hatred against the West in the Islamic lexicon. But when it is now used against the

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Western countries it is not because they accuse them of promoting the interests of the Christian religion but mainly because they consider the West as blocking their aspirations for political and economic power. The Islamic militants are no doubt motivated by religious zeal in carrying out their acts of terrorism, but this is largely because they do not make a distinction between the sphere of politics and that of religion. Whatever may be their justification for considering the West as enemies of Islam, this complex of distrust and dislike is most unlikely to lead to the outbreak of a war between the West and any of the Islamic nations.

IV. How ‘Christian’ has Western Christendom been? The people of Western Christendom have often taken pride in claiming that their civilisation has been nurtured mainly on the ethics and values of Christianity which has been the dominant religion in their countries. An objective analysis of the record of Western Christendom about its adherence to Christian ethics and values is necessary for assessing the extent of justification for this claim. Let us begin with the Crusades to which a reference has earlier been made in the article. Even giving a wide margin to the culture of intolerance prevalent in medieval times, it will be admitted by any impartial student of European history that the Crusades constitute one of the most shameful chapters in the history of Western Christendom. Palestine was a holy land not only for the Christians but also for the Muslims, but the Crusades were organized with the objective of bringing it under the exclusive control of the Christians and for what the Crusaders claimed as the glory of God. The war cry of the Crusaders was that it was ‘God’s will’ that the Christian faithfuls should save the holy land from Islamic control. Little did the kings and generals who led their soldiers in the war against Muslims know that according to their own religion, God was not only God of the Christians but also of the Muslims and of all His creations. The dignitaries of the Church, instead of dissuading the adventurers from waging wars in the name of God, were goading them to be steadfast in their belief that the wars against the Muslims were the will of God. As the wars continued, several adventurers whose main motivation was lust and loot and personal glory had joined the Holy War. Very soon the original objective of capturing the holy places was forgotten and the Crusades became wars of blatant aggression to satisfy the ambitions of certain dynasties and military adventurers. Another stigma on Western Christendom was the colonial exploitation and imperialism practised by it

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for over four centuries. Colonialism by Western countries took two forms. One was the establishment of settlers, colonies mostly in newly discovered lands involving movement of large numbers of people from the mother countries. The other was acquisition of territories through use of military might and converting them into dependences of the conquering countries. The founding of settlers’ colonies in North America, Australia and New Zealand was motivated by many reasons such as desire for economic advancement in some cases, escape from religious oppression in some others, or spirit of adventure in seeking new life and experiences etc. In the normal course, settlers’ colonies need not have attracted any reproach as they were mainly movement of people in search of a better life. But the manner in which the settlers from Europe displaced the indigenous population from their natural habitations had revealed an attitude of racial intolerance and strong resistance to social integration. The ‘Red Indians’ and other indigenous tribals were physically exterminated in some cases or confined to isolated settlements far away from the territories occupied by the white settlers. The tribals strongly resisted the intrusion by the Whites into their territories, but they had ultimately to yield to the superior weapons of the settlers. The most exploitative form of colonisation by the Western countries was the conquest of territories for appropriating the immense natural resources of the colonies for the benefit of the conquering nations. The typical examples of such exploitative colonisation were the subjugation of India by the English, of the East Indies by the Dutch, and of several African countries by the French, the English, the Belgians and the Italians. The colonial expansion of the European powers which began in the late 15th century had reached its high water mark in the 18th and 19th centuries and in all these cases the local populations were reduced to the status of second class subjects with none of the rights which the colonizers had enjoyed in their home countries. The technological progress of the Western countries through the Industrial Revolution had generated a great demand for the raw materials available in Asia and Africa and when these countries came under the colonial rule, their raw materials at highly favourable terms became the monopoly of the colonisers. The colonies in turn became good markets for the goods produced in the Western countries. Political subjugation accompanied by economic exploitation was often justified by the colonial powers on spurious theories like bringing ‘light to the dark continents’ or civilizing the ‘lesser breeds’. Even scientific theories like ‘the survival of the fittest’ were used in

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justification of the forced subjugation of the conquered territories and of the wars which had often been waged between the European countries for hegemony over the countries of Asia and Africa. The exploitation of the resources of the colonies was so comprehensive that when the era of colonisation finally ended by the middle of the 20th century, many former colonies were left totally impoverished. For example, in the 18th century India and China together had accounted for half of the world’s GDP, but by the middle of the 20th century their share of the world’s GDP had been reduced to less than 10%. Whatever may be the claims of the colonialists about giving the colonies the blessings of ‘law and order’, and peace, the truth that colonisation was the exploitation of the weak and the helpless for further enrichment of the rich in the Western countries cannot be denied by impartial observers. The Christian religion which the colonialists followed with great zeal in their home countries was never a serious impediment for their programmes of enriching themselves at the expense of the poor and the weak people of the colonies. An important fall-out of colonialism whether in settlers’ colonies or in conquered territories was “cultural imperialism” which meant imposing the culture and language of the colonizing powers over the people of the colonies. In many cases cultural imperialism also meant imposition of the religion of the conquerors by force or by inducement over the conquered people. When proselytisation followed the flag the zealous Christians in the home countries found a good justification for their agenda of colonisation. The argument advanced in defence of such activities was that colonialism was not just the conquest of territories but was also ‘conquest of souls for Christ’. However, in countries which had rich indigenous civilisations and vibrant religions of their own, the impact of cultural imperialism was only marginal. Some colonial powers were not only interested in introducing Christianity in the conquered territories, but were also keen that conversions should be to their own Christian denomination. This was high on the agenda of the Portuguese in Kerala who were the first Western power to secure a foothold there. Christianity took firm roots in Kerala from 52 AD when, according to the intense belief of the Kerala Christians, St. Thomas, one of the Apostles of Jesus, landed in Kerala, converted several Namboothiri Brahmins to Christianity, and established seven churches for worship by the Christians. These Christians, known as the St. Thomas Christians, had been maintaining close relations with the Christian denominations in Persia, Jerusalem and other Eastern churches for over 15 centuries before the arrival of the

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Portuguese. But their brand of Christianity was not good enough for the religious zeal of the Portuguese. In 1599 the Catholic Arch Bishop of Goa (where the Portuguese had established their headquarters) Alexis Menesis arrived in Kerala and stayed there for several months launching an aggressive campaign for the conversion of St. Thomas Christians to the Roman Catholic fold with the active support of the Portuguese who had established military control over Kochi. Menesis forced the representatives of all the parishes of the St. Thomas Christians to take an oath at a meeting held on 20 June 1599 at Udayamperoor near Kochi declaring allegiance to the Roman Catholic faith. They were also made to pledge that they would adopt the Latin rite of worship replacing the centuries-old Syrian rite followed by them till then. The most deplorable act of religious fanaticism of the Archbishop was to make a bonfire of all the books and ancient records of St. Thomas Christians which the priests had been asked to bring with them to the meeting at Udayamperoor. However, 54 years later, several representatives of St. Thomas Christians assembled at Mattanchery in Kochi and took an oath holding ropes tied to the huge granite Cross in front of the Church, renouncing their allegiance to the Pope and proclaiming their resolve to revert to their old Orthodox faith. This forcible conversion of several St. Thomas Christians to the Catholic fold showed how keen the Portuguese were in imposing their own brand of Christianity even on the people who had been Christians longer than the Portuguese themselves had been. Slave trade was another serious blemish on Western Christianity. The establishment of settlers’ colonies in North America and of colonies through conquests elsewhere gave a fillip to the old slave trade which had been going on in the African countries. The general perception about slave trade is that it was mainly a business of the Arabs. While it is true that the Arabs were responsible for enrolling Africans into slavery, the people who bought the slaves from the Arabs were mainly the English and the North Americans who were in need of cheap labour for their plantations in America and the West Indies. Slavery was no doubt an established practice from pre-Christian ages and Western Christendom cannot therefore be singled out for criticism on this issue. But slavery became most reprehensible in the West because of the extremely inhuman treatment meted out to the slaves by the Christian masters in the civilized Western continents. Ironically the ill treatment of slaves was more vicious in the so-called Bible belt of the Southern States of America whose Christian population claimed to be most ardent in their adherence to the

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gospel of love preached by Jesus. Even after the victory of the anti-slavery forces in the American Civil war, the ill treatment of the blacks, mostly descendants of the slaves, continued through the outrageous practice of segregation, in public transport, parks, restaurants, schools etc. till the 60s of the 20th century when Martin Luther King became a martyr for the cause of racial justice. Racism, apart from economic considerations was an important factor in the inhuman treatment of the slaves in the countries of the Whites. There was indeed a mental block for many white people to accept blacks as their equals in the society till very recent times. The most abominable type of racial discrimination was apartheid practised by the Christian Whites in South Africa against the indigenous people of that country. The British and the Dutch who had conquered South Africa during the 17th and 18 centuries had subjected the conquered people to the most demeaning type of racial oppression in their own lands. It needed a Mahatma Gandhi and later a Nelson Mandela to rouse the conscience of the white rulers in South Africa about the enormity of the injustice they were perpetrating in the name of protecting the purity of the Western civilisation in the conquered territories. Among the practices by Western powers which were incompatible with their professed adherence to Christian principles, mention has also to be made of the opium trade carried on by the British with China for several decades. The irony of Britain’s opium trade was that the consumption of opium by the Chinese was being promoted by the British while it was strictly prohibited by law in Britain itself. The uncivilized acts of omission and commission referred to above should not be interpreted to mean that these had the approval of all the people of Western Christendom or that the people there were mostly indifferent to such practices. It has been argued in partial justification of these acts that they should be assessed in the context of the standards of morals and ethics prevalent in those times. It has also been argued that the gap between principles and practice are not special to Western Christianity, but are seen in religions every where. However, a reference to some of these practices has been made only to underline the fact that the influence of Christianity which was the religion of the majority of the people in the West was not so great as is being generally claimed. While stating this, it should not be forgotten that even during the periods of colonial exploitation and imperialism, West Christendom had produced several great humanists who had dedicated their lives totally for the service

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of the weak and the poor of the world. Hundreds of people in the West have been inspired by their Christian faith to work for the advancement of the disadvantaged sections of the people in the conquered territories. Several dedicated teachers, doctors and social workers from these countries devoted their whole life for the amelioration of the miseries of the weak and the poor in these countries and have established educational institutions, hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages etc. which have become inspiring examples of service for others. However, appreciation of the great services of such people should not mean that lapses and aberrations wherever they have occurred should be ignored while assessing the impact of Christianity on Western civilisation.

5

Indian Culture Beyond India Non-Conflictual and Peaceful Lakhan Mehrotra

The Sanskrit word for Culture is Sanskriti which means purification or refinement. Sanskriti relates to both spheres of human existence and experience, internal and external. It is the product of a constant process of molding reality into ever new and creative patterns in all fields of human endeavour including the study and refinement of the self. It involves carrying on with the legacy of the past duly modified from time to time to suit our ever changing environment. It means adding to the flavour of life by using the reservoir of the past to our best advantage so as to enjoy the present maximally and forge a bright future. Sanskriti gives people their identity, a sense of continuity in the midst of constant flux and the strength to meet fresh challenges with the best possible use of a society’s inherent faculties. Cultures that help human beings to add to their content of happiness and prosperity survive the onslaught of age; others succumb to it and vanish on the sands of time. Among the great cultures of the world, Indian culture has shown a remarkable capacity to survive the ravages of Kâla, of time that consumes everyone and everything. It has also succeeded in spreading its wings far and wide beyond India’s frontiers unaided by the sword, soaring in the firmament on the force of its ideas and patterns in a very peaceful way. Its intrinsic dynamism has allowed it to cross territorial boundaries from its very dawn more than 5000 years ago along the river Sindhu (Indus) to this day. Its fathomless tolerance lends it a flexibility that cushions it against osmosis and pulverisation and its dedication to peace, away from confrontation and conflict, has lent it the capacity to flourish at home in an unbroken stream and a high degree of acceptance abroad.

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Indus Valley Culture and Links with Mesopotamia The city of Harappa in the Punjab, the land of five rivers, was the heart of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the north while Mohanjodaro in Sindh, its another metropolitan centre 600 kilometres further down the Indus valley dominated the southern part of what might have been an extensive ‘empire’. That civilisation grew from small beginnings in the pre-Harappan phase around 3000 B.C. in Afghanistan and Baluchistan and declined about a thousand years later. From its core area in the Indus valley, its domain extended right up to Shortughai on the Amu Darya in the mountains of Badaksan near the Afghanistan frontier with Central Asia in the northwest, to Jammu and Kashmir in the north, Lothal in Gujrat in the south, Rupar and a cluster of settlements right up to western Uttar Pradesh in the east. It thus covered a good chunk of the north-western part of the South Asian subcontinent. It was a multi-racial society marked by a remarkable uniformity of culture to which its tools, utensils, seals, urban architectural patterns and construction materials testify. The Harappan culture at its peak was marked by ‘standardized bricks and pots; regular streets above a network of well-made sewage ducts; typical terracottas; a notable production of decorative artefacts including beads, faience and shell, more copper and bronze hardware; and a plenitude of mysterious seals’.1 Thus the very fountainhead of Indian culture lies beyond India. The preHarappan sites which contain its seed such as Suktagen and Dor along the Makran coast, and those marking the peak of the Indus Valley Civilisation such as Mohanjodaro and Harappa, are situated in today’s Pakistan. The journey through centuries from the simplicity of pre-Harappan, primarily agrarian local cultures to the sophistication and urbanity of the Harappan model was peaceful and evolutionary in character with no evidence of conflict forthcoming. One of the figures on the seals of this exalted civilisation is that of a yogi seated nude in Padmâsana, the lotus posture, with a horned headgear and accompanied by animals. The bull is also prominent on the seals as is a mysterious animal generally called ‘unicorn’. The figure in the yogic posture has been identified withShiva. Also known as Pashupati, the lord of creatures, in the Vedas and Purânas, he has the bull, Nandi, as its Vâhana or carrier. He is also Digambara with the sky as his garment, signifying his cosmic unbound presence. Later Âgamas described him as the Supreme Self (Paramâtmâ) and the Supreme God (Maheshwar), the supreme reality that transcends everything (Sarvottara) and is permanent (Sthânu), beyond both existence and non-existence, ‘known by his other

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name as Brahman’. He is also Sachchidânandarûpî, the embodiment of pure being, consciousness and bliss.2 Later, in the Puranic literature Shiva emerged as one of the three principal divinities of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal order of the universe, comprising Creation (Brahmâ), Sustenace(Vishnu) and Destruction (Shiva). The Tamil community right up to Sri Lanka has a large following of Shiva which traces its Dravida origins to the Indus Valley Culture. A number of terracotta figurines of a female goddess found on the sites of the Indus Valley Culture may also be the precursor of Kâli or Pârvati, the consort of Úiva worshipped to this day all over the subcontinent. Apart from the humped bull and the rhino, the seals also carry the tiger closely associated with Parvatî as Úakti, the goddess of power, and the elephant which dominates Indian mythology in many ways including the fact that it comprises the upper half of Ganesha’s body, the god of success and prosperity. The practice of Yoga and worship of Shiva, Shakti and their offspring Ganesha are prevalent today widely in India as well as in many other parts of the world where Indian culture has taken root . Similarly the ‘dancing girl’ in bronze from Mohenjodaro with its Dravidian features and long graceful arms laced with bangles is the precursor of India’s classical dancing traditions that have become an essential component of Indian culture everywhere. The figure also represents the fondness of Indian women, especially the newly wedded ones, to ornate themselves with a profusion of bangles as a very auspicious symbol- a belief that has travelled through the centuries to all parts of India and is common amongst people of Indian origin in many parts of the globe. The Indus Valley people were master town planners and their cities were marked by standardized roads, streets and lanes with roads about twice as wide as streets and the latter twice the width of lanes. Most of them were straight and ran either north-south or east-west. The city was divided into the residential-cum-commercial complex below and a massive brick platform to the west above- the ‘citadel’ harbouring the administrative authority. The Harappans were the first town planners of the world and possibly laid the foundation of India’s Vâstu and Shilpa traditions which were canonized centuries later. The thesis that the Indus Valley culture was decimated violently by outside invaders no longer holds the sway that it once did. Among archaeologists the belief is growing that floods clogging its cities with layer after layer of mud paralyzing life and not foreign invasion, usually thought of as Aryan, might have wiped it out and piecemeal rather than suddenly. That it happened

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in Sumer where ancient metropolitan centres like Shuruppak were so inundated and destroyed is quite well established. So also is the memory of a huge flood before the genesis of a new civilisation which is etched as much in Hindu tradition as in later religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam. ‘The waters swept away all the three heavens and only Manu was saved’, says the Shatapatha Brâhmana. The Indus Valley culture travelled to territories abroad, well outside its extensive provenance in the Indian subcontinent, not on martial wheels but on the currency of its ubiquitous seals and its numerous other symbols found in sister cultures of the time like that of Sumer. The Harappans produced with extraordinary skill tools made of stone, quartz, copper and bronze and used these materials as well as gold and silver to turn out vessels and statuettes, fishhooks and arrowheads, saws and chisels, sickles, pins and bangles, and standard weights based on the multiple of 16 current in India until the metric system was introduced just a few decades ago after India’s independence. The brick-makers who turned out standardized bricks, also churned out pots, dishes, bowls, jars, flasks and figurines all very typical of the Indus Valley culture. The Harappans also produced a variety of toys including the twowheeled cart and had thus invented the wheel. They also produced some very fine sculptures that in the words of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, an authority on the subject, match those of the great age of the Hellas ‘in pure simplicity and feeling’. The people of Sumer imported a good number of items from the Indus Valley sites including gold, copper, ivory, timber and textiles and exported silver, tin and precious stones like lapis lazuli to them. However, what travelled most abroad were Harappan seals and sealings. They travelled long distances and in all probability were used as a means to facilitate friendly trade exchanges. Nearly 60% of these seals found on various sites within the bounds of the Indus Valley culture and outside bear the stout figure of the ‘unicorn’, a mythical hybrid of zebra forming the upper part and bull forming the rest of the body with a single horn curling up majestically from the forehead. It could have been the symbol of ‘the ruling dynasty’, testifying to the origin and authenticity of accompanying goods or of the families producing them generation after generation. Other seals and sealings might have served the same purpose, too. The script on them remains yet to be deciphered successfully and convincingly but it testifies to the great advances registered by this civilisation four to five millennia ago before it waned. Although the well planned cities and towns of that culture of yore were buried deep in debris and were not replicated by succeeding generations,

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its several other gifts including the practice of Yoga, of the worship of Shiva and Shakti, of its fine arts and handicrafts and of the use of trade as a vehicle of ideas and goods over long distances, both by land and sea, have continued for centuries. Its message could only be that of peace symbolized by Shiva seated in his meditative posture and radiating all encompassing compassion which extended to the animal world. The Shiva-Shakti cult later grew into the full-fledged Bhakti tradition of Shaivism and a fundamental bastion of the ‘Hindu’ faith globally. As Mahâmuni, Shiva of the Indus Valley culture also symbolized the beginnings of the time-honoured practice in India of sages involved in a quest for the meaning of life and the nature of the self and sharing their experience with disciples by their side in their sylvan habitat, the Ashrama. This practice of Âshramas becoming the fulcrum of Indian culture reached its acmé during the next period of Indian history, the Vedic Age with the Upanishads representing its high watermark. These latter contain the teachings of some of India’s most well-known and profound Rishis from whom Hindu families in India and abroad draw their lineage. In more recent times, Swami Vivekananda carried this tradition forward by establishing the Ramakrishna Ashramas in India and abroad named after his ‘guru’ and has been followed by a series of other saints, the more well-known among them being Swami Yogananda. These Ashramas disseminate the light of Upanishadic wisdom as far as Latin America, not to speak of Europe, North America and other parts of the globe and prescribe a way of life which makes no distinction between man and man on the basis of caste, creed, colour or sex. Upanishads have lent to Indian culture whether in India and abroad a unique touch of spirituality and anchored it in the belief of the essential unity of all creation including the world of human beings. Their central message is the discovery of the self by the self within oneself and its identification with the Universal self, the Brahman. They thus represent the quintessence of the Vedic culture.

Concepts of Universal Unity and Peace: Sheet Anchor of Indian Civilisation The land called Sapta Saindhava, ‘the land of the seven rivers’, to which the Vedic and Puranic literature refers covered the region of the five rivers of the Punjab together with Suvâstu (Swat) and Kubha (Kabul) further west, and was referred to in Avesta as hapta-hindu. In course of centuries, the whole of Bharatavarsha from Sapta Saindhava in the north through the

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Indo-Gangetic plain nurtured by the mighty Ganga and Yamuna in the middle; eastern India irrigated by the Brahmaputra and Mahanadi and the southern part of the sub-continent with the Narmada, Godavary, Krishna and Kaveri as its main arteries came to treat the Vedic heritage, the epics, the Smritis and the Puranas together with diverse systems of thought and philosophy that enriched it as part of an integral whole which goes by the name of Indian culture. All the people inhabiting this geographically well defined territory from the Hindukush and the Himalayas down to the Indian Ocean with their languages and customs treated themselves as part of a multicoloured but uniquely single mosaic. That required largeness of vision and of heart and respect for freedom and diversity unparallelled in human history. Based on that, India developed traits of a great civilisation marked by pinnacles reached in all walks of life and fields of human activity, be it science, philosophy, literature or arts. Every part of India contributed to the cumulative strength of this mighty civilisation with a history by now of five millennia. Its inherent virility and dynamism were a great help in carrying India’s cultural legacy in steady but ever peaceful strides to all parts of the world, right across Asia through Central Asia to the Far East, to northern and southern Africa, to eastern and western Europe and to the far off Americas and the Caribbeans both along the surface and sea routes as centuries rolled by. The spirit of tolerance has been crucial to Indian culture, its proclivity to bring the opposites together into a synthesis, the Upanishadic emphasis on the freedom of mind for the liberation of the self, and its emphasis on the essential unity of all reality which it called Brahman. These concepts have helped the Indian culture greatly in its peaceful procession through the corridors of time astride the globe. It is necessary to understand this phenomenon since it constitutes the crux of Indian culture within India’s bounds and outside. The history of human civilisation as we know it from archaeological, epigraphic, literary and numismatic sources leads one to conclude that from times immemorial man has tried not only to communicate with his fellow beings but with a certain ‘unseen’ force which he could not see with eyes but whose presence he has felt way beyond the power of his ordinary senses. It is this power of extra sensory perception which makes him see reality beyond the limits of his senses and communicate with objects he cannot directly or immediately see with his eyes, touch with his fingers, taste with his tongue, smell with his nose or hear with his ears. In addition to

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his sensory capabilities, the human being has a remarkable faculty to look within, to turn the mind away from the objects of the world and explore several levels of consciousness that he finds lying within him. He has tried to communicate with reality that thrives at those levels and then transmit the outcome to coming generations as he has done in respect of experiences born out of his contact with the objective world. Our Vedas and Upanishads were born thus as also some other ‘revelations’ that are contained in treatises of equally high renown such as the Bible and the Quran. They are the outcome of human endeavour to understand the reality of the world within and its relation to the world without, to see it with the mind’s eye and to communicate with it through a variety of ways including intuition of which Mahatma Gandhi was so enamoured. The exploration of reality through a discovery of the self and communication with it led our ancient sages, the Rishis and Munis, to conclude that there was an intrinsic connect between individual consciousness and cosmic consciousness and that in the ultimate analysis they were one and the same, not just inseparable but identical. This realisation lay at the centre of their concept of the unity of all things. Soham- I am He, TattvamasiThat art thou, and Aham Brahmâsmi- I am Brahman itself are Vedic proclamations of the sense of one’s identity with the Infinite. Sâtvic or pure knowledge is one, says Krishna in the Bhagavadgita, that makes one see the same imperishable bhâva or the real self in existence in all other beings as in oneself, the indivisible consciousness that inhabits all sentient beings even though it appears physically divided.3 In that view of life which has dominated Indian culture in all climes and ages, the physical body is the temple of the soul. It is not the real self but its vehicle, its carrier, endowed with numerous faculties including the mind and the senses, both cognitive and motor, the jnanendriyas, and the karmendriyas. The mind makes it possible for the human being to communicate with both, the self within and the universe without, and is the cause of both its bondage and liberation.4 This view of life has led the proponents of Indian culture to profess round the globe that the entire human world is but one family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) and that their language of the heart is the same. They would discover that unity by communicating with the self. Communication with the self means realisation of a truth that is subtler than both mind and the knowledge that it produces. It is also subtler than our physical frame. Communication with it age after age made the ancient seers

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realize that the real self within them was indeed not just their own but all pervasive. It was both the knower and the known. Everything emanated from it and merged into it and nothing could exist without it. It was omnipresent and omnipotent. It was possible to communicate with it and to establish communion with it. That is why the Upanishadic injunction: ‘Âtmaivâre mantavyah, shrotavyah, nidhidhyâsitavyah’. ‘Atma’: the self alone is to be meditated upon, heeded and realized. This precept of Indian culture holds the key to the understanding of life sans frontiere. Even ‘death’ is not its end. Bodies perish but the soul’s journey continues life after life until Nirvâna is attained. That is when it becomes free of all attributes and can no longer be encased. This belief in rebirth is fundamental to India’s ancient culture and unites all its philosophical systems and religious faiths rooted in it, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism. Inheritors of that tradition have carried it wherever they have gone and settled outside India. There are many ways in which the Indian culture teaches us to realize the self and establish communion with it wherever one may be. Bhagavadgitâ which contains Krishna’s sermon to Arjuna on the Mahâbhârata battlefield contains a brilliant exposition of this theme. It is treated generally as the Bible of Hinduism even though that faith does not subscribe to any single source of authority and believes that since one’s knowledge of truth is constantly evolving, the frontiers of knowledge must be kept open at all times. There are many paths that lead to the knowledge of the Ultimate and the liberation of the self from the cycle of births and deaths. The Bhgavadgitâ spells out four of them. It may be done through Bhakti, the path of love and devotion; or Jnâna, the path of knowledge; Dhyâna or the path of meditation, and Karmayoga or the path of selfless action. People follow different paths in pursuing it according to their mental make-up and preferences. This realisation lies at the root of the catholicity of the Indian mind and its respect for other cultures of the world. It is a recipé for peaceful coexistence of diverse faiths and cultures and the emergence of a multicultural global order totally shorn of confrontation and conflict. It is integral to Indian culture and it flies with it wherever it goes and chooses to land. Indian communities have also carried with them the Vedic tradition of great respect for Nature wherever they have settled. The Vedic hymn to earth, for example, enjoins on them to give their best to mother earth, to treat it with reverence and never to subject it to violence. (Prithivim yachcha

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prithivim drinha prithivim mâ hinsîh — Rigveda). Therin lies the secret and the seed of the peaceful and nonviolent character of the Indian culture. The Vedic Rishis felt the presence of a universal force in the might and majesty of Nature and sought its bounties for the spiritual, mental and physical upkeep and progress of the human race. They noticed that all the objects of Nature and its limitless domain, the cosmos, were governed by an abiding principle, the Rita, the Truth, that sustained order, both physical and moral, in the midst of constant flux and they sought its protection in their prayers. In his prayers, his communication with Brahman, the Infinite and the indefinable Truth, the Rita, the Satya, the Vedic human asked it to lead him from untruth to truth, darkness to light, and death to immortality.5 In the Vedic view the cosmos is not a chaotic mass of isolated events happening at random but a conscious well-ordered unfolding of closely related phenomena all governed by immutable laws and principles many of which were yet to be discovered by human intelligence. The human agency with all its corporeal limits must persistently endeavour to realize that truth, to be in communication with it and to interpret it in the most peaceful manner possible to achieve sublime heights. The Vedic Hymn to Peace is central to ancient Indian culture and values and has remained an essential part of it wherever it has gone. It invokes all objects of Nature in space and the firmament, earth, water, vegetation and medicinal plants and the divine source of it all, the Brahman, the symbol of all that exists in the cosmos, in Brahmânda, to bestow peace, fathomless and infinite, for peace begets peace: Om Dyauh Shantih Antariksham Shântih Prithivi Shântih Âpah Shântih Oshadhayah Shântih Vanaspatayah Shântih Vishvedevâh Shântih Brahma Shântih Sarvam Shântih Shântireva Shântih Sâ mâ Shântiredhi. Om Shântih Shântih Shântih. (Yajurveda)

Upanishads seek to liberate the mind from the tyranny of the intellect without which the Ultimate Truth cannot be experienced and one cannot really be at peace either with oneself or the rest of the universe. Infinite peace descends once that revelation comes and there is no scope left for conflict or confrontation. To realize Brahman, the cosmic reality, one has to descend into the realm of pure consciousness by fully stabilizing the mind and attaining peace. It is only then that one can experience communion with the Universal self, directly, ‘see’ it in all its grace and luminosity, as Sat, Chit and Ânanda

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(Sachchdânanda), as Truth, Consciousness and Joy. That experience comes when one transcends both the mind and the intellect. In that divine moment one’s entire existence dissolves into a sense of the cosmic, the Universal self. One’s ego is gone. All barriers fall and all distinctions cease. One becomes pure self. One is part of everyone and everything while centred in the Ultimate reality. (Sarvathâ vartamânopi sa yogi mayi vartate). Realisation of the nature of the self and its identification with the universal self is the ultimate goal of life. It guarantees Moksha, the liberation of the self from the cycle of births and deaths. The path to it is through Righteousness, Dharma. The other two objectives (Purushârthas) of life are Artha (means of life’s sustenance), and Kâma (fulfilment of desires) to be pursued in accordance with dharma. (Dharmâviruddho bhûteshu kâmosmi Bharatarbha. Bhagavadgita, VII, 11). Some of India’s great luminaries, the Vedic and Upanishadic Rishis, Rama and Krishna, and the Buddha and Mahâvira in ancient times, Kabir, Jâyasî, Tulasi, Sûr, and Guru Nanak in medieval times, and Vivekanada, Shri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi in the modern era, to mention just a few, have championed the cause of universal brotherhood and have added great lustre to the edifice of Indian culture. The messages of these great saints and sages from the ancient times to the present containing India’s core values have become the stock-in-trade of Indian communities all over the globe, and have travelled to far off corners of the earth influencing other cultures and civilisations in a most peaceful manner.

The Vedic Age and Ancient Iranian and Indo-European Connection The Rigveda comprising some 10000 verses is the world’s first religious treatise and is treated today as part of the heritage of all mankind. It is the most ancient of the four Vedas, others being the Yajur, Sâma and Atharva. They give us a glimpse of life in the second millennium before the Christian era in north- western India where they were composed. They speak of a people who appear to have been nomadic to start with and constantly in search of new pastoral lands for themselves and their troupe of horses and cows. They seem to have had close racial and cultural links with the people of Iran. The latter as their nomenclature signifies were also ‘Aryan’ in stock and their ancient scripture, the Ahura Mazda, is linguistically and ritually close to Rigveda. That includes the worship of fire, Agni. The linguistic affinities between Sanskrit, the language of the Vedas, Upanishads and the mass of other literature it has handed down on the one hand and the

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Zendâvestâ and the Greek, Latin and Lithuanian languages on the other also suggest a common stock for the people speaking them. In the process of migration they might have formed two streams, one spreading over Europe and the other across the Indian sub-continent. Whether the migration was from South Asia upwards and then westward with India as the nucleus of the ‘Aryan’ civilisation, or from the Caucasian region westwards to Europe and southwards to Iran and India may be debated but what is not in doubt is the commonality of the origin of both streams together known as Indo-European. The Vedic period in India and that of the two epics was followed by a period of great intellectual ferment. During that period great scions of India like the Buddha, and Mahavira, the Jain apostle, were born and several new systems of philosophy came into being. The rest of the civilized world of the time was also passing through a similar ferment when one witnesses the rise of Confucianism and Taoism in China, and philosophers like Pythagorus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle occupied the high ground in Greece laying the foundations of the western civilisation. For nearly a millennium starting with the sixth century B.C., the cultural exchange between India and the West via Persia and the Middle Eastern screen was intense and multidimensional. Pythagorus had not only studied the esoteric teachings of the Egyptians and Assyrians but also India’s and his belief in the transmigration of soul is ascribed to that study. The concept had first emerged in the Brâhmanas and Upanishads. Like the Jains and Buddhists he refrained from doing injury to life and from eating meat and regarded even certain vegetables as taboo as many Indian vegetarians do. Many of his mathematical and philosophical concepts were already part of India’s heritage in the sixth century B.C. Plato, too, was impressed by India’s theory of karman professed alike by the Vedas, Upanishads, the Buddha and Mahavira. It prescribes a life based on ethical principles due to the belief in the inexorable link between cause and effect, good following the good and bad following bad deeds like a shadow birth after birth, until one attains Moksha (Nirvâna), and the soul delivers itself from the chain of births and deaths. As an Indian saint declined the invitation of Alexander to come and see him during his Indian campaign, the Macedonian conquerer felt impelled to go and meet him personally.instead. Asked why the recluse had refused to see the lord of the greatest empire on earth, the sage set him right by pointing out that his spirit was the lord of the whole universe. When his forces obliged him to abandon the Indian expedition due to the endless trauma they had suffered fighting one Indian tribe after another, Alexander retraced his

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steps but not without taking an Indian sage named Kalanos with him. Alexander breathed his last on the way in Ekbatana well before reaching Greece but his Indian venture opened the floodgates for India and the GrecoRoman world to interact with each other in terms of trade and culture. Of the five missionaries sent by Emperor Ashoka (272-236 B.C) to spread his message of the Dhamma to territories beyond his frontiers, three were to the West including King Antiochus II Theos of Greece. By 250 B.C. Buddhist monastic settlements had been established on the Jordan and Nile rivers. The cultural traffic was a two way affair. Dharmarakshita who propagated Theravâda form of Buddhism in Western Gujrat was a Yavana, a Greek. Conversely, according to Mahavamsa, the Ceylonese chronicle, Maharakshita who delivered to the Yona country the Kâlakârâma Suttanta had gone from India and his sermons resulted in the conversion of ten thousand of them into Parivrâjakas, Buddhist mendicants. Milindapanha, another work in Pali, narrates the story of the famous Indo- Greek King, Menander (115-90 B.C.) — how at the end of a long and frustrating search for truth, he met Nâgasena who satisfied all his curiosity and how he therefore chose to become a Buddhist. Agathocles, another Greek ruler was fond of calling himself ‘hinduja’, Indian by birth. According to Archaeleos, the Bishop of Carrha in Mesopotamia, Terebinthus, a disciple of Scythianus, proclaimed in 278 A.D. that his name was no longer Terebinthus but Buddha, and that he was born of a virgin and had been brought up on the mountains by an angel. There are many similarities in the life of the Buddha as narrated in the Lalitavistara and the Gospel story of the life of Christ. According to a Kashmir legend, Christ spent several years in meditation and penance there before beginning to preach the Gospel. It is believed that several striking features of Alexandrian Christianity such as the rosary, the veneration for relics, and exaggerated forms of asceticism could be of Indian origin. In pre-Christian Judaism, too, Indian thought and practices are manifest. Sâmkhya Yoga seems to have played a distinct part in the development of Gnosticism and its renowned teacher, Basildes, is learned to have derived many of his ideas from the East which he gloriously synthesized with Chritianity. The word Gnosis itself is derived from the Sanskrit word Jñâna, knowledge.

The Long and Peaceful March of Indian Culture into Central Asia and the Far East The Western extremity of our sub-continent bounded by Hindukush and extending up to Afghanistan developed impressive centres of Indian culture

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in ancient times and acted as the gateway of the Indian civilisation in its journey into other parts of Asia. Ptolemy refers to this region as Ariana while Brihatsamhita calls it Avagâna. Rig Veda mentions the region as Ashvakâyana and Pakhtoons or Pathâns as Pakthana. Yaksha’s Nirukta, Panini’s Ashtadhyayi and Mahabharata are replete with references to Gandhâra with its capital at Taxila and to the Bahlikas and Kambojas (Balkh and Badakshan) further west, all three of whom are known to have joined forces with the Kauravas in the Mahâbhârata war. Gândhâri, the wife of Dhritarâshtra and mother of Kauravas, was from Gandhâra. Greek records of the invasion of Alexander in the fourth century B.C. speak of Indian communities in occupation of the territories along the Hindukush ruled by Sassikattos (Shashigupta) as also along the rivers Souastos and Gouraios, the Suvastu and Gauri rivers of Mahâbhâarata. Seleukus who succeeded Alexander in West Asia ceded Arachosia, Areia and Paropanisadi in Afghanistan to Chandragupta Maurya and wedded his daughter Hellena to him. These territories became part of the Mauryan kingdom and acted as a great link with the Hellenic and the Hellenistic world with the passage of time. King Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta wrote his inscriptions carrying the message of the Dharma in places such as Shabazgarhi, Share-Quna (Kandhar) and Pul-i-Darunta (Jalalabad) in the frontier regions in local languages such as Kharoshthi, Aramaic and Greek for the benefit of his subjects. The great Mauryan King in his own words had ‘converted the drums of war into the drums of peace’. Kushans, one of the Yueh-chi tribes of the region who replaced the Greeks in the first century A.D.in TransOxiana adopted Indian culture as their own, issued coins with the figure of Shiva and Nandi, and of Shakti and Skanda Kumar on them. Kanishka whose rule extended from Central Asia to the Yamuna and Ganga ended up being an ardent Buddhist, summoned the Fourth Great Buddhist Council, converted Mathura into an important centre of Buddhism, encouraged the anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha both at Mathura and Gandhâra and helped the spread of Mahayâna Buddhism in Central Asia. Gandhâra was the home of such outstanding Buddhist scholars as Asanga and Vasubandhu. Another two Indian Arhats, Kâshyap Mâtanga and Bharana were invited by Chinese emperor Ming Ti in 67 A.D. to spread the message of the Buddha amongst his people. Shiva was very popular in ancient Kâpishi which dominated the region south of the Oxus (Vankshu) and is referred to in the Yajurveda as Mûjavant Pradesha, today’s Munjâna. The Indo-Parthian king Gondophernes in this

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part of Central Asia was a devout Shaiva and called himself a Mahâvrata having taken the vow of the Kapâlikas, a Shaiva sect of the time. Afghanistan and the region beyond came to harbour both Shaivism and Buddhism with equal gusto so that one finds in the region evidence of a great number of Deva (Shiva) temples as well as Buddhist stupas and monasteries springing up. Apart from the images of Trinetra Shiva, the region has yielded composite images of Shiva and Shakti, of Shiva and Vishnu, and of Vasudeva Vishnu with side heads of a lion and a boar. The images of Sûrya, Indra, Brahma, Skanda and Ganesha have also been recovered with their antiquity ranging from the fourth to the tenth century A.D. Some of the new sites in Afghanistan such as Tépé Sardar mound near Ghazni have also yielded the figure of Mahishamardinî, similar to the one in a Buddhist monastery. The gods of the Hindu pantheon thus provided the link between Mahâyâna Buddhism on the one hand and Shaivism and Shaktism on the other in this gateway to Central Asia.The earliest extant image of the Buddha in Afghanistan was found at the site of a stupa in Bimaran near Jalalabad, standing on a reliquary of gold set with rubies and flanked by the figures of Indra and Brahma. The figure is typically Gandhâran in character belonging to the first/second century A.D. Another Buddhist site near Jalalabad was Nagarahâra (Hadda) which was visited by Chinese scholars such as Fa-hien and Hsuan-t’sang. It was famous for its monastery called Nagarvihâra and a stupa which preserved a tooth relic, the sanghâti and the stick of the Buddha. Stylistically closest to Gandhâran art, Hadda contains the finest stucco figures of the Buddha and a stucco relief of a female deity carrying three lotus discs signifying Triratna, the three jewels, namely, the Buddha, Dharma and Samgha – the Master, the Law and the Buddhist Order.The most important Buddhist site in Afghanistan was Bamiyan known round the world for the two colossal figures of the Buddha which were carved in the 4th-5th century A.D. by the late Kushanas and which have recently been destroyed by the Taliban after 1500 years of existence. Running to a height of 53 and 35 metres respectively and cut out of rocks 130 metres apart, the monumental figures of the Buddha at Bamiyan had heralded a new tradition of huge Buddha statues in the annals of Buddhist art being treated as objects of worship like the stupa itself and had been the pride of the civilized world. Reputed to have been founded by the royal family of Kapilavastu, Bamiyan according to Hiuen-tsang was home to tens of Buddhist monasteries and thousands of monks who belonged to the Lokottaravâdin school of Hînayâna Buddhism, having faith in ‘Buddha that

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transcended the ordinary’. The walls and side walls of the rocks carried painted Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and apsarâs after the Ajanta style of murals and the figure of Sûrya, the Sun-god on the vault of the shrine reminds one of its counterpart in Bodhgaya where Buddha had attained enlightenment. The mantle over these figures is close to the Mathura style while later rockcarvings in Bamiyan remind one of the Gupta style so well represented at Sarnath. The Buddhist monastery in Fondukistan in the Ghorkhand valley has yielded figures of the Buddha in the crowned Pala style. For a millennium and more Bamiyan thrived as an important centre of Indian culture, it remained the key link for its dissemination in Central Asia and beyond, situated as it was on the two silk routes that went right up to Tunhuang in China.The northern route passed via Gilgit, Kashgar, Kumtura, Karashar, and Turfan and the southern via Gilgit, Khotan, Miran and Lobnor. Gandhâra and Kashmir both had embraced the Buddhist faith under the inspiration of Ashoka and his emissary, Madhyântika, before he organized the First Buddhist Council in 245 B.C. They became the springboard for the dissemination of Indian culture and the message of the Buddha of Maitri and Karuna, of universal love, amity and compassion across the continent of Asia as also to the cradles of civilisation existing in mediterranean Europe and Africa. Indian cultural influence is quite evident in the art and architecture of Central Asia and the Far East. In Gandhâra Buddha was represented as a human being rather than through symbols for the first time under the Hellenistic impulse. The Hellenistic features of the Buddha gradually got completely indigenized first in Mathura and later under the Guptas at Sarnath and eventually it is a mix of these features that has travelled to Central Asia from the colossal Bamiyan Buddha to Tunhuang and Yun-kang in China and thence to Korea and Japan. Indian cultural patterns travelled to the Yang-tsu valley through the southern route via Khotan whereas those in Shansi and Honan came along the northern route via Kucha, Tumsuk and Tun-huang. Hsuan-t’sang tells us that Khotan was founded by Gandhâran subjects of Ashoka and Buddhism was brought there by Vairochana from Kashmir. Literary sources like Liyul lun-btan speak of the Buddhist monk from Kashmir as an incarnation of Manjushri who also introduced the Li language in Khotan. It refers to it as an Aryan language. The oasis of Khotan was the home of paintings in Indian style and its culture rested on Indian foundations. The themes of paintings whether on wall or wooden planks in Dandan Shiliq, Balawaste and Farhad-Beg-Yailaki in the Domoko region of the oasis pertain to

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Mahâyâna Buddhism but Mahesha, Ganesha and Sûrya are also depicted. The wall paintings in Khotan shrines hardly make a distinction between Buddhism, Shaivism and Vaishnavism and represent a harmonious blend of the three, leaving no room for clash or conflict of diverse traditions. Buddha as Supreme Lord is thus also depicted as Maheshvara; the Buddha from Balawaste has the Vaishnavite shrivatsa sign at the hridaya-kendra and Vaishnava legends like samudramanthana with the Mandara having been used as the churning rod and the Vâsukî serpent as rope are liberally used in Buddhist shrines. The Buddha with his eyes half closed in meditation and the beautiful figures of his worshippers in the wall paintings are distinctly Ajanta in style, colour combinations and ornamentation. In Dandan Shiliq, Laxmî sprouting out of a pond seated on the lotus comes straight from Vishnupurâna (‘tatah sphurat kântimatî vikasita-kamalé sthitâ’). Mention must also be made of the figure of Gopâla revelling in the company of cows in the Cave of Statues at Kizil and the dancing figure of Queen Chandraprabhâ in Ajanta style in a panel on the wall and that of an ascetic in a parnakuti wearing a rudrâksha necklace and ajina (tiger or deer skin), all Shiva style. In 333 A.D. a Buddhist monastery was established at Tun-huang in Kansu in caves both natural and carved. The panels of the Thousand Buddhas on the walls and cave ceilings there depicting the life of the Buddha and scenes from Jâtakas are reminiscent of the Ajanta paintings, and the array of Bodhisattvas and gods and goddesses includes Mahesha, Ganesha, Kumâraskanda, Sûrya, and Soma. The Mahâkâla figure seated on the Nandi and carrying the Trishula and Vajra is certainly Indian in conception. The figure represents an important divinity in Shaktism and Mahâyânism both. Similarly Lokapâlas, the protectors of the four directions of the universe in the Hindu pantheon appear in the Buddhist pantheon right up to Japan as Dhritarâshtra, Virûdhaka, Virûpâksha and Vaishravana and are amply represented in paintings and sculptures of Buddhist shrines in Kucha, Karashar, Turfan and Tunhuang as well as in China and Japan. The Shingon pantheon of Japan includes Ganesha, Indra, Agni, Yama, Saraswati, Varuna and Vâyu providing thus a composite scenario in which Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Buddhism came together as integral to each other rather than existing independently as separate religious sects and contending with each other to claim popular acceptance. The Chinese sources speak of the Yueh-chi (Kushans) having brought the Buddhist sutras to Hien Yang in 217 B.C. and since the time of emperor Wu China had regular contact with Ferghana and Parthia both of which had

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come under Buddhist influence. In 259 A.D. a Chinese monk, She Ling came to Khotan and settled there to study the Dharma. Khotan also became a centre for exporting Indian goods including medicines and herbs to China and importing Chinese silk along what came to be known as the Silk Route. Indian settlements in Turkistan carried Indian culture along with trade goods to the Shakas and Sogdians, the Indo-Scythians and the Samarkand-Bokhara region and transformed the native cultures very peacefully, earning gratitude rather than hostility of Central Asian tribes for filling a vacuum in their lives. The skilled Sogdian traders in return carried the flag of Indian culture right up to Lob Nor and their Indian vocabulary including words and concepts like Indra, Mâra, Dharma, Vihâra, Upâasak and Upâsika, just to mention a few, entered the Shighur and Mongol languages. In this huge transmission of Indian culture over long distances along arduous routes no clash of civilisations was involved and peoples of Asia drank out of this new cup of culture with much love and admiration. They themselves invited Indian saints and sages and monks of repute to their lands, went out of the way to bring Indian religious scriptures, establish monasteries and temples with pride and venerate India as the birthplace of the Buddha as well as a cradle of a high civilisation. According to local tradition, a Chinese monk went to the extent of persuading T’o-P’o, the Quran of Eastern Turks (572-591) that the greatness of China was based on Buddhism and he expounded the Chain of Causation and the Deliverance (Prâtitya Samutpât) to him. As a result, the Turkic Quran built a Sanghârâma and received from the Chinese Emperor Buddhist Sûtras translated by Liu Che-tsing in Turkic while the renowned Buddhist scholar Jinagupta spent a decade in the Turkic court. The Shighur Buddhist literature is extremely rich which includes Âchârya Prajnarakshita’s Shighur translation of Maitreyisamiti from its Tokharian version, itself a translation by Vaibhâshika Âryachandra from the Indian version. Both the schools of Buddhism prevailed in Central Asia – Hînayâna in Kapisha, Tokarestan, Kashgar, Karashar and Kucha and Mahâyâna in Uddiyâna, Lampak and Khotan. The Mongolian Buddhist literature is the fruit of translations done by Sogdian and Shighurian teachers followed by those from Tibet, the latter contributing the bulk of it and all three owing much to Buddhist literature in Sanskrit. The translations covered several secular texts including a number carrying India’s rich Âyurvedic heritage. Yashomitra’s memorial stupa in Kucha has yielded seven medical texts written by four Kuchan scholars based on Sanskrit medical treatises.

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Central Asia constituted the natural springboard for the transmission of India’s cultural influence to China and from there to Korea and Japan. Mahâbhârata refers to Chîna as a people in the neighbourhood of IndoScythians in Central Asia and 18 Buddhists headed by Li Fang are said to have arrived in China from India during the reign of the First Emperor (220209 B.C.) to teach Dharma according to Chinese sources. Upâsakas are mentioned as having graced the court of the Han King Chou in 65 A.D. In 67 A.D.Emperor Ming Ti’s special envoy Tsai-tin, sent out to Central Asia in search of Buddhist teachers, is reported to have returned with a number of Indian shramans including Kâshyapmâtanga who translated the Sutra as he settled at Lo-yang. Some most important centres of Buddhism in Lo-yang and Chang-an, the Chinese capital of the time, were founded by monks and scholars from India and Central Asia both of which provided Buddhist works in original or in translations. The first monastery in Kien-ye was established by Seng-hui, a migrant from Samarkand and An Shih-koh, a Parthian monk who arrived in China in 148 A.D. translated as many as 176 Buddhist texts. Late in the second century A.D., Chu Cho-fo referred to by the Chinese as a ‘Hindu Bodhisattva’ translated sutras with the help of a Parthian monk and in 224 Dharmapada was translated. In Lo-yang, Dharmakâla published the Vinaya in 226 A.D. and a few years later, according to the Sui Annals, Dharmaraksha translated the sutra in Chang-an. He came from Kucha and his family lived in Tun-huang. In the middle of the third century Che-kien, son of a Yueh-chi envoy brought Buddhism to Nanking, starting the southern Chinese Buddhist tradition. Emperor Ssu ma-yao of the Eastern dynasty who ruled from 362 to 396 A.D. became the first Chinese emperor to have adopted Buddhism as his faith and in 381 A.D. he built a monastery in his own palace. Kumârabodhi, court chaplain of Turfan arrived in Si an-fu in 382 A.D. and translated the Âgamas. In 385 A.D. the famous Kumârajîva arrived in China at the invitation of Tao-an, a great proponent of Buddhism. Born at Kucha to an Indian father and a Kuchan mother, Kumârajîva with a huge urge for scholarship left for India at the tender age of seven to study Hînayâna, studied the Vedas instead but ended up as an ardent champion of Mahâyâna. Until his death in 43, he had translated more than a hundred works in Chinese at Chang-an, which included the Tripitaka. Remarkably, these translations were done by him with the help of a Kashmiri Brahmana Buddhayasha, so great was the collaboration between the Vedic and the Buddhist streams of Indian culture. Together with him and Buddhabhadra, a Shâkya from

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Kapilavastu, he founded the Community of the White Lotus which propagated the Sukhâvatî doctrine from which sprang the world famous Dhyâna School, known as Ch’an in China and Zen in Japan. Tradition has it that during the reign of Yuan-k’o, the seventh Emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty, there were 13000 Buddhist sanctuaries in China. The fifth and sixth centuries saw more translations. Paramârtha, a renowned Indian philosopher, landed in southern China by the sea route in 546 A.D. and was received by Emperor Liang of the Southern Kingdom. He translated Vasubandhu’s Mahâyânaparisamgrahashastra, thus introducing the Yogâchâra school of Mahâyâna in China. More translations followed which included Mahâparinirvâna by Dharmaraksha, and Ashvaghosh’s Buddhacharita together with parts of Saddharma Pundarîka by Jinagupta (528-605). A Kshatriya from Gandhâra, he travelled all the way through Kapishâ, Badakshan, Tashkhurgan and Turfan to Sining in Kansu province to propagate the Dharma and arrived in Ch’ang-an in 559. There was also Dharmagupta born in South India who arrived at the Chinese capital of Ch’ang-an via Central Asia in 590 A.D., accompanied the Sui Emperor to his new capital Loyang and translated a number of Sanskrit works into Chinese until his death in 619 A.D. Loyang developed soon into the Nalanda of China. More translations were done by Sikshânanda, a monk from Khotan in association with Itsing during the reign of Empress Wu (625-705) at Lo-yang. The Empress took the three Buddhist vows, taking refuge in the Budha, Dharma and Samgha. The T’ang emperors were very favourably disposed towards Buddhism and in 693 the Emperor was given the Indian title of Suvarnachakravartirâja by the Buddhists of his vast kingdom. Under Li Yu, the eighth Emperor, the Imperial Palace boasted of having more than a thousand monks and nuns. This tradition of intensive cultural exchanges with India and Indian cultural hubs in Central Asia and of translations of Buddhist works continued in the next few centuries. In the thirteenth century, Qubilai Khan, the Yuan Emperor, established a committee of Indian, Tibetan and Chinese scholars who published a new version of the Tripitaka in 1302, the Hsi-hsia version. The zeal of Indian missionaries travelling to China was matched by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India, nearly 180 of them being on record. That included Fa-hien, who travelled via Tun-huang and Khotan with ten other monks in 399 A.D., visited the holy sites in India and returned by the sea route after 14 years. In 404 Chih-meng crossed the mountains from

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Khotan to Gilgit, continued to Mathura and after paying his homage at places connected with the life of the Buddha returned via Central Asia completing an odyssey of twenty years and bringing home Mahâparinirvânasûtra and Mahâsamghikavinaya among a host of other Sanskrit texts, which he himself translated. Fa-yung and 25 other Chinese Buddhist mendicants crossed Central Asia into Kashmir and Gandhâra in 420 A.D. returning home by sea with only five of them left, so heavy was the toll of journey. Tao-p’u, an ardent shramana was sent by the Emperor to India in search of Nirvanasûtra never to return home. He died on the way around 450. In 518 Empress Wu sent a mission to India led by Sung Yun and Hui Sheng who reached Chitral, spent two years in Uddiyâna and Gandhâra and returned to Lo-yang with 170 Mahâyâna volumes. The most well-known of Chinese pilgrims to India was Hsuan-t’sang (600-664 A.D.). He renounced the world at an early age and devoted himself to the study of Parinirvanasûtra and Mahâvanasamgrahashâstra. He left Ch’angan for India in 628 A.D. in search of Yogâchârasûtra of Maitreyanath to clear his doubts. In Kucha on the way he encountered monk Mokshagupta who had spent twenty years in India. Having passed through Tokmak, Talas, Samarkand, Bokhara, Balkh and Bamiyan, the young Chinese aspirant reached Kapishâ and Nagarhara. As his odyssey continued, he was received by King Harsha in his capital with royal honours and presents which included a white elephant. At Nalanda he became the disciple of Shilabhadra from whom he learnt the Vijñaptimâtra doctrine of Dharmapâla. Having visited the holy sites and others of interest to him he returned to Ch’angan through Gandhâra and Kapishâ with a load of 657 Sanskrit works after a long pilgrimage of seventeen years. Unfortunately the white elephant he had received from Harsha died in Kashgar while crossing a river. During the next fifteen years he translated 1300 fascicles and left behind a detailed record of his memorable pilgrimage which has helped immensely as a source book for the study of India of the time. Even after the fall of the Ta’ang dynasty China’s contact with Indian centres of learning and culture in India and Central Asia continued. In 965 Tao-yuan who had spent six years in India brought Buddhist relics and manuscripts which inspired Emperor T’ai-tsu of the Sung dynasty to such an extent that he sent a large mission comprising a few hundred monks to India to fetch more scriptures. The mission is learned to have travelled through Hami, Turfan, Aqsu, Kashgar, Khotan and Gilgit to Kashmir and thence to Gandhâra. Headed by Ki-ye, the mission returned to China via

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Nepal with a large collection of relics and scriptures which were suitably enshrined by the Emperor in Buddhist centres in his land. According to Sung sources Dharmashri and Sumanas brought more scriptures from India in the eleventh century. The influence of Indian culture extended from China to Korea and Japan. It was during the Era of Three Kingdoms that an Indian bhikshu called Soondo (Sunanda?) came to Korea from China in 372 A.D. A couple of years later Âchârya Ahdo (Arhat?), the first Indian teacher came to Korea with the message of the Buddha and two temples were built in the city of Pyongyang. Ten years after Ahdo came the famous Malananda in the Korean kingdom of Paikje followed by Âchârya Silla in the next century. Silla introduced the doctrine of prajña and a number of temples and monasteries were built in the country. Buddhist religion in Korea received further impetus during the T’ang and Sui dynasties in China. Later Itsing visited India by sea from 671 to 694. He remained at Nalanda for about ten years, studied among other subjects Vijñaptimâtratâ and returned to Korea via Sumatra in 695 A.D. with 400 Sanskrit works in his possession after a journey that had lasted a quarter of a century. Chinese C’han (Dhyâna) school and the Japanese Zen owe much to the Vijñaptimâtrata doctrine as its primary source of inspiration. In China, both Taoism and Confucianism derived many ideas and forms from Buddhism. The father of Zen in Japan is reported to be Âchârya Dharma, an Indian Buddhist who came to China by sea and proceeded via Liang to Lo-yang and thence to the Shao-lin Temple in Sung-shan for a life long stay. He taught Dhyana Yoga from Lankâvatâra Sûtra and by the middle of the T’ang dynasty his image as an impeccable Buddhist teacher received further shine, so much so that his doctrine became almost synonymous with Chinese Buddhism. During the Sung dynasty, the Taoists also came to venerate him. He laid the fullest possible emphasis on meditation as a means of the realisation of the true nature of self, Buddhatva present in every being. From China his message spread to Korea and Japan. Japan’s ancient culture reached its pinnacle during the Nara period. It was marked by the visit of Bodhisena, a Brâhmana priest who reached China by the sea route and came to Japan in 736 A.D at the invitation of Emperor Shomu.The Mahâvairochana Buddha at Nara is the symbol of Bodhisena’s presence in the Japanese kingdom. He taught BuddhaAvatansaka Mahâvaipulya Sûtra and presided over the completion ceremony of the Mahâvairochana Buddha. Fo-che, his companion from Champa, is credited with having introduced the Champa music from India in Japan.

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In the Zen view of the world man is but a part of the cosmos and only by losing oneself in its infinity can one discover the Buddha in him. Thus a blade of grass and a huge figure of the Buddha are the same. Buddha is everywhere, in mountains, in rocks, in rivers and valleys, in the oceans and the sky and in all beings. Zen has influenced Japan’s architecture and painting, rock gardening and tea making, their soft disposition and love of natural harmony. It represents a tradition that had had its origins as a science of meditation in Patanjali’s Yogasútra, and the figure of the Buddha in meditation, calm and serene and unmoved as the universe churns around is reminiscent of Mahâyogî Shiva of the pre-Vedic age in India. It shows the distance that the Indian culture and tradition had travelled both in time and space, ignoring in its march the physical, stressing the spiritual. In the sixth century A.D. Indian works from the Mathura school were brought to China and they served as models for a number of statues in China and Japan. Chinese artists who migrated to Japan like the Tori family thus cast in bronze the Horyuji trinity at Nara in the seventh century. The central figure is that of Shâkyamuni Buddha known to the Japanese as Shaka, its eastern flank has the image of Bhaishjyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, accompanied by two Boddhisattvas and to its west the figure of Amitâbha. The wall paintings of the Kondo, the Golden Hall are central to the art of Horyuji and belong to the Ajanta stream. This long march of Indian culture all the way from the gateways of India to Central Asia and the Far East resulted from its innate dynamism which found expression in the most silent of ways by winning hearts rather than battles of the sword. Its remarkable success depended on the passion and gusto with which its symbols, its shibboleths and its saints and sages were greeted by the natives of the lands where it reached. The healing touch of Indian culture was unmistakable in its expansion beyond India’s frontiers which made the common masses welcome it with all their heart and soul. That is the reason why it moves on even today as eons role by.

India’s Golden Links with Nepal The main springs of Nepali culture and of India have been remarkably the same since both of them have flourished side by side under the shadow of the Himalayas and have had an integral relationship from times immemorial. The Vedas, the Upanishads, the Râmâyana and Mahâbhârata, the Purânas, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Buddhism, all have been as

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much a part of Nepal’s cultural heritage as India’s. Like in India they have thrived there in harmony, often imbibing the traits of each other. Buddha himself was born at Lumbini in Nepal as a Kshatriya prince in the Lichchhavi territory, one of the sixteen republics of India in Buddha’s time. The sacred place was visited by Ashoka in the third century B.C. who immortalized his visit with a stupa and an inscription. All important schools of Indian art in ancient times such as the Mathura, the Gupta and the Pala are well represented in Nepal’s art. Nalanda, Vikramashila, Odantapuri and Jagaddala in India became the fountain of Buddhist influence in Nepal. Vadubandhu introduced Mahâyâna in Nepal in the fourth century while Shântarakshita, Padmasambhava, Kamalashila and Atîsha brought Vajrayâna into Nepal. That the Buddhist tradition closer to the Hindu pantheon and philosophy which Nepal had imbibed from the days of yore, the doctrine of karma providing the essential link between Hinduism and Buddhism. In India as in Nepal Buddha became an incarnation of Vishnu and the Bhâgavat Purâna spelt it out in evolutionary terms in the sixth century by placing Buddha as the most highly evolved thus far in a long line stretching to several eons of evolution, starting with the fish and terminating with Kalki, the future incarnation thus: Matsya Kûrma Varâhashcha Narasimhoch Vâmanah Râmo Râmashcha Râmashcha Buddho Kalki cha té Dasha

The merger of the two faiths was thus complete. Buddha as Swayambhûnâtha, the Self-born deity, sitting at the mountain heights of Kathmandu with compassion in his heart for one and all and Pashupatinâth, the Lord of all creatures and the highest symbol of divine grace in the Hindu trinity occupying the heart of the Kathmandu valley are the finest examples of the coexistence of faiths in our strife-torn world. Both Pashupatinâth and Buddha are represented in Nepal in their multiple forms: Buddha as Gautama Buddha, Adi Buddha and Dhyani Buddhas and Pashupatinâth as Umâ-Maheshvara, Gangâdhara Murti, Natarâja, Bhairava, Lakulîsha and Shiva-linga. They are all venerated alike by the Hindu and Buddhist devotees from both India and Nepal and countries round the world. By the beginning of the Christian era, the Lichchhavi dynasty of Nepal had made Shaivism virtually the state religion of Nepal and though kings of every dynasty starting with Mânavadeva regarded themselves as the incarnation of Vishnu, they were all worshippers of Shiva. They all venerated

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the Buddha, too, especially because he was the son of the soil though he attained enlightenment in India and his mission had reached fulfilment in India. Great saints and scholars like Shântarakshita, Padmasambhava, Kamalashila and Atîsha from the renowned centres of learning and culture in India carried its Buddhist heritage not only to Nepal but also to Bhutan and Tibet. Cloistered in the lap of the Eastern Himalayas as an independendent kingdom, Bhutan has sustained its own tradition of Buddhism. Guru Padmasambhava is its patron-saint and places connected with his life and mission in Bhutan are marked by impotant Buddhist sanctuaries to this day. In this world of flux it has successfully preserved its ancient heritage and is a model of peace and an environmentally pure nation accommodating the pressures of modernity with great internal strength and bringing about changes, some very far reaching without any trace of violence. Such has been the influence of the message of the Buddha on this land and its people. In course of time both Nepal and Bhutan emerged as important land marks in the journey of Indian culture to Tibet and via Tibet to Mongolia and further north.

Tibet: A Stronghold of Indian Culture Generally we look back at India’s contacts with Tibet with effect from the advent of Buddhism there. Tibetan chronicles like Deb-snon and Mkhaspahi dgah-ston speak, however, of the Tibetan race stemming from the descendants of Rûpati, a military general of the army of Kauravas who fled to Tibet with a large number of his followers after the end of the war. Mahâbhârata preceded the birth of Siddhartha Gautama by a few centuries. While Buddhism was introduced in Tibet more than a millennium after the Buddha, India’s contacts with the Bhota-desh go back to much earlier times in hoary past. Tibet’s transition to Buddhism occurred mainly during the reign of two of Tibet’s greatest kings, Songtsen Gompo in the 7th century and Trisong Detsen in the next with the help of three renowned Bhikshus from India - Shântarakshita, Kamalashîla and Padmasambhava. Being the birthplace of the Noble One, India is regarded by Tibetans ever since as the land of all that is noble and is adored by them as Gyâgar, the Great Land. They have translated the Buddhist canon including Tripitakas - Vinaya, Sûtra and Abhidhamma and much else from India’s liturgical and purely literary heritage so faithfully through centuries that many works not extant in India have been restored in their original from them.

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The Tibetan translations from Indian works are preserved in 100 volumes of Kahjur and 225 of Tanjur, the former containing the ‘word’ of the Buddha and the latter commentaries. All Tibetan works are in a script based on the form of Brâhmi prevalent in North India in the seventh century A.D.and developed by Tibet’s great scholar Thon-mi-Sambota who was sent by Songtsen Gompo to study Buddhist scriptures in India. There are five major orders of Tibetan Buddhism, namely, Nyingmâpâ, Sâkyâpâ, Kargyutpâ, Kâdampâ and Gelukpâ. The founder of Nyingmâpâ, the Red Hat Sect, was Guru Padmasambhava, a master Tântric who went to Tibet from India during the reign of Trisong Detsen. He introduced the practice of Adiyoga (rdzogchen) in Tibet whereby the Siddha, the accomplished yogi, seeks enlightenment by mastering a severe Yogic regime and acquires extraordinary powers in the process. His own life is reputed to have been a saga of many miracles. The most famous Nyingmâ monastery in Tibet is Samye. Sakyapâs, not much different from Nyingmâpâs, derive their name from a monastery in the Tsang province in Western Tibet where the soil has a Sakya hue (Skt. Pându-yellow). Kargyutpâ is the third great monastic order, founded in the 11th century by a Tibetan mystic, Marpa. It is a form of Vajrayâna, named after Âdibuddha Vajradhara. Its first saint in apostolic succession was Tilopa, an Indian recluse whose disciple Naropa passed the tradition on to Marpa. Milarespa is the most celebrated of the saint poets of this order whose life and work are contained in Jetsun Kabum. The Kâdampâs constitute the fourth important sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Its founder was Atîsha from Vikramashîla monastery in India. He arrived in Tibet in 1030 A.D. and lived there for 13 years before breathing his last. Kâdampâ means delivering the word of the Buddha. His emphasis was on virtuous living and diverting Tibetans from the undesirable accretions of the past three centuries to what he considered to be the essence of Buddhism. Three centuries later, under his inspiration, one of Tibet’s great reformers, Tsongkhâpâ (1348-1419) established a new sect, the Gelukpâ and he and his successors built the three most famous monasteries of Tibet, namely, Ganden, Drepung and Sera. He recognized monastic celibacy as the only form of religious life and his sect has emerged since then as the most important and powerful Tibetan order which has contributed the Dalai Lama to it. The title ‘Dalai’ is the Mongol equivalent of Tibetan ‘Gyamtso’ meaning ‘ocean’ and was first applied by Altai Khan, the Mongol king to Lama Sonam Gyatsho, the Chief Abbot of the Drepung monastery when he invited him in 1577 AD to bring the light of the Buddha to Mongolia. The current

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Dalai Lama is the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in succession from Gendun-dubpâ, the first Gyalwa Rimpoche, the Jewel-King, the king of Dharma, who preceded Sonam Gyatso. The practice of the reincarnation of the lamas also came into vogue from the time of the first Dalai Lama and derives itself from the Indian concept of avatars. Gendun-dubpâ also built the Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama. He is Tibet’s second most important incarnate lama. The Dalai is the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion (Karunâ) while Panchen represents Amitâbha, the Buddha of Infinite Light and the two are treated by Tibetans as the strongest pillars of peace, tranquility and wisdom embodied by the Great Master.Tibetan monasteries and other religious institutions all have the Buddha and his various incarnations as their centre piece. However, the Indian saints who brought the light of the Buddha to Tibet and laid the foundations of a new culture modifying in the process its Shamanic heritage occupy a very high place in their hearts and are well represented in their artistic traditions. The cultural transformation of Tibet was entirely voluntary and peaceful and largely the work of saints and sages supported by royalty. The latter not only initiated the process of that transition but became such a strong votary of the Indian tradition that in course of time they gloriously combined the functions of royalty with those of the Chief Abbot of the Buddhist faith in the persona of the Dalai Lama and converted a whole race of people into angels of peace. Gods and goddesses of the Indian pantheon are also treated with great reverence in Tibet. Buddha’s own divinity, eternity and transcendence are mirrored through very prominent images of the Âdi Buddha, Dhyâni Buddhas and The Mânushi Buddha and their Bodhisattva counterparts. In addition there are the figures of Târâs, Dâkinis, Yidams, Dharmapâlas, Mahâkâla and Ardhanârîshvara (yab-yum) forms which reflect the influence of the Indian tântrik tradition on Tibetan Budhism. Tibetan Buddhism retains, too, a number of Bön practices from its pre-Buddhist past. This synthesis of Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shamanism is today known by the the generic term ‘Lamaism’ which Tibet transmitted to neighbouring countries such as Mongolia lock, stock and barrel and to the Buriat Republc in Siberia (Russia). The calligraphy in sparkling gold on some works of the sacred texts from Ka’jur and Tanjur in Mongolia such as Prajñâpâramitâ probably has no peer. From the time of the adoption of Buddhism more than a millennium ago, Tibet has been a repository of a very peaceful culture which thrived for centuries under the silence and solitude of its vast firmament away from the

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tumult and turmoil of the world. It was known to mankind not for its wealth and weaponry but for the heights of its spiritual glory and the depth of its philosophical thought. Buddhism became the keynote of its existence and it converted Tibet into a land of profound serenity and peace such as was unknown to mankind elsewhere. Here man was not the measure of all things but a humble creature thriving in partnership with the rest of nature with his share of karman in the constantly churning ocean called Samsâra, the inexorable vortex of life. What was titanic in him was not his vanity but the effort to rise above it through suffering and sacrifice, meditation and prayer, compassion and congregation. Life continued in its spiritual endeavour most peacefully in the mountain fastnesses, ravines, and pastures on the Roof of the World until recently when in the name of modernisation its great heritage has appeared to be receding into the past. Its own godhead, the Dalai Lama, has now been in exile for almost half a century with hardly any prospect of returning to his homeland.

Sri Lanka’s Historic Ties with India Sri Lanka is another stronghold of Indian culture in India’s neighbourhood. The island known as the pearl of the Indian Ocean is separated from India by a stretch of only 35 km. of sea, having once been a part of the land mass that traversed millions of years ago from the Antarctic northwards to join Asia where the Himalayas stand now. Sri Lanka’s interaction with India has thus been very intimate, intense and close. Tamils of Sri Lanka belong to the Dravidian race like those in India’s Tamilnadu and elsewhwere. With a staunch faith in the Shaiva Siddhanta, they trace their origin to Mohanjodaro, which has turned up the earliest evidence of the worship of Shiva both as lingam (column of light) and Pashupati (Sovereign of souls, the Lord of all beings). Buddhists of the Island on the other hand treat themselves as of Aryan stock, descendants of the Kshatriya race from India. Both history and myth combine in these assertions about their respective origins but their ethnic and cultural affinity with India is not in doubt. Mahâvamsa goes on to give a vivid description of Buddha’s own visits to places in Sri Lanka. According to the chronicle the first of them took place in the fifth month of his Buddhahood. The epic narrates how the Yakshas offered him the entire island when he sought a little space to sit. The Sri Lankan epic credits the Great Master with the conversion of crores (koti) of native Yakshas and Nâgas to his faith. The Chronicle also narrates his visit to Nagadîpa, the north-western part of Sri Lanka, in the fifth year of

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his Buddhahood. That was when he foresaw the onset of ‘a war caused by a gem-set throne between the two powerful nâgâs, Mahodara and Culodara, uncle and nephew’. The Mahâvamsa goes on to say: “When they saw the Blessed One they joyfully did reverence to the Master’s feet. Then preached the Vanquisher to them the doctrine that begets concord and both (nâgas) gladly gave up the throne to the Sage”6. That is one great example of how very peacefully the heritage of India traversed beyond its frontiers on the wings of compassion (Karuna) and universal brotherhood (Maitri). The specific spot where the Blessed One sat to deliver his sermon to the Yakshas later became the site of the Mahîyângana Stupa or the Mahâthûpa in Anuradhapura and the collarbone of the great Master, received from India after his ‘parinibbâna’ is said to be preserved there. Mahavamsa ascribes the origins of the Sinhala race to prince Vijaya, son of King Sinhabâhu, who arrived in Sri Lanka around 500 B.C. with 700 followers of the Buddha just before the Master’s nibbâna to convert it into Dharmadvipa, the Island of Faith, and founded Sri Lanka’s first Sinhala dynasty at Anuradhapura.Epigraphic and other literary sources on the other hand speak of the Gospel of the Buddha having been brought to Sri Lanka by Mahendra and Sanghamitra, the son and daughter of King Ashoka during the reign of Devânâmpiya Tissa in the third century B.C. The Mahâthûpa in Anuradhapura was completed to its height of ‘eighty cubits’ by the Sinhala king Duttagamini in 161 BC.The capital of Anuradhapura was ruled alternately by the Simhalas and Tamils. It was the capital of the Cholas until 1070 when Vijayabâhu wrested it from them and shifted the capital to Polonnaruwa. Anuradhapura, however, is the centrepiece of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist culture. It took centuries for it to blossom into a full-fledged capital that became the pride of Sri Lanka. It boasted of a palace with a sparkling copper roof and a glittering golden interior which gave Sri Lanka its ancient name Tabropane (Skt. Tamraparna). During its heyday Anuradhapura received a constant stream of visitors including Fa-hien of Chinese renown and Buddhaghosha, the famous Buddhist recluse from India. The Dagobas of Anuradhapura rose to a height of 400 feet. Located on the Malavattu, the Flowergarden River, Anuradhapura abounded in lakes and canals as part of one of the most ancient irrigation systems. The city also boasts of a Bodhi Tree, sprung from an offshoot of its original counterpart in Bodhgaya where Buddha attained enlightenment (Sambodhi).

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The greater part of the sculpture of Anuradhapura ranges from the period around the 1st century BC to the 9th century AD. That includes the Naga reliefs and trees rising from auspicious vases appearing on the Abhayagiri and Ruanweli dagobas which are distinctly related to the reliefs of Sanchi and early Sarnath. The Buddha figures and decorative motifs in monasteries and palaces display a close affinity with those of Amaravati. Similarly, the rock-cut reliefs of Isurumuniya (Ishwarmuni) Vihara and the elephant reliefs along the Tissawewa Lake hark back to the Pallava art of the 7th century manifest in Mahabalipuram in India.7 In Polonnaruwa, the Sinhala and Tamil cultural strands merged and mingled with each other magnificently and created a sense of unity in the midst of religious and cultural diversity. The new capital vied with its predecessor Anuradhapura in architectural splendour, sculptural magnificence and a fervent spiritual environment provided by dagobas, monasteries, temples, lakes and gardens. The city was located at the banks of the Sea of Parâkrama (valour), a lake that testifies to its people’s superb hydraulic skills. It captivated the visitor as much with its colossal images of the Buddha, profound in their expression of his serenity whether in sitting, standing or reclining postures, as with the graceful bronzes of Shiva and Pârvati the temples have yielded.The art in Polonnaruwa reached its peak in the 12th century during the reign of Parâkram Bâhu I, his own statue from there being one of the most magnificent. Among the copper statues from there one of the very best is that of the Buddha from Badulla dating back to the 6th century AD. However, those of Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani and Jambhâla of the 8th century and the bronzes from the Hindu pantheon including those of Natarâja and Shakti belonging to the Chola period are par excellence. Mahâvamsa contains numerous references to paintings in ancient Sri Lankan structures but not many of them have survived. Most of them drew their inspiration from the Ajanta and illustrate the Jatakas such as those in Polonnaruwa. Mention must be made of the Apsara figures painted at Sigiriya in the 5th century and the medieval frescoes of Kandy which are unique in their plasticity and warmth and bear a strong Indian influence. Much of Sri Lanka’s religious and artistic heritage thus has very distinct marks of Indian culture. The artistic culture of Sri Lanka developed consecutively with that of India in the main and is closely related to it.Even Kandy which became the capital of Sri Lanka in the 16th century and continued to be so till it was overrun by the British three centuries later, in1815, is known for the Dalada Maligawa, the tooth relic of the Buddha

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brought to Sri Lanka by a Kalinga princess in the 4th century. The strikingly beautiful paintings on the ceilings of temples in Kandy and Kelaniya restored in the 18th century by one of the last Kandyan kings, Kirti Sri Raj Simha, hold a mirror to the glorious tradition of Sri Lankan paintings, drawing heavily in style from India.The architecture, too, in these historic sites of Sri Lanka is evidently of Indian inspiration. The Sri Lankan dagobas that reached the heights of Egyptian pyramids hark back in their elements to the Sanchi stupa with its dome (anda or garbha) representing the cosmos and containing the sacred relics of the Buddha. They represent the conviction that Buddha came to deliver the entire mankind from suffering with his Four Noble Truths (Chatvari Ârya Satyâni), the Eightfold Path (Âryâshtângika Mârga), and the Middle Way (Madhyamâ Pratipadâ), putting emphasis on a life of righteousness in thought, speech and action and the dagoba was a constant reminder of that message. The temple architecture reached its high point in Polonnaruwa deriving its form and grace from the great temples of South India. Built by the Pallavas, Pandyas and Cholas these temples mirror India’s heritage through their spectacular architecture, sculpture and paintings and disseminating the Bhakti tradition through performing arts such as dance, drama and music highly reminiscent of the Indian tradition. The decorative motifs and artistic themes in the temples derive themselves most of all from the Râmâyana and the Mahâbhârata just as in Buddhist art they depict the life story of the Buddha from his birth to nirvâna and his previous lives from the Jâtakas. Both traditions however hold aloft the validity and usefulness of the age-old Indian practice of Yoga and meditation which dates back to the Harappan times, and use sylvan retreats, as did the Upanishadic rishis, for spreading Dharma, the life sustaining truths as realized or conceived by them. The Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition belongs to the Theravâda school which treats Buddha as an extraordinary human being but stops short of ascribing to him divinity. However, the centres of Buddhist art and culture in Sri Lanka are not altogether shorn of the symbols of the Mahâyâna school which believes firmly in his apotheosis and surrounds his figure with the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon while placing him above them all. Apart from Buddha’s apotheosis what distinguishes Mahâyâna from Hînayâna is its concept of the Bodhisattva. Having risen spiritually from the imperfect state of ordinary human beings into the highly evolved state of an Arhat, qualified to attain buddhahood, bodhisattvas elect to stay in their interim state regarding the endeavour to mitigate the suffering of others as

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superior to the goal of disappearing ‘like a flame freed from name and form’. The Abhayagiri Vihara, however, imbibed some elements of the Mahâyâna so that Hsuan-t’sang styled the faith it preached in his time as ‘the Mahâyâna of the Sthavira School’. Even the Mahâvihâra tradition which prides itself on following the Buddhist faith in its pristine form treated Vishnu, a deity of the Vedic vintage, as having been appointed the protector of his faith by Buddha himself. It is noteworthy that even though the King was designated as ‘the defender of the robe and the bowl’, thus forging a state of interdependence between the monastic order and the state, the state protocol was heavily influenced by India’s Brahmanic traditions. That included the pratice of only a Brahmin priest well versed in the Vedas conducting coronation and other state rituals.

Indian Culture Reaches Burmese Shores The people of India are known to history as an ancient sea faring nation, a fact borne out by evidence that goes as far back as the Indus Valley civilisation. The Indian sub-continent has a large sea shore and its trade and cultural contacts with the world outside have been extensive from the earliest of times. Located in India’s immediate vicinity, contacts with Burma were both by land and sea. The very name Burma is of Indian origin deriving itself from the Sanskrit word Brahmâ as does Prome, the ancient Burmese city on river Irawadi, named after the tributary of the Indus now known as Râvi. Prome’s another name was Bissunoya (Vishnu’s abode). There are several other examples of Burmese ancient sites with Indian names such as Rangoon (Ramnagar), Mandalay, (Mandala), Sisit (Úrîkshetra), Arimardanapura (ancient Pagan), Aparântika (Upper Burma) etc. One of Burma’s most ancient races, the Möns from whom it derives its present name Myanmar were also known as Talaing, indicating an early migration into Burma from Telangana on the eastern coast of India by sea. The Burmese also claim that Tapussa and Bhallika who were the first to visit Tathâgata in Bodhgaya after his Sambodhi (Enlightenment) were from Ukkal in Myanmar rather than Utkala in India. One of the country’s sacred places Tharawaddy is named after Úravastî. Buddhists of Burma are also of conviction, like those of Sri Lanka, that their land was graced personally by visits of the great Master who vanquished the hearts of its people by his message of infinite Karuna, compassion, and Maitrî, universal love. The Buddha is believed by them to have personally blessed his image, now in the Arakan Pagoda in Mandalay, with some of his own powers. According to

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Mahâvamsa, however, the evangelisation of Burma commenced with the visit of King Ashoka’s missionaries to Suvarnabhumi (southern Burma and Siam). Sri Lankan kings are credited in the Sri Lankan epic with having carried that mission forward.8 The art and architecture of Myanmar show a deep imprint of the Indian forms. The cylindrical stupa of Ngakywe Nadaung instantly reminds one of the Dhamekh stupa of Sarnath built by Ashoka. However, the great building era of Myanmar commenced only with the unification of Burma under Anawrata (1040-1070). Pagan, the Nalanda of Burma, has remains of nearly 5000 stupas and temples which fall into two patterns. In the ones in Ananda, Thatbinnyu and Shwegugyi, the basement terraces are developed to such a height as to give these structures a cubical effect and are provided with chapels and galleries in the style of the supta at Mirpur Khas in Sind. In the others, the stupa is supported by a high pyramidal basement provided with four median stairways for access higher up reminding one of stupas in Kashmir. The Mahabodhi stupa appears to be a replica of the one at Bodhgaya. The famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon, relatively of recent vintage, reminds one of the later stages of Indian art in which the tapering form of the stupa and the outline of the Harmika (pavilion) at the summit with its Yashti (mast) and Chhatra (umbrella) are almost continuous with the body, marking a departure from the earlier hemispherical and cylindrical types. In addition to its Buddhist heritage spread over a wide spectrum across the country, Vaishnavite and Shaivite images have also been recovered from several historical sites in Burma. These include those of Vishnu, Ganesha and Brahmâ at Hmawza; Vishnu, Ganesha and Hanumân at Mergui, and Sûrya, Durga and Vishnu in Arakan whereas the village of Kalagangon has yielded the remains of a Shiva-linga. The Mon kingdom of Thaton was called Ramaññadesha, the land of Râma; the oldest Mon inscriptions are in Pallavi script of the fifth century A.D. and the religious terms used are in Sanskrit. The Brumese chronicles speak of ‘a Brâhman-hearted king’, Ponnarîka (Skt. Pundarîka), who ascended the throne at Pegu in 746 A.D. The ancient law books of Burma were fondly called Dhammathat (Dharmashâstra) after Manu’s code, Mânava Dharmashâstra, even though they appear to have followed the Code of Nârada, prevalent on the east coast of India, more substantially than the former. Like in Sri Lanka, the court rituals and ceremonies were Brahmanical in character, conducted by Brahmin priests, a practice that spread to all parts of south-east Asia. The definite example of a Vaishnavite temple in Burma is Nat Hlaung

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Gyaung, built in the 10th century by Anawrata after his victory over the Mons of Thaton in 1057 according to Buddhist literary sources. The Nat Hlaung Gyaung temple has Vishnu in the sanctum sanctorum holding Shankha (conch), Chakra (disc), Gadâ (club) and Padma (lotus) in his four arms. His ten incarnations figure on the outer walls duly adorned with their Purânic symbols. The base and the dome of this Dashâvatâra temple are surmounted by a Shikhara supported by an obelisk which carries the central figure of Vishnu. The inner walls bear marks of frescoes representing the legend of the great deity, the god of preservation, from Vishnu Purâna. An inscription of the 13th century located a mile away from Pagan has a Sanskrit verse in Grantha characters from the Mukundamâla of the well-known Vaishnava saint Kulashekhara who hailed from Malayamandalam in Malabar. Kulashekhara seeks in the verse unshakable devotion for the lotus feet of Vishnu in preference to all material possessions and pleasures. It is remarkable that King Anawrata, the great unifier of the land and one of its staunchest Buddhist kings who built several thousand Buddhist Pagodas should also have constructed such a strong symbol of Vaishnavism as the Dashâvatâra Temple. He did it supposedly as a place of worship for the very Mon (Telaing) king, Manohârî he had vanquished in battle and brought to Pagan from Thaton as slave. While political ambition divided them, their Indian spiritual heritage united them so that one being Buddhist and another Vaishnavite did not matter. Thus much like in Sri Lanka and Tibet, several strands of Indian culture moved into Burma, some via Arakan and others along the coast, and coexisted for centuries together until came Kublai Khan from the north and destroyed a lot of them. Burma’s Buddhist heritage however remains a living reality. Most of the Buddhist architecture in Pagan exhibits an unmistakable Chalukya influence and the Ananda temple that combines the Buddhist stupa with a shikhara is a brilliant example of the synthesis of diverse cultural patterns in true Indian fashion in Burma. The influence of Indian culture in Burma helped it become an inclusive society and assisted the cause of its emotional integration, helping to change it from being a tribally divided society into being a relatively united one, an endeavour that has taken centuries like in India and is still persisting. So long as the instruments used for this transition are non-confrontational and peaceful, the process will move forward at its natural momentum. Use of violence and force on the other hand will retard its growth, and reverse its flow running counter to the eternal message of the Buddha.

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Indian Culture in Thailand Given the geographic context, the advent of Indian culture from southern Burma into northern Siam was just a small but significant step. Both these territories appear to have been part of Suvarnabhûmi to which King Ashoka had sent his missionaries in the 3rd century B.C. and which was inhabited at that time by the Mon people. By the beginning of the Christian era, if not earlier, Buddhism had definitely established itself in Siam as is proved by the aniconic representation of Buddha on artifacts recovered from Pra Pathom. One of Siam’s ancient-most sites, it is located north of Bangkok and south of Ayuthya and has yielded in stone Dharmachakras and the crouching dear. These were used as symbols in the art of ancient India to depict ‘the turning of the Wheel’ (Dharmachakra Pravartana) by the Buddha in the deer park at Sârnath, his first ever sermon after Sambodhi. Buddha’s representation in human form came much later and all of Ashoka’s great creations of art including the Sânchi stûpa had followed that practice. Pra Pathom, however, has also yielded bronze images of Buddha in Amarâvati style. By the 7th-8th century A.D., the Mon influence had extended to entire north Siam while southern Siam became part of the Kambuja kingdom, another zealous upholder of India’s cultural traditions. Dvârâvatî became the fulcrum of the Indian influences introduced by the Mon, one of the prominent examples of which is the thirty feet high figure of the Buddha cut out in five pieces in quartz and belongs to the 4h century. Also in quartz is a head of the Buddha with a typically Mon face but executed with highly Indian sensitivities. The other stream of Indian influence on Siam came via Kambuja. The Khmer art and culture became firmly established in southern Siam in the tenth century when lower Menam valley with its capital at Lopburi came heavily under the Khmer influence. A bronze statue at Lopburi of a seated Buddha shows the transition from the Mon to the Khmer with face, hair and legs still displaying Mon features. Meanwhile, the Mahâyâna figures of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas from regions around Java and Nakon Shrî T’ammarat suggest a new, a third stream of Indian culture entering Siam from the 8th century onward from Java and Sumatra. Simultaneously figures of Vishnu, Ardhanârîshvara, Yaksha and Dvârapâla have been found in eastern Siam which show Dvâravatî having come under Brahmanical influence by this time. While the Buddhist figures show markedly Pâla characteristics, those from the Hindu pantheon are in the Pallava style. These could have been made either locally or brought from India.

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These multiple trends made Siam a melting pot of diverse Indian cultural influences in the Indian tradition of a vibrant coexistence of various schools of thought and forms of worship. As the process of their merger and fusion into a truly Siamese cultural pattern was going on, it reached its culmination when the Thai, a race with its roots in Yunnan, descended into Siam in the thirteenth century. Yunnan by then had already come heavily under the influence of Indian culture via Tibet. It was known to the people of south-east Asia as Gandhâra of the East with Kambuja lying next door in Indo-China. Both territories had been named after the two neighbouring kingdoms located in the north-western part of India during the period of the Mahâbhârata as well as at the time of both the Buddha and Ashoka.The Thais moved into the vacuum in Siam when in the middle of the thirteenth century the Khmer kingdom tottered to its collapse in Kâmbuja. The Thai migrants thus introduced yet another streak of Indian culture in the body politic of the land. They established the Sukhodaya kingdom with Bang Khan, the Kambuja governor in Siam assuming the title of Indrâditya. His son Râma Kâmheng christened himself as Suryavamsha Râma Mahârâjâdhirâja. By 1350 one of his descendants adopted Dvârâvati as his capital and renamed it Ayuthiya after the capital of the hero of Râmâyana and called himself Ramâdhipati. However, he was a devout Buddhist which demonstrates the synthesis of cultures that had come about in the region. In this commingling of cultural trends and patterns, a Buddhist dynasty took enormous pride in assuming names and titles of the hero of an Indian epic, an incarnation of Vishnu, a Vedic god, while professing a faith which was emerging as a distinct religious denomination in its own right after the name of the Buddha. Ayuthiya acquired a high reputation as a centre of ‘pure’ Buddhism, so that as late as the middle of the 18th century the King of Sri Lanka felt enthused to invite monks from Siam for teaching the faith in its pristine form. Towards the end of the 18th century the Thai capital was shifted to Bangkok after Ayuthiya was attacked by the Burmese and in 1782 the Chakri dynasty was founded which still rules the Buddhist kingdom with Vaishnavite names and titles. Both in Ayuthiya and Bangkok, the art under the Thais exhibited a strong Indian influence as had been the case in the pre-Ayuthiya periods. However, it now became much more decorative and ‘baroque’ in character while at the same time shedding some of the fierce characteristics of the Khmer sculptures. It being a Buddhist kingdom, some gigantic images of Buddha have been created by successive rulers all over

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the land. Yet several gods of the Hindu pantheon are adored in a number of locations including the Hindu trinity of Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva. The Thai script is derived from the Khmer script which was itself based on the Pallava script of South India. The Tripitaka in Buddhist temples in Thailand are in Pali following the Theravada tradition.Indian influence thus on Thai languge, literature and religion is significant.

Indian Culture in Indo-China The arc of India’s cultural influence also covered the whole of Indo-China. In Champa, the territory now known as Annam in Vietnam, the impact of Indian culture was even more marked than in Thailand. The Kingdom of Champâ was a glorious example of the peaceful and spontaneous extension of Indian culture all over Asia. The territory is referred to in its Sanskrit inscriptions as Champâdesha and its kings as Champeshvara and Champâpura-Parameshvara. It covered the territory along the Pacific coast from the Annam- Portal in the north to the Mekong Delta in the South. It was frequented by Indian princes and merchants as early as the 2nd century A.D. and was connected to India through as many as three harbours along its eastern coast according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Over the centuries four important centres of Indian culture emerged along the coast in Champa, namely, Amarâvati (Quang Nam), Vijaya (Binh Dinh), Kauthâra (Natrang), and Panduranga (Phan-rang). The first king of the Champâ dynasty at Amarâvati was Bhadravarman who ruled in the 5th century. He styled himself as Dharma Mahârâjâ and referred to Shiva in a temple at Mison as Bhadereshvarasvâmî. So deep was the cultural influence of India in Champa that for the sake of legitimacy the king had to declare himself as a defender of Dharma, the standard bearer of righteousness whatever his martial strength. The temple of Bhadreshvara became the national sanctuary of the Chams. The sixth century saw the rise of the Rudravarman dynasty in Champâ who proclaimed himself as belonging to ‘the Brâhma-Kshatriya family’. His son, Shambhûvarman, restored the Brihadeshvara temple and renamed it as Shambhû- Bhadreshvara. A century later Prakâshadharma built a temple to Shri-Prabhâseshvara and to Kubera, the god of wealth. A magnificent example of Cham art is the image of Ganesha from a Shiva shrine of the 8th century. The standing figure carries a cobra in place of the yajñopavîta (the sacred thread) along the shoulder, and the folds of its Dhoti (lower garment) and the Katibandha (knot at the waist) are reminiscent of the dress of Yakshas common in Indian temples. Ganesha is

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also mentioned as Vinâyaka in a temple at Po-Nagara dedicated to him by Harivarman I who ruled in the 9th-10th century. Shiva was depicted both in phallic and human forms and the latter carried a beautifully decorated mukuta (crown) enclosing his Jatâbhâra and quite ornate kundalas (ear rings) and hâra (necklace). The Hindu divinity was also represented as Natarâja in his famous tândava posture with his sixteen hands reaching out to the cosmos in all directions. The Natarâja panel at Phongle of the 9th century with the representation of Râvanânugraha-mûrti Shiva reminds one of its counterpart at Ellora in India. While Shaivism had the pride of place in Champa, inscriptions mention temples constructed to god Vishnu-Purushottama. Vishnu is also mentioned as Nârâyâna, Hari, Govinda, Mâdhava and Tribhuvanakânta. He is depicted, too, as Anantashâyi and his four arms carry his traditional symbols, namely, shankha, chakra, gadâ and padma. Other Vedic gods like Brahmâ, Vâyu, Sûrya and Ganesha are also represented. Amarâvatî in Champa exhibited in good measure the coexistence of Buddhism, Vaishnavism and Shaivism. It has yielded a more than a meter high statue of the Buddha of the third century A.D. from its capital, Indrapura (Dong Duang). In the folds of its Uttarîya (drapery), Ûrnâ (thrust overhead) and curly hair the statue harks back to Buddha’s images from Amarâvatî in India. Mention must also be made of a Buddhist Vihâra built by Indravarman II at Indrapura ‘for the sake of dharma and for residence of the bhikshu-sangha’ in the late 9th century. According to Itsing, the Buddhists in Champa generally followed the Âryâsammiti Nikâya while some others followed the Sarvâstida Nikâya. Both Hînayana and Mahâyâna forms of Buddhism were thus prevalent at Amarâvatî in Champa. The characteristics of the images of Buddha and Bodhisattva confirm this. The Champa capital was shifted further south first to Vijaya (Binh-Dinh) in the 10th century and then to Kauthara (Nhatrang) and Pânduranga (Phan-rang) under pressure of attacks from outside. In the 13th century Vijaya saw a resurgence of Hindu influence when temples were built under the inspiration of Angkor Wat in Kambuja next door and it survived for one more century as a centre of Indian culture before the glory that was Champa came to an end. Kâmbuja, locally known as Kampuchea and internationally Cambodia or Camboj, was the strongest bastion of Indian culture in Indo-China and Angkor Wat its most precious jewel. Indian culture made its entry into that land, with the arrival in about the first century A.D. of Kaundinya, a Brahmin

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related in legend to Drona, the great teacher of the Mahâbhârata fame. He came with a javelin gifted to him by Ashvatthâmâ, son of Dronâchârya, married the Naga princess and sowed the seed of India’s Vedic and Purânic heritage in the territory. Thus came into existence what Chinese records call the kingdom of Funan, a derivative of the Khmer word Phnom, meaning mountain or hill – same as shaila in Sanskrit. The dynasty founded by Kaundinya thus became the Shailendra dynasty and the Kingdom Shrishaila. In the newly established kingdom in Kâmbuja Buddhism flourished side by side with Vaishnavism and Shaivism. The kingdom’s envoy to the Chinese court in the fifth century informed his hosts that his venerated land was the perpetual abode of God Maheshvara, the deity on Mount Motan, and then proceeded with the adulation of the Buddha with equal fervour. Simultanously, an inscription of a century earlier refers to Prince Gunavarman, ‘who established on earth the impress of the feet of Bhagavân’ and that ‘all that had been donated to the Bhagavân ought to be at the disposal of all Bhâgavatas’.9 Thus the blessings of Maheshvara, Vishnu and the Buddha were sought in this great land alike by its kings and countrymen, all springing from the same fountain of culture that is India. The Shailendra dynasty was followed in the 6th century by the Kâmbuja dynasty with its capital at the time at Shreshthapura in Southern Laos (Lavadesha). The Kâmbuja kings were also fervent worshippers of Shiva and Bhadravarman in the inscription of Han Chey dedicated his victory of Funan to ‘the moon-crested god, who on his head receives the Ganga, the waves of which form the garland of Shiva, their impetuosity having been shattered by the frowns of Umâ.’ The king himself is described in the inscription as “sublime like Meru… who having vanquished the ocean-girdled earth won it the second time by his temperate rule.” Jayavarman II who ruled in the 9th century and unified Kâmbuja, boasted of having invited a Brâhmana, Hiranyadâma by name, who taught the royal priest the Tântric texts of Vinâshika, Nayottara, Sammoha and Shirashchheda. The ancient state of Kambuja was deeply enamoured of its Vedic heritage, the Vedas were assiduously studied and recited, and huge libraries created to preserve Indian literarature such as those witnessed at Angkor Wat. An inscription of the 7 th century belonging to the reign of Mahendravarman refers to Shiva as ‘Parama-Brahma’ and as the goal of worshippers who by the constant practice of correct meditation and peaceful frame of mind felt his presence as the inner light enthroned in their hearts.

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There were daily recitations, without interruption, as in India, of Râmâyana, Mahâbhârata and the Purânas. Harivamsha and the Brihadkathâ of Gunâdhya were very popular as also India’s poet of poets Kalidâsa, specially his Raghuvamsha. Both north Indian and south Indian scripts were used on inscriptions written in lyrical Sanskrit and King Yashovarman used both of them in a diagraphic inscription. Yashovarman built the illustrious capital of Angkor (Skt. Nagara) and one of his successors, Suryavarman II gave to the world one of its wonders, the great Angkor Wat in the middle of the 12th century. The temple was dedicated to lord Vishnu, a fortress like structure with its circular moat, high walls and seven towers enshrining deities, all built in the Shikhara style. The long ascent to the sanctum sanctorum at the summit through stages represented human ascent step by step in one’s quest for the spiritual summit. The walls encircling the summit carry extremely vivid scenes from India’s two epics while depicting the king himself as an incarnation of Vishnu. Henri Mouhot, the French naturalist who discovered its ruins, many of them enveloped by the forest around, proclaimed it to be the most magnificent creation of man on earth the like of which never existed either in Greece or Rome. While Angkor Wat became the world’s most glorious symbol of Vaishnavism, Jayavarman VII who ruled Kambuja from 1182-1218 developed a passion for the gospel of the Buddha and introduced Mahayâna into his kingdom through his contacts with the Shrivijaya kingdom of Sumatra, Java and Malaya. Buddha replaced Vishnu at the sanctum sanctorum at Angkor Wat’s pinnacle but the rest of the temple did not change. A mighty king whose reign extended from Pagan in Burma to parts of Malaya in the south and to Champa in the east, Jayavarman II eventually converted the drums of war, Ashoka-like, into the drums of peace and became an apostle of compassion and love. The Ta Prohm inscription credits him with having constructed 102 Ârogyashâlâs (health centres) and 798 shrines. One of the Ârogyashâlâs poignantly states that “the physical pain of men became in King Jayavarman a pain of the soul….for it is the suffering of the state which makes the suffering of Kings and not their own pain”. Such is the peaceful heritage of India abroad. King Jayavarman VII’s most eloquent piece of architecture is the Bayon temple dedicated to Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva who incarnates Karunâ, mercy. It is a pyramid like structure with three stages crowned by high towers, each tower having human faces on the four sides and is not very far removed from Angkor Wat. King Sûryavarman II and Jayavarman

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VII are the two most shining pillars of the Khmer glory, one a staunch Vaishnavite and the other a fervent Buddhist, and the two traditions have achieved a remarkable synthesis in the living culture of today’s Cambodia. Its life line, the river Mekong itself derives its name from the Ganges, being a local adaptation of Mâ Gangâ. Indian cultural influences reached Lavapura (Laos) through a diversity of streams via Sri Lanka, Suvarnabhûmi, Kâmbuja and Champa, but up to the thirteenth century their paramount fountainhead lay in Kâmbuja. The Kâmbuja capital itself was located at Shreshthapura in Laos around Vat Phu Hill near Bassac until it was replaced by Angkor at the head of the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. Wat Phu Hill (Linga-Parvata) was the sublime seat of the Bhadreshvara Shiva, his shrine there symbolizing a mini mount Kailâsha. The earliest Lava literature is replete with Sanskrit and Pali words and the Tham (Dharma) script of Lavapura is also of Indian origin like its counterparts in Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. The Lavapura stories are full of Buddhist themes and one of the most popular ones, ‘Four Champakas’, is based on the Champa-Râja Jâtaka. The Vedic god Indra is depicted as the defender of the hero of most stories while the Yakshas appear in the role of the villain. Indian Rishis appear as kind hearted hermits full of wisdom and knowledge and the Gurukul system is hailed as a method of understanding the meaning of life and practising meditation and Yoga.There are prose romances in Lava literature like Champa-si-ton and Buddhasena. The former carries the tale of four sons of the King of Pañchâla and his queen Padmâ and the latter the life story of prince Buddhasena belonging to Indraprastha Nagar in Kâmbuja. There is also the romance in verse entitled Kalaket (Kâlakétu) based on the story of Surivong, the King of Vârânasî, his horse Manikap endowed with human speech, his ally Garuda, and the birth eventually of a son,Kalaket, to him with the blessings of Indra, therefore a Devaputra, most powerful and pious. There is also the Lava Pañchatantra with its five Prakaranas (Pakons) namely Nanda, Mandûka, Pishâcha, Shakuna and Samgha. Mention must also be made of the works of grammar such as of Kâtyâyana carrying rules of samdhi, samâsa, kârakas, etc., and Shastras such as Ratthasattha (Râshtra Shastra), and Niti Shastra, containing discourses on Râjadharma and Râjagunas. Simultaneously, the Buddhist literature contains Tripitakas, Jâtakas, stories of saints and sages, and even Saddavimala, the Yogâchâra manual. Both the architecture and sculpture of Lavapura were influenced greatly by their Indian counterpart. Vat Pa Ruok reminds one of the Sanchi temple

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of the Gupta vintage and Vat Ban Tan incorporates elements from Chalukya temples. Vat Vixum and Vat Aram show the influence of Kashmir with its Gandhâra heritage. One sees the blending of Hindu and Buddhist influences all over Lavapura. For instance, in Vat Pra, a temple dedicated to Lord Buddha, the dome is surmounted by the figure of Laxmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity. The images of Buddha also have marked Indian features such as Ushnisha, the protuberance at the head being topped by hair in the form of a flame as in figures from Sarnath; there is Ûrna (protuberance) on the forehead as in the Gandhâra Buddha and the hair is curly as in the images of the Gupta period. The Uttariya (drapery) of the Buddha at Vat Si Saket and Luong clings to the body following the Gupta prototype but Phya Wat is prominently Gandhâra.

The Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipilago As in the case of Indo-China, Indian cultural symbols and trends traversed to the Malaya Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipilago on a very natural gait, their course unpremeditated and without involving a calculus of power or political domination on India’s part. The migrant Indians rode on the waves of the sea into these territories right up to New Zealand as evidenced by the relics of an Indian ship found not far from its shores. The historic shipping links from Tamralipti to Kaveripattanam on the east coast of India and Kutch on the west to important harbours all over South-East Asia were carriers of both goods and culture, the latter leaving a more permanent imprint. The migrants from India into these lands carried with them their religion and philosophy, traditions and customs, language, literature and script, handicrafts and implements. A whole set of values and a way of life moved with them into their new locale, helping to fill a civilisational gap there not through an alien imposition but by a piecemeal process of natural acculturation and willing assimilation by the natives of the land, a quiet commingling of local cultures with their own, one enriching the other. Over the centuries they became part of what came to be known as Indic civilisation well beyond the shores of India. The process was so natural that their people took great pride in asserting their ‘Indian’ identity by owning up the well-springs of Indian culture be they the Vedas, epics, Puranas or Jatakas, other sources of Indian cultural experience including fine arts as well as performing arts, and even adopting Indian names for themselves, their ruling dynasties, their mountains and rivers, villages and towns, kingdoms and capitals, creating a facsimile of Jambudvipa on their own lands.

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The territory of Borneo, mentioned as Barhin in Purânas and the ancient kingdom of Shri-Vijaya which comprised parts of Sumatra, Java and Malay have yielded considerable archaeological and literary evidence to prove a constant interaction with India and the cultural influence of the latter on them from at least the fourth century A.D. The inscriptions found at Kutei and Muara-kaman in Borneo speak of ‘Shri Mûlavarman Râjendra’ as a performer of great yajñas and a liberal donor to Brahmanas. There is evidence of Shaivism and Buddhism both prevalent in the region. The archaeological finds in Borneo include the figure of a four-armed Vishnu, a number of Shaiva icons, a Nandî, and a linga. A sarva-sama mukh-linga belonging to the seventh century has also been found with a square base (brahma-bhâga), an octagonal middle (Vishnu bhâga) and a cylindrical top (Shiva bhâga). Also discovered in Borneo is a figure of Ganesha of the fourteenth century. There are inscriptions in both Borneo and Malaya of the fifth century which refer to logic oriented religions (ye dhammâh hetu prabhvâh) and speak of karman as ensuing from lack of the knowledge of truth (ajñânâchchîyaté karma). I’tsing spoke of a strong Buddhist influence in parts of Borneo in the seventh century and a bronze image of a standing Buddha has been found in Borneo. Nearby, Pangkalan and Perak in Malay have yielded a bronze Hinayâna figure of Buddha with the Gupta influence and of sage Agastya.The Kra isthmus and the Malaya peninsula have also yielded Mahâyâna figures of Avalokiteshvara with tantric emblems and at the same time tantric Shaiva icons. The coexistence of these symbols extending to several centuries proves that the syncretistic spirit of India had adequately penetrated the region. A number of inscriptions in Sanskrit have been found in province Welleseley of the peninsula the most famous being that of Mahânâvika Buddhagupta, resident of Raktamrittikâ (Red Soil), engraved on both sides of a stupa crowned by Chhatrâvali (umbrellas). Many of these inscriptions are in the Javanese Kawi script, developed from the Pallava script. Indian folklore had also made a strong imprint on the folklore of Shri-Vijaya. Bhârat Yuddha, an abbreviated Javanese version of Mahâbhârata, has been the inspiration behind the Malaya Hikayat Perang Pândava Java while Panchtantra, the Jâtakas and Kathâsaritsâgara have inspired many a Malaya fable. There was not only lively contact between India and South-East Asia as literary references in works like Râmâyana, Jâtakas, Purânas, Mahâvamsa,

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Milinda Panha, Pattinppalai, Shilpaddikâram, Raghuvamsha, KaumudiMahotsava and Kathâsarisâgara suggest but the Indic kingdoms of the region such as the Funan and Champa in Indo-China, the Sukhodia in Siam and Shri-Vijaya further south and south-east were constantly reinforcing that influence on each other for over a millennium from almost the beginning of the Christian era. The Shri-Vijaya kingdom first extended its influence in the eighth century from Sumatra into neighbouring areas and then by the ninth century from Java under the Shailendras. The innate dynamism of Indian culture thus moved its influences in all directions. First Funan and Champa extended them southwards. Then the process got reversed. Early in the ninth century, king Jayavarman II ‘came from Java to rule over Indrapura’, the capital of Kâmbuja taking with him inter alia Javanese artists and craftsmen. The first Shailendra ruler, Bâla-putra Deva built a Buddhist monastery at Nâlandâ while the Deva Pâla, the Pâla king of the region donated five villages to it for its maintenance. Another Shri-Vijaya ruler, Chûdâmanivarmadeva, built a Buddhist temple in Nagipattana on the Coromandel Coast to which Râja Râja Chola I donated the revenues of a village in 1005 and the gesture was repeated by his successors.Thus these rulers of India in both the north and south and those in South-East Asia who interacted with them in the cultural field set a splendid example of fraternal cooperaion and a cultural partnership, a state of magnificent collaboration far removed from any thought of conflict or confrontation. The same spirit prevailed when in the late eighth century a Shaiva king of the Sanjaya dynasty in Java rendered assistance to a Buddhist dynasty at the consecration of a Buddhist temple. The distinction between the Vedic-Puranic tradition of India and such other important sects as Buddhism increasingly wore thin both in India and in areas of its cultural extension abroad. The liberal religious spirit responsible for the commingling of various Indian and local traditions and emergence of new forms in this region did not disappear even later when Islam established itself in the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago.In 1966 the Toana Tolotan tribe in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, officially declared itself Hindu, proudly announcing Sewei (Shiva) as their God in a country that is predominantly Muslim and Hinduism continues to be the religion of Bali to this day. Through its centuries’ long contact with India and with the Indianized cultures in the south and south-east Asian region, Java grew into a strong citadel of Indian culture with its own versions of the Râmâyana, Mahâbhârata and the Brahmânda Purâna.

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The old Javanese Râmâyana, an exemplary product of the Kâvya technique, follows the Sanskrit Bhattikâvya, well-known in Champa in the seventh century. These ancient treatises were regularly recited in Java’s temples and themes from them inspired both theatres on the stage and the spectacular Javanese Wayang shadow plays from behind the screen. The performing arts tradition with its roots in the past has remained as strong as ever in Indonesia as in the rest of South-East Asia and Indo-China. The Javanese tradition recognizes Aji Shaka, the founder of the Shaka era that starts from 78 A.D., as the forefather of the Indian tradition in Java, associates him with the Mahâbhârata heroes of Hasthinapur and refers to him as a native of Gujarat. The introduction of the Indian calendar and the Puranic mode of divine worship are attributed to Brahmin Tritrishta. A fifth century inscription of King Pûrnavarman, ‘whose feet were the size of Vishnu’s, mentions pitâmaho râjarshi (Bhishma Pitâmaha) as one of his ancestors, stressing his Indian connection. This is yet another evidence of the peaceful ‘Indianisation’ of the land. To give the territory the semblance of Jambudvipa proper, a Javanese legend grew to the effect that half of Mount Sumeru round which the earth revolved was brought by Vishnu himself to Java using the Sheshnâga, his Vâhana or vehicle as the rope to transplant the magic mountain. The centre of the earth, thus divinely transferred to Java became the eternal abode of Parameshvara, of Shiva, the lord of mountains who drank Kâlakûta, the nectar gushing out of Meru’s womb that makes one vanquish death. The Malays also believed that their first king came from Mountain Mahâmeru in India and suddenly appeared in Palembang (Sumâtra) riding on a white bull. The rulers and the people of Indonesia consistently acknowledged their debt to ‘Kalinga, which signified India to them. That agrees with the Chinese nomenclature of Java as Ho-lin. Ancient Chinese literature also recognized Java as a prominent centre of Indian culture. The descent of the Indian culture in these territories was thus treated as divinely ordained and was welcomed by the people as a blessing like the dropping of a fruit from heaven rather than the result of a hegemon’s ambition to gain more territory and dominate an alien people. Later on, the introduction of Buddhism, too, was also a remarkably peaceful phenomenon. Indonesian records speak of prince Gunavarman having come to Java from Kashmir after having become a Buddhist monk and converted both his parents to Buddhist faith where ‘it spread throughout the island’. Gunavarman then went to Nanking on an Indian vessel, Nandini, in 431 A.D. at the request of the Chinese emperor according to their records.

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Java also came to establish a Rishi paramparâ with their âshramas becoming centres of learning and carriers of culture a la the Upnishadic times in India. The Tuk Mas inscription in Central Java of the seventh century engraved in Sanskrit in the Pallava script refers to a natural spring there as Gangâ and the emblems on the inscription suggest the place to have been a tirtha, a pilgrimage centre hallowed by the presence of several ascetics living there. The legend of Rishi Agastya which gained great popularity in Java is preserved in Agastyaparva, a Javanese treatise of the eleventh century. It embodies a dialogue between the sage and his disciple, Drdhasyu, on such matters of far reaching importance as the cycles of cosmic creation and dissolution, the Sânkhya doctrine based on the concepts of Purusha and Prakriti, the time segments of manus and manvantaras, the concept of the transmigration of the soul and the churning of the ocean etc.as in the Brahmânda Purâna. In the old Javanese poem Harivamsa, sage Agastya appears as a court-Brâhmana whose patron is described as an incarnation of Vishnu while the Agastyaparvan has a Shaivite bias with some of its passages having a tantric hue. As the centre of gravity shifted from central Java to eastern Java in the middle of the tenth century, several Shaiva sanctuaries came into existence in the eastern part but soon Shaivism and Buddhism came to coalesce with each other more and more. In the year 1292 King Krtanagara was said to have reached ‘the abode of Shiva–Buddha’ after his demise. Java attracted Buddhist monks and pilgrims from both India and outside. These included Dharmapâla in the seventh century, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavarsha in the eighth and Atisha in the 11th. Nalanda kept up the Buddhist link with Java consistently while the Chinese pilgrims stayed mostly in Sumatran Shrivijaya. Borobudur, a wonder of Buddhist architecture became the proud symbol of contact between Java and India with its inspiration coming from as far as Kashmir, a stronghold of Buddhism in northern India. Parambanan on the other hand with its vast complex of temples dedicated to Shiva, Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shakti represented the pinnacle of the Purânic tradition in Java. Built in the 9th century, that is, after Borobudur and not very far from its provenance, it is reminiscent of the Kailasanâtha temple of Kanchi in its architectural plan, its sculptural wealth and its panels which translate into relief Purânic myths and tales. The two together constitute the twin wonders of Indonesia’s past. The separate existence of these two monuments symbolizing two major streams of India’s cultural influence did not come in the way of the fusion of the Shaiva and Buddhist traditions in Java. In Java

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the Dhyânî Buddhas of the Mahâyâna became identical with the deities of the Purânic, especially Shaivaite pantheon: Vairochana with Sadâshiva, Akshobhya with Rudra, Ratnasambhava with Brahmâ, Amitâbha with Mahâdeva and Amoghasiddhi with Vishnu. The fusion of the two traditions is complete with the Kelurak inscription calling Manjushri the same as Brahmâ, Vishnu and Maheshvara, and the Shaiva-Siddhanta identifying the ascending stages of Shiva, Sadâshiva and Paramashiva in one’s spiritual evolution with the shunya, achyutashunya and shunyânta stages of Buddhism. The island of Bali where its religion characterized as Âgama Hindu Bali is a living tradition appears to have passed through two stages. In the earlier stage of direct contact with India, it imbibed the worship of Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva as evidenced by inscriptions written in Sanskrit laced with Balinese.In the later stage from the middle of the fourteenth century, the Javanese realm of the Majapahit kingdom with its base in Surabaya in eastern Java overwhelmed Bali and heavily injected the Javanese tenor in the life of its people. None of that, however, compromised its flair for the Âgama Hindu way which includes a rigid caste system with all its four Varnas based on the doctrine of karma but without any touch of untouchability. All the four varnas in Bali accept their mundane existence as an inevitable stage in the process of their evolution to the highest Varna, based on their karman. Balinese start their day with the Savitri Mantra, the Vedic hymn to Sûrya, the source of all life, of light and energy, the devotee seeking their invocation in him. A number of Balinese verses combine Sanskrit with Balinese in the Kâvya style rather than the Vedic metric pattern. The Krishna that the Balinese adore is not so much the Gopâla and the Gopikâvallabha of the Bhâgavat Purâna but the Mahâbhârata incarnation of Vishnu who vowed to save mankind from the tyranny of evil and establish peace and harmony on earth. Bali also shares India’s catholic spirit in its tradition of Buddhist priests gracing the Brahmanic ceremonies with their presence and the Brâhmana priests reciprocating the gesture on important Buddhist congregations and ceremonies. The people of Bali combine the Vedic love of Nature whose bounties they enjoy in great measure with a religiosity which is firm enough to survive the ravages of time and flexible enough to accommodate other patterns of thought and modes of existence without surrendering their own. In the midst of occasional political and cultural upheavals in Indonesia, Bali has remained relatively calm and stable and has refused to resort to violence even in the midst of the gravest provocation by recent terrorist acts of a

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few fanatics of a sister faith. Bali’s cultural heritage rooted in belief in the Law of Karma and an ethical approach to life has no doubt a great deal to do with this high degree of restraint and commitment to values of peace, harmony and tranquility.

The Contribution of Indian Culture to Islamic Civilisation Indonesia thus is an excellent example where India’s ancient culture has held its own to a good extent notwithstanding the introduction of other major cultures anchored in the Middle East and the West. As far as the Islamic civilisation is concerned, India made significant contributions to it right from its inception due to its close interaction with West Asia and the Middle East from the age of the Indus Valley civilisation and its contemporary culture in Sumer. The Boghazkoi inscription of the fourteenth entury B.C. testifies to the continuity of those contacts. Both Yemen and Aden acted as the sea link between India and the Middle East in the millennium preceding the Christian era. Baveru (Babylon) Jâtaka belonging to the fourth century B.C. proves that the intraction of that region with India was very intense all along. Among the emissaries that Ashoka sent abroad there was one to Antiochus II of Syria and another to Ptolemy II Philadephos of Egypt. The Cairo museum has preserved an inscription of the third century B.C. in Brâhmi script found in Egypt. During the period of the Kushans Transoxiana had already converted to Buddhism and Bukhara had become its gateway both to the East and the West. Brâhmana theosophists were present in Alexandria during the Kushana period. Alberuni has affirmed that in ancient times the territories including Khorasan, Persia, Iraq and Mosul and up to Syria were Buddhist. As Islam came to dominate the Middle East from the seventh century onwards and Baghdad grew into a great centre of Islamic culture under the Abbasid Caliphs, Bokhara interacted with it as a great centre of culture with its roots in India and influenced it in important ways. Following the death of the Prophet the Mu’tâ-zilâ school wanted to test the principles of the Quran with the touchstone of reason as was the wont with Buddhism. Subsequently, Tasabbuf, the path of mysticism, followed by the Sufis was greatly influenced by the Indian practices of meditation and prayer leading to a deeply spiritual and ecstatic experience of the Ultimate reality. The Sufi concept of the unity of the individual and the cosmic reality is rooted in the Vedantic and Buddhist thought on the matter. Sufis drew their inspiration from Indian recluses and monks which found its expression in their belief in

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zuhd, asceticism. The Aizudiya form of Sufism believed in homâ osat meaning that the Supreme was present in everything and everywhere and the individual and the universal soul were none-too-different. It reminds one of Shankara’s monism. Similarly, the belief of the Suhudivâ school of Sofism that everything derived itself from the Supreme Being is reminiscent of Râmânuja’s Vishishtâdvaitavâda. Panchtantra which had been translated into Persian was again translated from it into Arabic by Ibn-i-Mukaffa. The Abbassid Caliphs got many works translated from Sanskrit into Arabic in the fields of astronomy, mathematics and medicine such as the Ashtânga of Vâgbhata, the Súshruta, the Nidâna and the Charaka Samhitâ. Charak was translated by Abdullah, the son of Ali and Sushruta by Mankh (Mânikya?) who cured Harun Al-Rashid of a severe ailment. The Caliph’s cousin, Ibrahim, was treated and cured by another Indian Vaidya called Dhana, and an Indian scholar, Kankah, is reported in Arabic literature as having written professional works on age, the secret of nativity, cycles of the year and how the year began during the Abbassid Califate. Small wonder, Âyurvedic Burqas using pure Indian cotton and natural colours are still a rage in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia. Al-Fazâri, the first astronomer in Islam, owed his knowledge of the subject to the Indian Siddhânta, called in Arabic Sindhind. It was introduced by a member of a delegation from Sindh to Caliph Al-Mansûr in 771 and was translated by Al-Fazâri. Astronomical systems to calculate distances among stars were brought to the Arabs from India according to Alberuni. Indian mathematical works such as Brahma-sphuta-siddhânta and Khandakhâdyaka were also introduced by Indian scholars to the Arab world. Indian numerals including the zero which the Arabs called ‘Hindse’ and the decimal system evolved in India without either of which many of the mysteries of the universe could not be unravelled by mathematicians were first used in Arabia by Al-Khwarizmi in preference to letters. From there they have travelled to the West. His work is lost but its Latin translation De Numero Indico has survived. Indian cosmographic concepts also travelled to the Arabs as also some Indian legends through the Talmud and the Midrash belonging to the Jews. These included the Puranic concept of the seven heavens and seven underworlds which inspired the Judaic belief in them. Several legends in the sacred books of the Middle East such as those of Harut and Marut (cf. Sunda and Upasunda in Mahâbhârata), Solomon and Asmodeus, and Abraham and Nimrod are supposedly Indian in origin.

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Indian Culture and Africa As far as the influence of Indian culture in Africa is concerned, there are scholars like Homberger who believe that the first dynastic Egyptians came from the Indus Valley. The presence of cowrie shells as money in Egypt as far back as the twenty-eighth century B.C. proves the existence of trade with India which was often the carrier of culture, too. The word Nile itself is of Sanskrit origin where the word Nîla means indigo or blue. The river was also known to Indians as Mahâchalî due to the high speed it gathered through repeated cataracts. Its source in Indian literature was christened as Amara, Eternal, located in the country known to Indians as Chandrasthâna, the Land of the Moon. India’s cowries, from the Maldiv islands were used as money in Kenya Highlands, too, as an Iron Age settlement near Naukuru testifies. The Men of the Moon are supposed to have been the greatest traders of Africa, and India as the largest seafaring nation on the other side of the Arabian Sea quite naturally developed trade and cultural links with the east coast of Africa from very early times. The Greco-Roman sources frequently refer to India’s contacts with Egypt, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Periplus of the Erithrean Sea, an anonymous Greek work of the first century A.D., describes the markets of Somalia, Kenya and Tanganyika as full of Indian goods such as wheat, rice, refined butter, sesame oil, cotton and honey from Sindh, Saurashtra, and Mâladvîpa (Maldives), a garland of islands in the Indian Ocean. Mention is also made in the Perplus of some twenty vessels at the port of Avalites in Somalia navigated by Indian captains. Later in the medieval times, the Chola kingdom in South India put India in very active trade and cultural contacts with the eastern coast of Africa from the ninth to the eleventh century which led to Indian settlements springing up there. Vasco da Gama found many of them thriving when he visited Magadishu in the 15th century. El Idrisi who visited east Africa in the 12th century came across the town of Soiouna peopled by Indians which is the same as Seyonna, the seat of King Sofala in the thirteenth century. Important Indian ports such as Cambay and Somnath in Gujrat and Calicut and Cannanore in Kerala maintained regular contact with these settlements and the ports of Magadishu, Malindi and Sofala. Portuguese accounts refer to the fondness of Zimbabweans for Indian cloth and beads for which the Africans paid with gold and ivory. The Indian culture through these contacts and settlements became a source of inspiration to the people of Zimbabwe and influenced its culture significantly as the presence of an ancient Shiva temple there

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testifies. Ahmad-bin-Majid who took command of the ship of Vasco da Gama was an Indian pilot. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were a number of Indian settlements in Africa. In South Africa there were about half a million Indians, in Natal province alone 300,000, in Southern Zimbabwe and Zambia about 10,000 and in Malawi about 3000. In East Africa the people of Indian origin numbered about 200,000 and in Mozambique about 50,000. In the later half of the nineteenth century a lot of indentured labour was transported by the British to the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and several of their cololnies in Africa. Their hard labour included conversion of rocky islands into flourishing sugarcane fields, construction of railways such as the KenyaUganda line, tea and coffee plantations and later, establishment of small and large scale industrial enterprises. Indians in these lands have been pioneers in setting up oil and sugar mills. All along they have preserved the basic traits of their culture notwithstanding the mountain of hardships faced by them and have remained proud of their Indian heritage. In recent times they have joined hands with the natives of these lands in their struggle for independence, making many sacrifices for that cause and sometimes playing the leading role in the campaign for it. As the world is aware, Mahatma Gandhi started his Satyagraha Movement in South Africa to achieve political freedom and social equality for every member of the society irrespective of race, colour, creed or sex or place of origin. His technique based as it was on the time-honoured values of Indian culture such as Truth and Non-violence is yet another gift of that culture to mankind. The Indian community in South Africa as in other parts of the world remains proud of its ancient inheritance and is making significant contributions to the well-being of the society, constantly reminding itself of the lofty ideals of the culture it has inherited, specially its stress on nonviolence, peace and harmony. No less a person than Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s arch liberator, has acknowledged the contribution made by its Indian community and by Mahatma Gandhi, in particular, in forging a new destiny for its people based on the priciples of justice, equality and liberty.

Conclusion In its march through the corridors of time Indian culture thus has fathered many great ideas, great traditions and great movements. These have not remained confined to India’s four corners but have stepped out and in many ways shaped the future of mankind. The languages of India, especially Sanskrit,

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have been its vehicle through the centuries, turning out great treatises like the Vedas, great epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, masterpieces of diverse religious faiths and systems of philosophy and a large number of other literary works covering fields such as dance, drama, poetry, music and other fine arts. These works have formed an important part in the story of man’s journey from his primitive beginnings to the scaling of great heights of civilisation.10 So have been India’s advances in science including medical science, and mathematics, the numerals from zero to nine and the decimal system, which have by now travelled to all parts of the world. India’s achievements in the realm of fine and performing arts have crossed her frontiers too and have won universal accolades wherever they have gone. They have been a very peaceful conduit of its values, its traditions and its folklore in all directions and have become part of the heritage of mankind. That has happened not because of any martial expeditions or expansionist and hegemonic urges on its part but because some of its bravest men with accomplishments in these various fields have defied as much the great heights of the Himalayas as the turbulence of the high seas in reaching other lands and creating a niche for Indian culture there in its outward peaceful march. It is thus that one finds very significant and impressive manifestations of Indian culture from very ancient times in Afghanistan, in Central and Western Asia, in Greece and Rome across the Hindukush and the Pamirs; in Sri Lanka and Myanmar; in Indo-China and countries of South East Asia. Its peaceful journey through Nepal, Bhutan and parts of the Himalayas to Tibet and Mongolia and by both the land and sea routes right up to China, Korea and Japan is a manifest of its dedication to values of universal brotherhood, love and compassion. In Medieval times, too, the interaction of Indian culture especially with Central Asia and the Mid-West was intense and in the modern era new waves of Indian migration to Mauritius and Sechelles in the Indian Ocean, to South Africa and the Carribeans, to Europe and North America and even to parts of Latin America have carried its symbols and substance with them, creating new scope for its dissemination. It is the battle for the hearts and for the things of the spirit rather than for the world of matter that has won the day for India’s culture both within the nation and outside and has allowed it to leave an imprint on the sands of time. The world of matter though has not been ignored and the pursuit of Kâma and Artha, of worldly joys and worldly wealth is set as an important objective of life in Indian culture but it has to be tempered with Dharma, righteousness and a desire for Moksha, salvation, keeping their transience constantly in mind. The

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inherent virility and dynamism of Indian culture anchors itself in ways that are entirely peaceful and in the thought that means are as important as ends. Its incarnations have been men of peace like the Mahatma of our age, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who were ready to lay down their lives in defence of the values of truth and nonviolence. The chain of saints and sages, philosophers and teachers, artists and scholars, starting with Guru Nanak and Swami Vivekanada in recent times and extending to Ravi Shankar, the great Indian maestro, are only emulating their ancient precursors, in making the rest of the world familiar with India’s tradition, culture and history. Together with Indian communities abroad, they are creating ever new structures that embody her message by way of cultural monuments, institutions and centres across the globe even today. Its never ending journey thus goes on and on along its peaceful, non-conflictual course. Nothing represents the core of Indian culture and the spirit of its being better than what Swami Vivekanada said in his final address at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in September 1893. Said the young Swami from the East: If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possession of any church in the world and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that on the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of his resistance: ‘Help and not Fight, Assimilation and not Destruction, Harmony and Peace and not Dissension’.

This is the quintessence of Indian culture.Swami Vivekananda ended his discourse with a Sanskrit verse which explains this attitude: Ruchînâm vaichitryât rijukutila nânâpathijushâm Nrinâméko gamyastvamasi payasâmarnava iva.

Of people with diverse choices engaged in various paths, straight winding, Thou art the one and only destination like the Ocean of all streams.

or

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That catholic inheritance constantly turns the wheels of Indian culture forward and forward peacefully and without conflict.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

India: A History, John Keay, Harper Perennial, New Delhi, 2004, p.12 Ibid. Sarva bhûteshu yenaikam bhâvamavyamîkshate Avibhaktam vibhakteshu tajjshânam viddhi Sâtvikam (B.G.XVIII.20) Mana eva manushyânâm kâranam bandha-mokshayoh. Asato mâ sadgamya, tamaso mâ jyotirgamya, mrityormâmritam gamyeti. The Mahavamsa (Tr. Wilhelm Geiger), Information Department Colombo, 1956. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art and Architecture of India, Ceylon. India’s Contribution to World Thought and Culture, edited by Lokesh Chandra, Vivekanada Commemoration Volume, Madras, 1970. The Volume contains very erudite articles by eminent scholars on the subject. Inter alia, these include those by Shri Raghuvira, Lokesh Chandra, Swami Ranganatha, C. Sivaramamurti, D.C.Sarkar,.S.P. Gupta, N.C.Ghosh, K.R.Srinivasan, Upendra Thakur, Usha R.Bhise, C.B.Pandey, M.N.Deshpande, R. Chatterji, D. Devahuti, Brijendra Nath Sharma, N.C.Banerjee, C.B.Pandey,. N.Deshpande, J.S.Nigam, B.R.Chatterji, N.N. Bhattacharya, W.H.Siddiqui, S.S.Kohli, Amba Prasad, B.M.Pande, A.C.Banerjee, V.C.Srivastava, B.N.Sharma, N.R. Ghosh, P.Banerjee, Chhaya Bhattacharya, and renowned scholars from abroad such as Anil de Silva, B.A.Litvinsky, Hajime Nakamura, Edward Kidder, Hugo Munsterberg, Prince Dhaninivat, Diren.k.Dohanian and others which have all been consulted. Idam bhagavatah purushottamasya Vishnoranâdinidhanasyâshesha bhuvanam—Duong- mong inscription no. 11 Empires of the World (A Language History of the World), Harper Perennial London, 2005, Charming Like a Creeper: The Cultured Career of Sanskrit, Ch.V, pp 174-226.

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Dharma for Mutual Respect Transcending Mere Tolerance M. Rama Jois

The twentieth century has come to a close and we are in the twenty first century. The achievements of man in science during the last two centuries are astounding. Rapid conveyance by road, water and air and the quick communication by means of the telephone – in particular by mobile phone, the radio and the television, which were not even dreamt of in the beginning of the 20th century have become a reality. Innumerable articles for luxurious living and securing physical enjoyment and comfort are designed, produced and manufactured. At the same time, arms and ammunition primarily intended for self-defence of nations are being manufactured and stored in such large quantities that they are sufficient to destroy not merely the weak nations but the entire world. Such weapons are being used for terrorist activities, killing of fellow human beings, hijacking of planes etc., causing misery to many. Everyday the television and newspapers are full of reports of such activities. Not a day passes without reports of such inhuman, barbarous and heinous crimes. Programmes shown in the guise of entertainment on the television are full of crimes committed with extreme violence. The abuse of sex for commercial advertisement and for exhibiting vulgar and obscene matters as well as sexual assault on women have all reached such proportions, as would totally destroy the moral and physical fabric of children and the youth. Many persons have become demons in human form. Morality has reached its lowest ebb. As a result, corruption, misappropriation and cheating are dominating social and political life. Rich and powerful religions and nations are trying to completely subjugate and dominate other religions and weak nations mainly on account of religious animosity. These evils are afflicting humanity like blood cancer.

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Need-based civilisation, which alone can ensure sparing use of natural resources, with minimum impact on environment and ecology, has been replaced by greed-based civilisation resulting in unlimited wants and consumerism, without in the least realising any duty towards posterity, of leaving the earth in the condition that we had inherited. Ecologists have estimated that half the species of the fauna and the flora which became extinct over the last 2000 years did so after 1900. Religious intolerance has caused and is continuing to cause immense injury to harmonious living of different nations or states and merciless killing of human beings solely on account of their religious beliefs. The history of man has shown that religious fanaticism has resulted in mutual hatred and enmity giving rise to innumerable wars, violence and large scale killing of fellow human beings and destruction of civilisations causing untold human suffering. Bharat is the worst sufferer in this behalf. While Jews were presented only on account of religious intolerance outside their motherland, Hindus were persecuted in their own motherland, ultimately resulting in the worst tragedy of the 20th century in the form of partition of Bharat and large scale communal killings estimated to be much more than the killings in the second world war. The major portion of the national income of several nations is spent on defence instead of welfare measures. In this background, the question which naturally arises in the minds of all those who have concern for humanity and future generations is – what is the solution?

Dharma – the Panacea:On an indepth study of the aspects of Dharma [not religion] it is crystal clear that concept of Dharma alone can bring about civilisational harmony and it is the panacea for all human problems. In order to understand and appreciate this, it is necessary to know the meaning of the Samskrit word Dharma as distinct from the meaning of the word ‘Religion’. Dharma is the greatest and the most valuable contribution to humanity by Bharata Varsha, our beloved Motherland. On account of its antiquity, utility and universality the very mention of that word rouses the conscience of an individual in this land and prevents him from hating any one on the basis of religion. History proves this beyond doubt. People belonging to different religions who came to this country to live were treated with love and affection considering them also as our brethren with feeling of fraternity. This is because of Dharma abiding nature. Parsees are the best example.

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Many of the problems which humanity is facing is because of religious animosity of proselytizing religions which is unknown to Dharma. Therefore, Dharma alone is the panacea for problems arising out of religious animosity and hatred. There is no alternative to Dharma. This is the eternal truth. This can be realised, if we understand the real meaning of Dharma. Dharma is a Samskrit expression of the widest import. There is no corresponding word in any other language. It would also be futile to attempt to give any definition of the word. It can only be explained. It has a wide variety of meanings. A few of them would enable us to understand the range of that expression. For instance, the word Dharma is used to mean Justice (Nyaya), what is right in a given circumstance, moral values of life, pious obligations of individuals, righteous conduct in every sphere of activity, being helpful to other living beings, giving charity to individuals in need of it or to a public cause or alms to the needy, natural qualities or characteristics or properties of living beings and things, duty and law as also constitutional law. More than all the mandate of Dharma is respect for all religions and the duty to protect the rights of others. In other words, Dharma is duty based and selfless. Mahabharata the great epic which is acclaimed as the Manava Kartavya Sastra (code of duties of human beings) contains a discussion of this topic. On being asked by Yudhishthira to explain the meaning and scope of Dharma, Bhishma who had mastered the knowledge of Dharma replied thus: rkn‘’kks·;euqiz’uks;=/keZ%lqnqyZHk%A nq’dj%izfrla[;kraqrRdsuk=O;oL;frAA izHkokFkkZ;Hkwrkuka/keZizopuaÑre~A ;%L;kRizHkola;qDr%l/keZbfrfu’p;%AA It is most difficult to define Dharma. Dharma has been explained to be that which helps the upliftment of living beings. Therefore, that which ensures the welfare of living beings is surely Dharma. The learned rishis have declared that which sustains is Dharma. Shanthi Parva - 109-9-11 Karna Parva- Ch.. 69 Verse 58 eulogises Dharma in the following words: /kkj.kkn~/keZbR;kgq/kZeksZ/kkj;rsiztk%A ;r~L;kn~/kkj.kla;qDral/keZbfrfuÜp;%AA

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Dharma sustains the society Dharma maintains the social order Dharma ensures well being and progress of Humanity Dharma is surely that which fulfils these objectives These verses were quoted with approval by the Supreme Court of India in its judgment in A.S. Narayana Dixitalu Vs. State of A.P., [1996 (9) SCC 548 at paragraphs 59 to 79]. Mahabharata and Manu Smriti have clearly stated what are the rules of Dharma. vØks/k%lR;opualafoHkkx%{kekrFkkA iztu%Los’kqnkjs’kq’kkSpenzksg,opAA vktZoaHk‘R;Hkj.kauoSrslkoZof.kZdk%A Truthfulness, to be free from anger, sharing wealth with others, (samvibhaga) forgiveness, procreation of children from one’s wife alone, purity, absence of enmity, straightforwardness and maintaining persons dependent on oneself are the nine rules of the Dharma of persons belonging to all the varnas. (Yaj. 1-122 is similar). Manu Smriti is more concise and brought Dharma under five heads. vfgalklR;eLrs;a’kkkSpfefUnz;fuxzg%A ,ralkekflda/ke±pkrqoZ.;sZ·czohUeuq%AA Ahimsa(non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (not acquiring illegitimate wealth), Shoucham (purity), and Indriyanigraha (control of senses) are, in brief, the common Dharma for all the varnas. [Manu X-163]. A reading of each one of the above rules at once makes an individual realise what he should do and what he should not do. The observance of the above rules alone secures real happiness and harmony in life. The first rule is not to indulge in violence against other living beings. The second rule requires every one to be truthful in day to day life. The third rule is of the utmost importance. It is the desire to secure wealth by illegitimate methods which makes a man corrupt, a cheat, a smuggler, a black marketeer, an exploiter, and makes even men in noble professions exploit the miseries

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of others to make more and more money in utter .disregard to professional ethics. Therefore, it is very essential to ingrain in the heart and mind of every individual the desire not to indulge in ‘steya’ i.e., acquiring wealth by illegitimate and immoral methods. The fourth one commands every individual to maintain purity of thought, word and deed (Trikarana shuddhi, i.e., Kaya, Vacha, Manasa), which is also called Antaranga Shuddhi (internal/ mental purity) and Bahiranga Shuddhi (external purity or purity in action). This rule means absolute honesty in that there should be harmony in thought, word and deed of an individual. One should not think something in the mind, speak something else, and do entirely another thing. The fifth perhaps is very important i.e., control of senses. It is lack of control over the senses which results in individuals indulging in all types of illegal and immoral actions, being instigated by one or more of the six inherent enemies (Arishadvargas). This lands himself as well as others in misery and loss of happiness. The mere knowledge of the rules of Dharma, however does not make a man Dharmishta i.e., a man acting always in conformity with Dharma. Therefore, Dharma has to be ingrained in the mind of every individual from childhood. Just as triple antigen for giving immunity to the body against dreaded disease has to be administered to a young child, for giving immunity to the mind against sinful thoughts Dharma- the sextuple antigen has to be administered to the mind of an individual as part of education. It is significant to point out that there is no reference to God or any name given to God by religions. Thus, Dharma is righteous code of conduct applicable to all human beings and is common to all notwithstanding their separate religions. On consideration of all this, the well known western philosopher Arnold Toyanbee in his foreword to the book World Thinkers on RamakrishnaVivekananda has stated thus:“Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of the World’s history, but it is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self – destruction of the human race At this supremely dangerous moment in human history the only way of salvation for mankind is an Indian way.” The Indian way to which Arnold Toyanbee refers is obviously Dharma. Mahanarayana Upanishad declares that Dharma is the greatest as it has the capacity to destroy sinful thoughts. The declaration reads:-

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/keksZfo’o’;txr%izfr’BkA yksds/kfeZ’BaiztkmiliZfUrA /kesZ.kikieiuqnfrA /kesZlo±izfrf’Bre~A rLek)e±ijeaonfUrA Dharma constitutes the foundation of all affairs in the World. People respect those who adhere to Dharma. Dharma destroys sinful thoughts. Everything in this world is founded on Dharma. Dharma therefore, is considered supreme. [Section 79-7] Thus, Dharma guides and inspires individuals to respect and protect each other by conforming to Dharma. This aspect is highlighted by Bhishma in Shanti Parva of Mahabharata. uSojkT;aujktk·lhén.Mksupnkf.Md%A /kesZ.kSoiztk%lokZj{kfUrLeijLije~AA There was neither kingdom nor the king, neither punishment nor the people to punish the guilty. People were acting according to Dharma and thereby protecting one another. [Mahabharat, Shanti Parv, 59-14]. Let Dharma be the controlling factor for all human actions:The propounders of Dharma did appreciate that the fulfilment of desires of human beings was essential but were of the opinion that unless the desires were regulated by law, they would bring about undesirable results. Therefore, all the propounders of Dharma were unanimous that for the existence of an orderly society and the peace and happiness of all, the desires (Kama) for material enjoyment, and pleasures (Artha) should always conform to Dharma (Code of Right Conduct) and be never inconsistent with it.

rLekPNkL=aizek.karsdk;kZdk;ZO;ofLFkrkSA KkRok’kkL=fo/kkuksDradeZdrqZfegkgZflAA Let the shastras be your authority in deciding what you should do and what you should desist from doing. [Gita,16-24] Having understood what is ordained by the Shastras, you should act accordingly.

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Doctrine of Trivarga: /kekZFkkZoqP;rsJs;%dkekFkkSZ/keZ,opA vFkZ,osgokJs;fL=oxZbfrrqfLFkfr%AA ifjR;tsnFkZdkekS;kSL;kn/keZoftZrkSA To achieve welfare and happiness some declare Dharma and Artha are good. Others declare that Artha and Kama are better. Still others declare that Dharma is the best. There are also persons who declare Artha alone secures happiness. But the correct view is that the aggregate of Dharma, Artha and Kama (Trivarga) secures welfare and happiness. However, the desire (Kama) and material wealth (Artha) must be rejected if contrary to Dharma. [Manu, II 224 & IV 176] In this single verse Manu Smriti has considered the merits of pure materialism (Artha and Kama) and of mere spiritualism (Dharma without Artha) and concluded that it is the combination of Dharma, Artha and Kama which secures welfare and happiness with an overriding principle that desire (kama) and material wealth (artha) should be rejected if they are inconsistent with Dharma and calls this doctrine TRIVARGA. There can be no better rule or philosophy than Trivarga, for the welfare of the individual and society. It strikes a harmonious balance between the interests of the individual and society. The doctrine meant that Dharma must control the desire (kama) as well as the means of acquisition of wealth and deriving pleasure (Artha). Dharma therefore prescribed the rules of right conduct, observance of which was considered necessary for the welfare of the individual and society. In laying down Dharma, as seen earlier, its propounders took an integrated view of life. Consequently, rules of right conduct covering almost every sphere of human activity such as religion, rules regulating personal conduct of an individual, as a student, as a teacher, as a house-holder, as a husband, as a wife, as a son, as a hermit, as an ascetic, including rules regulating taking of food and the like were prescribed. Dharma therefore laid down a code of conduct covering every aspect of human behaviour, the observance of which was considered a must for the peace and happiness of individuals and society. The principles set out above are fundamental and have manifested themselves through various provisions meant to sustain the life of the individual

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and society. It is for this reason, all the works on Dharma declare with one voice that Dharma is that which sustains the world. Every act or conduct which was in defiance of rules of Dharma was called Adharma and was declared to be injurious to society and the individual. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer on Trivarga: “The glorious epics, the Manusmriti, Kautilya’s Artha Shastra and other classics governed the ruler and the ruled. Indeed, the rules of Dharma govern every sphere of activity, every profession, every avocation. The doctrine of Trivarga is an enduring system of values holding good in the social, political, domestic and international planes of human business.”

Dharma – not Religion: It is paradoxical that the word Dharma is being translated as religion and vice-versa. In fact in the Hindi version of the Constitution of India, the word religion is translated into Dharma. It is totally wrong. The word religion should have been translated as Mata or Sampradaya or Pantha. In view of the translation of the word religion as Dharma many translate the word Secularism as Dharma Nirapekshata. Dharma means Ahimsa (nonviolence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (not acquiring illegitimate wealth), Shoucham (cleanliness of mind and body i.e., purity of thought, word and deed) and Indriyanigraha (control of senses). If secularism is translated as meaning Dharma Nirapekshata, it means a state where all the above rules of Dharma have no place. Certainly our Constitution is not intended to establish a State of Adharma, If Dharma Nirapekshata is again translated into English it becomes ‘bereft of Dharma’ or a lawless State i.e., State without Morals. Further the famous saying “Yato Dharmastato jayah” which is incorporated in the emblem of the Supreme Court of India which means that where there is Dharma, there is victory, would become “Yato religion tatho jayah” which means the victory is always to religion and not to Dharma. Such are the disastrous consequences of erroneous translation of Dharma as Religion. This aspect is pointed out by Dr. L.M. Singhvi in the following words. “We have been accustomed to use, though erroneously, the expression “Dharma Nirapekshata’, so far as the State and its institutions are concerned, as an equivalent of secularism in contemporary Indian constitutional vocabulary and political parlance. A more accurate equivalent Hindi translation of “secularism” would be “Sampradaya-Nirapekshata” because Dharma in Indian tradition also stands for Law and Morality and

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no State can be devoid of Law and Morality.” [Freedom on Trial, P-88]. By misinterpreting Dharma as religion it is being said that it is a source of conflict and injurious to feeling of fraternity among the citizens. This is wholly erroneous.

Dharma is Code of Good Conduct There is a vast difference between Dharma and Religion, as explained in the preceding paragraphs. All the rules of righteous conduct in every sphere of human activity evolved from times immemorial in this country falls within the meaning of the word Dharma. Religion means mode of worship of God by all believers calling him by different names. There are many religions. There are instances of religious fanaticism creating conflict. Religion might divide but Dharma unites. It applies to all human beings. It sustains life. It does not create conflict. It is the same Dharma which in the course of history came to be called ‘Hinduism’ after the words ‘Hindu’ and Hindustan were coined by the foreign invaders, to the designate people and the land. Thus, Hinduism is a synonym of Dharma. In this regard the view expressed by Dr. Radhakrishnan is enlightening. He said : “Hinduism is more a way of life than a form of thought. While it gives absolute liberty in the world of thought it enjoins a strict code of practice. The theist and the atheist, the sceptic and the agnostic may all be Hindus if they accept the Hindu system of culture and life. Hinduism insists not on religious conformity but on a spiritual and ethical outlook in life. The performer of the good -and not the believer in this or that view -can never get into an evil state. In a very real sense practice precedes theory. Only by doing the will does one know the doctrine.Whatever our theological beliefs and metaphysical opinions may be, we are all agreed that we should be kind and honest, grateful to our benefactors and sympathetic to the unfortunate. Hinduism insists on a moral life and draws into fellowship all who feel themselves bound to the claims which the moral law makes upon them. Hinduism is not a sect but a fellowship of all who accept the law of right and earnestly seek for the truth. Dharma is right action, Dharma or virtue is conformity with the truth of things; adharma or vice is opposition to it.” Many values of life were evolved on the basis of fundamental principles. The most cherished values were summed up by Sarvajna Narayana thus : ekr‘oRijnkjs’kqijnzO;s’kqyks’Vor~A vkReoRloZHkwrs’kq;%i’;frlif.Mr%AA

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One who treats every woman (other than his wife) as equal to his own mother, treats (rejects) another’s wealth as if it were a clod of earth, treats every living being as his own self is really a learned/wise person This advice if followed by an individual, does not land him in misery or loss of mental happiness. The rules of Dharma were meant to regulate individual conduct in such a way as to restrict the rights, liberty, interest and desires of an individual as regards all matters to the extent necessary in the interest of other individuals, i.e., society, at the same time making it obligatory on the part of the society to safeguard and protect the individual in all respects through its social and political institutions. Shortly put, Dharma regulates the mutual obligations of individuals and society. Therefore, it was stressed that the protection of Dharma was in the interest of both the individual and the society.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam [World is one Family]: The concept of Dharma has also given rise to the ideal that the World is one family. v;afut%ijksosfrx.kuky?kqpsrlke~A mnkjpfjrkukarqolq/kSodqVqEcde~AA Those who think “He is mine”, “He is not”, are petty minded. Those who are large hearted regard the world as one family. This very concept is so noble and inspiring. It arises out of the noble concept “Bhoomata” as incorporated in “Prithvi Sukta” [prayers in praise of Earth] of Atharvana Veda wherein it is declared Mata prithvi putroham prithivyah “Earth is the mother. We are all her children”.

What a noble concept evolved hundreds of centuries ago! When all human beings realise they are children of mother earth, they would be bound by the feeling of fraternity and all separate feelings based on religion, religious fundamentalism, religious enmity and the desire to proselytize and subjugate other religions/nations following other religions which is the root cause for all human conflicts and tragedies, would vanish just as darkness disappears the moment light comes in.

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Today also in the western world there is talk of one World, but there is a world of difference between our concept and the modern/western concept. Bharateeya concept is that ‘World is one family’ which gives rise to the feeling of fraternity and mutual help as against the western concept according to which ‘World is one market’ which is prompted by the selfish desire for exploitation. Therefore, as Arnold Toyanbee has said there is no alternative than to fall back on Dharma to usher in peace and happiness in the entire humanity. In order to highlight the contribution of Dharma, it would be appropriate to quote the verses in Samskrit language as part of Raja Dharma [constitutional law of ancient India] which has been in force from times immemorial. They are: ;FkklokZf.kHkwrkfu/kjk/kkj;rslee~A rFkklokZf.kHkwrkfufcHkzr%ikfFkZoaozre~AA Just as the mother earth gives equal support to all the living beings, a king [State] should give support to all without any discrimination. (Manu Smriti IX-31) Thus, Dharma is secularism par excellence. Just as it is said in law that Rule of Law and arbitrariness are sworn enemies, Dharma and religious fanaticism or fundamentalism are sworn enemies as darkness and light cannot co-exist, Dharma and religious fundamentalism cannot co-exist. There are also other prayers evolved as part of Dharma and incorporated in the Upanishads and other Samskrit literature. Some of them are: Narada Smriti vide Dharmokosha P-870 laid down thus: ikk’.MuSxeJs.khiwxozkrx.kkfn’kqA laj{ksRle;ajktknqxsZtuinsrFkkAA The king [State] should afford protection to compacts of associations of believers of Veda (Naigamas) as also to disbelievers in Veda (Pashandis) and to all other groups. It is significant to point out that in Bharat where the Vedas were regarded as supreme, the disbelievers in Vedas were required to be given equal protection. Apart from the specific provision of the Raja Dharma, it has been the fundamental practice to pray individually as well as collectively for the well being of all. This is evident from the following popular samskrit verse:

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losZ·filqf[ku%lUrqlosZlUrqfujke;k%A losZHknzkf.ki’;UrqekdÜpÌq%[kHkkXHkosr~AA Let all be happy, let all be free from disease, let all see auspicious things and let nobody suffer from grief. [Vedic Prayer] The practical aspect of this is incorporated in a verse in Hitopadesha [Words of Wisdom] Sarvajna Narayana highlighting the importance of rendering service to others, with illustration in the following verse: ijksidkjk;QyfUro‘{kk% ijksidkjk;ogfUru|% ijksidkjk;nqgfUrxko% ijksidkjkFkZfene~’kjhje~AA The trees bear fruits to serve others. The rivers flow to serve others.Cows give milk to serve others. This human body is meant to serve others. This value inspires every individual to serve society through every profession or avocation. It impresses that, as rivers serve others, and animals and plants serve others, and are not selfish, man being the highest form of life should not lag behind in serving others; not merely human beings, but all living beings. In the same celebrated work, the difference between man and animals has been pointed out which should be uppermost in the mind of every human being. vkgkjfunzkHk;eSFkquapA lkekU;esrr~i’kqfHkuZjk.kke~A /keksZfgrs’kkef/kdksfo’ks’kks /kesZ.kghuk%i’kqfHkLlekuk%AA Consumption of food, sleep, fear, and enjoyment of sex are common to man and animals. But, Dharma alone is a special attribute of man. Bereft of Dharma, man is equal to animals. Therefore, every one should conform to Dharma [right conduct]. Otherwise he is no better than an animal. There is a prayer made in every temple everyday to the following effect yksdk%leLrklqf[kuksHkoUrqAA Let all people be happy

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As distinct from Dharma religion is a mode of worship of God giving different names and it is this which has given rise to religious intolerance, desire to proselytize etc., Denouncing this, Vivekananda made the following statement “Worship God in any name destination is same” in his epoch making speech at “Parliament of Religions” at Chicago on 11th September 1893. vkdk’kkRifrrarks;a;FkkxPNfrlkxje~A loZnsoueLdkj%ds’koaizfrxPNfrAA Just as the rain water comning down to the earth from the sky reaches the same ocean, obeisance to God by any name reaches the same destination God by whatever name He is called. This attitude is far superior to religious tolerance. When we say that we should have tolerance towards other religion it implies that the other religion is a nuisance but still I tolerate it. But Bharateeya attitude as incorporated in the verses quoted supra mandates equal respect for and protection of all religions. In other words, remaining faithful to one’s own religion, one should respect others belonging to other religions who are at liberty to remain faithful to their religion. This attitude is the basis of Dharma. For a follower of Dharma, a temple, a mosque or church are all equally sacred. All founders of religions are worthy of being ‘worshipped’. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa practised and showed this all inclusive aspect of Dharma to the world. To put it in a nut-shell, ‘Dharma unites – religion divides’. India or Bharat is personification of Dharma. If Dharma were to die on account of religious fanaticism or by disobedience to code of righteous conduct, the consequence will be disastrous for the entire humanity. This idea is inherent in the statement of Arnold Toyanbee. This thought is forcefully stated by Swamy Vivekananda thus:“Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct,all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet- souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct, in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force and competition as its ceremonies, and the human soul as its sacrifice.”

The message is loud and clear. If Dharma which is the soul of India perishes, then India which is the personification of Dharma dies and those would be the serious consequences.

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This warning was administered in Manu Smriti in its own inimitable language thus:/keZ,ogrksgfUr/keksZj{kfrjf{kr%A rLek)eksZugUrO;ksekuks/keksZgrks·o/khr~AA Dharma protects those who protect it. Those who destroy Dharma get destroyed. Therefore, Dharma should not be destroyed so that we may not be destroyed as a consequence thereof. [Manu VIII-15]. It is this dangerous trend that we are witnessing today because we have been slowly and gradually trying to bring about destruction of Dharma. Foreseeing such a situation and the obligation of Bharat to usher in peace and happiness in the entire world putting an end to mutual animosity between different religious faiths and nations, the following immortal ideal was evolved in this land from times immemorial. Krinvanto vishwamaryam “We shall make the World humane”.

Again on this aspect, Swamy Vivekananda, probably the only noncontroversial and dynamic dharmic leader of the 20th century said thus: “The national ideals of India are renunciation and service. Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself. Aye, a glorious destiny, my brethren, as far back as the days of the Upanishads we have thrown the challenge to the world - ‘Na dhanena na prajaya tyagenaiv amritatwamanshyuh’ - not by wealth, not by progeny, but by renunciation alone immortality is reached’. Race after race has taken the challenge up, and tried their utmost to solve the world-riddle on the plane of desires. They have all failed in the past –the old ones have become extinct under the weight of wickedness and misery, which lust for power and gold brings in its train, and the new ones are tottering to their fall. The question has yet to be decided whether peace will survive or war; whether patience will survive or non-forbearance; whether goodness will survive or wickedness; whether muscle will survive or brain; whether worldliness will survive or spirituality.

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This is the theme of Indian life-work, the burden of her eternal song, the backbone of her existence, the foundation of her being, the raison d’etre of her very existence–the spiritualisation of human race. In this her life course she has never deviated whether the Tartar ruled or the Turk, whether the Moghuls ruled or the English”. (India and Her Problems -pp.10, 12-13) We have to resurrect this ideal. It is now appropriate to refer to the ‘Global Ethic’ evolved and signed by as many as 160 persons belonging to various World Religions and also persons from Bharat who represented Dharma at Parliament of Religions held from 28th August to 5th September 1993 at Chicago coinciding with the centenary of Swami Vivekananda’s epoch making Chicago address. Relevant excerpts from it read:“ The World is in agony. The agony is so pervasive and urgent that we are compelled to name its manifestations so that the depth of this pain may be made clear.

Peace eludes us, the planet is being destroyed, neighbours live in fear, women and men are estranged from each other, children die ! This is abhorrent !

We Declare: We must treat others as we wish others to treat us. We consider humankind our family. We must strive to be kind and generous. We must not live for ourselves alone, but should also serve others. We must not commit any kind of sexual immorality. We commit ourselves to a culture of non-violence, We must strive for a just social and economic order, in which everyone has an equal chance to reach full potential as a human being. We must speak and act truthfully and with compassion, dealing fairly with all, and avoiding prejudice and hatred. We must not steal. We must move beyond the dominance of greed for power, prestige, money and consumption to make a just and peaceful world. We Invite All People Whether Religious or not To do the same.”

A comparison of the values declared as part of the Global Ethic and the corresponding rules of Dharma at once indicates that they are one and the same.

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They are : 1. We must treat others as we wish others to treat us

: Atmavat sarvabhutanam

2. We consider humankind our family 3. We should serve others shareeram 4. (a) We must commit to a culture of non violence (b) We must speak and act truthfully – we must not steal (c) We must move beyond the dominance of greed for power, money, prestige, consumption (d) We must not commit any sexual immorality Dharma Varjitau

: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam : Paropakarartham idam Ahimsasatyam asteyam Shoucham indriyanigraha

Etam samasikam dharmam

Parityajedartha Kamau Yau Syad

All these were declared as part of Dharma thousands of years ago in Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana and Mahabharata and other classic Samskrit literature. We have something more viz., in the form of a directive to a student at the culmination of his higher education, to treat his mother as God, treat his father and teacher as God, not to indulge in acts which are forbidden (Vide Taittireeya Samhita) and also to treat every woman other than his wife as equal to mother”. The values of life found or laid down in any religious texts could supplement those values. We should therefore compile all the moral values based on Dharma and classify them into different levels. The United Nations should adopt them as the GLOBAL ETHIC and prescribe it for study at appropriate levels from the primary to university courses in the education system of all nations and make it part of the Human Resources Development Programme and Human Rights Education. The Global Ethic so evolved in 1993 by Parliament of Religions at Chicago incorporates in substance the ideals of Dharma. Thus, Dharma is truly the Global Ethic and vice-versa, the only panacea for all wordly problems and

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for securing everlasting peace and harmony amongst us. This should constitute the Blue Print for education during the 21st century for all the nations of the world in order to produce better individuals, lead a simple and better family life, secure a better national life, better environment ensuring happiness to humanity as also to all living beings. This is the long range and the only solution for all the problems of the world. There is a prayer in Taittireeya Upanishad which is fit to be adopted as Universal Prayer for establishing everlasting peace and harmony. It reads:lgukoorqAlgukSHkquDrqAlgoh;±djokogSA rstfLouko/khreLrqAekfof}’kkogSAÅ¡’kkafr%]’kkafr%]’kkafr%A May He (God) protect us together Let us share the food together May He nourish us together May we work conjointly with great energy May our study be vigorous and effective May we not hate each other Let there be peace, peace and peace.

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7

Jihad and Crusades The Concepts, Meanings and Adherence Afsir Karim

Introduction To understand the genesis and the relevance of Jihad and the meaning of Crusades one has to go back to Jewish, Christian and Islamic history and also their scriptures, holy books and ancient traditions. We may look at some of the common Biblical and Quranic beliefs in this context. We get a clear idea from Christian and Jewish scriptures as well as the Quran that the common belief of all three is that God instructed Abraham to go to Canaan, the Promised Land: God said to Abraham: “Go from your land ... to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

God made a covenant with Abraham, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21) “And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary residence, all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession and I will be a God to them.” (Genesis 17:8) “For the land which you come, to possess it-it is not like the Land of Egypt that you left...the eyes of the Lord, your God, are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the year’s end.”(Deut. 11:10-12)

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According to Jewish belief God gave Abraham the Land of Israel as a place where his descendants will reside in perpetuity as a nation and fulfil their mission: “It will be that if you hearken to My commandments that I command you today...then I shall provide rain for your land in its proper time...that you may gather your grain, your wine and your oil...and you will eat and be satisfied. Beware for yourselves, lest your heart be seduced and you go astray...the ground will not yield its produce and you will be swiftly banished from the goodly land that God gives you.” (Deut. 11: 13-17)1

Quran says “So he [Pharaoh] resolved to remove them from the face of the earth. But we drowned him with all who were with him. Then we said thereafter to the children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the land [the Land of promise]: but when the second of the warning came to pass, we gathered you [the Israelites] in a mingled crowd [in the Land of Israel].” [Qur’an, Bani Israil: (Journey by night), chapter 17:103-104] “And [remember] when Moses said to his people: O my people, call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when He produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the people. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.” (Quran, Sura 5: The Table-20-21.)

It should be noted that both the Bible and the Quran accept the concept of the promised land and it is held sacred by these three great religions of the world. The dispute over the control of the holy lands has, however, been the main cause for the launching of Jihad and Crusades in the past, it still remains one of the most contentious of issues between the crusaders and the jihadis of the present era.

Abraham’s Legacy All the three religions, the Jewish people, the Christians and the Muslims, have branched off from the same root. The story of Abraham and his sons is similar in all the scriptures with certain basic variations. According to the Bible, Abraham’s wife Sarah who was old and barren ardently desired that Abraham should have an offspring. She eventually persuades Abraham to take a second wife. Abraham takes Hagar as his second wife, and from that union a child by the name of Ishmael is born.

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It was ordained that Ishmael would not carry on Abraham’s mission but would be founder of a new lineage (The Book of Genesis, Chapter 16.) According to all natural laws Abraham and Sarah should have died childless in their old age and the Jewish nation never should have come into being; but God wills otherwise and tells Abraham: “Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an eternal covenant to his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael ... I have blessed him and I will make him fruitful and will increase him exceedingly. He will become the father of twelve princes and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac who Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.” (Genesis 17:19-21)

So Isaac is the person who will carry on the mission of Abraham, the mission of the Jews. A rivalry will exist between Sarah and Hagar and their children, Isaac and Ishmael. Because of this rivalry Hagar and Ishmael will be sent away. (Jewish tradition notes that after Sarah’s death, Abraham takes Hagar back as wife and he fathers more children through her.)2 That this rivalry will carry on for generations is viewed as the metaphysical root of the modern rivalry between the descendants of Isaac (the Jews) and Ishmael (the Arabs).3

Quran says: “ Tell them about the guests of Abraham. When they entered his presence and said, “Peace!” He said, “We feel afraid of you!” They said: “Fear not! We give thee glad tidings of a son endowed with wisdom.” He said: “Do ye give me glad tidings that old age has seized me? Of what, then, is your good news?” They said: “We give thee glad tidings in truth: be not then in despair!” (Quran Sura 51 verses 51 to 55)

‘And his wife was standing (there), and she laughed: But we gave her glad tidings of Isaac, and after him, of Jacob She said: “Alas for me! shall I bear a child, seeing I am an old woman, and my husband here is an old man? That would indeed be a wonderful thing!” (Quran Sura 11 verses 71 – 73) And remember Abraham and Isma’il raised the foundations of the House (with this prayer): “Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing. “Our Lord! make of us Muslims, bowing

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to Thy (Will), and of our progeny a people Muslim, bowing to Thy (will); and show us our place for the celebration of (due) rites; and turn unto us (in Mercy); for Thou art the Oft-Returning, Most Merciful. (Quran Sura 2 verses 127- 128) “O my Lord! Grant me a righteous (son)!” So we gave him the good news of a boy ready to suffer and forbear. Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: “O my son! I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: Now see what is thy view!” (The son) said: “O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me, if Allah so wills one practising Patience and Constancy!” So when they had both submitted their wills (to Allah, and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice), We called out to him “O Abraham! Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!” - thus indeed do We reward those who do right. (Quran Sura 37 verses 100-105)

It seems therefore that even though Ishmael was not chosen to carry on Abraham’s mission the nation he founded was destined to carry on his father’s great monotheistic traditions. Both according to Arab tradition, Bible and the Jewish belief, Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael. Interestingly Bible says about Ishmael: “You shall call his name Ishmael ... And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him...” (Genesis 16:11-12)

The Holy Land And Crusades Although, Jerusalem and associated sites are held sacred by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, these lands have been a bone of contention among the three great religions. The Rock in Jerusalem is usually accepted by scholars as the Foundation Stone of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem referred to in Jewish sources. Jerusalem and surrounding tracts are believed to be the place where Jesus Christ lived, preached and was crucified: Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the holiest Christian site in Jerusalem. Al -Quds (Jerusalem) and the Al Aqsa mosque are the second most revered sites of Islam. Muslim traditions hold that ‘al-Mi’raj’ or ‘Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad to heaven’ began at the Rock. Muslims faced Jerusalem during their prayers till the direction was changed towards Kaaba in Mecca by Quranic injunctions later (Quran Sura 2 verses 143-144)

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The rivalry over the possession of Jerusalem between Jewish people, Christians and Muslims is ancient and deep-seated; and this rivalry between Islam and Christianity took the form of a series of religious wars. The resentment against continued occupation of holy lands by Muslims and apprehension of further advances by them eventually led to a series of Crusades, waged by Christians, to reclaim their holy lands. Occupation of most parts of the holy land by AD1095 by Muslims greatly alarmed the European Christians, more so since the Muslim advance continued beyond the Holy Land; by AD1097 Muslim armies conquered Syria, Egypt, large parts of North Africa and Spain. Christians of Europe could not accept that their holy places should be occupied by infidels- a term they commonly used for Muslims in that era. Those who took up arms during the Crusades were promised salvation by the Church if they rescued the holy places from the infidels. The spirit of crusade permeated the entire Christendom and created long lasting hostility between Christians and Muslims that still continues to vitiate the atmosphere in many parts of the world. The Crusade or a holy war could only be waged once it was officially sanctioned by the Pope. As a rule Crusades against enemies of Christendom could only be ordered by the Pope to reclaim the Holy Lands (Jerusalem and associated areas). Much later campaigns against heretics, pagans and Muslims in Europe were also termed as Crusades.4 In the 19th-century during the colonial era Crusaders were seen as noble warriors motivated by lofty religious ideals. In common usage the term crusade is still associated with noble and praiseworthy causes and the term crusader is used to describe a selfless and courageous individual.5 In the past Crusades had not been a matter of great interest to Muslim scholars. However, many Muslim scholars now believe that Crusades were the first attempt of the West to colonize the world. The contemporary Muslim scholars use the term mostly in relation to the Palestinian problem and the American armed intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Many Muslim thinkers, who are inspired by the likes of Sayyid Qutb or Osama bin Laden, believe that western intervention in the Middle East is a ChristianJewish plot to exploit, pollute and destroy Islamic lands and religious values. Osama bin Laden advocates global jihad against Jews and Crusaders on a large scale in this context. 6 The concept of a “Just War” had gained ground after Christianity became a dominant factor in the Roman Empire. Influential Christian thinkers of ‘Late Antiquity’ were of the view that Christian pacifism cannot work in the face of

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Islamic hostility specially for defending their religious values and holy places.7 During the Enlightenment, European Christians generally considered Crusades a series of avoidable wars leading to much bloodshed, this view still largely prevails in Europe, and it is generally believed that crusades were inspired by political ambitions rather than religious issues. Although medieval Europe was relatively weak in comparison to the Muslim world, but by the time first Crusaders arrived in the Holy Land, the Muslim Ummah stood divided, it had two distinct factions, the Shi’ite Fatimid Caliph in Cairo and the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, who were poised to confront each other. On the other hand the Christians had gained strength, they were advancing rapidly towards southern Spain (the Reconquista) and were driving out Muslims from the lands they had occupied since the 7th century. The stage for the first crusade was set after the decisive victory of the Seljuq Muslim army, at the battle of Manzikert near Lake Van in eastern Turkey in 1071AD that greatly alarmed the Pope and Christian kings of Europe. When the Seljuq army advanced further across Anatolia and captured Constantinople the idea of crusades to drive out Muslims from the holy lands of Christians took a concrete shape. Churches that had been functioning under various fiefdoms were brought together by Pope Gregory VII and the Church soon became the supreme authority in all religious and certain secular matters in Europe. Pope Urban II who succeeded Pope Gregory strengthened the authority of the Church and set the course for confrontation with the Muslim world. In a speech at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, he said that the Turks had not only invaded Christian lands but had visited unspeakable atrocities on Christians. Urban went on to admonish those assembled for heinous sins against their brother Christians. He spoke of how Christian knights battled other Christian knights, wounding, maiming and killing each other and thus imperiling their immortal souls. If they were to continue to call themselves knights, they should stop killing each other and rush to the Holy Land. “You should shudder, brethren, you should shudder at raising a violent hand against Christians; it is less wicked to brandish your sword against Saracens.” (From Robert the Monk’s account of Urban’s speech) Urban promised complete remission of sins for anyone killed in the Holy Land or even anyone who died on the way to the Holy Land in this righteous crusade. Wars generally go out of control even if they are inspired by religious causes. Thus despite specific orders from the Church forbidding attacks on

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Jews the Crusaders massacred the Jewish community in the spring of 1096 in Europe and in 1099 in Jerusalem, along with the Muslims. Jews were attacked during the First, Second and Third Crusades perhaps because of the belief ‘that the Jews as the crucifiers of Christ deserved the same fate as the Muslim infidel’ Fourth Crusade in 1204 did not even spare Constantinople, a Christian city! The Crusades irreparably damaged relationship between Europe and the Muslim world. It is doubtful if Urban fully understood the consequences of unleashing the Crusaders and the lasting impact his holy wars would have on the Muslim and Christian relationship. “One might argue that those who have studied the teachings of Jesus Christ would be shocked at the suggestion of killing anyone in Christ’s name. But it is important to remember that the only people who were generally able to study scripture were priests and members of cloistered religious orders. Few knights and fewer peasants could read at all, and those who could rarely if ever had access to a copy of the gospel. A man’s priest was his connection to God; the Pope was sure to know God’s wishes better than anyone. Who were they to argue with such an important man of religion?”8 The arrival of the Crusaders (the Franks, as they called them) in Syria and Palestine caused great concern among the Muslims and the conquest of Toledo in Spain by the Christians in 1085 and Norman landings in Sicily in 1091 reinforced the belief among the Muslims that Christians were determined to confront them and drive them out from their lands.

An Overview Of The Crusades Pope Urban II restored the power of the Church within a few years. In March 1095, he held the first great council at Piacenza. There, decrees were passed against simony, clerical marriage and schism. Two ambassadors from Emperor Alexius I Comnenus of the Byzantine told the council of the ‘horrors experienced by the Christians of the East at the hands of the Turks, who had been raiding and conquering their lands’. After Muslim armies began moving into the Anatolian peninsula (Turkey). Alexius I a Christian emperor who controlled the peninsula appealed to the Pope to help him rid Anatolia of “the unbelievers”. This appeal in 1095 from Alexius presented Pope Urban with an opportunity to put his plans of retaking the Holy Lands from the Muslims in motion. The Pope urgently called for a war to retake the holy lands from the unbelievers. And he called it a ‘War of the Cross, or Crusade.’ While

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holy wars had been waged since ancient times, “the Crusades” refer to eight or nine campaigns that were waged in the Holy Land between 1096 and 1270. The first Crusaders crossed into Anatolia in 1097 and reached Jerusalem by the summer of 1099. The fighting was fierce, Crusaders killed at random, all who came in their way. They established four Christian colonies including one in Jerusalem.9 The second Crusade was launched when the Muslims recaptured Jerusalem and one other Christian colony along the Mediterranean coast. The Crusaders captured Jerusalem before the end of the second Crusade, but an aggressive Muslim general, Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187. The third Crusade was launched in 1189 under King Richard ‘the LionHeart’ of England. The Christians won many battles, but Saladin was able to hold on to Jerusalem and Muslims recaptured all parts of the Holy Lands by 1191. However, the two sides signed a truce agreement under which Christians had the freedom to visit their shrines.10 The fourth Crusade was launched in 1202.Crusaders who arrived in Venice and were to be sent to Egypt were instead diverted towards their allies in Constantinople. The great city was mercilessly sacked in 1204 leading to greater enmity between Eastern and Western Christians. The Fifth Crusade was launched in 1217, Leopold VI of Austria and Andrew II of Hungary participated in it and they captured the city of Damietta, but after their devastating loss at the battle of al-Mansura they were forced to return it. Ironically, before their defeat they were offered control of Jerusalem and other Christian sites in Palestine in exchange for the return of Damietta, but Cardinal Pelagius refused and turned a victory into defeat. The sixth Crusade launched in 1228 was led by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, it achieved a measure of success not by military means but through his marriage relationships. This Crusade ended with a peace treaty granting Christians control of several important holy sites, including Jerusalem. The seventh and eighth Crusades were led by King Louis IX of France. These ended in complete failures. In the seventh Crusade Louis sailed to Egypt in 1248 and recaptured Damietta, but after he and his army were routed he had to return it and pay a massive ransom just to go free. In 1270 he set off on the eighth Crusade, landing in North Africa in the hope of converting the Sultan of Tunis to Christianity but he died without achieving this aim.

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The ninth Crusade was launched by King Edward I of England in 1271 who tried to join Louis in Tunis but failed because he arrived after Louis had died. He moved against the Mamluk Sultan Baibers but he achieved very little and returned home on getting the news that his father Henry III had died.1

Jihad: Practice and Perceptions.The Quranic Concept of Jihad Quran refers to Jihad as an effort to reform the community or individuals through the message in the Quran and implores believers to do their duty and strive to be pious and help just causes. The basic concept of Jihad was to resist evil forces within and defend Islamic values and traditions in outside world. There was nothing in the concept of Jihad to suggest that it was connected in anyway with war or armed struggle to safeguard Islamic values. The Quranic term for war is Qital and not Jihad. Even Qital was permitted only in self defence or the defence of religion; Quran did not prescribe offensive wars under any pretext.The idea of two jihads, ‘jihad e Akbar’ and ‘jihad e Asghar’ is based on a Hadith (traditionally acceptable sayings of the Prophet): the Prophet is reported to have said after his return to Medina from a battle: “We have returned from the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad.” The people said, “O Messenger of God, what jihad could be greater than struggling against the unbelievers?” He replied, “Struggling against the enemy in your own breast”. Jihad was later formally divided into two categories by various scholars, namely, the greater jihad or ‘jihad e Akbar’ and the lesser jihad or ‘jihad e Asghar’. The greater jihad was to be waged against the evil in one’s own soul, curbing baser instincts. An aggressive conflict against forces inimical to Islam was called lesser jihad, in practice; however, this became the main Jihad. It should be mentioned here that traditionally Jihad by sword can be declared only under the orders of a righteous Imam in defence of the faith; and since the abolition of the Caliphate by the Turkish republic in 1921 there is no such authority. It is obvious that translation of the term jihad, as a holy war that can be waged in current environment is basically inaccurate and misleading. The term Jihad had been applied to any war waged by Muslims much the same way the term holy war was applied to any war waged by the Christians in the past, perhaps because both believed that God was always on their side in war. Quran, Sura 2; verse 51 says: “War may become necessary only to stop evil from triumphing in a way that would corrupt the earth.” Muslim scholars who maintain that jihad is a sixth pillar of Islam,

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perhaps base this belief on this verse and propagate that armed struggle in the path of God is a bounden duty of all Muslims. The Quran, however, also stresses: “and slay not the life which Allah has made sacred, save in the course of justice (Sura 7: verse 151).” The Prophet of Islam had given strict instructions to the Muslim community that they would only take up arms in self-defence. The Prophet of Islam told his companions and followers in the instance of the first war of Islam, when their lives were threatened and they had to revert to self-defence, that they could never harm innocent people, children, civilians, old people, people engaged in any worship, or destroy crops and animals. In Sura 2 verses 193- 194, Quran clearly indicates: “Only the combatants are to be fought and no more harm should be caused to them than they have caused”. Thus weapons that kill civilians and destroy townships are totally prohibited by the Quran and instructions of the Prophet. It is evident that the term jihad has been misrepresented by the fundamentalists and terrorists to legitimize their brutal acts.Their contention that they are waging Islamic Jihad cannot be accepted in any way.12 To understand the mindset of present day Islamic fundamentalists who preach Jihad of this kind one has to study the doctrines propagated by two Islamic schools of thought, Ikwan-ul- Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood, – MB) of Egypt founded by Hasan –al– Banna in 1928 and Jamaat-I-Islami (JI) of India founded by Abul Ala Mawdudi in 1941. The interpretation of religious traditions of the leaders of these organisations laid the foundation of the violent political movements and Jihad by sword against non-Muslim and moderate Muslim societies in the recent times. Sayyid Qutb, (1906– 1966) an eminent leader of the MB advocated a bloody revolution against secular states and justified armed struggle against non-Islamic and non-conformist Muslim societies. Mawdudi held similar views and reemphasized the idea of Darul-Islam (abode of peace) and Darul-Harab (abode of war). Both JI and MB continue to preach that violence and terrorizing of non-believers by waging Jihad or armed struggle against them are justified. These organisations created militant cadres to wage subversive conflicts for achieving political objectives in the name of Islam. Mosques and Madarsas were used extensively for spreading the message of militant Islam that openly promoted hatred towards nonbelievers and their collaborators. Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, viewed jihad as a God-ordained strategy. According to him (and many Islamic scholars who agree with him) “Jihad is a communal defensive obligation imposed

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upon the Islamic ummah in order to broadcast the summons to embrace Islam, and that it is an individual obligation to repulse the attack of unbelievers upon it. However, as a result of unbelievers ruling Muslim lands and humbling Muslim honour, it has become an individual obligation (which cannot be evaded) on every Muslim to prepare his equipment, to make up his mind to engage in jihad, and to get ready for it until the opportunity is ripe and God decrees a matter which is sure to be accomplished.”13 Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by President Nasser in 1966 for his book Ma’alim Fil Tariq (Milestones), reinterpreted traditional Islamic concepts to justify a violent takeover of the secular states. Qutb advocated that a battle royal has been going on in the world between the forces of good and evil, between faith and disbelief and true believers must fight, not for the reward, but as a duty towards God. He believed that the battlefield extends beyond this life where worldly success would not carry much weight. He asserted that “Real triumph is not limited to immediate victory, in Allah’s market the only commodity in demand is the commodity of faith. The highest form of triumph is the victory of soul over matter, the victory of belief over pain, and the victory of faith over persecution.”14 Most contemporary fundamentalist movements propagate Jihad against moderate Muslim states, on the pretext that they are not run in conformity with the laws based on Quran and Hadith. Radical fundamentalists of the present era believe in capturing centres of power by violent means and demolishing those political systems which are not in consonance with Islamic values. Although the radical fundamentalists are a minority in most Muslim societies and states, they have determined and dedicated cadres who are able to motivate and mobilize people for Jihad against secular regimes. They believe that a final show down between Islam and non-believers is inevitable, but their legitimisation of violence and terrorism as a part of Jihad clashes with basic tenets of Islam. Moderate Muslim states are accused of being a part and parcel of a Christian–Zionist plot to undermine Islam.They are labelled as anti-Islamic and agents of western powers and inimical to Islam.15 Most Islamic fundamentalists believe that “the Christian West, Jewish Zionism, and secularism are evil forces that have combined to divide and destroy Islam.” Western world is accused of waging a Crusade against Islam aimed at influencing young Muslims by presenting a distorted view of Islam and portraying it as a “bogey of humanity, or this demon which would destroy the progress of humanity.”16

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The Islamic fundamentalists advocate that the focus of Muslims should be on God and his perfect laws, while the Western secularist values are considered to be based on earthly logic, selfish motives and baser passions. They believe that since the two systems are totally incompatible there is no room for compromise between them and they are bound to be in a perpetual conflict. Fundamentalists also view the non-Islamic and non-conformist Muslim societies as a part of a global confrontation between Allah’s forces and Satanic forces. They maintain that Islam means total submission to God and his laws, while other systems based on false reasoning are “a deviation from the worship of One God and the divinely ordained way of life.”17 Likewise, Naahah Ibrahim, Asim Abdul Maajid, and Esaam-ud-Deen Darbaalah linked to the Egyptian Islamist group al-jama’a al-Islamiyya believed that Islam clearly describes “The position of the party of Allah as opposed to the party of Satan. It commands total hatred; animosity and roughness towards disbelievers with whom there can be no compromise.”18

The Global Dimensions Of Jihad Muhammad Abdessalam Faraj, the founder and ideologue of al-Jihad party, maintained that jihad was the sixth pillar of Islam. He called it “the neglected duty and urged the Muslims to actively fulfil God’s original mandate of spreading Islam to the whole world before the end–time and to put an end to worldly kingship and set up God’s reign of justice and peace”.19 Violence against non believers became an inherent part of this ideology. Qutb initiated the idea of withdrawal from Jahiliyya society with a view to waging Jihad by presenting a new interpretation of separation (mufassala) and migration (hijra). According to him the first requirement was the ‘da’wa’ or proclamation of the true message, next the separation or withdrawal (mufassala) from unbelievers, and then the jihad to fight for reestablishing God’s sovereignty on earth. Separation from jahiliyya was conceived as physical isolation while continuing work within an un-Islamic society to gain new adherents. Qutb advocated: “In the early stages of the new Islamic movement, we must remove ourselves from all the influences of the jahiliyya in which we live and from which we derive our benefits.”20 Islamist movements directed Muslims not to recognize secular education, marriage customs, or laws as they flowed from the jahiliyya legacy. The recommended comprehensive and extensive separation was, however, not always followed. For example, Egyptian Islamist party al-Jihad, responsible for Sadat’s assassination in 1981, did not follow the path of total separation

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as advocated by Qutb. Al-Jihad infiltrated the security services and government institutions to wage jihad and eventually succeeded in assassinating the President.21 Several leaders of al-Jihad including Ayman al-Zawahiri later joined forces with Usama bin-Laden and played an active part in planning attacks on the United States. Jihadi groups and fundamentalists advocate that waging all out war or Jihad against Christian – Zionist combine, which is threatening to destroy Islamic values is a religious obligation of all Muslims. They justify violence and consider violating international laws unavoidable for upholding Islamic values.22 The fundamentalists rake up many sensitive and emotional issues dear to Muslims to build up an atmosphere of confrontation that translates into violence and terrorism. Qutb advocated that the “main cause of the loss of moral values affecting Christian and Muslim societies is their return to paganism (jahiliyya) and the dethroning of God from His rightful sovereignty and rule (hakimiyya)”. He advocated that the prime requirement for Islamic revival is to weigh various societies, institutions, and regimes by the criteria of ‘tawhid (unity of God) and hakimiyya’. All those cultures that do not follow these criteria must be considered to be jahiliyya. He believed that ‘jahiliyya was not merely a preIslamic phenomenon but ‘an ever-present condition of denying God’s rule, usurping His authority, and living by man-made laws that enslave men to their rulers, engendering oppression’. He considered the jahiliyya societies the prime enemy of Islam and advocated that jahiliyya regimes must be destroyed by the sword (Jihad ‘bil saif’) and replaced by true Muslim regimes’.23 All western societies, Christian, Jewish, Communist, and all contemporary Muslim societies were denounced by Qutb, according to whom no truly Islamic state exists in today’s world. Their takfir (apostacy), therefore, made all of them legitimate targets of jihad ‘bil Saif’. Qutb’s interpretation of takfir provided a strong justification for radical groups to attack any rival group or state after pronouncing them Kafirs. This ideology prompted Egypt’s al-Jama’at al-Islamiyya and Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria to start terrorist activities in various areas.24 Mawdudi visualized jihad as a revolutionary struggle essential for establishing God’s just order on earth and “to bring about a revolution and establish a new order in conformity with the ideology of Islam”25 Radicals like Shukri Mustafa ( 1942– 1978 ) viewed jihad as both aggressive and imperative. He condemned the then society and regime of Egypt and said

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both were under takfir, and hence, he advocated jihad that should be waged first against the regime in Egypt and Israel, the enemy that is far away, could be dealt with later.26 The Wahhabis of Arabia reemphasised the radical concept of takfir. Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement used takfir to attack both non-Muslims and moderate Muslims, who were considered hypocrites. Application of this doctrine provided justification for violent struggles in many parts of the world. The Saudi government, while opposing radical Islamist groups within their own country continued assisting and financing Wahhabi- fundamentalist movements across the globe.27 Radical Saudi leaders such as Muhammad al-Mas’ari and Usama bin-Laden used Wahhabism in Afghanistan to muster armed support against the Soviet army, which ultimately led to the creation of radical militant Jihadi groups collectively called ‘mujahidin’ and several others such as, Jamiat-e Ulemai Islam and the Taliban, trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Abdullah Azzam, a prominent Palestinian who fought in Afghanistan and was considered to be bin-Laden’s mentor, did not accept the concept that greater jihad is meant to be non-violent. He visualized jihad as a ‘battle’ to spread faith and the greatest religious obligation after ‘Iman’ (faith). He called it ‘Gods method of spreading Islam in the world’, a “battle for the reformation of mankind, that the truth may be made dominant and good propagated.”28 Azzam considered jihad as the final stage of a process that should start with hijra (migration), leading to preparation for war and ‘ribat’ (defence). According to this concept only the aged, ill and the crippled, besides children and women who cannot migrate, are exempt from this obligation, which is ‘an act of communal worship of God conducted under a recognized leader.’ He maintained that Jihad was a forgotten ‘fard kifaya’ (communal obligation) and its neglect was the main cause of humiliation of the Muslim world. According to him “jihad is an obligation to protect the borders but the Imam should send out an army at least once a year “to terrorize the enemies of Allah.”29 This is a clear message that justifies the use of terrorism against the adversaries in the course of Jihad. Azzam advocated that whenever kuffar (unbelievers) occupy Muslim lands jihad becomes a compulsory obligation on every single Muslim (fard ‘ayn) and remains so until the last occupied piece of Muslim land is liberated. He asserted whenever infidels occupy Muslim lands, whether in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, or other places, Jihad becomes a personal duty of all

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Muslims. Azzam at one stage recommended concentrating first on Afghanistan and Palestine “because they have become our foremost problems.”30 Now of course Iraq has been added to this list.

Jihad And Crusades – The Present Day Concepts, Meanings And Adherence When the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Jihadi groups were trained in Pakistan for subversion, guerilla warfare and terrorism on behest of America. These groups were also indoctrinated in various Madarsas of Pakistan to confront the infidel Soviet army in Afghanistan. The resistance against the Soviet army was specifically termed as Jihad by the western world and Jihadi fighters were launched in an organized form with the aid and assistance of America and Pakistani army. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan al-Qaeda became the focal point of global terrorism and it sent Jihadi groups that were already trained in subversion, terrorism and guerrilla warfare to Bosnia, Chechnya, Central Asia, Kashmir, the Philippines and Indonesia. Terrorist cells were also created in America and some European countries. Americans took little notice of these activities till al Qaeda attacked American targets. Gradually al-Qaeda succeeded in mobilizing Muslims from various parts of the world for participating in a holy war against Americans and Jews. Bin -Laden decreed ‘the world is divided into two camps’— “one of faith where there is no hypocrisy and one of infidelity from which we hope God will protect us. The camp of faith is the Muslim camp, and the camp of unbelief is led by the United States under the banner of Christianity.”31 Usama bin-Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Jihad), Abu-Yasir Taha (Jama’at Islamiyya), Mir Hamza (Jamiatul Ulama-e-Pakistan), and Fazlul Rahman (Jihad Movement Bangladesh) were among the radical leaders who attended the World Islamic Front meet in February 23, 1998. They endorsed the fatwa for Jihad issued against Jews and Crusaders. At this meeting in London the United States was singled out as the principal enemy of Islam for occupying Islamic holy lands in Saudi Arabia, and for fighting against the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples. In this context it was said that the Americans have ‘forged an alliance with the other great enemies of Islam, the Zionists and the Jews’. The declaration and the Fatwa decreed that “All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims … it is ‘fard ‘ayn’ (individual duty) of all Muslims to kill the Americans and their allies wherever possible in order to liberate al-Aqsa in Jerusalem and the Holy Mosque in Mecca from their grip, and in order to drive out their armies from all Muslim lands”.32

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President Bush and Tony Blair launched the current war against terrorism in terms of an age-old religious ‘clash of civilisations,’ highlighting danger posed by Islamic fundamentalism to the free world. However, the majority in the western world was alarmed by the ‘zealotry and intolerance’ displayed by these leaders and their camp followers. Most people in the western world hold the view that those who advocate such ideas are no better than radical Islamists who want to attack all infidels. A devout evangelical Christian, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin gained disrepute in 2003 for his utterances in a series of videotaped interviews at churches across the United States.During these interviews he described the war on terrorism as a fight with Satan. In a speech to a group in Oregon in June 2003, he said radical Islamists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are JudeoChristian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan.”33 In another speech describing a battle with a Somali warlord, he said, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” Of course his comments ran counter to the US administration’s official line that the war on terrorism was not a war against Islam.General’s remarks created a furore but he escaped unscathed otherwise.34 Most Muslims across the globe equate the invasion of Iraq by the USled forces and declaration of war on al-Qaeda with Crusades launched during the middle ages. For very large segments of Muslims in Europe, Asia and Africa occupation of Palestine by Israel is a kind of crusade for domination of Muslim lands. Bin Laden along with a large segment of Muslims believes that the jihad must continue to be waged against the present day Crusaders and the war ‘must end with the inevitable defeat and retreat of the US and acknowledgment of the superiority of Islam’. In a war of civilisations, our goal is for our nation to unite in the face of the Christian crusade…. This is a recurring war. The original crusade brought Richard the Lion-Hearted from Britain, Louis from France and Barbarossa from Germany. Today the crusading countries rushed as soon as Bush raised the cross. They accepted the rule of the cross.35 The occupation of much of the European Balkans by the Islamic armies and their knocking at the gates of Vienna is still remembered with pride in most Muslim societies. They also take pride in the fact that Islamic armies wrested the Eastern Mediterranean coastal lands in the seventh century from the infidels. Muslims the world over seem to have accepted bin Laden’s

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views that ‘religiously intolerant Crusaders had gratuitously started a war to take something that was not theirs and the same process is being repeated once again’. Jihadis believe that insurgent- terrorism is an appropriate instrument against the immense power of modern day crusaders, ‘God, who provided us with His support and kept us steadfast until the Soviet Union was defeated, is able to provide us once more with His support to defeat America on the same land and with the same people’ According to the practice of the Prophet Muslims are duty bound to find peaceful solutions to disputes and conflicts and war against other Muslims and others who have a peace treaty with the Islamic community is prohibited. Muslims are forbidden to attack noncombatants, or to destroy crops, livestock, and civic infrastructure. Jihad has come to mean holy war in common parlance for several reasons. Fanatic leaders in the Muslim world play upon powerful emotions Jihad evokes. It should also be recognized that there is often a divergence between what the Prophet advocated and what Muslims practise. Apart from other meanings Jihad includes activities such as scholarship, education, charity, and peaceful efforts to create a just and moral society on earth. The Prophet is reported to have said that the ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr.The Prophet also said, “The highest jihad is a word of justice addressed to an unjust ruler”.36 The term Jihad is known in western world for its contemporary political application and its connection with violence and terrorism. An in-depth look at the true meaning and history of this word is warranted. The utterances of bin Laden and Zawahiri alluding to the crusaders in their messages make many people in America and Europe believe that it would be justified to wage crusade like wars against radical Muslim societies. Controversies continue to be fuelled by statements of a variety of political leaders, clergies, even some generals. On September 12, 2006 at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture entitled, ‘Faith, Reason and the University’. Pope Benedict’s critique of modern reason not withstanding, he asserted that he “did not intend to promote retrogression...back to the time before the Enlightenment and reject the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: We are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity.”

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The Pope maintained that Christianity was ineradicably linked to reason in contrast with those who believe in spreading their faith by the sword. He elaborated further by recalling the 14th century ‘dialogue held with a certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia’ between the Byzantine ruler Manuel II Paleologus, and a well educated Muslim interlocutor. The main thrust of his argument was: ‘Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he [the Byzantine ruler] says, ‘is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death’....Manuel II Paleologus raised the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, stating bluntly: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’37 Manuel II’s discussions with his Muslim counterpart are a pointer of the bitter relationship that existed between Christians and Muslims and which has lasted for many centuries. Benedict XVI only reiterated the real state of affairs. Benedict XVI has acknowledged that real dialogue, as opposed to contrived bon homie, begins not by kissing the Quran, but reading it. He is rather impatient with an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians limited to platitudes. A dialogue that deliberately avoids serious discussions of the living examples of Islamic jihad. Dr. Habib Malik, in an eloquent address delivered on February 3, 2003 at the 27th annual Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Presidents Conference decried the platitudinous ‘least common denominators’ paradigm which dominates what he aptly termed the contemporary ‘dialogue industry’: “We’re all three Abrahamic religions, we’re the three Middle Eastern monotheisms, and the Isa of the Koran is really the same as the Jesus of the New Testament.... This is politicized dialogue. This is dialogue for the sake of dialogue. Philosophically speaking, this is what Kierkegaard called idle talk, snakke in Danish; what Heidegger called Gerede; what Sartre called bavardage. In other words, if this is dialogue, it’s pathetic... it needs to be transcended, and specifically to concentrate, to focus on the common ethical foundation for most religions can also be very misleading. Because when you get into the nitty—gritty, you find that even in what you supposed were

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common ethical foundations, there are vast differences, incompatibilities. Suicide bombers are one recent example. Condoned by major authoritative Muslim voices; completely unacceptable by Christianity.”38 Needless to add, the war continues and Jihad has been given a new lease of life by the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan; bitter controversies have been revived in their wake.

Conclusion The crusades have been justified in the past by many western scholars despite the bloodshed they caused because they were conducted against enemies that threatened the very existence of Christendom. Faith that an all supreme power would help the faithful provided the required motivation for joining the ‘wars of the cross’. Jihadis similarly presumed assured victory with the blessings of the Almighty, and guarantees of a place in heaven if they laid down their lives for the sake of Allah. Although both worshipped an all powerful God and waged holy wars in his name, it will be safe to presume that greed and worldly ambitions perhaps were greater motivators than faith. It was certainly the clash of material interests that led to wars against each other in the past. The conquest of alien lands by Muslims has been a recurring phenomenon and has formed an integral part of Islamic history. However, the Muslim world to-day is up in arms against an oppressive world order unleashed by the current US administration, and this has transformed Islamist fundamentalism to a global movement. This movement aims at restoration of pristine Islamic glory by uniting the entire Muslim world against the Western world. There is little difference now between moderates who are willing to work within the confines of a local political system and the radical revolutionaries who are willing to use force to destroy the system.39 While fundamentalists are a minority in most Muslim societies and states, they are highly vocal, well organized and ready to use force. The failure of secular regimes and the aggressive American policies have enabled the radical Islamist groups to redefine political equations, stretching the borders of the permissible.40 The concept of a battle royal is common among most religious fundamentalists, but it is open to different interpretations. Islamic fundamentalists “view history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil using stark binary dichotomies to describe the opposing camps.”41 “This rhetoric stresses that the main battle is spiritual, but nonetheless real, being

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fought in the realms of personal spiritual and moral development, as well as in the sphere of ideas, worldviews and ideologies.”42 “However, redefining the concept of religious confrontation to mobilize followers for violent acts blurs the distinctions between moral and spiritual battles.Jihad and its reinterpretations in specific contexts legitimize violent struggles justified by an “ends justifies the means” ideology.”43 Persecution syndrome thrives in most religions. It is however more pronounced among Islamic fundamentalists perhaps because of the history of persecution in the early days of Islam and loss of the empires during the colonial era. Islamists identify secularism in all its forms, the Christian West, Judaism (especially Zionism), as part of an evil alliance to destroy Islamic values. Usama bin-Laden has been successful in his appeal to wage Jihad against a Christian-Jewish conspiracy against Islam, because his basic views are common among all radical Islamist groups. Secularism is the target of Islamic fundamentalists as they consider it a tool of Christian, Jewish- Zionism, to undermine Islamic values from within. Moderate Muslims are dubbed as agents of the western world and Islamic fundamentalists consider secularism as one of the three faces of anti-Islamic movement bent on dividing and destroying Islam.44 “Qutb sensed a worldwide conspiracy of the Crusading Christian West, Marxist Communism, and World Jewry against true Islam. These three forces are jahiliyya at its worst, enemies of God always plotting the destruction of Islam. Modern imperialism is a masked Crusade by the Christian West aided by the Jews to attain world domination. Atheistic Marxists, who replaced God with materialistic-dialectic determinism, joined this attack on Islam.45 Qutb sees hostility to Islam as inherited, inherent, and latent in the West since Crusader days. Orientalism transmitted the distorted versions of Islam absorbed during the Crusades, the Reconquista, the fall of Constantinople, and the Reformation. Secular Europe inherited the contempt for all things Islamic from religious Europe, and in spite of its rationalism, these irrational prejudices survive, strengthened by Western Imperialism which saw Islam as the main obstacle to achieving world domination. This anti-Islamic spirit unites all Western states and cultures.”46 Taqiuddin an-Nabhani (1909-1977), Palestinian founder of the radical Hizb al-Tahrir, an extremist offshoot from the Muslim Brotherhood, also sees the Western animosity to Islam as a constant ever since the Crusades. It is fuelled by a wish for revenge and manifests itself in “oppression, humiliation, colonisation and exploitation.” In colonial times it revealed itself in Orientalism

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and missionary work, both backed by Western states. This deep-rooted Crusader animosity to Islam resulted in the military conquest of Arab lands during WWI. Modern Europe is engaged in a cultural Crusade against Islam aiming at poisoning the minds of young Muslims by distorting Islamic history and values. This cultural venom is far more dangerous than the Crusades, portraying Islam as a bogey of humanity, or a demon bent on destroying the progress of humanity. Orientalists and Christian clergy continue to support all anti-Islamic activities in the world, conspiring against Islam, slandering its history, and degrading Muhammad and his Companions.47 Usama bin-Laden sees two parties battling each other: on the one hand is World Christianity allied to Zionist Jewry and led by the United States, Britain and Israel; on the other hand there is the Muslim world. The conspiracy led by America, Britain and Israel is the great enemy, an infidel Crusader-Jewish alliance under the cover of the United Nations fighting against the people of Islam. This alliance is said to have spilled Muslim blood in massacres perpetrated in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, Philippines, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya and Bosnia.48 The greatest outrage of all is the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia, which is an outright infidel occupation of the “land of the two Holy Places, the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka’ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims.” Some regimes in Muslim states, including the Saudi government, have joined this evil alliance, becoming mere puppets of the Americans and suppressing faithful ulama who would reveal the truth to their people. Westerners living in the Arabian Peninsula are not people of the book, but infidels occupying Muslim Holy Land and must be expelled by violent jihad. Bin-Laden also accuses the Western powers of plotting to divide Iraq into three mini-states (the north for the Kurds, the middle for the Sunni, and the south for the Shia), and that they plot a similar partition in Saudi-Arabia: one mini-state around the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina, one in the middle, and one in the oil-rich eastern region.49 Usama bin-Laden organized interaction and networking between a variety of fundamentalists around the world, as he considers global jihad a legitimate war against powerful adversaries who have invaded or occupied Muslim lands. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan initially motivated him to launch Jihad against the Soviet army. He, however, shifted his focus to America after the defeat of the Soviet forces and vowed fighting enemies of Islam whereever they may be found in the world. Usama bin-Laden sees the ‘United

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States, Britain and Israel in forefront of the war against the Muslim world under the banner of the World Christianity allied to Zionist Jewry.50 ‘The conspiracy is led by America, Britain and Israel, an ‘infidel Crusader-Jewish alliance under the cover of the United Nations fighting against the people of Islam. This alliance must be punished for spilling Muslim blood in massacres perpetrated in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, Philippines, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya and Bosnia’.51 Bin-Laden put the concept of ‘punishing the alliance’ in practice when he organized the bombing of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar as-Salaam, and later by the spectacular attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Bin Laden’s appeal has increased by leaps and bounds among the Muslims after American invasion of Iraq. The American military action has established a bond between Muslims in various parts of the world because of sense of insecurity, loss of self-esteem and honour it has created. Large scale violence is now considered inevitable and the only way of forcing America to relent from further aggression. Terrorism is the main instrument of coercion being used by radical groups today; its dangerous manifestations have been amply demonstrated in many parts of the globe. What are the future prospects of the Jihadi movement and the antiIslamic stance of the western world? Whether this is a passing phase or this confrontation has come to stay is not clear. Whether a new kind of warfare is emerging against the western world is not certain but the aggressive American policy in the Middle East is certainly helping in spreading the militant Jihadi movement across the globe. It is evident that the current American response to terrorism is only increasing violence and bloodshed. It should, however, also be noted that numerous suicide attacks against Israeli and American targets have failed to achieve anything.There is no indication that either America or Israel is going to vacate Muslim lands or change their intrusive policies.

References 1. 2. 3.

See Midrash: Breishis Rabbah 1:2; Rashi, Breishis 1:1. See Rashi on Genesis 25:1- Ketura is Hagar... Muslim tradition, as portrayed in the Koran, re-inserts Ishmael back into the lineage of Abraham where he is usually mentioned before Isaac. (See Koran

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4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

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Sura II, verses 110-140.). It’s also interesting to note that Moslems celebrate a holiday called Id al Adchah-The Feast of the Sacrifice, which commemorates Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Ishmael. (Note the Muslims scripture altered the binding of Isaac story, Gen 22, and replaced Isaac with Ishmael.) (Excerpts from Rabbi Ken Spiro: Published: Sunday, December 24, 2006Sura 2: Verses 142- 143- 144 -149- 150). Melissa Snell, Your Guide to Medical Melissa Snell, Your Guide to Medieval History About.com. Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad. American thinker 17 September 2006. {Turkish Press.com, 25 April 2004, National Catholic Reporter Date: 2/24/2006, NCR’s Antonia Ryan conducted an e-mail exchange with two scholars of the Crusades—one who writes about Christian perspectives and one who studies the Muslim experience of these medieval wars. Thomas Madden is the author of The New Concise History of the Crusades (2005) and is a professor and chair of the history department at St. Louis University. Carole Hillenbrand, author of The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (2000) is professor of Islamic culture at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and winner of the King Faisal Foundation prize for Islamic studies. Ibid. Dark Legacy How centuries of war began with one man’s ambition, , Guide’s Note: This feature was originally posted in October of 1997, and was updated in November of 2006. Ibid. Paul Halsall, ORB sources editor Modified: 10 22 December 2006 [linked pages may have been updated more recently]. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is located at the Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies. Ibid. Ibid. AXIAL Fall, 2002 Raheel Raza©SnowStar Institute of Religion. Hasan al-Banna. 1978. Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949): A Selection from the Majmu’at Rasa’il al-Imam al-Shahid, (Bekeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 150-151. Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Ma’alim fil Tariq), English Translation, (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1990), pp. 130-137. Kate Zebiri, “Muslim Anti-Secularist Discourse in the Context of MuslimChristian Relations”, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1998), p. 3. and Qutb, Milestones, pp. 94-96, as quoted in David Zeidan, The Islamic Fundamentalist view of life as A Perennial Battle. Middle East Review

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16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 3I.

32. 33. 34. 35.

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of International Affairs (Meria) Journal Volume 5, Number 4, December 2001. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, The Islamic State, (London: Al-Khilafah Publications, nd), pp. 188-192. [Note: Al-Khilafah has been wound up a version of the book has been publishing by Milli publications new Delhi 2001 viii, p.284]. Naahah Ibrahim, Asim Abdul Maajid, & Esaam-ud-Deen Darbaalah, In Pursuit of Allah’s Pleasure, (London: Al-Firdous, 1997), pp. 199-201. Ibid, pp. 111-113. Muhammad Abdessalam Faraj, Al-farida al-gha’iba, translated, in Jansen, G.H., 1986. The Neglected Duty The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East, (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 163-164. Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Ma’alim fil Tariq), English Translation, (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1990), pp. 130-137. Ibid, pp. 113-114, 120. Hrair R. Dekmejian, 1985. Islam In Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1985), pp. 92-96, 101. Op cit n. 20. Ibid, pp.101, 123. Abul A’la Mawdudi, Jihad fi-Sabil Allah, pp. 4-6, 10-11, translated by Khurshid Ahmad, (Birmingham: UK Islamic Dawah Centre, 1997), pp. 3, 8-9. Ibid. ‘Abdullah’Azzam, Join the Caravan, (London: Azzam Publications, 1996), pp. 36-38. ‘Abdullah’Azzam, Defence of the Muslim Lands, (Ahle Sunnah Wal Jama’at, nd), pp. 4-6 (London: Azzam Publications, 1996). ‘Abdullah’Azzam, Join the Caravan, (London: Azzam Publications, 1996), pp. 36-38. Ibid Usama bin-Laden, “Bin Laden’s Warning: Full Text”, text of a recorded statement broadcast on al-Jazeera television and BBC News, in 7 October 2001. Usama bin-Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”, (1996), Internet, . World Islamic Front Statement, “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” . CNN INTERNATIONAL, 18 October 2003. Reported in by the Los Angles Times. October 16, 2003 Victor Davis Hanson, Claremont Review of Books, Book review of God’s War:

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36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

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A New History of the Crusades, by Christopher Tyerman. Belknap Press, 2006Church Militant March 21, 2007. Greg Noakes: Issues in Islam: Varying References to “Jihad” Increase Political Confusion December/January 1991/92, Page 63. Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad. American thinker 17 September 2006. Ibid. Laura Guazzone, “Islamism and Islamists in the Contemporary Arab World”, in Laura Guazzone, ed., The Islamist Dilemma: The Political Role of Islamist Movements in the Contemporary Arab World, (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1995), pp. 10-12. Salwa Isma’il, Discourse and Ideology in Contemporary Egypt, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, McGill University, (1992), pp. 1-2, 89-92,112-116. Lionel Caplan in Caplan, ed., Studies in Religious Fundamentalisms, (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 18-19. Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 156-160. The manipulation isn’t a monopoly of fundamentalists. Clever politicians happily manipulate these concepts to further their interests. Sometimes these manipulations boomerang. A good example is Pakistan’s support of various extremist groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir to further its regional interests, which are now destabilizing the state. See Sleigh S. Harrison, “Pakistan: The Destabilisation Game”, Le Monde diplomatique, (October 2001). Opcit 15 Qutb, Milestones, pp. 94-96. Qutb, “Social Justice in Islam,” pp. 284-288. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, The Islamic State, (London: Al-Khilafah Publications, nd), pp. 188-192. Usama bin-Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”, (1996), Internet, ; See also “Terror Suspect”, an ABC News interview with Usama bin-Laden conducted by Rahimullah Yousafsai in December1998,Internet,. Ibid. Op cit, n.5. Ibid.

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Religious Terrorism Civilisational Context and Contemporary Manifestations A.K. Doval

Transcending time and space, religions have influenced civilisations-in cultural, social, material and spiritual arenas- more profoundly than any other single factor. Tangible achievements of man’s possessive and creative impulses, struggle for self-preservation, pursuit of mundane happiness or supra mundane bliss, all bear its imprint. Religion has been both a dominant cause and effect of rise and fall of civilisations, influencing the conduct of war and peace, social intercourse, political and economic life, cultural motif and individual and group ethics. ‘Terror has no religion’ is a common refrain, particularly of political interest groups. Franco Frattini, the European Union’s Commissioner for Justice, banned the use of the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ in 2006. He averred, “You cannot use the term Islamic terrorism. People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of religion”1. If this assumption is valid, religious terrorism is a misnomer and arguably deserves no place in any civilisational or religious discourse. However, if it is only a tactical positioning to evade hard realities it can cause immense harm. Dishonest diagnosis leading to a faulty treatment is unforgivable, particularly if it is deliberate. The assumption hence needs to be examined objectively in the light of hard realities on the ground, credible historical evidence, theological interpretation and religious doctrines of warfare in different religions. Taking the reality as what we wish and not as it exists is an escapism that comes with an unaffordable price tag. Some well-intentioned politicians, social scientists and intellectuals

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advance the formulation that it is a public interest myth floated to isolate the terrorists-which unfortunately it isn’t. Moderates among the coreligionists find in it an escape route from accepting their responsibility of confronting the wrong doers, lest they incur their wrath. The historical experience, unexceptionally, underlines the fact that escapism in the face of a danger, that is real and imminent, though may have apparent short-term tactical gains, but involves a heavy strategic cost that future generations have to pay. While examining validity of the proposition, it may, however, be underlined that religion in terrorist context has to be understood more in its empirical form- the way it is practised and its consequences felt, rather than theological sense, as intended by its founders. As Bertrand Russell puts it, “Religion is primarily a social phenomenon. Churches may owe their origin to teachers with strong individual convictions but these teachers have seldom had much influence upon the communities in which they flourished. The teaching of Christ, as it appears in the gospels, has had extraordinarily little to do with the ethics of Christians. The most important thing about Christianity, from a social and historical point of view, is not Christ but the Church.”2

Religious Terrorism - Reality or a Myth? Religious terrorism is real as it is inspired by and carried out in the name of religion. Faith, in psychological sense, is a subjective phenomenon and its reality lies in what the believer thinks to be true and not what the truth is. Faith is a powerful motivator of human behaviour influencing, in varying degrees, his perceptions, reasoning, response, actions and consequence estimates. Since a terrorist derives his motivation from his religious beliefs, religious terrorism is a reality. The interpretations of the governments fighting it, the victims, the courts of law etc. matter little as they do not affect their self- view or the world-view. However, as religion in its social form has an institutionalised structure, the only entity which can declare their acts as irreligious is the church to which they owe allegiance. As long as that approval exits, the acts can be illegal, inhuman, unreasonable or even psychopathic but they certainly are not irreligious. Faith has its own dialectics and jurisprudence from which a terrorist draws legitimacy for his actions. Wherever and whenever the source of this legitimacy emanates from religion, and is not declared as an act of an apostate by institutional mechanism of the religion, it is religious terrorism. Illustratively, to a question whether Eric Robert Rudolf, bomber of Atlanta Olympic in 1966, belonging to Army of God, was a religious terrorist or not, Michael Barkun, Professor

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of Political Science at Syracuse University and a consultant to the FBI on Christian extremist groups held the view that, “Rudolf can legitimately be called a Christian terrorist”.3 Ku Klux Klan, with an unmistakable protestant identity, for nearly hundred years carried out acts of terror in the name of religion to achieve certain political objectives, but was always accepted as a Christian terrorist group. Significantly, the end came not as much by the efforts of the FBI and the police as by the initiatives of the Christian Church leaders to oppose the violent cult. Martin Luther King Jr., who spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement, was a Baptist minister. He insisted on ‘personal responsibility in fostering peace’.4 The formulation that terrorism has no religion precludes the responsibility of religious leaders and religion’s institutional mechanism to share responsibility. It makes the problem an exclusive responsibility of the coercive instruments of the state. This leads to violence being countered by higher violence generating a spiral effect, which may not serve the long term interests of the society best. Such myths are advanced by the politically correct, unreasonably optimistic or willfully ignorant, hence, do not appear to be sustainable. As long as the Jehadis believe their actions to be as per the injunctions of Islam and the Islamic clergy does not frontally challenge and prove them wrong, Jehadi terrorism will deserve to be treated and tackled as religious terrorism. The response of the Islamic clergy against top terrorist killers has not been a fraction as severe as against Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen and their likes who were excommunicated from Islam and fatwas were issued for their extermination. No such fatwa has been issued against any terrorist. The response of non- commitment that ‘Terror has no Religion’ only gives religious space to the terrorists, they so desperately need for their existence. Secondly, the predominant motivation of religious extremists is to serve the political cause of their religion and not their spiritual salvation. The religion provides that psychic motivation to kill, or be killed, without any compunction. Devoid of this, no ordinary human being of prudence will undertake the suicide missions and cause concomitant pain and suffering to the innocents to please the ‘True God’. To understand the psychological phenomenon what is important is not the view of those who suffer but the self-view of those who carry out depredations in the name of religion. The Daily Mail of London in its issue of 2nd July, 2007 brought out an interesting revelation by Hassan Butt, who till recently was a member of Al Qaeda affiliated Al-Muhajiroun in London. Butt observed, “We used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for

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Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy”.5 He added, “Though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslims across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice”.5 Providing an insight into terrorists’ religious dispensation of the terrorist mind he averred, “The foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel… The Islamic jurists have set down rules of interaction between Dar ul Islam (the land of Islam) and Dar ul Kufr (the land of unbelievers) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war. What radicals and extremists do is to take these two steps further. Their first step is to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world is Dar ul Kufr. This reclassification of the globe allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul Harb (land of war), anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.”5 It is interesting that even the secular modern states, who proclaim that terrorists have no religion, provide those services and facilities as per their claimed religion either in jail or if killed in action. Those very coreligionists who declare that ‘terror has no religion’, rally around to protest against alleged religious persecution if they find any of the religious facilities wanting. Except the terrorists who take an honest position of being religious fighters (Mujahedeens), the inherent dichotomy in the position of others is indefensible. If the world is facing religious terrorism let it be faced as such and solutions found taking the reality as it exists and not as it is wished to be.

Do Religious Traditions Provide Space to Justify Terrorism? That no religion justifies terrorism, in terms of the ingredients associated with it in moral context, is correct in a subjective framework. There is plenty in each religion which can be quoted against cruelty, killing of or inflicting injury on the innocents, causing wanton destruction etc. The problem arises when drawing from the same or equally authentic and impeccable sources, the opposite can also be justified. Contestants take subjective positions, deliberately or otherwise, which are in consonance with their self interests, predispositions or psychological fixations and then find religious justifications to rationalise their actions. This begs an objective examination of how much space different religions provide, if any, in support

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of violence which is inhumanly cruel, can be directed against the innocents, and target people for having a faith and belief system in variance of their own. It is no definition of modern day terrorism; actually there exists none– despite all the noise about its being the gravest threat faced by the modern civilized world and collective global effort to combat it. The underlying problem in finding an acceptable definition has been more political than intellectual; each involved entity wanting to fine-cut a definition which subserves its interests, immediate or potential. Without getting into the semantics, it would be worthwhile examining if religions do provide any space where such indiscriminate and inhuman violence can be justified. If such violence can be justifiable there is every possibility of terrorists exploiting it to validate their actions. Wars and violence in the name of religion is an established historical reality and thus part of religious history of most of the religions. If we consider use of ‘illegal violence’ as a binding ingredient of terrorism, probably some of the most inhuman atrocities committed will not qualify to be treated as terrorist acts since they were not in violation of the laws of their times and lands where they were perpetrated. However, in the evolutionary process of civilisations, while some religions transformed themselves with the changing needs of the society, a few were relatively slow to change. If in moral jurisprudence, legality is taken as procedural and not substantive part of terrorism probably most of the religious traditions could be found guilty of indulging in religious terrorism in one form or the other. All religious traditions have a concept of just war to be waged in pursuit of what is believed to be true, not by reason but by faith, when ordained by institutionalized religious apparatus. Radicals position themselves as upholders of social and political ethics and, from their point of view; it is not that religion has become political but politics which has become irreligious that needs catharsis. The just war concept was not only exclusive to expansionist and proselytizing faiths but more so in respect of non-proselytizing pacifist religions. What, however, distinguished the two were the ends for which just wars could be waged (Jus ad bellum) and the means that could be employed (Jus in bell). A comparative study of the means and ends of the just war becomes essential to understand the ideological underpinnings of the modern day religious terrorists since the terrorists try to draw their inspirations and legitimacy from these religious sources. The subjectivity aspect of terrorist phenomenon also needs to be factored in. All terrorist groups at ideological plane condemn terrorism and emphasize strong

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disapproval of their religion against it. They concurrently characterize acts of adversaries as terrorist acts, retaliation against which, they feel, is not only permitted but ordained by their religion as a sacred duty. A terrorist considers his acts to be part of a just war. He perceives himself to be a religious warrior engaged in a just war against the enemies of his ‘True God’ and his ‘True Religion’. A study of the role and place of terror in religion has two distinct aspects. One, the space, if any, that the religion in ideological domain provides to justify terror and, two, religious histories, which are cited as religious precedents, particularly when associated with the lives of Prophets and other holy men. In Judeo-Christian tradition, waging of war to achieve religious and political objectives through a just war is approved. In Christianity, a just war, however, must be (a) exercised as a last resort when other peaceful means have been exhausted, (b) it can be declared only on the approval of legitimate authority, (c) the ultimate goal of just war is to promote the cause of religion and (d) the use of violence should be proportionate. In practice, these rules have, however, been often violated. As observed by Christopher Tyerman in ‘God’s War: A New History of the Crusades’ and supported by many other authoritative sources on the subject, “Like many religions, Christianity has seen historic periods where some of the faithful and their leaders have resorted to terrorism, such as incidents during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Reformation. In recent periods, examples of Christian terrorism are overwhelmingly tied to individuals and small groups”.6 Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation in Christianity said, “It is both Christian and an act of love to kill the enemy without hesitation, to plunder burn and injure him by any method until he is conquered”.7 As far as historical precedents are concerned, many examples can be quoted of use of violence against the innocents, faith killings, inhuman cruelties etc. Islam, essentially being a warrior religion and its early ascendancy being significantly attributable to political and military actions, had more strident and specific rules of engagements against religious adversaries. Unlike Christianity, where very little can be attributed to Christ in use of violence against the opponents or defining the rules and ethics of war, prophet Mohammad himself a military commander laid considerable emphasis on this issue as per the setting of his times. Besides Quran, many of the rules are contained in the Hadith, sayings attributed to Prophet Mohammad that postdate Quran. Some of the major doctrines of warfare include:

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(b)

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Exhorting the Muslims to fight in the name of Allah but not to exceed the limits, i.e., disproportionate use of force was not approved. Quran said, “Fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you, and do not exceed the limits” (2.190). Revenge killing was approved. Referring to non conformist opponents, it was said, “Kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution be severer than slaughter” (2.191). No mercy was recommended towards non-believers as they were considered obstacles in Allah’s way. It was ordained, “When you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite their necks until when you have overcome them”.

While in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions violence was approved to achieve mutually intertwined, politico- religious objectives, in Eastern religious traditions it was justified only to uphold Dharma (the eternal laws sustaining the creation of Supreme reality) and not to provide political support to the religion or the reverse. Torked Brekke elucidating this fundamental difference of approach, in his highly scholastic ‘Ethics of War in Asian Civilisation –A Comparative Perspective’, observed that “Classical Islam gives criteria for just war which are similar to those found in the Christian tradition, Hinduism on the other hand has been seen as completely alien in its theoretical treatment of war and warfare. Hinduism comes out radically different from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic family of religions”.8 Elaborating, he adds, “Killing for mundane goals was always forbidden according to the dominant ethical tradition of Hinduism”.8 Prof. Francis X. Coolney of Harvard University corroborates the same view in his study of wars in comparative religions. In his research paper, Coolney brings three basic elements of Hindu warfare, viz., (a) “killing for mundane goals is always forbidden”, (b) “intending harm is always condemned”, and (c) “no war by base motives and energized by malice towards the others”9 is justified. Hindu missionaries did not accompany or were followed by marching armies. As early as the 4th century BC, Megasthense, a Greek Ambassador to an Indian court, in his diary observed, “Whereas among other nations it (destruction) is used, in the contexts of war, to ravage the soil and thus to reduce it to an uncultivable waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, husbandmen are regarded as a clan that is sacred and inviolable. The tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging, are undisturbed by any sense of danger. The combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage

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of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they never ravage enemy’s land with fire nor cut down its trees”.10 The treatment of war and conflicts in Hindu theology thus precluded possibility of religious justification for any indiscriminate violence or terror against religious or other adversaries. This is duly reflected in India’s record–one of the most ancient civilisations that rarely went for conquests or carried its sword to advance its political or religious interests. Even when some practitioners of state craft, particularly Kautilya, in the wake of foreign aggressions in 300BC, came out with new state craft doctrines advocating means which were not in consonance with Dharma to protect sovereign interests of the state, he failed to get religious approval for the same. Rejected by the Hindu theologians, he failed to make any worthwhile dent on aggregate Hindu psyche. Kadimbini Bhatt a noted Hindu saint and scholar of sixth century AD lambasted Kautilya for his unethical formulations and declared his teachings to be blasphemous. This largely explains why oriental religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism etc., even when at their zenith, with no major religions to compete, did not opt for political conquests or holy wars to expand their empires or propagate their religions. The postulates which bolster intolerance or provide scope for violent actions on religious grounds thereby giving ideological justifications to terrorism can be summed up as under: (a) The concept of chosen people – People belonging to a particular faith believing themselves to be divinely privileged to the exclusion of others. (b) The concept of True and False gods - The belief that only the ‘God’ worshipped by oneself and the co- religionists is true while the ‘Gods’ worshipped by others are false. It is religious and a service to the true God to destroy the false Gods and their worshippers. (c) Concept of martyrdom – The belief that the world is coming to an end and the martyrs, who die fighting for the religion, will be rewarded for their sacrifices in the world or the life hereafter. It creates a desire for deviant martyrdom, a keenness to die for killing others, making people psychologically dangerous for the society. (d) Revelations are divine, infallible and unchangeable- Even suggesting or talking about any change on ordained matters is blasphemous. The concept of Ijitihad (Process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation) was highly restricted and confined to areas of Islamic law, social relationships, economic practices etc. and not in respect of religious

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postulates like Jehad (religious war), Kufr(non believing), Shahadat (martyrdom) etc. as they derive their authority from Quran. In any case, even the doctrine of Ijitihad imperative had fallen in disuse after eleventh century. As Toynbee asserted, when cultures limit variability and diversity, they lose their capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.12 (e) Bond of religious solidarity subsuming all other bonds of human relationships- the religious identity subsumes all other identities and, irrespective of merits, one was duty bound to stand by his coreligionists in any conflict with followers of other religions. The higher the stranglehold of these elements on any religion, the greater its inflexibility, fanaticism and propensity for violence.

Historically, different religions had different traditions of response to: (a) Challenges confronted - physical and ideological; and (b) Dynamics of change–political, economic, social, technological etc. These two paradigms to a large extent are intertwined and the response in one area has conditioned the other. Modernity emphasized individualism, political and economic competition, and moral benchmarks dictated by self interest. Colonial imperialism was a manifestation of this phenomenon, so was defining new jurisprudence formulated to regulate the world order, including rules of war and peace, trade and commerce, international relations and human rights. Christian West, the dominant player, crafted these rules which sub-served their interests. This constituted a challenge to others– either to change or to confront. Those unwilling to comply constituted a challenge to the West. Religions which displayed greater flexibility and propensity to change and were able to integrate new variables depicted faster progress while the confrontationists were able to preserve their pristine fundamentals more zealously. Religions which responded to challenges by adopting orthodoxy also developed a seize mentality while others suffered weakening of religious institutions and their hold over the community. As Muslims were the dominant power of the pre- industrial era, they faced the challenge most acutely. Looking backwards, they responded trying to find solutions in their past and relying on their fundamentals. Islamic societies for reasons religious, historical and internal power dynamics found it difficult to opt for change to modernity. There was a tendency to turn its gaze “to the glorious past”. It was considered to be the only way to the glorious future – both before and after the death. As observed by Lauren Langman and Douglas Morris of Loyola University in their research paper, “In the face of various assaults or challenges to Islam, from the sacking of

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Baghdad by the Mongols to the Inquisition and expulsion from Spain, and more recently the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, Islamic societies and leaders repeatedly embraced more conservative positions… When the central scholarly community of Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongol invasion, a centre of liberal, diverse learning was lost. This happened again in the Iberian Peninsula…Progressive alternatives to Islam orthodoxy were lost. This resulted in retrenchment and cultural conservatism.”11 The fact that Islam as a religious movement, right from its inception, heavily emphasized its military dimension and its founder had to militarily subdue his adversaries to establish the supremacy of his divine revelations contributed in shaping Islam’s response to challenge. Because of asymmetry of power in the new dispensation, terrorism became the new mode of Islamic warfare to cope with the challenge. In pursuit of its political and economic ambitions, West provided the causation and to defend itself, the hard line Muslims, defying geographical boundaries, responded by getting radicalized and opting for Jehad. It set in motion a vicious cycle of stimulant- response relationship each feeding on and aggravating the other. With availability of technology, money, and state support by some Islamic states, the phenomenon assumed dangerous proportions. Religious terrorism, a genetic mutation of fanatic radicalism, has acquired a very special import in contemporary world as it threatens the individuals, civil societies, nation states and modern civilisational values equally seriously. Following the post September 11, 2001 strikes, in last six years, the US estimates of fatalities due to international terrorism have been placed at 18,154, while those of domestic terrorism at 32,112.11 Though the norms adopted for compiling these statistics are questioned by some experts who feel that the menace of terrorism faced by non-developed countries is not adequately reflected in these estimates, the basic point of the colossal loss of human lives by terrorism is undisputed. Religious terrorism accounted for bulk of terrorist incidents of violence and well over 60% of persons killed, making it the biggest killer in the present day world. Islamic terrorism takes the major share of religious terrorism in terms of the human lives lost and the geographical area covered– extending to Americas, Europe, Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Central Asian Republics, Russia, South-East Asia and Australia. Though the current high intensity and vast expanse of Islamic terrorism is relatively new, symptoms of radicalisation started becoming apparent

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immediately following the fall of Ottoman Empire. If terrorism is not taken merely as gory details of terrorist depredations or backgrounders of terrorist outfits and their leaders, but more importantly, a war of ideas which threatens modern civilisation and way of life, it becomes necessary to have a closer look at the evolution of these ideas and the factors that shaped them.

Conflict of Islamic Radicalism and Secular Humanism–Evolution and Causes Islam, within five hundred years of its birth, held sway over Middle-East, Caucuses, North Africa and parts of Europe, South Asia and South EastAsia. By the end of the twentieth century, its size had substantially shrunk, its military and political power degraded, and Muslims had been left far behind in their social, and economic progress. Rather than take responsibility for the fall and find the causes within, which militated against their faith system, they tried to find them outside. Muslims suspected a global conspiracy against them and a serious threat to their faith from western ideas and interpretations of democracy, secularism, socialism, rule of law etc. It was perceived that West in its ruthless pursuit of a political and economic agenda, was out to destroy Islam and hit at its fundamentals. After the First World War when the Western powers carved, out of the Ottoman Empire, small non-Muslim states under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, their fears got further strengthened. Radical secularisation of Turkey under Kamal Attaturk, who was inspired by rationalist and secular ideas of Zia Gokalp and the abolition of Caliphate were widely resented dubbing Attaturk as a Western stooge. The emergence of Bahai faith at the end of the nineteenth century was suspected to be a part of the conspiracy to undermine Islam. This started a debate within Islam: Why the Fall, and what was the Remedy? The modernists attributed this decline to the inability of Islam to keep pace with changing setting and environment and pleaded for fundamental changes to modernize the Islamic society. The radicals differed. They attributed the departure from the original path, as shown by the Prophet and Shari’a, as the root cause and demanded going back to the fundamentals of ‘glorious past’ to achieve the ‘glorious future’. Both fundamentalists and terrorists today draw sustenance from the thought that modern society is rotting, and the cause of rot is the drift from the only true God and religion which Muslims were ordained to establish, Nizam-e-Mustafa (the sovereignty of God). In their view, “The only lasting sustainable solution

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lies in turning to the word of God in its purest form – the Quran and Sunna. Muslims must turn to the original core texts and interpret them in a way that makes them relevant to the needs of today”.12 As Islam historically when threatened, has tended to embrace orthodoxies laying emphasis on Jehad– fight to defend the faith, expectedly, fundamentalists opted for this route. Moderate thinkers, such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, felt that Islam’s problems were consequented by superstitious beliefs and unscientific practices which had crept in the medieval times. They wanted Islam to adopt western-style scientific education, relate social progress to the betterment of the common man and acquire scientific temper. The medieval Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) was considered to be unfit to meet new requirements of the society and the individuals. They also advocated a disconnect between worldly and spiritual matters wanting the religion to confine itself to religious matters. They faced stiff resistance from the conservative Islamic clergy. Western educated moderates were dubbed as puppets in the hands of western powers- who failed to exert enough to assert themselves and opted for the policy of calculated non-confrontation leaving free space to the Islamic conservatives in religious matters. Well established in the fields of politics, trade, education, high skill professions etc., they developed a vested interest in avoiding confrontation with the Ulemas (Scholars of Islam–usually including the clergy) whose rancour threatened to weaken their standing in the community. Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist organisation, inspired by the teachings of Ibn-Taymiyya, an eighteenth century ideological successor to Mohammad Ibn Abu Al-Wahhab, was formed in Egypt in 1928. Some Muslims, owing allegiance to Muslim Brotherhood, spearheaded a violent campaign against the British opposing their presence in Egypt in violation of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. The Movement waxed and waned and gradually lost its momentum but was soon replaced by its more strident successors. In early fifties, Sayyid Qutub emerged as the group’s principal ideologue who propagated that the decline of Islamic world “could be reversed” only if a small group of real Muslims emulated the ways of the Prophet Mohammad and worked to “replace the existing governments in 15 Muslim lands with Islamic ones”. Qutub’s ideology brought about radical redefinition of Islamic postulates in modern context. He advocated establishment of a true Islamic society based on Quran and Shari’a in which every Muslim was required to submit

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only to the will of Allah and not to man or the laws made by him. He proclaimed that the way to bring about this transformation was only through Jehad. He announced Jehad was “Islam’s tool to exercise it divinely – ordered right to step forward and establish political authority on earth. Islam had the right to attack and destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions if it was required to release mankind from their pernicious influence and to engage in Jehad for this purpose”.14 Qutub characterized secularisation of law, philosophy of socialism, liberalism and modernisation as un-Islamic and tools of oppression. He justified Jehad against them. Qutub’s ideology had a seminal effect on Islamic extremist thought. Though he was tried and executed in 1966, his followers made him a martyr and he became an inspirational icon for latter day radicals and terrorists. Every Islamic terrorist movement today swears by Qutub’s ideology. No credible school of Islamic theologians in the last half a century has come forward to seriously contest his formulations. On the political front, following the Second World War, nationalist struggle for independence began in many parts of the world including Muslim societies. However, while in non-Muslim societies, it remained a secular political initiative, in newly independent Muslim states, like Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria etc, it got intertwined with religious identity of the people and the mullah. Even moderate Islamic political leaders considered it tactically expedient to play the religious card, unmindful of its long term consequences. This led to religion becoming central to the polity of these countries, providing space to the radicals to expand their influence. The moderate political leaders, though in private, they were contemptuously critical of their teachings, publicly never wanted to be seen on the wrong side of the Ulemas. They also provided financial and other state support to these institutions who started producing a new breed of radicals and potential foot soldiers for Jehad.. All this gave legitimacy and dedicated support base to the radicals which had long term political and security implications. The economic interests of West in the Middle East, particularly after the oil boom, made them not only to overlook but even strengthen unpopular, non-democratic regimes whom they could manipulate with ease to sub serve their economic interests. Most of these regimes for their survival at home were dependent on the conservative Islamic clergy and used them to counter the moderates and pro-democratic elements by dubbing them as un-Islamic. In the dichotomy that ensued, while the secular West was busy through theocratic dictatorial regimes manipulating its foreign and economic

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policies internally the conservative radical forces, opposed to democracy, secularism and pluralism were getting strengthened. The people in power while subservient to the West when outside the country were critical of them at home to curry favour with the conservatives. Emergence of religious institutions and madrassas on a large scale, was another supporting factor in the rise of radicalism. The creation of Israel, without adequately addressing the Palestinian question and adjusting the refugees, proved to be the biggest contributory factor in growth of Islamic radicalism. It caused widespread alienation among the Muslims throughout the world. The Soviets finding the Palestine issue strategically advantageous to extend their influence and add to West’s discomfiture, developed linkages with Palestinian hard line groups opting for the resolution of conflict through violence. It selectively equipped and trained them to bleed the West. This provided Islamic extremist access to modern weapons, tactics, and expertise to engage regular professional forces in unconventional warfare, an expertise for which all had to pay a heavy price later. Lastly, the US response to the marching Soviet troops in Afghanistan in 1979 was a critical development in the evolution of modern Islamic terrorism. Mobilising Muslim youth from all over the world in the name of Jehad, equipping, training and logistically supporting them to fight the Soviets had four important adverse consequences: (a) It brought about a physical interface and unity among the scattered radicals at the global level, later developing into a global net-working and the consequent menace of international terrorism. (b) The trained and religiously motivated Jehadis on return to their homelands after the Afghan war created modules of terror in their native countries. (c) It validated the radical doctrine that Jehad, which was blessed by ‘Allah’, could subdue the mightiest. Victory of Jehad not only vanquishing a super power but eventually leading to its dismemberment and freeing of Islamic Central Asia came as a great moral booster to the Jehadis. (d) Pakistan, a highly unstable Islamic state with nuclear capabilities, saw in Jehadis a potent force which could be effectively leveraged for asymmetric warfare and achieving its politico-military objectives. It patronized the new soldiers of Islam using them with a politico-military agenda in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia etc. The spill-over effect was soon to be felt all over the world including the West.

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Salafi Terrorism-the Imminent Threat Most of the Islamic terrorism that the world is experiencing today- in the West, Arab countries, South Asia or South East Asia- is the Salafi variety of Jehad. Salafism represents a Sunni Islamic School of thought that is credited to an eighteenth century ideologue of Saudi Arabia named Muhammad Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. It was later refined and perfected by scholars of al-Azhar University in Egypt, notable among them being Muhammad Abduh Jamal-al-Din-al-Afghani and Rashid Rida. Salafis insist on reverting to the conduct followed by pious ancestors (Salaf) of the early period of Islam. They believe Islam was perfect and flawless during the days of Prophet Mohammad but undesirable innovations and impurities crept over the period of time. These all had to be identified and discarded. The School is thus opposed to any change and innovations and highly inflexible and orthodox in its approach. Though its original home was the Middle East and it largely remained confined there for many decades, of late, its spatial growth in Sunni dominated areas all around the world has been notable. For rootless immigrants and disaffected second-generation youth in Europe, the attraction of the authentic Salafism as a way to differentiate from others–as it is seen to be pure and stripped of the local superstitions, conferring a status of moral superiority.21 One of the main political objectives of the Salafis is the establishment of Islamic caliphate which could establish the sovereignty of Allah. The concept of caliphate is totally rejected by the Shias. Shia ideologues have their own interpretations of ideal Islamic world order, which create a different variety of radicalism and pose a different genre of conflicts with its own implications. The present day threat predominantly emanates from Sunniextremism. Sunnis who constitute over 80% of the world Muslim population, have widely dispersed global spread and exclusively contribute to the Salafi ranks, who believe in Islamic universality, allowing no local diversions. Sunni revivalists of the caliphate idea include Hizb-ut-Tahir, a major radical Pan Islamic outfit which has its presence in over 45 countries. In Central Asia they stand for the establishment of a Islamic state from the Black Sea to Xinziang in China. Similarly, an idea of a united Islamic state in South East Asia comprising Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand, Parts of Philippines and other adjoining areas is envisaged. Similar vision is harboured for South Asian countries and many other parts of the world. All these new gains, through Jehad, integrated with Islamic world are envisaged to be part of the Islamic caliphate. It may be mentioned that during Prophet

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Mohammad’s time, Arabia had no state and the Quran does not speak of any Islamic state as such. The notion of caliphate is of much later origin and came into existence only after the death of Prophet Mohammad. Salafis stretch the concept of Islamic Umma to mean a united Islamic Sovereign political entity rather than unity of Islamic people that it professed. Political consolidation, they consider, is necessary for enforcing the divine laws of Quran, the examples of Prophet (Sharia), Islamic laws (fiqh) etc. Their conflict with the notions of modernity like democracy, Secularism, equality before law, human rights etc. is fundamental and irreconcilable. They believe that egalitarianism of Islam provides sufficient space to meet all human needs – both physical and spiritual. The spread of Salafi philosophy has given a quantum jump to Islamic radicalism and concomitant terrorism. It has provided a new breed of radicals and foot soldiers for Jehad with a fire power and geographical expanse never known to any religion, including Islam, in history. The role of ideology in Salafi-Jehadi terror is multi-functional and intertwined with social and political processes. For a Salafi Jehadi the strategic objective is not only creating liberated Shari’a zones but perpetration of Jehad itself and attainment of martyrdom. The ideology both expresses and reinforces a culture of self martyrdom as a strategic good in itself giving rise to phenomenon like suicide terrorism. Salafis consider themselves as Al Taifaal Mansoura (the victorious group) who alone would be saved at the end of time. They are critical of moderate Salafis who only believe in it ideologically but are unwilling to participate in Jehad, and label them as Margi’eb (prevaricators). This fraternity reaches its apogee in combat and revolves around the common pursuit of martyrdom.16 The promise of brotherhood and its associated group is the essential component of the recruitment process, especially for Jehadis in the West.17 In its most extreme form, Salafi “parallelism” can be found in the concept of ‘takfiri’, separation from all elements of society outside their cells. In this concept exclusion both of Muslims and non-Muslims is legitimate and not apostate. This permits the targeting of everyone outside the group, Muslims and non-Muslims for violence.18 The Salafi terrorist ideology creates an obligation for physical Jehad as Bin Laden wrote, “The most important religious duty –after belief itself- is to ward off and fight the enemy. Jehad is obligatory now for the Islamic nation, which is in a state of sin unless it gives its sons to maintain 19 Jehad.”

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Spatial Growth and Expanse The above dialectic of Islamic terrorism renders a geographical theatre analysis meaningless. For them, the whole world is a single entity where Nizam-e-Mustafa (the Sovereignty of Allah) has to be established. Briefly, a geographical analysis has to be understood factoring in the following constraining factors: (a) At the ideological plane, the Jehadis consider the areas where the sovereignty of Allah does not exist as Dar-ul-Harb. Here wars have to be fought to convert or kill to establish Islam. In the Islamic regimes, wars have to be fought to enforce the laws laid down by Quran, Shari’a, etc. This practically extends their arch of action to the entire world. (b) Emergence of International Islamic Front for Jehad under the over-arching leadership of Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda has brought in ideological unity and global networking among Islamic extremists of various hues. The call of global Jehad cutting across nationalities, ethnicity, language culture etc. renders boundaries of nation states meaningless. It has converted Al Qaeda from a terrorist outfit to an Islamic movement with no formal structure and centralized control but as a global motivator for terror and violence (c) Modern technology and revolution in informatics has enabled the terrorists to communicate with ease, facilitate flow of funds to each other, access common sources of terrorist hardware and draw upon human resources from a wide catchment area. In this scenario, state specific threat assessment or response strategy has become difficult. Geographic boundaries are part of the problem and not solution. (d) Even where institutionalised linkages do not exist, the perception of common enemy and ideological commonality reinforces group psychology which binds them in a common bond to think globally even when acting locally. There are various nuanced inter-linkages which are difficult to define but dangerous to ignore. There are very few experts today who can claim full knowledge of all the groups operating, their inter-relationship and areas of cooperation. A terrorist of any area is a potential threat to any other part of the world.

Despite these limitations, as different regions have their own peculiarities and their own set of functional terrorist groups have differing response systems etc. a geographical analysis becomes necessary.

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Middle-East The Middle-East is the birth place of not only Islam but also of modern Islamic radicalism from where it spread its tentacles to new areas and mutated to take the form of global terrorism. This later engulfed new areas and graduated to full blown terrorism with global security implications. The festering Palestine issue has been central to Muslim religious leadership, intellectuals, politicians and laymen, cutting across national, sectarian, ethnic and denominational identities. Many militant groups from Palestine and other Middle Eastern Islamic countries targeted Israel to carve out the state of Palestine, which was deemed by them to be their legitimate struggle, and continue to do so. After the conclusion of the US backed peace plan it was expected that peace would ensue and violence would abate. However, with road blocks surfacing in the peace plan, these hopes have been belied and violence has again escalated. The terrorist groups which currently are in the forefront of militant action include Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Palestinian Islamic Jehad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hezbollah. Their targets include government facilities, Israeli security forces and the civilians. Hamas, Palestine’s major Muslim fundamentalist movement and terrorist outfit, has been primarily active in Gaza Strip and West Bank, where its armed wing has been striking. Besides the armed wing, it has an extensive social service network which assists it in recruitment, intelligence gathering, and providing over-ground support to the armed cadres. Its social service network runs mosques, health care clinics, orphanages, sports clubs etc. Its declared charter endorses armed struggle to establish supremacy of Islam, destruction of Israel, and establishment of an Islamic State on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the last five years Hamas has been increasingly resorting to suicide attacks, targeting Israeli civilians and military establishments, leading to sharp escalation in casualties and damage to properties. It is well organised, financially strong and by its armed actions has been able to create widespread fear-psychosis in the civil population. Though Hamas’s official membership is unknown, the intelligence agencies place the figure of their armed wing, overground activists and active supporters in tens of thousands. Palestinian Islamic Jehad (PIJ), like Hamas, is committed to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian State and the destruction of Israel. It is strongly anti-West, holding it responsible for the present plight of Palestinians and

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persecution of Muslims. Though small, it is better knit and organized, enabling it to undertake some meticulously planned terrorist operations inflicting high casualties. Since 2002, it has upped its ante of violence, particularly against Israeli civilian targets like city buses, shopping malls and cafeterias. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is active mainly in West Bank and is affiliated to Al-Fateh, which claims to be a secular Palestinian nationalist movement but maintains links with armed Islamic organisations. The political objective of the group is to drive away the Israeli army and Jewish settlers from West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem through an armed struggle and to establish an independent Palestinian State. Hezbollah, a Shia terrorist group with quarter of a century long history of terrorist actions, mainly operates from its bases in Lebanon and enjoys full support of Iran. Led by Lebanese based Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and Imad Fayez Mugniyah, who in terrorist circles is considered a legendary terrorist commander and operator, have before them the prime targets of Israel and the West. Mugniyah, variously reported as Hezbollah’s operational chief, security chief, chief of international operations and commander of Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah’s armed wing), has masterminded a series of highly sophisticated and daring terrorist operations in Middle East and much beyond- bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, bombing of the US embassy in Lebanon killing sixty three people, attack on US marine and French paratroopers in Beirut leaving 141 dead, being illustrative. The Palestine cause is a passion with Mugniyah and recently he agreed to assist Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jehad to recruit foreign nationals capable of infiltrating into Israel. Despite being a Shia, in Sunni terrorist circles he is highly admired by all, Osama himself being his great fan. Mugniyah’s meeting with Osama Bin Laden in mid- nineties is on record and it is known that Osama sought his help in building up Al Qaeda’s international strike capabilities. Mugniyah agreed to train and provide expertise to Al Qaeda Mujahedeens in handling of explosives and planning secret operations in exchange for money. His extremely close links to Iranian establishment are well known, who besides financing provide the group with logistic assistance like the use of government air crafts to its leaders for visiting Lebanon. Fateh-al Islam, a Sunni Islamist group with activists from Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, of late, has come to notice for undertaking terrorist operations, particularly in Lebanon. The organisation stands for organizing the Palestinian Refugees community in-line with Shari’a Law and building resistance against Israel. The outfit first surfaced in November, 2006 when

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it split from Fateh Al-Intifada, a Syria backed Palestinian group. It is strongly suspected of its secret links with Syrian Intelligence. The group gained provenance in May, 2007 when it got engaged in a series of clashes with the Lebanese Security Forces. The organisation is reported to be linked with Al Qaeda and had been working in tandem with the outfit of slain Jordanian born terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi. Palestine Liberation Front and Asbat Al Ansar, are the other two active terrorist outfits, the latter primarily operating in Lebanon demanding strict enforcement of Islamic laws. Following American intervention leading to the ouster of Saddam Hussain, Iraq has emerged as the bloodiest battle field of conflict between hegemonic power ambition and religion- inspired violent retaliation. Initially, it was estimated to remain a political power struggle between the pro and anti Saddam forces with manageable religious overtones. But like many other assumptions, this too was to be proved wrong. Religious fury has now dominated the engagement, both anti US and among rival sectarian Muslim groups, relegating the political players to the margin. The Iraqi civil society which hardly has the tradition of religious orthodoxy, has presently been totally eclipsed by the warring religious and tribal sentiments with political, economic, nationalist, and social issues taking a back seat. Like most of the developments on terrorist front, both in this region and beyond, Al Qaeda’s resurrection has been the most disquieting feature. In Iraq too, after some initial hesitations, it entrenched itself quite deeply and decisively despite some inherent disadvantages like a large Shia population, Al Qaeda being under heavy pressure in Afghanistan and the serious beating its terrorist infrastructure received following Sept 11, 2001 strikes. It manoeuvred the situation to its advantage by forging alliances with high potential local groups, even where it had substantial differences with them on ideological issues or strategic objectives. In this marriage of convenience, all were right allies as long as they treated the US and its allies as their enemies and were prepared to declare Jehad against them. Attracted by Osama’s larger than life image and the crafty alliances that he forged, many groups rallied under Al Qaeda’s banner and soon occupied the centre stage position. The declared political objective of Al Qaeda in Iraq is to topple the US supported “Un-Islamic Shiite puppet regime” and restore Sunni domination. But more importantly, its strategic objective is to bleed, punish, and discredit US and it hopes that West’s engagement in Iraq will swell the ranks of Jehadis and enhance their standing in the Islamic world.

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It feels that inflicting unaffordable losses on America will make its claim of being the sole super power look ridiculous to the doubting Muslims giving rise to a new phase of Muslim resistance to the West. They also assess tactical setbacks to the US, if sustained, will generate mutual dissensions among their allies, create domestic compulsions at home for them, and lead to reduction of pressure on the Jehadis in different theatres of the world. In Iraq, all perceived supporters of the US–politicians, security personnel, suspected spies and government functionaries besides members of rival religious sects– are on their radar, leaving very few out of the danger zone. Al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on Golden Mosque in Samarra, a sacred Shiite shrine, which triggered off the most vicious Sunni-Shia clashes. The outfit has a large number of non-Iraqi volunteers from Algeria, Yemen, Syria and Saudi Arabia engaged in Jehad under the Al Qaeda banner. Structurally, they are not under a unified command nor are the tactical operations coordinated. The terrorist actions, decentralized and localized, are out sourced to local Islamic outfits, tribal outlaws having their private armies, sectarian and religious leaders controlling various Mosques, and the criminal elements. The indulgence of Al Qaeda in complex local level Iraqi politics has also a down side as it has earned them many enemies and Zarkawi’s death is attributed to the local rivalries leading to his betrayal. Tanzim Qaedat Al-Jehad Fi-Bilad is an important terrorist network active in Iraq. Floated by Zarkawi and closely linked to Al Qaeda, the organisations works in tandem with other local groups like ‘Islamic State of Iraq’, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgent outfits formed in 2006. ‘Islamic Army of Iraq’, a Sunni-led group with over 15,000 activists has been responsible for a large number of attacks against the US forces. The ‘1920 Revolution Brigade’, named after the 1920 uprising against British colonial occupation of Iraq is another terrorist outfit sharing the military objective of driving out foreign forces from Iraq and establishing an Islamic state. It specializes in the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and has been responsible for a large number of roadside explosions as also mortar and rocket attacks in West of Baghdad. The group maintains close liaison with ‘Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq’, a grouping of Sunni scholars who are opposed to West’s intervention in Iraq. ‘Ansar Al-Suna’, a Sunni Salafi group, active in Central Iraq and ‘Ansar Al Islam’, active in NorthEast Iraq, also deserve a special mention for a series of violent actions executed by them in the recent past. Though most of these groups maintain close ties with Al Qaeda, they retain their decisional autonomy and ideological stance..

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In addition to the groups active in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and now Iraq, there are many other local Islamic outfits having their cells in other parts of the Middle East. Al Qaeda has its modules and sympathizers in many of the Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The organisation is opposed to the present Saudi Royalty and wants total withdrawal of US troops from there. The Middle East also is an important source of financing for Al Qaeda, though after Sept. 2001, with the tightening of control on terrorist financing through multilateral international effort, there is discernible drop. It is now mostly being routed through Pakistanis settled abroad, who regularly remit funds to Pakistan from where they find their way to North Western tribal area and Afghanistan. Egypt has not only been a premier seat of Islamic learning but also a hub centre of providing ideological leadership to the Islamic world. Salafi Islam and its doctrines were evolved in Al-Azhar University of Cairo in late nineteenth century, which today form the basis of Salafi terrorism. The first reaction to termination of caliphate was felt in Egypt with the formation of Islamic Brotherhood in 1928, which can be considered as first among the modern radical organisations. Though over the years Islamic Brotherhood has undergone a lot of transformation and has fallen from grace among the hard line terrorists for its alleged soft stance, it played a vital role in the early years in nurturing Islamic radicalism and influencing the minds of those who were to provide radical leadership in the years to come. Terrorist groups, however, were not able to develop deep roots in Egypt because of the strong counter-terrorism policy pursued by different Egyptian governments, right from the time of President Nasser. Groups like Gamaa Al Islamia, which stands for over-throwing Egyptian government and establishment of an Islamic rule, and ‘Egyptian Islamic Jehad’, another Sunni militant group, continue to have their presence and influence in the country. Some groups aligned to Al Qaeda are also active and their hands in some recent terrorist cases is suspected. Of late some other parts of North Africa are also getting sucked into the vortex of Islamic extremism. Most notable among these is Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). This Algeria based Sunni group has renamed itself as Al-Qaeda and owned up responsibility for a series of terrorist actions after Al Zawahiri, second–in-command of Al Qaeda, declared the group’s allegiance to it on Sept. 11, 2006. The group, till recently only seen to be a domestic insurgency group wanting to throw out the Military regime in Algeria, has now graduated to a full fledged Salafi terrorist

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group, recently announcing its decision to send Mujahedeens to fight Americans in Iraq. In a January 2007 speech, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, Al Qaeda trained commander of the organization, announced the objectives of the organisation to fight in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia and Chechnya.

South Asia In the evolution of Islamic radicalism and terrorism South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a special import, both academic and empirical. The first two where the virus proliferated most abundantly and the third where it hit most lethally. The largest number of Muslims have fought and died in the name of Jehad from this region in the last quarter of a century and over two hundred Islamic extremist groups and Jehadi organisations of various hues and sizes still claim their existence, of which about a dozen deserve to be taken very seriously. Islamic terrorists who struck in different parts of the world in the last one decade have had some link or the other with the region. However, while the first three have overwhelmingly contributed to the Jehadi ranks and their depredations, Indian Muslims, who are numerically largest, have by and large remained out of it. Though India, with over 40,000 civilians killed, is the world’s biggest victim of Islamic terrorism, ironically, majority of those killed were Muslims falling prey to the bullets of their coreligionists from across the border. All the three states where Islamic radicals received state or civil society support are politically unstable, burdened with no or weak democracies, trapped in slow economic and social growth and seen as near failing states. More importantly, though theocratic Muslim states, they themselves are facing a virulent form of sectarian terrorism. History and geography have conspired to make this region the single largest contributor to the growth of Islamic terrorism as also its major victim. To flush out the Soviets, Islamic zealots were brought from all parts of the Islamic world to Pakistan and Afghanistan forging a unity among those who shared nothing in common but willingness to die for a cause they considered Islamic. This convergence, enabled by western powers, not only made a superpower to retreat and eventually fall apart but made Islamists aware of the potential of Jehad and force multiplication effect of networking. Its aftermath saw ascendancy of Taliban – recruited, trained, weaponized and militarily backed up by Pakistan, an ally of the west. More sinisterly, Taliban, under Pak patronage, converted Afghanistan into a breeding ground

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for Islamic terrorists with training bases and infrastructural support to extremists from Turkey to Indonesia, Chechnya to China and Europe to Africa. It became the home of Al Qaeda and gave Islamists a geographical space to pursue their global agenda with impunity. Counter terrorist military action against Taliban following the September 11, 2001events did shake it. There was, however, a strategic flaw in response– pruning was mistaken for uprooting. Clandestine support from across the borders, failure to neutralize the top icons, Karzai’s handicapped governance, the shift in West’s focus from Afghanistan to Iraq and duality of the frontline ally enabled Taliban and Al Qaeda to reclaim the lost ground. Today, Afghanistan is fast relapsing to its past. Al Qaeda has found new sanctuaries in lawless tribal areas of North West Pakistan and Baluchistan. The Taliban influence has substantially increased in these areas where Pakistan Army is increasingly on the defensive. Heavy military casualties forced them to strike a dubious deal with Talibans in September, 2006 which enabled them to consolidate their position. The sanctuaries in Pakistan and lack of control on the borders enabled Taliban leaders to cross over to safe areas in Pakistan whenever under pressure from the NATO troops. Within Afghanistan the terrorist scenario has worsened and there is considerable increase in their striking capabilities. The incidents of attack on the government troops and the civilians have substantially increased. . Following Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, many factors influenced Pakistan’s strategy and response towards Islamic terrorists. First, having discovered their strength and potential, it decided to hold and nurture them as integral, albeit deniable, instruments of its state apparatus. A subservient Taliban regime was installed in Afghanistan which besides achieving strategic depth against India was envisaged to work as Pakistan’s backyard for dirty tricks. The agenda included installing Taliban prototypes in the Central Asian Republics, reaching out to radical Islamic forces globally and leveraging them to Pakistan’s advantage in the politics of Islamic world. The second policy objective was to settle scores with India on Kashmir and avenge the humiliation of 1971. Pakistan decided to use the Jehadi forces at its command against its asymmetric adversary hoping to succeed where its earlier military adventures had failed. The Jehadis, the huge leftover arsenal and the infrastructure to recruit, indoctrinate, train, equip and infiltrate the terrorists, was positioned to launch a covert offensive against India. The West, instead of coming to India’s help or force Pakistan to rollback the apparatus, underplayed India’s concerns. The fire looked too far and distant than it

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actually was. The prophetic warning to the US Congress by the then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee in October 2000 that ‘Distance and geography provide no nation immunity against international terrorism’ met with characteristic indifference. Pakistan soon became a nursery not only for terrorists who trained their guns on India but also those who targeted the West, the Arab world, Far-East and other Afro-Asian countries. Keen to extend its influence in unstable Islamic Central Asian Countries, Pakistan used Taliban to strengthen radicals hoping to establish Taliban type regimes there. Radiational effect of terrorism thus started advancing in all directions— India being worst hit due to Pakistan’s hostility and geographical proximity. The other important factor that shaped events in Pakistan was the September 11 attacks in the US which overnight changed global perception of the threat. Pakistan could no longer support the Taliban and Al Qaeda as before. It made a tactical withdrawal and decided to cooperate with the West to the extent it was necessary to protect Pakistan’s strategic interests. In a dangerously calibrated response, it made queer deals and counterdeals with both the sides. The September 5, 2006 agreement with the radicals in North-Waziristan, marketed to both sides as something done to favour them is illustrative. While Taliban used the dichotomy to their advantage, The West lost valuable time and is still trying to decipher Pakistani intentions. The third factor has been the inexorable growth of sectarian violence within Pakistan among rival Islamic groups. Intertwined in a complex relationship of mutual collaborations and hostility, Pak intelligence had used them selectively but is now finding it difficult to live with its contradictions. For different reasons, different groups have turned against Musharraf though they still receive some patronage on the quiet down the line. Attempts on the life of President Musharraf, however, have led to head on collision and brought to the fore their threat to internal security. Pakistan’s policy of ‘different strokes for different folks’ bracketing the terrorists in three broad categories, viz., those targeting the West, those responsible for domestic violence and those hitting at India has created a confusion that Pakistan is finding difficult to cope with. The problem stands compounded because of the convergence of anti-establishment elements under re-emerging Taliban and resurgent Al Qaeda. Classifying terrorists under different labels is proving to be both strategic and tactical mistake. Pakistan continues to be soft on the groups operating against India. Their top leaders live and move around in Pakistan freely, travel on Pakistani passports and run businesses with impunity. Though ISI controlled training

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camps, and other terrorist facilities have not been rolled back, greater discretion is exercised to achieve higher deniability. The situation in Bangladesh has fast deteriorated after September 11, 2001, than is normally understood. When Pakistan and Afghanistan came under pressure, a good number of terrorists, reportedly with Pak intelligence support, found Bangladesh a safe haven. Using the Islamic card for political gains, the Bangladeshi society stands highly radicalized—local groups working on the franchise of Pak-Afghan terrorist outfits including Al Qaeda. The collective strength of terrorist groups like Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami, Harkat-ul Ansar, and Okaye Jote etc. now is estimated in several thousands. While India is the principal target, the anti-US and anti-West outbursts are too shrill to be ignored. The proximity to arms bazaars of Pacific Rim countries has enabled them to procure sophisticated weapons and explosives. Illustratively, on April 2, 2004 at Chittagong port, 1,790 rifles, 150 rocket launchers, 2,700 grenades, one million rounds of ammunition etc. were seized while being loaded in ten trucks. The brother of the then ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader owned the two trawlers that brought the consignment from Malaysia. The weapons, it is reliably learnt, had India as their destination.

South East Asia and China After early 90’s South East Asia has emerged as another hub of contemporary phase of international Islamic terrorism. Jemiah Islamiyah (JI) which came into existence in late seventies, as a non descript Islamist group has spread its tentacles in many areas adopting a stridently militant posture. It aims at establishing a Pan-Islamic State consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Philippines and Southern Thailand. The group has its cells in almost all these countries, and traces its routes to ‘Darul Islam’, a violent radical movement that sprang up in late forties at the end of Dutch colonial regime in Indonesia. Though in its early years it did not subscribe to violence but after 1990s it has shown marked proclivities towards violence. These are attributable to its interface with Al Qaeda and other AfghanistanPakistan based radical Sunni Islamic groups during and after the Afghan war. Its important leaders include Nurjaman Riduan Ismuddin (also known as Hambali). Hambali aften described as Osama bin Laden of South East Asia was arrested in Thailand in August 2003. Noordin and Azhari Hussain, a British-educated engineer and explosive expert, and Mohammad Noordin, a former Accountant, both Malaysia born members of JI, were responsible

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for attacks on Marriott Hotel and Australian Embassy in Jakarta in August, 2003 and September 2004 respectively. Besides, Abu Bakar Bashir, an Indonesian of Yemeni descent is the group’s ideologue leader who actively associates himself with the outfit’s operational plans. He joined ‘Darul Islam’ in the 1970s and was imprisoned in Indonesia. He later fled to Malaysia where he recruited Mujahideens to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. In 1998, following the stepping down of President Suharto, he returned to Indonesia to run a Muslim seminari in a Muslim majority island of Java. He denies his involvement in any terrorist activity though his involvement in the October 2002 Bali bombing is strongly suspected. He was the head of JI’s regional shura, and has close links with Al Qaeda leaders. The group is outlawed in Singapore and Malaysia, while Philippines Security Establishment has been maintaining a close vigil over its activities. The response of Indonesian government has been relatively soft, at least in early years, as a view is shared by some influential persons in the government that precipitated action against JI may swell its support base and lead to strengthening of radical forces. There has, however, initially been some hardening of attitude following the Bali bombings in October, 2002. In Philippines Abu- Sayyaf, an offshoot of ‘Moro National Liberation Front’ which initially spearheaded a Muslim separatist movement, is an Islamist militant organisation operating from Southern Philippines. Its avowed objective is to carve out a separate Islamic state for the country’s Muslim minority. Abdurajak Janjalani, who fought under ‘International Islamic Brigade’ in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation, was its founding leader. Crucial financing to form the organisation was provided by one Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, a Saudi businessman following the death of Abddurajak in 1998. His brother Khadaffy Janjalani led the organisation till 2006 when he was killed. With the killing of Abu Sulaiman the successor in January, 2007 the organisation practically became headless as it does not have a committed second rung leadership. The second rung leaders are more of criminals than ideologically motivated Jehadis. The organisation’s links with its Middle Eastern donors have also got adversely affected. Recently, Radullam Sahiron, an old man with one arm severed and no operational experience was made the chief in January, 2007. The organisation is presently weak but its recovery can not be ruled out. It is also likely to continue with its criminal activities like extortions, kidnapping for ransom etc. The activities of the organisation have included bomb blasts, assassinations, kidnappings and extortions. One of the major terrorist

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incidents perpetrated by the group was kidnapping of twenty people, including three Americans, in May, 2001 at a tourist centre. Abu Sayyaf beheaded one of the American captives and held the other two Americans as hostages in an island in Southern Philippines. In June, 2002, in a rescue operation two of the hostages were killed and one American missionary Gracia Burnham was rescued. Of late, Southern Thailand has emerged as another active area where Islamic insurgents have been attacking Buddhists, including monks, in large numbers. Though in earlier years the movement did not show change in global activities for violence, with the Islamic mind set there was a cascading effect leading to escalation of violence. Over the past three years, insurgency has claimed nearly 2000 lives. The conflict with the Muslims dates back to 1902 when the Sultanate of Pattani in Soutnern most tip of the country was annexed by Thailand. Attempts to forcibly assimilate these ethnically Malay Muslims caused resentment amongst Muslims. The Muslim insurgency in Southern Thailand is still nebulous dispersed with a loosely defined organisational structure. However, among the major insurgent groups Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinat(BRN-C), attani United Liberatiuon Organisation (PULO), Bersatu, Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Pattani (GMIP) are notable. Though it is essentially local insurgency for greater political rights it has of late been given a Jehadi label by its leaders.

China: In Xinziang autonomous region of China, Uighurs constitute the Muslim majority whose estimated population is around 15 million. Civilisationally, close to Central Asia, Uighurs till 18th century were either ruled by distant Central Asian empires or not ruled at all. Annexed by China during the Qing dynasty, the Uighurs could never be culturally and politically integrated with the main land. After the advent of Communist rule in 1949, the Chinese government tried to marginalize Islam, settled the Hans to bring about a demographic change and undertake repressive measures to silence the voice of dissent. All this was resented by the Uighurs who considered it a serious threat to their religious, social and economic interests. The simmering discontent led to the formation of East Turekstan National Congress which demanded creation of a secular, democratic government in Xingziang where political and economic interests of the original inhabitants were duly protected. They were also opposed to settlement of Hans Chinese in the region. The situation ,however, started deteriorating after early 90s. The

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bloody clash in the town of Baran in 1990 in which hundreds of Uighurs were killed proved to be a watershed point. The dismemberment of Soviet Union leading to creation of Central Asian Republics and the rise of Talibans in Afghanistan influenced the course of future events. Religious revivalism was discernible and Uighurs developed linkages with their Islamic neighbourhood. The erstwhile Sufi tradition of Uighur Muslims slowly started getting influenced by its more violent and radical varieties. Recently, “China is under threat of terrorists, separatists and extremists who often collude with foreign terror organisations”. (Ref: Special Report – Peace Mission 2007 – Military Expert: Anti-Terrorism Is An Important Mission of Chinese Army). China, besides heavily banking on its military initiative through People’s Liberation Army has continued with its policy of demographic dilution of the Uighurs through Han settlements and other administrative measures which have not found favour with the Uighurs. The Chinese Special Report of Military experts on anti-terrorism stated, “The People’s Liberation Army has shouldered important tasks in taming the three evil forces as well as safeguarding the country’s sovereignty” (Ref: Special Report – Peace Mission 2007 – Military Expert: Anti-Terrorism Is An Important Mission of Chinese Army).

Russia and Central Asia The Northern frontiers of Islam lie deep in the steppes of the Russian Northern Caucasus and stretches as far north as Kazan, the ancient Turkic Muslim kingdom. After the final defeat of the Mongols in 1480, Russia subjugated Muslim-controlled territories in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the Islamic nationalist minorities asserted themselves and independent states of Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan were created. However, Russia was still left with some Muslim dominated areas in North Caucasus which included Chechnya, and Baghestan. The Muslims in this area led by radical Islamists like Shamil Basaayev and Jordan-based Khattab raised the banner of revolt demanding establishment of a North Caucasian Republic extending from the Black Sea to the Caspian. They received both ideological and financial support from the Arabs. They also developed close linkages with the Al Qaeda. It also received ideological support from Hizbut-Tahrir. The rebels claim allegiance of twenty million Russians which include Tatars, Chechyans, Bashkirs and inhabitants of Daghestan.

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Russian response to the Islamic uprising was primarily military. Its policy was spelled out in two important documents, both formulated during Putin’s tenure as Head of the National Security Council of Russia. The doctrine characterising terrorist bases as illegal military formations, declared that they would be countered with all the might of Russia and its armed forces. It also entered into a Secret Treaty with Commonwealth Independent States (CIS) and formed an Anti-terrorism Centre in Kyrgystan. China joined this in April 2001. The terrorist attacks and decisive military response led to a series of high intensity engagements, with large a number of casualties. Shamil Basaayev was the cult figure of Chechyan uprising and his death in mid-2006 gave a severe blow to the Chechyan rebellions. Earlier movements, self-styled President Abdul-Khalim Sudalayev was killed in June, 2006. Basaayev, the Chechyan field commander was responsible for most of the high profile attacks in the war for Chechyan independence, which included the siege of a school in Deslan in September, 2004 in which 300 people died – mostly children. His notoriety attracted many youths to the movement who wanted to take the war to the Russian people by making them their targets. Amongst the old guards now only Doku Umarov still remains but he is too weak to be considered as a substitute for Baasayev. One major shift that Umarov has brought about in the policy is that their future targets would be military and not the civilians. This has substantially brought down the level of violence in Chechnya. Elimination of Basaayev and to a lesser degree of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Aslan Maskhadov, Adbul-Khalim Sadulayev and Omar Ibn al-Khattab has seriously eroded the striking capabilities of the Chechyans. The drawing up of support from the neighbouring Islamic CIS countries and stricter vigil being kept by their governments have also come as a setback. The erstwhile channels of financing from Arab countries have also been throttled to a considerable degree on account of international cooperatiuon received by Russia, particularly from the US and others. However, all these setbacks are temporary and there is no dilution in ideological commitment and conviction of the Chechyan people to continue the Jihad. The foothold that Islamic radicalism has established is unlikely to be eroded in the wake of the global spread of Islamic radicalism in general and adjoining Central Asian countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan in particular.

Central Asia Following the dissolution of Soviet Union, the newly emerged Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and

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Uzbekistan took a course different from that of the Baltic republics. In these nascent break away states, unlike the Baltics, there was no dominant urge for democracy, free enterprise and the freedoms which had been denied to them under the Communist regime. However freedom of religion and a new enthusiasm about their rich past and heritage seized their imagination. Communism which had suppressed their religious urge for nearly three quarters of a century was suddenly rediscovered. Momentous developments were taking place in the Islamic world in general and their contagious neighbourhood in particular, and they could not remain insulated from their influence. Ahmed Rashid a noted Pakistani journalist who visited these states a year after they gained independence observed, “I was besieged by people wanting to know about the world of Islam outside their valleys and mountain villages. Few people knew about the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the depth of Palestinian resistance to Israel or the mini wars that had been waged by Islamic militants in Kashmir, Algeria, Egypt and the Philippines. Many had forgotten their prayers and other rituals of Islam”. (Ref. Jihad: The rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid) Three factors influenced the course of events in these states. Firstly, the older generation which had passed the stories of ‘soldiers of Islam, who had resisted the 1917 Bolshevik revolution for long years giving a valiant fight, were remembered and revalidated. Their brutal repression and subsequent religious persecution was recapitulated by the new generations with a sense of spite and hatred. Secondly, the Soviet army had drawn heavily for its manpower from these areas. These youths –Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kazaks etc. – who had close civilisational affinity with the Afghan Mujahideens of various ethnic origins close to them started looking at their Islamic identity with a new sense of self –admiration. The presenee of the Mujahideens in Afghanistan, drawn from various Islamic countries of the world, gave them an awareness of the strength and expanse of the Islamic Ummah (community of believers in Islam). The eventual defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet troops destroyed the invincibility image of a super power against the might of Islam. Moreover, a large number of these conscripted soldiers became aware of their ethnic, linguistic and religious identity which they found was closer to these against whom they were fighting rather than those for whom they were fighting. Concurrently, the Muslims of the region also became aware of the Iranian revolution and the changes that were sweeping the Islamic world. It particularly influenced Tajiks who historically had special relationship with Iranians.

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The third factor was the role of Pakistan in the post Soviet withdrawal phase when it created Taliban and used it to spread its tentacles in Central Asia with the objective of establishing Soviet type regimes there. It thought to control the affairs of these oil rich land locked countries on the Islamic lines using Taliban regime as its proxy.

The West The West, particularly the US, faces multi-faceted problems in relation to terrorism. Firstly, it is the common enemy of all the Islamic terrorists all over the world, irrespective of the local factors responsible for the conflict and the players involved. As the US has global political and economic interests, this renders their citizens and interests globally vulnerable. In dealing with the states where these terrorist outfits are active they require a high degree of brinkmanship as often these require mutually contradictory requirements which have to be reconciled. This often makes them suspects in the eyes of those very Islamic regimes whose interests it seeks to promote. Capability building and motivating different state governments to initiate effective counter-terrorist steps also proves difficult and problematic. Mostly the states involved lack the capability or the intentions to act, or quite often both. Regimes, even with best of intentions, which come to power with support of the West soon lose their credibility and consequently the efficacy. The regimes of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and Nourial-Maliki in Iraq are illustrative. This leads to their direct engagements which further complicate the problems and provide Islamists a ploy to propagate that Islam is in danger. West’s serious limitations of understanding the culture, ethos, language and delicate societal relationships lead to their adopting high handed methods often resulting in the use of disproportionate force causing heavy collateral damages. The other problem of the West is of the homeland security. Most of the Western countries have a large diaspora of Muslim immigrants from the Arab world and other Islamic countries. A good number of them have not been able to integrate themselves with the new societies of their adoption leading to social, economic and psychological conflicts. The Islamists back home find in them useful human material for recruitment. Organisations like Hizb-ut-Tahrir undertake a series of steps to radicalize the Muslim youth. Tahrir though itself not a terrorist outfit, is the conveyer belt to terrrorism. It is presently active in forty-five countries including most of the West European counties like the UK, Germany, France, Italy etc. As observed by Zeyno Baran, Director of International Security

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and Energy Programs at the Nixon Centre, “HT has been particularly successful at recruiting frustrated youth who have lost faith in the systems of the countries to which they or their parents came. As a senior European diplomat has put it, after joining HT, they turn from being rebels without a cause to rebels with a cause”. Another problem is the inroads that the radicals and terrorist groups have been able to make within the civil societies

Contemporary Trends and Problems In the last one decade, frontiers of Islamic radicalism, quick to be followed by Jehadi terrorism, have substantially expanded. The sapatial growth is accompanied by the acquisition of more lethal and innovative strike capabilities by the terrorists in terms of skills and resources. The global counter-terrorist efforts have been a mixed card of achievements and failures. Overall, the successes have been more tactical than strategic. There has been degradation of Al Qaeda cadres including some of its senior operators like Khalid Sheikh, Mohammed Atef Abu Zubadeha etc. However, the outfit has revived itself not only in Afghanistan and Middle East but also in new areas of Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Turkey, West Europe etc. Jehadi ranks are showing exponential growth both in numbers and geographic expanse. Following are some of the main disturbing features of the contemporary scenario: (a) More Muslims Falling Prey to Radical Ideology: The major failure has been on ideological front. In the war of ideas the Jehadi ideology has neither been defeated nor isolated. The failure can primarily be attributed to (i) inability to create a powerful ideological movement within the Islamic community against terrorism to counter the Wahabi and Salafi ideologies. The weak voices of a few clerics and Muslim intellectuals who have stood against Islamic radicalism lack credibility and are perceived as lackeys of the West; (ii) Non resolution of entrenched grievances against injustice, real and perceived, and fears of domination by the West; (iii) Disproportionate use of force in conflict areas. Heavy human losses of coreligionists seriously agitate Muslim psyche; (iv) Lack of concerted efforts to counter vicious religious propaganda by the Islamists through a highly networked non-terrorist radical organisations.

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(b) Decentralisation of Jehadi terrorism: Mushrooming of independent terrorist groups which are not structurally linked to Al Qaeda or any other trans-national organisation, but draw ideological inspiration from them in different parts of the world. The Jehadi movement today is highly decentralized and diffused and the threat from self-propelled cells, some of them totally unknown and comprising less than a dozen self proclaimed Mujahideens, have sprung up in hitherto unsuspected areas. The US, Europe, Israel and the places where their citizens live or interests are involved figure high on their hit list. For some of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi based terrorists India remains the prime target area. (c) Situation in Afghanistan: Consolidation of Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan contributed by many factors like shift in West’s focus to Iraq, dubious role of Pakistan, failure of Karzai government to deliver, rise in Poppy production to fund Al Qaeda and Taliban have neutralized much of the advantage that accrued following international effort to control terrorist financing. The new recruitments to terrorist cadres and Taliban carving pockets of control in non- urban areas of Afghanistan have serious security implications. (d) Developments in Iraq: Iraq is one single factor that has most profoundly impacted Muslim psyche the world over cutting across their sectarian, geographical or denominational differences. The conflict has become a cause celebre for the Jehadis the world over and has generated high level of hatred and animus towards the US and all those who are perceived to be its allies, including the US friendly Islamic states and leaders. (e) Accredition in Financial Resources, Weapons, Technical Capabilities and Tactical Expertise: The terrorists today have access to money, high technology and military hardware despite various initiatives taken to control it at local and international levels. Easy commercial availability of equipment which can be used for terrorist operations has made the task of terrorists easier. Assistance from some regimes, though more covert and circumspect than before, has not fully stopped. Access to new technologies and equipment, communications facilities, use of cyber space for propaganda, recruitment and

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communications etc have not been effectively checked. The use of dirty bomb or some other techniques for mass killings though not imminent, poses a probable long term threat. As evident from some seized documents and questioning of arrested terrorists, the thought has been engaging the minds of various terrorist groups that the possibility of their springing a surprise cannot be ruled out unless high grade operational intelligence capabilities are positioned in right places. Terrorists are quick to learn from their experience and develop defeat systems to technological or other operational counter measures taken by the governments. Adhering to ‘Time tested methods’ is increasingly proving to be an erroneous counter terrorist doctrine. (f) Inadequacy of Global Cooperation and Coordination in CounterTerrorist Effort: The global cooperation and coordination in international counter terrorist effort still leaves many gaps at conceptual, structural and operational levels. The anxiety of each nation to exploit the arrangement to its best advantage giving precedence to short term national interests over strategic global interests is a fundamental lacuna. The US and other Western countries perceived as pursuing their national interests under the garb of fighting international terrorism are soon emulated by others, often to the detriment of West’s interests. When the US made Pakistan its principal ally in fighting terrorism, fully aware of its continued terrorist sponsoring role in Kashmir, it did not factor in Indian sensitivities. A preferred arrangement would have been to take India on board and convince Pakistan to stop support to all Islamic terrorists irrespective of their targets. Eventually the Americans themselves found that at the end of the six year war and heavy deployment of its troops and resources the Islamic terrorism in the area was nowhere near containment and its epicentre shifted to the areas which were governed by its own ally. The flow of intelligence sharing, particularly the operational grade intelligence is selectively shared, again on political considerations, mostly favouring the Western countries. (g) Signs of Fatigue in Some Nations: Fight against terrorism is a war of endurance. There are indications that the past Sept. 11, 2001 resolve and determination is petering out and some countries are thinking of an exit strategy. There have been instances where the regimes have given concessions to the terrorists, either overtly or covertly,

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for some short term gain. The agreement of September 6, 2006 of Pakistan with Taliban is illustrative. Similarly, a soft approach towards Islamic extremists in Southern Thailand has emboldened them. The doctrine of making no concessions to the terrorists and not striking any deals is going to be much more important in future than ever before. The Jehadis who claim that the victory is well in sight of late have started harbouring a feeling that the world is wilting under terrorist pressure and that it only needs a final push. The policy of appeasement on the spurious argument of tactical compulsion could be a strategic disaster.

The Way Ahead The above account brings out there distinct features: (a) Fast growing geographic expanse of Islamic terrorism, (b) More fundamentalist radical ideology of Salafism substituting the moderate variety of Islam, global maturating among Islamic terrorists, mostly under Al Qaeda franchise, and (d) Sharp accretion in the offensive capabilities of the terrorists–availability of hardware funds and contacts to procure them. The battle against terrorism has got to be fought at various levels and in various threatres. It is not within the competence only of the Army, Police, Intelligence and other agencies of the government who alone can bring about an end to the problem. It needs to be, despite vastly superior state power of the terrorism fishtive states – military, economic, technological and political – the terrorists can bring organised societies and the states down to their knees by attacking critical targets. Striking at highly vulnerable or densly populated areas not only leads to colossal loss of life and property but also generates a global fear that engulfs millions which potentially can cause serious political instability or economic rupture. To combat and contain the problem the present generation of statesmen, politicians, strategic thinkers, military planners, intellectuals and the society at large has to take some concrete measures. Some of the steps which could help ameliorate the critical position could include the following concrete measures: (a) The Jehadis too have some serious vulnerabilities and disabilities which need to be exploitated. One of their vulnerabilities is that their ultimate political objective of establishing an Ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate based on Shari’a is unpopular and unacceptable to the vast majority of Muslims. “Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied in the Jehad propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences

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that they seek to persuade” (Ref: Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate - Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States - Dated April 2006). Though it is true that not many Muslim intellectuals have openly and spiritedly come forward to oppose Jehad ideology, it is also true that no well known school of Islamic thought has openly come out in support of terrorism though many of them have accused the West also of indulging in terrorist activities. There is a need to engage these Islamic theologicians to evolve a code of conduct that will delegitimize activities of terrorists and their radical supporters. The need to define terrorism is another pressing requirement. The terrorists or the states supporting them should not be able to get away under the excuse of their being freedom fighters or people who are fighting for a just cause. While the existing UN resolutions relating to terrorism have been useful in the absence of a UN accepted Convention on Terrorism, they have not been able to make the desired impact. This has been held up for want of an agreed definition of terrorism. Locating the dark areas and activising the governments there to take action: In its present phase non-descript small terrorist modules have started mushrooming in most unexpected areas. In some of these areas the governments are complacent, the terrorists consider such areas of special operational importance to them for carrying out their activities. Al Qaeda activists have been able to transit through many such areas in the past where they were not subjected to usual checking by the complacent staff. Large parts of Africa are becoming increasingly lawless and can become future centres of covert terrorist activities. Enhancing operational intelligence capabilities and its real time sharing with concerned states: Most of the intelligence agencies including some of the best resourced organisations of the West really fall far short of the required expertise and skills in collection of real time operational intelligence. Despite huge technical back up support and availability of resources, there is dearth of human talents capable of producing quality human intelligence and undertaking pro-active operations. Such a capability needs to be built as an integrated international requirement. Intelligence sharing is still highly politicized and decisions on with whom to share, what to share, and how much to share are determined more by political considerations than genuine professional demands. Some of the states like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan are very favourably placed to collect highly valuable intelligence regarding internatiuonal terrorism but their contribution has left much to be desired. Reducing the areas and intensity of conflict: While the root cause theory in dealing with terrorism is fraught with serious dangers and no cause

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(f)

should be acceptable for undertaking a terrorist action, political, economic and administrative measures which could reduce the genuine grievances of the community must be initiated. How the societies get alienated and at what level alienation leads to the exercise of violent options makes an interesting study. If terrorism has to be denied the vital human resource component, an imaginative response to tackle the potential recruits at psychological level would be necessary. Finding substitute ideology to express dissent: Large number of issues on which the Muslims are agitated actually are not religious issues but political issues. Radicals make an attempt to mobilize dissent by giving a religious context. This should be countered by providing non-religious contexts like nationalism, economic interests, social needs etc. to express themselves. The problems cannot be wished away and their resolutions always to the satisfaction of the agitating party can also not be ensured. However, the politics of agitation can have a non-religious expressiuon. This will also help the process of conflict resolution through negotiations and peaceful methods – an option for which the terrorists leave very little scope.

Al Qaeda is expanding its influence at a dangerously rapid pace in different parts of the world. Sunni extremism is likely to continue as a major source of instability in Islamic regimes and high potential threat to the non-Islamic world. Commercial availability of advanced technology and financial prowess of the terrorists are likely to bring about sharp accretion in their striking capabilities. The world has to respond fast and decisively lest it degenerates into a serious civilisational threat.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Memo to EU: ‘We call it Islamic terrorism because it is terror inspired by Islam’ by Nick Cohen in ‘The Observer’ May 14, 2006. ‘Has Religion made useful contribution to Civilisation?’ By Bertrand Russell. ‘Is Terrorism Tied to Christian Sect?’ by Alan Cooperman, Washington Post June 2, 2003 Martin Luther King – ‘Beyond Vietnam – A time to Break Silence’ – Speech. ‘On Crusades’ by Tyerman 2006; Wikipedia- ‘Christian Terrorism’ Daily Mail 2nd July 2007, a feature by Hassan Butt.

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

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Religious Terrorism – http: faculty.ncwc.edu/TOCONNOR/429/429 lect B.htm. A Brief History of India – By Alian Danielore. The Ethics of War in Asian Civilisation – A Comparative Perspective by Torkel Berkke. Pain but not harm’. Some classical resources towards a Hindu just war theory’ Francis Coolney. Statistics on terrorism by Johnston’s Archive under Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and unconventional warfare. Islamic Terrorism: From Retrenchment to Resentment and Beyond – by Lauren Langman and Douglas Morris, Loyola University of Chicago. The growth of Islamic terrorism by Tusitala. The growth of Islamic terrorism. Fighting the war of ideas by Zeyno Baran: Foreign Affairs – Nov-Dec 2005 Ref: Abdullah, Azzam, The Lofty Mountain (London: Azzam publications, 2003 Toyanbee, “Recruitment of Islamist Terrorists in Europe”, p.38 See “From Dawa to Jehad,” pp. 33-34 Bin Laden : ‘Serman for the Feast of sacrifice Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate - Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States - Dated April 2006 The Next Attack by Deniel Benjamin

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9

Religion and Western Civilisation T. Thomas

Christianity is the religion founded on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ who lived in the land of Judea about 2040 years ago. His parents were ordinary people. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a breadmaker. He had attracted a large number of devotees and some of them were called his ‘disciples’. His sayings and teachings were simple and educative. His main subject was focused on God being the loving and forgiving father in heaven. He taught his followers the virtues of love, compassion and forgiveness. He used to illustrate his points with the help of parables. But when he questioned the misdeeds of the Jewish clergy they got him arrested and sentenced him to death. Consequently he was crucified at the age of 33 and was interned in a tomb. His devotees believe that he had risen from death and ascended to heaven. His followers earnestly built up the cult which eventually came to be known as the Church. The new religion was basically founded on the hope that Jesus Christ would come back again for final judgment. His teachings covered different topics. He insisted on monogamous married life for those who opted family. He opposed divorce on any ground except fornication. He did not prescribe any code of diet as he left it to be decided by the person concerned. His main subject of preaching was Kingdom of God which he taught his listeners to be achieved in this life itself. He was a great champion of the causes of the underprivileged including women. His teachings had two profiles, one very simple consisting of illustrations by reference to the routine things and the other symbolic and mystic. Though many persons wrote his biography relating to the life led by him in Judea, only four were accepted by the codifiers of the Bible. The authorship of his biographies was attributed to Mathew, Luke, Mark and John. Among them the last biography was written by John many years

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after Jesus left Jerusalem. His devotees including the disciples became the preachers of the new gospel propounded by Jesus. They suffered many kinds of persecutions not only from the religious leaders but also from the rulers of the countries where they lived. But all the persecutions imposed on his devotees for crushing the new cult failed to eradicate the new movement. Instead, it gained momentum year after year. Today those who profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ are a very huge section of the world population. Many of those who ignored or rejected Jesus later joined his disciples to make him the focus of faith. After the “Risen Jesus” had become the “Ascended Lord” and was no longer a visible physical presence, those at the head of the tradition had a different problem. Jesus remained, as was said, a present reality to them, and when they gathered to worship they believed that he was “in the midst of them.” He was present in their minds and hearts, in the spoken word that testified to him, and also present in some form when they had their sacred meal by sanctifying the bread and wine as his “body and blood.” They created a reality around this experience. If once Judaism was that reality, now “Christianism,” or Christianity, resulted. Leaders of the Christian religion had chosen the Bible as the book on which the religion relies and propagates. Bible is a collection of different books. One segment of the collection is subtitled ‘Old Testament’ while the other segment is known as ‘New Testament’. Altogether 66 books were included in the Bible. Writing of the Old Testament would have started in BC 1573. Moses is believed to have written the first four books of the Old Testament. Among the remaining books in the Old Testament, the poems were composed by a versatile monarch called King David, the precepts propounded by King Solomon, and the allegories of inspired people are some of the oft quoted books. The New Testament is entirely on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ written by his devotees. Apart from the 66 books included in the Bible about 11 more books (compendiously known as the “apocrypha” have not been included. However, the Roman Catholic Church included “apocrypha” also as a separate addition to the Bible as per a resolution adopted at Kent in the year 1546. Whatever it be, both the Roman Catholic church and the rest were willing to treat the Bible as the sole repository of the faith of Christianity. Even today, Bible remains as the most fantastic “Word of God” so far as Christians are concerned. Christianity was preached in Europe mainly by Paul. Though he initially opposed the cult grown in the name of Jesus, eventually he became its

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ardent votary. Paul claimed that he had seen Jesus at Damascus, which happened about two years after the crucifixation. This episode transformed the one time arch opponent of the new cult into a staunch and passionate apostle for Jesus. The teachings of Christ were preached, during the same period, in the southernmost part of India (Kerala). A community was formed by the name ‘Nazarenes’ in the region which is the present Kerala. This community became the nucleus of Christianity in India. The word ‘Christianity’ was not in vogue for a few years after the life of Jesus. His name was ‘Yesua’ (its English equivalent could have been ‘Joshua’). It is a mystery why his name was evolved as ‘Jesus’, and not Joshua. The term Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ which means ‘the selected or anointed one of God’. When the movement of devotees of Jesus arrived in Rome, the name ‘Yesua’ became evolved as Jesus and the term Messiah became Christ. The devotees later came to be known as Christians which is linked to the Greek word ‘Christ’. Christianity originated as a small Jewish sect in Jewish and Greek communities in the Eastern Mediterranean and spread quickly to other places, including Rome, the capital of the empire. For a long time, however, Christians were in a distinct minority amid all sorts of pagan religious cults, and it took centuries for the new faith to establish itself as a distinctive religion with a shared doctrine, a structure of authority, and an important presence in every community. However, once the leading Roman political figures converted to Christianity (in the fourth century AD) and the Church received imperial patronage, it very quickly became the exclusive religion of Western Europe (with the exception of the Jews) and gave the areas under Roman control what they had lacked up to that point – a common spiritual understanding of themselves. For considering Christianity in Western civilisation, we must know what is meant by ‘West’. In the context of Church history the terms ‘West‘ and ‘East’ denoted a special division. In a broad categorisation, the countries included in the Roman Empire were divided as ‘West‘ and ‘East’. Adriatic Sea lying on the eastern side of Italy was the dividing line. All those countries on the west of that sea came to be known as ‘West’ and those on the east were compendiously called ‘Eastern countries’. Italy was the major country in the group of western nations, whereas Greece was the principal country of the East. Rome in Italy became the headquarters of Western Church, and Constantinople became headquarters of the Eastern Church.

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However, for the purpose of the present article, ‘Western Civilisation’ must be understood as the culture and civilisation of those countries led by United States after the Second World War (other than the countries in Asia and Africa). Western culture or Western civilisation is a term used to refer to the cultures of the people of European origin and their descendants. Thus the territories of North America also fall within its ambit. It comprises the broad heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs (such as religious beliefs) and specific artifacts and technologies as shared within the Western sphere of influence. The term ‘Western’ is often used in contrast to Asian, African, Native American or Arab nations. The East-West contrast is sometimes criticised as relativistic. In some ways it has grown out of use, or has been transformed or clarified to fit more precise uses. Though it is directly descended from academic Orientalism and Occidentalism, the changing usage of the distinction ‘EastWest’ has come to be useful as a means to identify important cultural similarities and differences — both within an increasingly larger concept of local region, as well as with regard to increasingly familiar ‘alien’ cultures. As said earlier, Christian religion had to suffer numerous persecutions from the rulers of Rome and Greece during the first two centuries of its formation. However, the beginning of the fourth century marked the commencement of the great growth of Christian religion. When Constantine became the Roman emperor his capital was Constantinople. During this time, Christianity got state protection as the emperor himself accepted the new religion. He issued promulgation in AD 313 which is called ’Edict of Milan’ by which Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman empire. Constantine was very much interested in solving the doctrinal controversies which cropped up in the new religion. In a conference held at Nicea (city in Greece) which was convened for the purpose of settling the controversies, the delegates finally came around to a novel doctrine called ‘Trinity’ - father, son and the holy spirit constituted the ‘only one God’ and that Jesus Christ was part of the “triune God”. The conference went further castigating any other theologian who failed to subscribe to this new doctrine. The heads of all churches who attended the conference agreed to do so. It resulted in the present situation that all the denominations of Christians strictly huddle to this doctrine of trinity as a basic and inviolable doctrine of the Church. Some people think that Constantine was very much concerned about the subjects of his empire who believed in certain pagan faiths consisting of

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the concept of ‘Trion God’. Hence he was readily inclined to give his imprimatur on the theory propounded by those scholars in favour of Trinity. Thus what was not heard of in the Christian vocabulary till the Constantine period became the sheet anchor of the faith of the Church. Today no denomination in Christian world (barring a section called Jehovah’s Witnesses) can afford to go without the doctrine of trinity. Jehovah’s Witnesses denounce this doctrine as opposed to the teachings of the Bible and particularly of Jesus Christ. But Jehovah’s Witnesses are not treated as Christians by all the remaining members of the conventional Christian denominations. After the death of emperor Constantine, Christian religion became the official religion in many European countries. The most prominent lay person in Christian world after emperor Constantine was Charlemagne the King. He was counted as the first Christian emperor of the West. On the Christmas day of the year 800 AD Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as the emperor of holy Roman empire. This commenced a new era whereby every monarch in the western world was led to believe that their power to govern the people was bestowed by God through the intervention of the Church. The art, culture and all the aspects of civilisation were guided by ecclesiastical authorities. The sin was what such authorities proclaimed and remission of the sin was the mercy of such leaders. Thus western civilisation was brought under the spiritual suzerainty of the Church. In AD 1054 a schism developed between eastern and western churches. It resulted in the formation of two separate schools of thought. During the renaissance period the influence of Christianity became pronounced on western civilisation. The authority of Pope of Rome was questioned for the first time by a group which later came to be known as ‘Protestants’. This new group questioned many doctrinal approaches adhered to by the Church irrespective of western or eastern school of thought. They based their new movements on logic and objectivity without forfeiting their adherence to the Bible comprising 66 books. Influenced by this new awakening of renaissance and reformation, members of the protestant movement developed the spirit of adventure, quest for knowledge and thirst for enquiry. Discovery of new lands became the off-shoot of such spirit. Hazardous and risky voyage across the Atlantic was undertaken by puritans of the neo Christian faith resulting in the spread of influence of Christianity to those countries situated far beyond the great ocean. East India Company which became the harbinger of British empire in India and the establishment of United

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States are considered to be the by-products of the influence of such adventurous spirit of enquiry. Long before America was discovered the Christian religion became the only religion of many European countries. All other religions in Europe reached extinction until the emergence of Islam. The new religion propounded by Prophet Mohammad attracted large followers mostly in Arab countries. It spread very rapidly and its influence became noticeably proliferating. Most monarchs and rulers of many countries in Asia accepted Islam as their religion. The territories comprising the places where Jesus had lived and died became parts of the countries governed by Islamic rulers. Eventually, Islam became the principal rival to the Christian religion. Some of the monarchs of Christian countries in Europe initiated a series of wars for recapturing the areas wherein the holy places connected with the life of Jesus were included. The city of Jerusalem became the focus of such wars. Both sides fought such wars for a very long period and those battles came to be called ‘the crusades’. In spite of all such wars having been fought, the holy places could not be captured by the Christian monarchs and those territories remained with Islamic monarchs. The casualties included many devotees of both religions. Though crusades finally ended their embers continued to evince smoke in the regions. When the new Israeli nation was formed the threat of recapturing Jerusalem was hurled repeatedly and Israel succeeded in capturing a vital part of the city of Jerusalem. Even this did not extinguish the embers as the threat of full capture of Jerusalem is being aired from one side and vows to recapture even the lost portion are repeatedly made by Arab countries. It is widely known that the United States supports Israel with money and materials. This attitude of the United States has created a new cause of tension between Christian countries of the West and the Islamic countries of the Arab world. Christian traditions were developed from the Jewish nucleus. They have a number of characteristics which decisively affected the western civilisation. When Judaism believes that Jehovah is operating history to favour them being the “chosen people” leading them to the promised land or that a time of judgment is to be awaited, Christians also preached about the second coming of Jesus Christ marking the end of the world, being the plan of God the Father. The religious belief of Judaism is inextricably linked to their political aspirations giving them a sense of historical conviction. Similarly, the Christian thinking has been influenced by the emphasis that this life is a preparation for the next. Western civilisation has always

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encouraged a way of thinking about life as something bound up with a purposeful historical development guided by the Almighty God. Perhaps, this belief has instilled the thinking that they have a divine right to rule over others. Look at the western leaders trying to justify the aggressive foreign policy pursued by them and influenced by the animus that political life is fused with religious purpose. Having taken from the Jews the notion that there is only one God and that He is a jealous god, Christians have until recent times left little room for other religions to co-exist happily alongside them. Hence as Christian religion developed, it imposed a strict uniform spiritual discipline on the community of believers. Nonetheless, Christians were by and large intolerant to any other faith. Until modern times Christianity was generally cruel and oppressive to those who did not wish to share the faith. There has always been a strong tendency in the West to see those who do not believe or who refuse to convert as inferior or as lost souls or a people deserving divine curse and punishment prescribed by the Almighty. Hence, the Western Christian world had historically found it relatively easy to treat strangers harshly, for non-Christians are damned souls. Why have Western powers demonstrated again and again such a cruel and aggressive spirit against other cultures? One important part of the answer is, they find it necessary and easy to do that because that is what their God wants them to do (such a belief obviously helps to get rid of any compunctions one might have about the distress such aggression brings to strangers). When the great evangalist of the United States in the 20th century (Dr. Stanley Jones) after interacting with Mahatma Gandhi for a long time felt that he was a nobler Christian than many of the professed Christians themselves, he had to cofront himself with a very hostile Christian Church. Dr. Stanley Jones once preached that the Heaven will be poorer without Mahatma Gandhi. The said words of Dr. Jones evoked a wide protest from his own community. Such is the level of intolerance among the fundamentalist Christians of the West. This is the sad repercussion of the staunch and uncompromising faith inculcated by the Christian teachers in the minds of the followers. However, the Christian influence had good or meritorious sides also. Christianity has always exerted an influence to promote equality among the community of believers, since the value of every individual soul is equally important.

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This sense of communal equality remained latent in the interpretations of scriptures, and later this sense of equality exerted a decisive effect in the processes which launched Western success in the modern age. Christian religion has historically been very active in extending its influence. They say that it is part of the mandate from God. They profess that they only carry out what God wants them to do in the world. They have committed themselves to spreading the gospel, converting pagans, ridding the world of the evils of nature worship. They regarded it as a part of religious duty and hence they taught others of such evils with great verve and gumption. Many of the greatest herioc figures in the history of Christianity are missionaries who gave their lives in this enterprise. The missionaries were very kind and sensitive to human rights, but when it came to interacting with the faith of others, the missionaries exhibited rigidity. It is impossible to estimate the dimensions of how the above ideas precisely influenced the development of Western civilisation. Other cultures have also been expansionists and have subjected other peoples to their tyrannies, but it is rare for them to feel that these actions are essentially a religious imperative, part of their historical duty to God (certain parts of Islam also share this particular characteristic – which may help to explain why the history of relations between Islam and Christianity, up to and including today, have often been so mutually hostile). Other cultures may attack other people for glory or money or security, but not because those other people are evil, enemies of their God, whose religion must be supplanted or exterminated. This religious belief, developed in Christianity from Jewish traditions, has enabled the aggressive Western imperial advance into strange cultures to justify itself as a religious duty. How might the history of the world have changed if some Asian adventurists had first landed in North America, established contact with inhabitants, and started trading? Why did that not happen? It did not happen because the Chinese and the Japanese, for example, both of whom had the resources to undertake such expeditions, just were not interested. They were under no divine compulsion to expand their empires – their God was not directing them outward on a spiritual mission. And even when they had extended their presence outside their own borders, to judge from the behaviour of Chinese populations who did establish a foothold outside of China well before the Europeans (e.g. in Java), they would have lived happily and peacefully as traders among the indigenous populations without

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seeking to build fortresses, subdue and convert the local people, and establish an imperial presence. Where do we go from here? For the time being, with the English-speaking liberal capitalist enterprises headed by the United States in full power of the world economy, the only alternative to casting in one’s lot with that enterprise would seem to be opting out of the most productive economic activities on the planet or actively opposing them by whatever means are available. Joining liberal capitalism obviously requires one to learn the Western ways, particularly, North American ways, and that brings us back to where we started. For better or worse, by design or chance, America sits in the driver’s seat, and America speaks English. So those who want to spend their lives interacting with and working in the modern international business environment have little option. The influence of Christianity on Western civilisation has resulted in many good things. Emphasis on human rights was placed. They are treated as natural rights. Similarly, the civil rights also were emphasised and the Western culture accepted such doctrines as integral part of the civilisation. The Church founded many cathedrals, universities, monastries and seminaries. Such institutions produced men of great calibre who became leaders in different spheres of human activity. Thus, the influence of Christinaty on Western civilisation is not a one sided profile. It yielded both good and not so good results.

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10

India as a Global Economic Power Leveraging on the Civilisational Strengths R. Vaidyanathan

1. Introduction In India the per capita income at constant [1999-2000] prices was around Rs 21,000 and the savings rate was 32% in 2005-2006 [Economic Survey 2006-2007]. The savings rate has been around 20-25 per cent in the decade of 90s. In 2006-2007 it is above 30 per cent. We find that the share of service sector consisting of construction, transport, communication and trade, finance, insurance and real estate, community, social and personal services is nearly 60 % of the share of the economy in 2006. In other words, the service sector is playing a substantial role (more than half of the national income) in the Indian economy. The GDP growth rates have been averaging at 6.1 % during the period 1999-00 to 2004-2005 at constant prices. The service sector consisting of trade, hotels, transport and communications, financial, real estate and business services has been growing at above 7 per cent during the period which is much higher than that of industry and agriculture. Global capital is interested in entering many of the service activities. It is to be noted that the service sector consists of predominantly partnership / proprietorship firms, which are non-corporate forms of organisations. Substantial numbers of these are not covered by any pensionary / retirement benefit schemes. We will revert to this issue later in our discussion. The financing of our growth is mainly from domestic savings and a significant component of our domestic savings comes from household savings. Hence our growth is partnership /proprietorship firms driven and funded by households. India has not fully utilized its soft power [Yoga, Ayurveda, Music, Dance, Sculptures, Cusine, harmony with nature,

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non-conflicting civilisation/tradition etc] and has not leveraged on its civilisational strengths. We argue that the axis of economic power is shifting to Asia and India should play its rightful role in the emerging economic paradigm. The second section discusses the major engines of our Economic growth and the third section deals with the sources of our investments for growth. It also deals with the role of households in savings and investments. The fourth part focuses on the structure of social capital and suggests that we strengthen our entrepreneurship based on caste linkages. The fifth part elaborates on the issues of ageing and the need to strengthen family/ community values to take care of the aged. The sixth part deals with strengthening social capital and on the need to leverage on our civilisational strengths including our soft power to provide leadership in the emerging scenario of economic axis shifting to the East. The seventh part discusses options to be pursued in order to transcend the debate between Marx and the Market. It argues that the innate strength of India and its traditions provide clues to transcend beyond Marx and Market and to offer a new paradigm for the emerging world order.

2. Engines of Growth The important question which arises in our mind is regarding the Engines of Growth of our economy. We find that the non-corporate sector has played a major role in our growth process in the last two decades. It is a sign of our times that the largest segment of our economy requires to be identified by negating something else which is relatively small. It is, perhaps, part of our tradition to define a thing based on the concept of Na Ithi—”that which is not”. We can also take comfort from the fact that— for instance— under some of the constitutional provisions, a Hindu is defined as any person who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion. Here, too, we are defining by negation. The focus is on the role, pertaining to “India Uninc” or the unincorporated or the non-corporate sector of our economy. The unincorporated or noncorporate sector of our economy [consisting of partnership/ proprietorship firms and self employed persons] has the largest share in our National Income, manufacturing activities, services, savings, investment, direct and indirect taxes, the credit market, employment, forex earnings, etc. It is important that we understand the nature and role of this sector, which is

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sometimes referred to as the “un-organized,” the “informal” or the “residual sector”. This terminology is itself based on concepts pertaining to Western experiences, which may not be appropriate in our context. It is from this fact that all the myths emanate. The focus of the reforms and discussions by experts has all along been directed mostly towards the corporate sector and based on that conclusions are made regarding the role of India in the global economy. The experts would like India to be a mirror-image of the West even though evidence strongly suggests that the characteristics of our economy are significantly different. It is high time now for the unincorporated sector to get the dedicated focus it deserves. Basically, the sector needs to be studied, analyzed and understood, since its share in National Income is significant: it constitutes more than one third of the total. We find that the share of the service sector in our economy is significant at nearly 60 per cent and the role of unincorporated enterprises in that is significant. We have provided in table 2.2 the share of different sectors in our economy. Table-2.1 Share of Different Sectors in National Income [NDP at Factor cost] Category

1980-81

1990-91

Organized Govt. Private

17.50 12.50

23.90 12.30

23.00 16.60

22.70 19.30

38.08 31.92 100.00

31.46 32.34 100.00

28.90 31.50 100.00

18.70 39.30 100.00

Un-organized Agriculture Other activities Total

Note:

1995-96

2004-05

(1) Agriculture does not include Government and corporate Agriculture. They are included under respective shares as part of organized sector. These are based on NDP at factor cost and current prices. (2) Nearly 2% of the Private organized [in Manufacturing] is due to Non-Corporate sector. Hence the share of Non-corporate in the Economy is more than 40% and that of Corporate is around 16%. Source: National Accounts Statistics [NAS], 1997, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Central Statistical Organisation [CSO] –New Delhi

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The Service sector consists of the following activities: • • • • • •

Construction Trade—Wholesale/ Retail Transport [other than Railways] Hotels / Restaurants Real Estate /Ownership of Dwellings and Business Services Other Services [Professional etc].

It is important to note that significant portions of these activities are performed by partnership/proprietorship firms which are mainly run by families and community based linkages. The growth rate achieved by our economy is substantially due to the growth rate owing to the activities in the service sector. Many of the components of the service sector have been growing at more than 8 per cent during the last decade. Table 2.2 Share in GDP [Percentage Share] Category

1999-00

2002-03

Agriculture and Forestry, Fishing

25.00

20.90

18.30

Mining, Manufacturing Electricity

19.60

18.20

20.80

Services

65.40

58.90

59.90

100.00

100.00

100.00

Total

2005-06

Note: We have included construction as part of services. Source: Statement 11.1; National Accounts Statistics [NAS]—2007, Central Statistical Organisation [CSO],

We have given in table-2.3 the growth rate from 1999-2000 to 20052006 and we find that activities like construction, trade, hotels and restaurant and transport have grown at more than 8 per cent in real terms during the period. The share of unincorporated sector in activities like construction,

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trade, hotels, transport etc is between 60 to 90 per cent during the said period. Hence we can conclude that the growth in our economy has come about due to the growth in the service sector whose major components are unincorporated enterprises, namely, partnership and proprietorship firms. Table-2.3 NDP and Growth Rate in Different Activities 1999-2000 to 2005-2006 [Rs. in Crores and %] Category

1999-00

2005-06

Growth Rate

Agriculture and Allied Activities

424559

481136

2.11

Manufacturing

206126

300680

6.50

Of which Organized

128653

196975

7.36

Unorganized [Non-Corporate]

77473

103705

4.98

Construction

99312

172108

9.60

Trade Hotels and Restaurant

248196

395759

8.09

Of which Trade

227633

363330

8.11

Hotels and Restaurant

20564

32429

7.89

Non-Railway Transport

67861

113600

8.97

Real Estate, Ownership of Dwellings and Business Services Other Services

110419 139702

165548 207393

6.98 6.81

Total NDP (including other Activities]

1600932

2319014

6.36

Note:

The NDP figures are at 1999-00 prices and the growth rate is the geometric average growth rate at constant 1999-2000 prices during the period. It is computed from the NAS 2007. Source: National Accounts Statistics [NAS] 2007, Central Statistical Organisation [CSO], GOI, New Delhi

3. Financing of our Growth There is an impression that our economic growth has come about due to foreign inflows. It is not true and actually our growth is due to our domestic savings and a large part of these savings has come from the household sector. In table 3.1 we have provided the rate of savings and sources of our savings. We observe that our savings rate which used to be around 10 per cent in the sixties has crossed 30 per cent in the recent years. The increase in

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savings rate is an important factor in increased investments. We also find that more than 75 per cent of our savings come from the household sector and the contribution of foreign investment –both direct and portfolio- is less than 7 per cent. In other words, average middle class housewives are driving our growth and not global financial flows as it is made out in some newspapers. The increased savings rate facilitated by substantial household savings has contributed to what may be called the India story. Table-3.1 Savings and Foreign Flows Items

94-95

98-99

00-01

04-05[p]

Gross Domestic

251463

374659

497218

973028

Gross Domestic Savings [GDS] GDS as

251463

374659

497218

973028

24.8

21.5

23.7

31.1

% Of GDP Household Sector

199358(79%)

326802(87%)

442136(89%)

674834(70%)

(% of GDS) Foreign Investment

16133(6.4%)

10101(2.7%)

31015(6.3%)

67249*7.4%)

A. Direct Investment

4126

10358

18406

25395

B. Portfolio Investment

12007

-257

12609

41854

Note: p: Provisional Source: Table 1.4, pp. S-6, Economic Survey 2006-2007; Ministry of Finance, GoI, New Delhi and Table 164 pp 270—Hand Book of Statistics on Indian Economy 2006; RBI-Mumbai.

Significant portions of the financial savings of the households are kept in the Bank Deposits, Postal Savings, Provident Funds and Life Insurance funds. These constituted more than 80 per cent in the last year. We can see the details of the composition of the savings in table-3.2.

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Table 3.2 Composition of House Hold Savings 1950 to 2006 [%] Item

195051

196061

1970- 1980- 199071 81 91

200001

Gross Domestic Savings [GDS] to GDP

8.9

Household Savings [HS] to GDS

11.6

14.6

18.9

23.1

23.7

31.1

32.4

69

63

70

73

84

89

69

69

Physical Savings [PS] to HS

90

64

70

57

55

51

53

48

Financial Savings [FS] to HS

10

36

30

43

45

49

47

52

Currency to FS

131

32

25

19

13

7

12

12

Net Deposits to FS

-42

2

19

34

22

34

13

24

Shares and Bonds to FS

84

15

7

5

17

4

3

8

Net Claims on Govt. to FS

-136

12

-1

7

15

18

33

21

Life Insurance to FS

32

11

14

10

11

15

21

20

PF and Pensions to FS

31

28

36

25

22

22

18

15

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Total FS

2004- 200505 06

The investment in the stock markets was less than eight per cent and to that extent the growth is not due to savings channelled through stock markets. The savings by households is for old age security, health care, education of children and for expenses towords conducting Sanskaras for birth/death, marriage etc.

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3. Role of Gold Indian households also purchase gold jewelry and India is one of the largest buyers, with more than a quarter of the world demand. For instance, during 2006 Indian households bought more than 500 tonnes of gold out of a global demand of around 2300 tonnes. This implies that nearly Rs.40, 000 crore has been invested in gold jewelry by Indian households taking a conservative estimate of Rs.8000 per 10 grams. The amount of investment in gold by the households is substantially much higher than that of Stock markets during the same period. We have provided in Table 3.2 the demand for gold by Indian households. The domestic production is meagre and a significant portion—more than 90 per cent- of our demand is for jewelry purposes unlike in developed countries where substantial demand is also for industrial in purposes. In the case of gold the decision to dispose it of is always taken with the consent of the lady of the house. To that extent gold ornaments can be considered as an insurance or pension products for the women of the household, particularly for the housewives, in the poorer segment. It is an important asset after the death of their husbands. Hence there is a belief that some of the gold ornaments like neck chain [Mangal Sutra], bangles etc are not to be removed or disposed of during the life of the man of the house. Hence the aggregate savings of the households including gold constitute the major net worth of the society. Table 3.2 Gold: Jewellary Demand 1998-2006 Countries

2000

2001

2004

2005

2006

India Greater China Japan Indonesia Vietnam Middle East Turkey USA Italy U.K Total-Including others

620 282 37 87 21 448 148 387 92 75 3209

598 265 38 98 24 429 92 389 90 82 3016

517 259 35 84 26 343 189 352 77 70 2610

587 277 34 78 27 365 195 349 71 59 2610

505 275 33 58 22 304 165 309 64 50 2267

Gold price ($/oz)

279.1

271.1

409.2

444.5

603.8

Note: 1 Tonne=32,151 troy oz of fine gold Source: World Gold Council—Gold Demand Trends various issues

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4. Caste as Social Capital The natural question that arises is regarding the nature of our entrepreneurs in the unincorporated sector. We find that the caste has played an important role in the development of the unincorporated sector that is the main engine of our economic growth. Table 4.1 Social Group of Owners of all Enterprises [1998] [%] Item

Rural

Urban

Combined

SC

9.0

5.8

7.7

ST

5.2

2.3

4.0

OBC

36.0

29.1

33.1

Total of above

50.2

37.2

44.8

Source: Economic Census, Table 2.6, and Central statistical Organisation, GOI; 1998

We have the exhaustive Economic Census 1998, conducted by the Central Statistical Organisation [CSO] which covers 30.35 million enterprises engaged in different economic activities other than crop production and plantation. It deals with their own account enterprises as well as establishments; an enterprise is run by employing at least one hired worker .It covers private profit and non-profit institutions, cooperatives, and all economic activities including Dharamshalas /temples. We have given in table 4.1 the salient findings pertaining to ownership of the enterprises. Table 4.2 Social Group of Owners of Service Enterprises [2002] [%] Item

Rural

Urban

Combined

SC

18.4

12.8

16.1

ST

3.4

1.3

2.6

OBC

47.3

34.4

42.1

Total of above

69.1

48.5

60.8

Source: Unorganised Service Sector in India, 2001-2002 Statement 29 pp 50;

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We find that nearly half of all enterprises are owned by SCs/STs/OBCs in the rural areas and the same is nearly 38% in the urban areas. This encompasses manufacturing/ construction / trade / hotel/ restaurant/ transport/finance and business and other services. The Enterprise survey reveals that out of the total of 30.25 million enterprises in the country 24.39 million [80%] were found to be selffinancing. Much of it would have come from informal caste networks We have also provided the social composition of ownership of enterprises in the service sector in table 4.2. The service sector comprises in this survey the activities of hotels and restaurants, transport storage and communication, real estate, education, health and other community social and personal services. It did not include wholesale and retail trade, repair of automobiles and financial intermediation. We find from table 4.2 that a significant portion of the ownership of the service sector is by SCs/STs and OBCs. Actually OBCs own nearly 50 per cent of all service enterprises. Hence at the outset we need to stress that the entrepreneurship activities are spread across castes and substantial portion is owned by what in political parlance is called “backward castes”. If they are actually considered backward by others then they may not be able to provide services like restaurants to other castes. Herein lies the importance of understanding the role of caste in our economic development Report 483 National Sample Survey Organisation, Government of India, New Delhi, 2003. The metropolitan elite and rootless experts of our country have concluded that caste is bad. They have made it into a “four letter” word and so every Indian is expected to feel guilty whenever caste is mentioned and talked about. In international fora caste is used as a stick to beat anything connected to Indian religions, customs, and culture. In other words slowly caste has been made to be for Indians what is “holocaust” for Germans and Austrians. We have an uncanny ability to self-abuse ourselves in a masochistic way. But more tragic is our enthusiasm to convert all our strengths to weaknesses since some white men started abusing Indians for having caste system. It is also assumed that it is a rigid hierarchical system which is oppressive. But it is pointed out by the renowned sociologist Dr. Dipankar Gupta that “In fact, it is more realistic to say that there are probably as many hierarchies as there are castes in India. To believe that there is a single caste order to which every caste, from Brahman to untouchable, acquiesce ideologically, is a gross misreading of facts on the ground”. The truth is that no caste, howsoever lowly

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placed it may be, accepts the reason for its degradation”[Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste, pp1; Penguin Books, 2000]. We fail to recognize that it is a valuable social capital, which provides cushion for individuals and families in dealing with society at large, and more particularly the State. The Anglo-Saxon model of atomizing every individual to a single element in a right-based system and forcing him to have a direct link with the State has produced disastrous effects in the west wherein families have been destroyed and communities have been forgotten. Every person is standing alone in a sense, stark naked, with only rights as his imaginary clothes to deal directly with the State. The State also does not have the benefit of concentric circles of cushions to deal with individuals. The State has taken over the role of father and mother as well as spouse in terms of social security, old age homes and rights of children to sue and divorce parents! Caste has been made a curse by the intellectuals based on the halfbaked knowledge and acceptance of the Euro centric model of individual, which is right-based rather than duty-based system. Hence one way to overcome it is to have reservations since the Euro centric model suggests that. If you decide to carry the cross or burden which others impose then you should also carry the solution provided by them. But caste has played an important role in the consolidation of business and entrepreneurship in India particularly in the last fifty or so years. The World Bank suggests that the remarkable growth of Tirupur is due to the coordinated efforts of Gounders many of them not even matriculates. “Since 1985 Tirupur has become a hotbed of economic activity in the production of knitted garments. By the 1990s, with high growth rates of exports, Tirupur was a world leader in the knitted garment industry. The success of this industry is striking. This is particularly so as the production of knitted garments is capital-intensive, and the state banking monopoly had been ineffective at targeting capital funds to efficient entrepreneurs, especially at the levels necessary to sustain Tirupur’s high growth rates. What is behind this story of development? The needed capital was raised within the Gounder community, a caste relegated to the land-based activities, relying on community and family network. Those with capital in the Gounder community transfer it to others in the community through long-established informal credit institutions and rotating savings and credit associations. These networks were viewed as more reliable in transmitting information and enforcing contracts than the banking and legal systems that offered weak protection of creditor rights” [World Development Report, p175; The World Bank].

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The amount of networking and contract enforcement mechanism available with caste institutions are not fully studied. The same is true regarding the Nadar community in Virudhunagar area pertaining to matches and printing industry. Of course large amount of literature is available on Marwaris, Sindhis, Katchis, Patels etc and the nature of global network some of them have created. In a financial sense caste provides the edge in being a risk taker since failure is recognized and condoned and sometimes encouraged by the group. What is required to be debated is the enhancement of credit systems for the enterprises and more so to those owned by SCs/STs and other backward communities. In other words the focus should be on “Vaishyavisation” of the large segments of our civil society, instead of creating large number of “proletariat” in the fashion of nineteenth century models. For that we need to recognize caste as the natural social capital present in our system. The survey also points out that the overall growth rate of enterprises owned by persons belonging to the SC category has significantly declined from 3.42% during 1980-1990 to 0.40% in 1990-1998. The decline is observed both in rural and urban areas but in rural areas the growth is even negative [-0.41%]. This is an issue which needs debate and detailed study by policy planners. Is the decline due to the migration of SC segments to urban areas or due to inadequate credit availability? In contrast the growth rate of enterprises owned by persons belonging to ST category has significantly increased from 4.16% [1980-90] to 6.64% [1990-98]. The increase is sharp in urban areas from 2.37% to 12.24%. This is interesting. The reasons for such growth also need study by planners for replicating those cluster efforts. The focus should be on helping the entrepreneurship of these groups rather than reservation in dwindling government jobs. There are inter-state variations in terms of industry focus among these social segments, which also require a closer study to encourage and enhance entrepreneurial activities by these social groups in different states. Incidentally one of the arguments given is regarding enhancing ‘Social Status’ of these segments. Social backwardness, it is pointed out, is a valid reason for caste based reservations compared to reservations based on say economic criteria. But as M.N. Srinivas the doyen of sociologists points out, “An important feature of social mobility in modern India is the manner in which the successful members of the backward castes work consistently for improving the economic and social condition of their caste fellows. This

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is due to the sense of identification with one’s own caste, and also a realisation that caste mobility is essential for individual or familial mobility” [Collected Essays; pp196-197, OUP, 2005]. Mr. Gurucharan Das, the corporate chief turned author and analyst, says, “In the nineteenth century, British colonialists used to blame our caste system for everything wrong in India. Now I have a different perspective. Instead of morally judging caste, I seek to understand its impact on competitiveness. I have come to believe that being endowed with commercial castes is a source of advantage in the global economy” [Caste system; India Unbound—Penguin Books, 2002, p-150] Even though there is a perception that the so called lower castes were not having much role in education in the pre-independence India, we find that substantial percentage of school students were from the “Sudra” groups during the early nineteenth century. The share of them in schools in Tamil speaking areas was 70 to 80 % in Oriya areas it was 62%, in Malayalam areas it was 54 % and in Telugu areas it was 35-50 %. More interestingly the share of Brahmins in Tamil speaking areas was 13% in south Arcot and 23% in Madras areas [See Dharampal-Beautiful Tree—Indigenous Indian education in the Eighteenth Century; Vol-3 of Collected writings, Published by Other India Press Goa] Hence the British inspired propaganda that education was not available to the so called backward castes prior to their efforts is not valid. The “secular” education was always a major tool in social transformation prior to the British rule. An important aspect is the success of India in the software and other knowledge related industries in the recent past compared to traditional manufacturing industries. The answer is partly in the “Enquiring Mind” endowed with ancient wisdom which stresses on logic and mathematics. The caste creates a relationship based societal interaction which is currently attempted to be replaced by rule based societal order. The Western system has gone to the other extreme of rule or contract based social order wherein pre-nuptial contracts and single parent custody contracts have become the order of the day. The relationship based system has its virtues and any attempt to completely replace it with the rule based system may neither be desirable nor feasible. We also find that caste in politics divides but caste in economics unites. Those castes which have used business as a route for upward mobility have succeeded much better than those that tried to use politics. The examples, which come to mind, are Nadars and Gounders in the former

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category and Vanniars, Thevars and Dalits in the latter category in Tamil Nadu. It is required for policy planners and experts to work on a road map to calibrate changes in our context. The globalisation process is going to significantly affect self-employed groups much more than the large impersonal corporates. Let us remember that the Wall Mart was built in rural America by liquidating thousands of mom and pop shops, which are equivalent to our street corner Nadar, or Muslim shops. The arrival of Internet and cell phone present opportunities to innovate in linking millions of small “Vaishyas” to create scale economics. Indian civilisation, over centuries, has always been innovative and creative in finding solutions to social problems. May be the time has come for the Government to perform mainly the task of a Kshatriya [internal and external security] and encourage large segments of our society to become Vaishyas through instrumentalities of credit delivery, taxation, social security and development of regional and community/caste-based clusters etc. This may go a long way in enhancing the social status of the SCs/STs/OBCs rather than providing some limited job opportunities in corporate companies in the name of reservations. 4.1 Role of Unincorporated Business in Credit Markets The Household Indebtedness and Investment Survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation [fifty-ninth round] during 2003 brings out the important role being played by the money lenders in our credit system. We have provided in Table-4.3 the aggregate amount of debt, estimated number of households which are indebted, and the amount therein. In all, the indebtedness was of the order of Rs 176795 Crore as on 30-0602. Rural households, which are 73% of the total households, have 63 % of the debt and urban households constituting 27% have 37% of the debt. We also find that the Incidence of Indebtedness [IOI], namely, the percentage of households having debt is nearly 27% in rural areas and 18 per cent in urban areas and 24 per cent in the country. In other words, every fourth household is indebted in our country with an average debt of nearly Rs.9000.

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Table-4.3 Amount of Cash dues of Households Estimates

Rural

Urban

Total

No. of Households [Cr]

14.79 [73]

5.55 [27]

20.34 [100]

Total amount of debt [Rs. Cr]

111468 [63]

65327 [37]

176795 [100]

Incidence of Indebtedness [IOI]

26.5

17.8

24.1

Average Debt per Household Rs.

7539

11771

8694

Source: Household Indebtedness in India; Statement 1; page 14; –NSS Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation–GOI—New Delhi; December 2005

The level of indebtedness by the households is both from institutional as well as non-institutional sources. Institutional sources are mainly Co-operative societies / banks and Commercial banks whereas the non-institutional agencies are mainly moneylenders and to some extent friends/relatives. We find from table –4.4 that the share of non-institutional category [mainly money lenders] has actually increased in the rural areas between 1981 and 2002 and nearly 45 % of lending in rural areas is by moneylenders and 25 % of urban indebtedness is due to moneylenders. The dependence of non-cultivators in rural areas on moneylenders is nearly 54 per cent in 2002 and of the self-employed in urban areas it is 33 per cent. Table 4.4 Percentage Share of Non-Institutional category in outstanding Debt of households by occupations. [as on 30-6- ]

Source:

Occupational Category

1981

1991

2002

Rural Cultivator

37

34

39

Non-Cultivator

63

45

54

All [Rural]

39

36

43

Urban Self-employed

42

31

33

Others

38

26

20

All urban

40

28

25

Computed by us from —Household Indebtedness in India; Statement 6; page 25; –NSS Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation–GOI—New Delhi; December 2005

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The said report also suggests that interest rates are more on the higher side for non-institutional lending as compared to those of institutional lending. Around 40 % of lending by moneylenders is at interest rates above 30% in rural areas during 2002 and in urban areas nearly one third of lending is above 30 % interest rate. The institutional rates during the period were between 10 to 20 per cent in large proportion of lending both in rural and urban areas. This is also as expected since money lending is more based on trust than collaterals or the possibility of government write-off and hence the risk is higher. Given the low level of penetration and provision of credit we refuse to recognize the moneylenders as a legitimate agent of economic activity and impose phenomenal restrictions on them since they are not legitimate in the eyes of the Anglo—Saxon financial system. For instance, believe me that they can lend but not borrow money from public in carrying their avocation. Under the current RBI regulations a butcher or barber or baker can borrow money and of course all sorts of corporate tycoons and share market operators but not a moneylender. [Section 45-S of the RBI Act]. A moneylender can lend but not borrow except from relatives. In the context of safeguarding the interest of the depositors, we have gone to the other extreme which has impact on the credit markets particularly pertaining to retail trade and restaurants which are dependent on the money lenders for their business activities. It is also possible that the Deposit taking activity has gone in to the “veil” or underground and it is much more difficult to “unveil” the unincorporated situation than that of the corporate sector. In a large country like India with substantial growth seen in the service activities where the share of Proprietorship and Partnership firms are significant, it is important that we recognize the role played by money lenders or Un-incorporated Bodies [UIB’s] as they are called in our credit literature. They have extensive network and substantial credibility among their constituents both borrowers and lenders. Their ability to access the public for deposits is the linking point for meeting the requirements of the customers on both sides, since the base is unincorporated sector in both the situations. It is required for banks to treat them as channel partners and provide credit to them. But at the same time they should have the flexibility to access the deposits from the public like any other financial institution. Being a lender without being a borrower from the public is like asking a teacher to only teach [output] and not read anything. [input]. Financial Systems are fascinating learning tools where

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the input /throughput/output mechanism in terms of borrowing / processing / and lending enhances and enriches the institutions. If any one node is missing then they do not learn and mostly fail. In a developing country like ours we need multiple institutions catering to different segments and capable of accessing funds from the public / from the market / and from the institutions. Unless an institution accesses funds using extensive network it will not understand the magic of the lending market. A prudential lender is one who borrows efficiently. It is actually two sides of the same coin. Making institutions lend without borrowing from public will weaken the learning curve and goes against the cannon of the “Triple Nodes” of a financial intermediary, namely, borrow, analyze/process and lend. Not the least, it may create moral hazards— if institutions only lend without borrowing from the public— in a country like ours. The global institutions are encouraged to enter into the same money lending with modern acronyms of micro financing. If Washington gives a nod it becomes the current thinking but not our own existing strength. Another important aspect to notice is that in urban areas lower level police forces are getting into money lending because of their capability to “collect” the amount and reduce bad debts. This will have far reaching implications to our credit markets in the future. It will be much better for us to licence the regular moneylenders who have the tremendous advantage of the principle of Know your Customer [KyC] and integrate them into the banking sector. Small businesses are more concerned about availability of credit in a timely and flexible fashion [without reams of paper work] than in the socialist rhetoric of the sixties or the arrogance of the modern marauders in the guise of global financial institutions. The tremendous contributions of money lenders to the boom in the growth rate of our economy should not be underestimated just because they are Dhoti-clad and English illiterate and pan chewing. Recognize them, legitimize them and consider them as a source of strength and opportunity for the credit channel to reach the remote parts of the country in a systematic and orderly fashion. Therein lay our ingenuity in realizing a more than 10 per cent growth rate and inclusive one at that.

5. Declining Joint Family and Looming Social Security Crisis The family acts as the first level buffer for the individual in his relationship with state/society whereas caste acts as the second level buffer in his relationship with the State. Actually there are several sub-buffers provided

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by sub-caste, and its further sub–divisions. The role of family is slowly getting undermined by the process of what is called Westernisation. Under this system family is an “encumbrance” or “burden”. People are not expected to have “duties” towards other relations but only “rights” The State is the arbiter of all actions undertaken by members of the family. In other words, Government in the Bedroom which is worse than Government in the Board room. This system of atomisation of the individual who is naked with only legal papers to cover his shame stands between his lawyer and the State. This development will have far reaching consequences for our ageing population without adequate social security. Males and females in India at age 60 today are expected to live beyond 75 years of age. Thus on an average an Indian worker needs to have adequate resources to support himself for nearly 15 years after retirement at sixty. We saw that the share of service sector consisting of construction, transport, communication and trade, finance, insurance and real estate, community, social and personal services is nearly 60 % of the share of the economy in 2006. In other words, the service sector is playing a substantial role (around half of the national income) in the Indian economy. The service sector consisting of trade, hotels, transport and communications, financial, real estate and business services has been growing at above 7 per cent during the period which is much higher than that of industry and agriculture. It is to be noted that the service sector consists of predominantly partnership / proprietorship firms, which are noncorporate forms of organisations. Substantial numbers of these are not covered by any pensionary / retirement benefit schemes.

5.1 Caring for the Aged Caring for the aged is part of the Hindu tradition, going back to thousands of years. In the past, rich merchants and other donors used to construct “Old Age Homes” nearer to pilgrimage centres where old people could spend their time in spiritual pursuits. The traditional division of a human existence by Hindu scriptures suggests four stages consisting of Brahmacharya or bachelorhood [period of education], Grihastha [married stage], Vanaprastha [retirement stage] and Sanyas [renunciation of all worldly things]. The explicit recognition of the “retirement stage” has given rise to actions by family and community to facilitate the same. Hence, caring for the aged is by and large taken care by the joint family and

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community. We observe that around one-eighth of the world’s elderly population lives in India. Most of them are not covered by a pension system, and have to rely on family based arrangements or their own earnings. But with globalisation and migration the joint family system is on the decline— at least in the urban areas— and to that extent the challenge of caring for the aged has become greater for the society and government. The traditional and informal methods of old age income security are not able to cope with the trends of increased life span and enhanced medical expenses during old age. Hence there is a very pressing need to re-examine the existing formal and informal systems available to tackle the challenge of the “Age Quake”

5.2. Demographic Trends Global We have provided in table-5.1 the population of the world by different regions for different periods. Currently Europe has 12 % of the world population. We find that Europe is shrinking and will have only 5 % of the world population by 2100. This is mainly due to declining birth rates. They have a large problem in terms of finding adequate work force for “brown collar” work. That is for garbage removal, cleaning the restaurant, road laying, grape picking etc. Even for this level of population the governments are finding it difficult to sustain the generalized social security system. Table 5.1 World Population by Regions Africa

Asia

Europe

N. America

L.America+ Caribbeans

8.1

57.4

24.7

5.0

4.5

0.4

1950

8.8

55.5

21.7

6.8

6.6

0.5

2000

13.1

60.6

12.0

5.2

8.6

0.5

2050

20.2

58.6

7.1

5.0

8.6

0.5

2100

24.9

55.4

5.9

5.2

8.1

0.5

1900

Oceania

Source: United Nations Dept of Economic and Social Affairs - Population Division: Quoted in “Key Issues in Insurance,” —David M. Holland, F.S.A, President & CEO, Munich American Reassurance Company. —World Risk and Insurance Economics Congress, August 8, 2005, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

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The nature of the crisis in social security/pensions can be comprehended when we realize that some of the best known companies in the US including General Motors are struggling to meet the pension obligations of the exemployees since a good portion of their earnings goes for that. It has come about due to what is called “longevity risk” due to improvements in medical field etc. The problem is acute in industries like Airlines, Steel, Automobiles etc. But in terms of numbers it is very high even in 2001.It is important to observe that the full burden of taking care of the elderly as well as youngsters is with the working age population in countries like India. That is the reason why we find that large numbers of self employed people work till their death. The responsibility of taking care of the woman after the death of her husband is on the grown up children or on other near relatives. India We have provided in table 5.2 the age composition of the elderly as estimated by the Census office for different decades. We find that nearly 7 % of the population is above 60 years of age in 2001. This in number terms is already very large. Table-5.2 Number and Proportion of Elderly in different Age Groups Age

Number [Mn]

% of elderly

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

60+

24.7

32.7

43.2

56.7

70.7

5.63

5.97

6.49

6.76

6.87

70+

8.6

11.3

15.5

21.1

24.5

1.96

2.07

2.33

2.51

2.38

80+

2.5

3.2

4.1

6.4

8.5

0.57

0.58

0.62

0.76

0.30

Source: Census India: Various issues

We have provided in table-5.3 age wise composition of India’s population projected for different years by the United Nations Population Division. We observe from the table that by the year 2050 more than one fifth of the population will be sixty years and more. By the middle of this century the challenges of providing social security to the aged will be enormous and it is required that we focus on it now.

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Table 5.3 Age-wise Composition of India’s Population Population [Mn]

% to total

Years

2000

2025

2050

2000

2025

2050

0-14

366

359

302

35

25

18

15-59

606

922

1021

58

64

62

>60

74

166

335

7

11

20

Total

1046

1447

1658

100

100

100

Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects. The 2002 revision and World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2001 revision. http//esa.un.org/unpp.

We have given in table 5.4 the projections given by India’s Census Division. It says that the population above 60 years is expected to be 7.5 % by 2006 reaching 9.3 % by 2016. This indicates that a substantial portion of the elderly need to be taken care of even now. Table 5.4 Percentage distribution of Projected Population by Age (2001-2026) Age-Group

2001

2006

2011

2016

2021

2026

0-14

35.4

32.1

29.1

26.8

25.1

23.4

15-59

57.7

60.4

62.6

63.9

64.2

64.3

60+

6.9

7.5

8.3

9.3

10.7

12.4

Source: Census of India 2001; Population Projections for India and States 2001-2026 (Revised December 2006); Report of the Technical group on population projections constituted by the National Commission on population May 2006 Office of the registrar general & Census Commissioner, India

We have provided in table-5.5 the number and percentage distribution of households by the number of the aged persons 60 years and above residing in India in 2001 We find from table 5.5 that of the 193.1 million households [excluding institutional hh’s] at the national level enumerated at the census 2001about 58.3 million or 30.2% of the hh’s are reported to have at least one elderly person [60 yrs and above] as member of the household. 21.3% of the hh’s recorded one elderly person and 8.4 % two

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elderly persons and 0.5% three or more elderly persons. The rural –urban differential is apparent with higher proportion of elderly population reported from rural households compared to urban households. Table 5.5 Number and Percentage Distribution of Households by Number of aged Persons 60 Years and above Residence, India-2001 Number Aged

Households with aged population of 60 yrs and above Total Rural Urban

Percentage

Total

Rural

Urban

Total

193.1

137.5

55.6

100

100

100

None

134.9

94.0

40.9

69.83

68.39

73.38

1

41.1

30.3

10.8

21.29

22.05

19.42

2

16.3

12.5

3.8

8.44

9.09

6.82

3

0.8

0.6

0.2

0.40

0.42

0.34

4+

0.09

0.07

0.02

0.05

0.05

0.05

Note: Excludes institutional households Source: HH-5 Data Highlights—Statement -1 Census –India 2001

Out of all the hh’s having one aged member living in them about 7.5 per cent [3.1 million] of hh’s are single member hh’s as can be seen from table5.6. In other words 3.1 million out of 76.4 million aged persons in India live alone–2.5 million in rural areas and 0.6 million in urban areas. Out of all hh’s having exactly two members with age 60 years and above 15.8 % [2.6 million] are such as are two-member hh’s. It is also to be noted that the census suggests that 2.1 million out of 38.8 million [5.5%] of the elderly women aged 60 years and above in India live alone. The sex ratio of the elderly [882 females per thousand males] in two member households is male dominated. This is mainly due to very low sex ratio [687 females per thousand males] in such households having only one aged person. The sex ratio for elderly persons in household size 5 and 6 is highly female dominated. The sex ratio [1010 females per thousand males] in the category ‘two aged persons’ is the most balanced sex ratio in all categories of the aged and is also uniform across all sizes of households.

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This is probably due to the presence of one aged couple in the household across the households of different sizes. [Census India -2001. Statement 3Households]. The picture regarding the size of hh’s and aged persons in them indicates the decline of extended families in the Indian context. As per Census-2001, we also find that there were 403 Mn total work force consisting of 311 Mn. rural and 92 Mn. urban workers. We also note that out of a total of 403 million, there were 168 million non-agricultural workers including 16 million industrial workers. There were 235 agriculture related workers including 128 million cultivators. The social security coverage of most of the agricultural and non-industrial workers is totally inadequate. In the context of decline in the joint family system this poses difficult choices for the elderly. This is one of the important areas where the policy planners need to focus.

5.3. Social Security for the Aged Pensions are expected to achieve the goals of minimizing poverty in old age, smoothening inter- temporal life consumption which has significant fluctuations and ensuring that retirees do not outlive their pension benefits / incomes. Table-5.6 Percentage distribution of households by household size and number of aged persons 60 years and above per household–India 2001 Number of aged

Household Size 3 4 Total

Total

1

2

9.9

At least one aged 60 + 1

100.0

5.3

100.0

7.5

2

100.0

3 4+

5

6

7+

7.8

10.0

14.0

14.4

38.5

7.8

8.0

11.2

16.0

15.1

34.4

0.0

15.8

7.4

7.3

9.5

13.0

47.0

100.0

0.0

0.0

8.9

6.0

6.7

9.1

69.3

100.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

4.8

3.9

4.4

86.9

Note: Excludes institutional households Source: HH-5 Data Highlights—Statement -1 Census –India 2001

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The three pillar structure talked about in literature facilitates this process: z z

z

The first pillar is made up of publicly funded schemes providing modest benefits, or social security schemes. The second pillar consists of occupational schemes sponsored by employers for the benefit of employees or private mandatory pension programmes. The third pillar consists of additional voluntary contributions to meet retirement needs.

We observe that, unlike other developed countries, the ‘first pillar’ is not much prevalent in the Indian context. From that point we are the most privatized economy in the world. The ‘second pillar’ is substantially wider in terms of coverage; but as we will see, the coverage is limited and does not fully include self-employed professionals and workers, casual labourers and other workers in the unorganized sector. This category of ‘unorganized’ sector workers needs to resort to the ‘third pillar’ consisting of voluntary and family based retirement schemes. This three-pillar scheme of World Bank does not take in to account the most important pillar, namely, family support systems. The old age income security systems existing in India can be categorized under the following heads: z

z

z z z z

Schemes for government employees (both central and state) and employees of government departments and undertakings including public sector enterprises and those local bodies considered as part of state governments; Mandated pension and provident fund schemes for private sector employees in industries governed by the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952; Employer sponsored pension schemes for some private sector employees; Voluntary retirement schemes; Targeted social assistance schemes and welfare funds; and Other informal and dominant arrangements pertaining to a family and community.

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5.4 Coverage We find that substantial number of workers is not covered by any mandated schemes. The Oasis Committee Report [Oasis 2000] indicates that a substantial portion of the self-employed is not covered by any pension scheme based on the census data of 1991. They conclude that nearly 90 per cent of the work force is not covered by any of the social security / pension schemes. We have given the details in table 5.7. Table 5.7 Social Security Coverage Number of workers - 314 million (1991 census data). Regular salaried employees - 47 million (15.2%). Central, State and other departmental employees - 11.13 million (23%). [They are covered by non-contributory, indexed, defined benefit pension, funded entirely by the government]. Nearly 23 million (49%) of the salaried (non-government) workers are covered by mandatory Employee Provident Fund and the Employee Pension Scheme. Hence nearly 34 million (or less than 11%) of the working population has got old age income security. Casual/contract workers - 97 million (31%). Self employed - 166 million (53%). Source: Project OASIS Report, January 2000

We find that a substantial portion of our self-employed category is not covered by any mandatory or universal schemes. But their share in the national savings is significant and they do have large income as revealed by tax statistics. They save in the form of gold as an insurance and pension product particularly for the woman of the household. It may be appropriate that voluntary pension providers tap this market by offering innovative products to convert some part of investment in gold for financial savings in pension schemes. In order to do that, they need to study the nuances of current behavior of our households in a detailed fashion. In spite of increasing pressures on the joint family system, the family continues to be the main support for the elderly in India. This is particularly true in the case of women. A substantial percentage of the elderly is also forced to continue working long past the retirement age, especially in the case of elderly rural males. It has been assessed that as of 1994, about 50% of Indians over age 60 depend on transfers out of whom 40% depend on

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transfers from children and family, and another 40% from work. [World Bank, 2001]

6. Enhancing Social Capital The demographic trend combined with decline in joint family system is creating an explosive situation for the elderly in India since we do not have a generalized social security [Government is broke to even think of it] and significant portion of our work force is self-employed. The increasing life expectancy combined with consumerist culture, even post retirement is exacerbating the issue. The decline in the joint family system is due to migration by children, urbanisation and consequent development of nuclear family and changing attitudes in terms of “Rights” compared to responsibilities. Caring for the elderly is one of the sine qua non of our civilisation and it is part of our culture. Relationship based society like ours is trying to cope with changes through a rule-based Anglo-Saxon system. Government has already entered the bedroom by the Domestic Violence Act and increasingly- like in western societies- the Government is undertaking tasks which are not in consonance with our ethos. The consumption based / individual centric western model is not going to work in a society like ours. During the summer of 2005, nearly thousands of the elderly died in France during summer because of lack of care from their children who had all gone out on holiday trips. There was a hue and cry about the treatment of the elderly. In Sweden they have enacted laws to facilitate helpers for elders, and the cost incurred can be tax deducted. It is important to note that given our size of population such measures can at best be palliative. We need to strengthen institutions like family and community support for the elderly. Old age home is not a new western concept. Thousands of the elderly visit and stay in pilgrimage centres in their old age. The change in life style from the renouncing mode to the acquisition mode in old age is not in consonance with our ethos. The social capital, which is family and extended family ties and caste / community linkages, is still strong in India. We need to enhance and enrich the social capital instead of deriding it in the name of modernisation. Family is considered as oppressive in some western societies and we imitate them. They have moved from nuclear family to proton family [single parent family] and soon will have mason family [no parent family] and it is going to be a massive social security issue. We need not tread the western path given

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our ancient wisdom. It is required for social thinkers, intellectuals and planners to encourage methods to protect and enhance our social capital. Even during earlier periods we used to have guild forms of social organisations like sreni which had many characteristics of modern corporations. These types of separate legal entities were known as early as 6th century BC onwards. [See Economic History of Corporate Forms of Ancient India—by Vikramaditya S. Khanna, University of Law Michigan School 2005]. These entities were operating on the principles of Dharma with many characteristics of modem corporate governance. Not only that, we also find that the share of India in the global GDP was more than 20 per cent till the seventeenth century as seen from table-6.1. We find that India and China were having a combined share of nearly 30 % in the global GDP as late as 1870. Hence the current growth rate of India and China is in a sense regaining the earlier position some three centuries earlier. The economic growth should make India have a close look at the route taken by the West in the last two centuries and to avoid the pitfalls faced by them. One important area to focus is the social capital in the form of family and caste available in India and steps to strengthen it. Enhancing our social capital implies recognition of family and caste as the basic units of our civilisation. The western corporatisation process has within its womb the seeds of destruction of the family. We need to recognize it and encourage traditional methods of regulation. For instance, corporate entities can induct Sanyasins from say Ramakrishna or Chinmaya mission on their boards. They will bring much sobriety and Dharmic influence on the functioning of the corporations. We should explicitly recognize that Dharma rules our society and Anglo-Saxon models rule our corporations and government. That is why our society is functional and government and its organs are dysfunctional. We should innovate in employing women in work force by giving them flexi hours and long leaves for child-birth/care. We should attempt to quantify her household ‘unpaid’ work in our national income estimates since it contributes significantly for the well being of the current family and develops future citizens.

6.1 Back to Giving instead of Grabbing Our society has always been a giving one. One who gives is respected and acquires legitimacy. One who gives up everything is treated with utmost reverence. Sanyasins without a single possession commanded more respect than kings with all their wealth and grandeur.

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Table-6.1 Share of World GDP from 0 to 1998 Year

0

1000 1500 1600 1700 1820

1870

1913 1950 1973

1998

Western Europe

10.8

8.7

17.9

19.9

22.5 23.6

33.6

33.5

26.3

25.7

20.6

Former USSR + Eastern Europe

3.4

4.6

5.9

6.2

7.3

8.7

11.7

13.1

13.1

12.8

5.4

0

0.3

0.2

0.1

1.8

8.9

19.1

27.3

22.0

21.9

3.9

2.9

1.1

1.7

2.0

2.5

4.5

7.9

8.7

8.7

4.1 3.0

2.3

2.6

3.0

7.7

7.7

USA

0

Latin America

2.2

Japan

1.2

China

26.2

22.7 25.0

29.2

22.3 32.9

17.2

8.9

4.5

4.6

11.5

India

32.9

28.9 24.5

22.6

24.4 16.0

12.2

7.6

4.2

3.1

5.0

Other Asia

16.1

16.0 12.7

11.2

10.9

6.6

5.4

6.8

8.7

13.0

Africa

6.8

11.8

7.4

6.7

6.6

4.5

3.6

2.7

3.6

3.3

3.1

World

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

2.7

3.1

2.9

7.3

[Including others] Source: Table-B-20 Appendix B; pp263; The World Economy: A millennial Perspective— Angus Maddison OECD Development Centre Studies —2007

This appreciation of giving or renunciation in no way creates enmity for those who have acquired wealth in genuine ways. Azim Premji [who is a Muslim], one of the leading information technology entrepreneurs in India suggests that “Indian is exceptionally tolerant of others’ wealth, probably because of our Hindu culture. Today in Latin America, Pakistan and other parts of Asia, a wealthy man can’t roam around without armed guards. Thankfully that is not the case here. People have a respect for wealth created honestly” [Interview— in Forbes Magazine-13 August, 07] Our definition of great persons is different from that of the West. Giving is part of our existence. A crow gets its food before we eat. Hence largescale creation of old age homes nearer to pilgrimage centres can be considered by private initiatives and the state need not worry about the

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source of the funds. This is one way the so-called black money can be brought to old age security purposes. More than that we need to nurture family values and protect the very young and the very old. We should involve the popular preachers like Asaram Bapu, Morari Bapu, Sri Sri Sai Baba, Mata Amritanadamai and institutions like Ramakrishna Ashram, Chinmaya Mission etc. to create a large awareness campaign on the importance of family values, community linkages and Samskaras. It is the Dharma of the young to protect the elderly as much as it is the Dharma of society to protect the weak and the meek. Time is running out and there is no point in traversing the Western route to realize the futility of the development process adopted by them. Gadgets and shopping malls do not make a nation. Values and culture do.

7. Transcending Marx and Market The last century saw the conflict between Marx and Market during the cold war period. In the current global situation civilisational conflict between the children of Abraham is suggested. [See Samuel P.Huntington—Clash of Civilisations –Foreign Affairs—summer 1993]. It is reflected in the form of war on terror on one side and jihad on the other side. The results are catastrophic for the global citizens who are caught between the devil and the deep sea. The rise of Asia –particularly India and China as major economic powers provides new opportunities for the non-conflicting civilisations of the east to assert themselves on the global arena. Already we find that the soft power of the civilisation of India, namely, Yoga, Ayurveda, natural farming, classical music, dance etc are capturing the imagination of the discerning public in Europe and the USA. The next stage of utilizing our soft power is regarding Re-birth, Karma and Dharma, Jeevatma and Paramatma etc. The concept of multiple births makes us understand the limitations of human endeavour and makes us strive for the best without expecting the fruits of our action. The Abrahamic traditions which consider a single life and the day of Judgment strive to build institutions like Church, State or Corporates which supposedly have a permanent existence ad infinitum since man has a finite existence. In our tradition since man has multiple births and much longer life, the concepts and ideas are considered more important than institutions. Temples are the institutions we create for eternity and even there the builders are unknown.

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The temples of the East can provide the so-called ‘entities’ which are the continuum for the cycle of births and deaths and which are facilitative space for music, art, literature, dance and education. This ethos gives rise to harmony based civilisations since greatness is not measured by numbers attending the Mass or power of the Politburo to send people to far away prisons or the growth rate in global sales. It is required of us to take forward this paradigm shift to benefit the world by stressing the importance of harmonious civilisations of Asia in conflict resolution and conflict avoidance. These cultures are based upon the principle of ‘acceptance of the other’, not just ‘tolerance’ and to that extent the harmony created by them is a natural one. Europe had the traumatic experience of Nazism, Communism and Fascism during the last century. Earlier to that for nearly ten centuries they were involved in Crusades and Jihads. The development of advanced capitalism in the later part of twentieth century seems to have accentuated the crisis in the West. The State took over from the Church to look after the welfare of the individual and the corporations try to take it over from the State. Today the corporations are re-placing the family albeit not so successfully since it is a legal grouping and not an emotive set. It may allow pets to be taken to office [as in Microsoft offices in the USA] or infants to be kept in crèche. But it is faceless and impersonal and hence imperfect in imitating the primordial roots of a family. Ernest Kantorowics in his well-argued and celebrated essay “The King’s Two Bodies” analyses how the mystical body of Christ, which is central to the Christian liturgy, acquired sociological meaning in the later Middle Ages. The “corpus mysticum” previously understood to mean the sacrament or “host” became the organized body of the Christian society and created in due course the greatest of artificial persons namely ‘the State’. Out of this modular structure or building block the Western Capitalism emerged along with other fictional personhood like ‘Joint stock companies’ ‘Public Corporations’ etc. [Ernst Kantorowics: The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology-Princeton-1957, pp194-206]. In short, as pointed out by Ruthven Malise, “The western corporation, the cultural and legal descendant of the mystic body of Christ, is at the origin of the peculiar society we have come to know as the West, whose cellular structures are multiplying (some would say, like a series of carcinogenous growth) across the globe”. [Ruth Malise, A Fury of God; p 255,Granta Books, 2002] Hence it is a Medieval Christian Anglo-Saxon

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construct which says that “Corporations” are more evolved forms than say Joint Families or Cooperatives or Trusts. One is not sure why India should accept this European medieval evolution, which was essential for the colonial conquests driven by joint stock companies like East India Company which thought that the entire India was “unorganised” and went about organizing it—with the results known to us. In other words this terminology of ‘Unorganised’ belongs to the category of terminological terrorism left over from colonial days. In these days of political correctness perhaps the socalled un-organized sector can be called as “Corporate Challenged” when Corporates themselves are ‘disclosure’ and ‘transparency’ challenged. The Church has failed and so have the State and the Corporations. The East has lessons to offer since these are offered by societies and cultures which do not lay stress on a single book, a single prophet and a single path solutions to human problems. My way or high-way is not the approach. The East accepts- not just tolerates-diversity and is not enthusiastic about homogeneity. This also provides an opportunity for China to focus on its civilisation roots. We should recognize that China is also attempting to find solutions which are beyond the two M’s. [Marx and Market]. They currently call it Capitalism with Chinese characteristics. But it needs to go back to the Buddhist roots for spiritualism and Confucius roots for statecraft. China has not succeeded in its homogenizing agenda of Marx and Mao. Hence India has to play a large role in this process of reclaiming the roots of China to Chinese people. The solutions offered by the Church/State/Corporations put stress on homogeneity and uniformity. The East encourages and celebrates and accepts diversity. It has multiple layers of concentric circles to protect man from the vagaries of a legal and sometimes oppressive State and is regulated by relationships and not only by rules. The ethos of the East positions man in a civilisational context which runs to billion years based on the cycle of birth and re-birth and not based on a short term single life perspective. Therein lies the civilisational strength which derives its essence from the thoughts of Rishis and Sanyasins who existed much before Christian era and who renounced the world but who are still revered. That is the strength on which India should leverage and not on the destructive State supported single parent family, the solution of the West. Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah – Dharma [Virtue] will protect the one who protects Dharma [Virtue].

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References 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

Census of India [1991, 2001] Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India, New Delhi. Dharampal; Beautiful Tree—Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century; Vol-3 of Collected writings; Published by Other India Press Goa 2000. Dipankar Gupta; Interrogating Caste; p1; Penguin Books 2000 Economic Survey: Ministry of Finance, Government of India, New Delhi.—Various Issues Gurucharan Das, India Unbound; p150—Penguin Books 2002 Hatton David, Naren Joshi, Fang Lee, Vaidyanathan.R, Jyothilakshmi S, Das S, Basu S,[2007] Facing the Future: Indian Pension Systems Tata – McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd. IRDA [Insurance Regulatory and Developmental Authority] —Pension Reforms in the unorganized Sector A Report October 2001, New Delhi. Ernst Kantorowics: The King’s Two Bodies: A study in Medieval Political Theology-Princeton-1957- pp194-206]. Maddison Angus The World Economy: A millennial Perspective—OECD Development Centre Studies –2007. National Accounts Statistics [NAS]: Central Statistical Organisation New Delhi –Various Issues. National Sample Survey Organisation Government of India New Delhi – Various Reports OASIS 2000: Old age Social and Income Security—Report of the Project OASIS: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Government of India New Delhi 2000. RBI: Hand Book of Statistics on Indian Economy 2006; RBI-Mumbai. Ruth Malise; A Fury of God; p 255;Granta Books; 2002 Srinivas M.N; Collected Essays; pp196-197, OUP2005 Statistical Outline of India – 2006-07, Tata Services Ltd. December 2001, Mumbai. Vaidyanathan R. [2004a] “Voluntary Pension Market: The Untapped Potential”; Insurance Chronicle, Special Issue, Vol IV, issue 1 January 2004. Vaidyanathan R [2004b]: “Making Gold Glitter in Households” Business Line-News Paper 4th November 2004.

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19.

20.

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22. 23. 24.

25.

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Vaidyanathan R. [2005]”Pensions in Asia: Incentives, Compliance and Their Role in Retirement” Edited by Noriyuki Takayama; Project on Intergenerational Equity Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo; p 94 Published by Maruzeen Co, Ltd Tokyo 2005. Vaidyanathan R: “ Make them Entrepreneurs instead” in the book titled Reservations and Private sector- Edited by Dr. Sukdeo Thorat etc all and published by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies; New Delhi –2005 Vaidyanathan R: “Declining Joint Family and emerging Crisis in old age security” in the International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management [IJICBM] vol-1 Nos 1/2 2007. Vaidyanathan R.: India Unincorporated; Published by ICFAI press 2006 World Bank; World Development report, p175; World Bank —India: [2001] “The Challenge of Old age income Security” Finance and Private Sector Development, South Asia Region, World Bank, April-05-2001. World Gold Council—Gold Demand Trends Various issues

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11

Interface of India with Other Asian Lands Lokesh Chandra

A Chinese poet says: “The empires crumble, mountains and rivers remain”. The mountains of transcendence and the rivers of perenniality, spirituality and sensitiveness of Asia’s Eternal peep through millennia. In the Garden of Blessings are planted our seeds. India has symbolized profound necessities of the spirit, a vision of the infinite in an unbroken sky, the plenitude of the void, the embrace of the one and the zero, the union of abstraction and sensuality in art and life, intellection and meditation, an aesthesis beyond the eyes and reason, the universe as a working of mysterious and impersonal laws or as the Atharvaveda 19.53 says: “Time (Kala) created the Lord of Creatures (Prajapati)”. The solitary ‘contemplative Arhats amid Theras and Bodhisattvas who have renounced nirvana to help living creatures have been the bread and being of Buddhist Asia. Dharma has been a radiant promise to the millions of Asia, the Truth of Life. The barefoot light of their centuries has been the gods and goddesses, not as such, but as images of the Divinity of Man. Time has opened its doors to their soul, ablaze in the steps or seats of divine beings on lotuses. The entire cultural interflow has been a sharing of dreams, rather than borrowings or influences. The inmost force that undergrids the symbiosis of Asian lands is the harmony of the human and the cosmic, or in the words of Goethe: “Was die Welt an innersten zusammenhalt”. The ephemeral and eternal are endowed with a luminous consciousness. It finds varying intellection in accord with the texture of different ethnicities and ages. It is the blending of wisdom and life in the symbolism of three planes: samskara, samskrita and samskriti. Samskara is the inner consciousness where the collective psyche and individual experiences are the inexhaustible soul of the highest. Samskrita is its verbal (vacika) expression so that the interior light, the antarjyoti of the Upanisads, flows uninterrupted over spans of time to be

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inherited and enriched by the future. Its expression in concrete visual terms is samskriti, the embodiment (kayika) of the Eternal in the visual, verbal and performing arts: as sculptures in the round, as paintings in the flat, as prose and poetry, as music, dance and theatre. This trinity or triveni of samskara, samskrita and samskriti is the confluence of luminous nature. The introduction of Buddhism into China was due to Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han dynasty who dreamt that a golden man came flying into the palace. When told by his courtiers that he was Buddha, the Sage of the West, he sent an embassy to India to bring sutras and sramanas. They returned in AD 64 with Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaraksa. It was on Chinese initiative that the long pilgrimage of Buddhism began in her thought, literature and visual expression. It was a flux and reflux of two cultures with a new personality of its own. The Chinese writer Tuan Ch’eng-shih (ca AD 800 - 863) narrates a legend about the foundation of the city of Balkh in Tukhara. The Tocharians share linguistic features with the Celtic language as well as the textile technology of the Celts. Hundreds of Tocharian mummies have been found in the Tarim Basin and most of them have been dated to about 1000 BC, while the earliest ones from Loulan were buried as early as 2000 - 1800 BC. The Beauty of Loulan with blue eyes and light brown hair is dateable to 2000 BC. Hsuan-tsang speaks of the Tocharian kingdom (Beal, 1884: 1.37) and says that the literature, customs and money used in commerce in Bamiyan were the same as those of the Tukhara kingdom. It seems that the Tocharians had settled in this region very early, and were migrating to Central Asia. The Bamboo Books records the travels of Emperor Mu of the Chou dynasty, who ruled for fortyfive years, 1001 - 945 BC. He crossed the Flowing Sand Desert on the north, ascended the K’un-lun Mountain to pay a visit to the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu). Prof. Dr. Wang Bangwei of the Peking University told me that she is Goddess Uma. It seems that the Udicya region or North West India was in contact with Central Asia and China as early as the second millennium BC and these contacts increased in the first millennium BC. The introduction of Buddhism into China was a novum. It meant a new intellectual elite in which persons of diverse origins could engage. The monastic ideal created a new form of social organisation in which the rigid class boundaries were effaced. The Chinese word,—— ssu for a Buddhist monastery originally meant a “government office”. The transcription of Buddhist terms into Chinese followed the system in the Accounts of the

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Western Regions in the Annals of the Han and Later Han dynasties. Sanskrit masters entered China on Serindian horses sought after by Chinese emperors. In AD 148 the Parthian prince-monk An Shih-kao arrived at Loyang and initiated intense literary activity that lasted for a millenium. Sutras, sculptures and paintings coming from the Buddhist kingdoms ushered new perceptions in the Chinese mind. An Shih-kao began an era of transcreations of Sanskrit works into Chinese, which became an impressive achievement of the Chinese intellectuals from all walks of life in contradistinction to the Confucian class of mandarins. Palace Culture was invigorated by a new Peoples Culture wherein brilliant monks came to the mainstream of cultural and intellectual life without any class distinctions. The sramanas and sutras on horses led to a symbolism in which superior horses were equated with superior human beings. The noble steed in Chinese polity and poetry was “Power and Virtue”, as the State was conditioned by the value systems of the Sutras. The translation of the Sukhavati-vyuha by An Shih-kao left China spell-bound: (i) firstly by the genius of a nonHan, (ii) by the deeper realms of wisdom wherein Avalokitesvara saw that the five skandhas in their own-being were empty (arya-Avalokitesvaro bodhisattvo… svabhava-sunyan pasyati sma; Nothingness is the fragrance of the beyond); and thirdly that there are many universes where definitions disappear, and the undefined reigns. It was a new awaking, in which the classical Confucian Sino-centrism was enriched by polycentrism, the non-Han barbarian emerged as a magnetic centre, the peripheries became universes in their own right; the Central Kingdom had a counterpart in the Western Paradise of Sukhavati. Sukhavati became vivid as beauties of Iranian Parthia danced in the joyous tenderness of their vibrant movements. Buddhism was associated with fiery steeds of victory, with caravans laden with affluence, with the passionate beauty of life, and with the enlightenment of the mind. All the four accounts of the foundation of Khotan (two in Chinese and two in Tibetan) associate it with the son and ministers of Emperor Asoka in the third century BC. A collection of coins of the first century AD from Yotqan the ancient capital of Khotan bears Chinese legends and Prakrit legends in Kharosthi. The Chinese used to get jade for Imperial rites from Khotan. The ideogram yu for jade is a metaphor for purity, nobility and beauty. A jade woman means a beautiful woman. This phrase refers to the charm of Iranian ladies of Khotan who must have come to the Imperial Court along with jade, with their jade-smooth skin. The Chinese were

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fascinated by the beauties, by the music and by the dances of the Serindian peoples of Central Asia. As early as the Chou, which is 1027-256 BC, the Chinese got music of the Western Barbarians and played it on special occasions to vaunt their political might. Jade, the product of Heaven itself, travelled from Khotan to China. Khotan was also famous as a centre of Buddhism and of Sanskrit texts. The Chinese expression ‘to obtain the doctrine’ meant to procure Sanskrit sutras, e.g., Chinese monk Chu Shihhsing undertook the arduous journey from Loyang to Khotan to get a copy of the Pancavimsati-sahasrika Prajnaparamita. In the fifth century eight Chinese monks travelled in search of sacred texts. They reached Khotan at the time of the pancavarsika ceremonies held every five years. Here the most distinguished bhiksus from all over Central Asia embroidered their sermons with parables. The Chinese monks put them together at Turfan on their way back to China in 445, under the title ‘Book of the Wise Man and Fool’. This was translated into Tibetan and Mongolian, and was widely read in the Lamaist world. In the mural at shrine II of Dandan Uiliq, Hariti has Sino--Khotanese features. The westward probing and expansion of China led to the introduction of Buddhism after the consolidation of the centralized state in 221 BC. The Xiongnu raids were a constant threat to China’s agricultural border regions. The Chinese formed alliances with people further west to establish bases in their rear. They exported goods of Sinic gracious living to corrupt the simple martial spirit of the Xiongnu. Han garrisons were stationed all along the route to Khotan that occasioned cultural contracts. The first millenium culminated in the tenth century, when Buddhism ushered in the beginning of modern times with large-scale printing in the Song dynasty. The first printed Buddhist Tripitaka started in Chengdu in 971 arrived at Tun-huang around the year 1000. Kabul, as a great centre of Buddhism, had the unique honour of sending the largest number of eminent Buddhist teachers to China to translate sutras into Chinese. The first teacher was Gautama Sanghadeva who arrived at Ch’ang-an in AD 383 and rendered Agama and Abhidharma texts. Sanghabhuti of Kabul translated the Buddhacarita into Chinese in AD 381--385. The Chinese monk Shih Chi-yen came to Kabul to obtain Sanskrit texts. Gunavarman a son of the King of Kabul came to Nanking in AD 431 and translated ten works. The Fa-t’a stupa, dominating the oasis city of Shantan in the Kansu province, contains a Hair of King Asoka. A stone inscription of the T’ang

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dynasty at the Mo-gao Caves at Tun-huang states that its first cave was constructed by an Indian monk Lo Ts’un in AD 366 and was called the ‘Cave of Unequalled Height’. It may have been inspired by the colossi of Bamiyan. The Northern Wei emperors were not of Han origin. These barbarians demonstrated their cultural excellence to the Chinese through the magnificent cave temples, the grandeur of colossal statues at Yunkang, and the profound thought of the Buddhist sutras. The Sino centric view of the Chinese underwent a new realisation of the existence of other cultural universes, at times deeper and more subtle than their own. The first series of caves 16-20 at Ytin-kang, begun under the supervision of T’an-yao in 460 for the Northern Wei sovereigns, are reminiscent of Bamiyan. Buddhist sculpture and painting gave a new ambience to China wherein funerary bas-reliefs were replaced by glowing divine forms, smile on their faces, youthful features endowed with serenity of compassion, drapery falling in subtle and gracefully flowing lines. Buddhist art spread with rapidity endowing the vast spaces of China with the glory and grace of the divine, accessible to the nobility and literati as well as to the humblest and lowliest in the land. The caves of T’ien-Iung-shan, which date before 750, display influences of late Gupta style. In AD 490 Hsieh Ho established the “Six Aspects” of painting. They have remained the criteria for Chinese art criticism. They echo the six elements of painting in the Kamasutra (rupabheda, pramana, bhava, lavanya--yojana, sadrsya, varnika-bhanga). They impart a vital tone and atmosphere that is moving and alive, in a rendering of ‘bones’ (essential structure) and essence, rather than mere outward aspect. The divine and human become one, dissolving into ripples of the mind. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Chinese were fascinated by the new science of astronomy, calendrical knowhow and mathematics in Sanskrit texts, which were known as the ‘P’o-lo-men or Brahmin Books’. Indians were appointed Presidents of the Imperial Board of Astronomy. For instance, Kasyapa headed it around AD 650. It is a paradox that we owe to Gautama Siddha the greatest collection of ancient Chinese astronomical fragments. He introduced from India the symbol of the zero, an early form of trigonometry and other innovations. To the Chinese, Sanskrit was the language of Exact Sciences, of statecraft, of military tactics, and of surveying the sidereal locations of cities from Tashkent to Vietnam. An emperor of the T’ang dynasty sent a military mission against the king of Champa (on the coastal region of modern Vietnam) to bring his library of 1350 Sanskrit manuscripts as war booty to China.

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Dance, music and musical instruments are resplendent in the depiction of the Western Paradise of Amitabha. The angels dancing in Sukhavati paradise have been painted all over East Asia for the last two millennia. Some of the finest murals at Tun-huang (the Ajanta Caves of China) are of dancing goddesses in the joyous tenderness of their vibrant movements. These dancing angels are Indian for they wear no raiments on top. Tunhuang caves show three types of female dresses: (i) the flowing drapery of Chinese ladies, (ii) the tight wear of Central Asian beauties, and (iii) the sensuous elegance of the bare bodies of Indian belles who bid the onlooker to accompany them into worlds of luminous beauty. The origins of printing in China also go back to Sanskrit. The first printed sheet has the goddess Pratisara in the centre with mantras in Sanskrit written concentrically around her. It is dated AD 757 and was excavated in 1944 from a grave near Beijing. The technology of printing developed in rapid strides for the immense project of the publication of the Buddhist Tripitaka. As large quantities of paper were required for the extensive Tripitaka, paper industry flourished to such an extent that the use of paper became universal. The earliest known manuscript with stanzas from the three mahakavyas of Kalidasa was preserved in the P’u-an monastery in China. The great Chinese master of dhyana Pao-chang got it from India in AD 1057. There are five Chinese inscriptions at Bodhgaya, the only ones in India, which were put up in the 10th/11th century by a mission sent by the Chinese emperor to pay homage to the holy places in India. On 6 June 1988 Christie’s offered for sale a blue-and-white Chinese bowl, which was sold for £ 209,000 to Mr. C.C.Teng of Taiwan. It was made for the personal use of the Ming Emperor Hsuan-te who ruled from 1426-36. It has a Sanskrit benediction and bijas all around as a ritual jar: ratrau svasti, diva svasti, svasti maddhyandine sthite / svasti sarvam ahoratram triratnani bhavantu vah:1/

A Princess of Ayodhya arrived from India to Korea in AD 48 at Kimhae aboard a ship, with the Three Treasures of statues, sutras and sramanas (monks). She became the Queen of the founder of the first Korean state of Karak. She established the first national capital and named it Gaya. From a tribal order Korea emerged as a state. In gratitude to the Sea that allowed safe passage to the Queen to his shores, the King built Haeunsa ‘Temple of Sea Grace’ that stands to this day near the top of Punsongsan Mountain.

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Buddhism was officially introduced into Korea during the period of the Three Kingdoms: Koguryo received it in 372, Paekche in 384, and Silla in 527. The Indian Master Mallananda brought Buddhism to Paekche in 384. It gave the Three Kingdoms a new meaning: they became civilisation. In its first energy and freshness it filled the country with benefits, nourished art, diffused education, made roads, established resting places, promoted beneficence and multiplied comforts in thousand forms. It made vivid and tangible the presence of a profound social and cultural order. In 535 the first great cathedral of Buddhism was founded and called Pulguksa. It is the oldest surviving Buddhist monastery of Korea, that has determined the tonality of Korean life for centuries. The most skilled workmen were summoned to make it a monument of restrained dignity and quiet peace. To this day, newly married couples begin their conjugal life by seeking the blessings of Pulguksa. The pensive images of Maitreya’s disciples are coeval with the period of the consolidation of the Korean state. Maitreya cult was practised at the Silla court by young aristocratic warriors who formed a fraternity known as the Hwarang ‘Perfumed Followers of the Dragon Flower’. This name is an allusion to the nagapuspa tree under which Maitreya Bodhisattva will become a Buddha. They had an enormous importance in the government both during the Three Kingdoms and the Unified Silla dynasty. They were responsible for national unity. The Buddhist kingdom of Silla accomplished the unification of the Three Kingdoms and formed the nation-state of Korea for the first time in history. Ever since, Korean Buddhism was the destiny and defence of the land. Monk Wolkwang formulated the “Five Worldly Commandments” to form the basis of a national ethos. The Korean monk Hyecho became a disciple of the Indian teacher Vajrabodhi as a youth of sixteen years. Later, he travelled to India by the sea route and returned in December 727 via Central Asia. In Samarkand he records one Buddhist monastery with one monk. Hyecho is the last pilgrim on the Silk Route (or better Sutra Route) before the monasteries and monks perished in the Islamic onslaught. He details this wounded time in his Travel Records which are on par with those of his celebrated predecessor Hsuan--tsang. To ward off the Mongol invasion, the King of Korea had 81,258 wooden blocks of the Tripitaka Koreana engraved. Completed in AD 1251, they have been preserved in perfect condition to this day at the Haeinsa monastery on Mount Gaya. They reflect the glory of national unity. This

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Tripitaka done for the defence of the country is a marvel of Korean technology seven centuries ago. As the evening mist pervades the valleys and mountains dull into darkness, the windows of the monastery are lit one by one by monks preparing to cross over the 108 passions to the sea of Buddha’s wisdom. The last Indian Acarya to visit Korea was Chikong (Dhyanabhadra). He arrived in Korea in the 1340s and established the Juniper Rock Monastery on the pattern of the Nalanda University. Its foundations can be seen near Seoul. He wrote Sanskrit dharani-mantras on the gigantic Yonboksa Bell for the liberation and peace of the Korean people from Mongol domination. An inscription at the Juniper Rock Monastery dated 1378 records the life and work of Dhyanabhadra and informs us that the King of Kanchi was his nephew. It gives a glimpse of Buddhism in India in the 14th century, from Kanchi in the South to Jalandhar in the North. The mill for making sattu installed by Dhyanabhadra still lies at the site of this Monastery. In 1446 the sage-like emperor Seijong invented a new Korean alphabet and moveable printing types. This alphabet continues to this day as the Hangul or ‘Proper Writing’. Dr. Kei Won Chung in his dissertation to the Princeton University says that the Korean alphabet was composed on the principles of the Sanskrit alphabet. With the new alphabet, learning became accessible to a large mass of people. Seoul has the only Buddhist Broadcasting Station in the world. A restaurant called ‘Perfume of Grasses’ recalls the cuisine of Acarya Dhyanabhadra. It serves ‘tea of honey-stick’. Honey-stick is madhu-yasti or liquorice ( mulethi in Hindi ). In 1991, Korea dedicated the world’s largest bronze image of Maitreya at Popchusa monastery. This 100 feet high statue embodies the aspirations of the Korean people for national re-unification. The Popchusa was built in 553. Two centuries later, in 776, monk Yulsa erected a 40 feet gilt bronze Maitreya for national prosperity and unity of the people. During the EyeOpening Ceremony in April 1991, three rainbows appeared in the clear sky: “Isn’t this a sign that we can even move heaven when we are truly devoted? When we build an image of Maitreya in our hearts too, all lives on earth will turn into lotus flowers, and the very world around us will become a pond of joy”. (Chief Abbot Yu). In 552, Buddhism was officially introduced into Japan when the King of Paekche (Kudara) sent a gilt bronze image of Lord Buddha and sutras. A host of secular technologies accompanied the new Buddhist order: writing,

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administration, weaving, metallurgy, calendar & architecture. Shotoku Taishi (574-621) is rightly acclaimed as the builder of Japanese civilisation. As a thanks giving to the new order, he created Shitennoji at Osaka in AD 593, an architectural achievement of the age. This temple to the Four Lokapalas (Shitenno) symbolized unity of the east, south, west and north of Japan as a nation-state. He promulgated the first written Constitution of 17 articles in AD 604 in which Triratna gave a humanised face to administration. He gave birth to Japanese literature by his commentaries on Hokke (Saddharma-pundrika—sutra), Yuima (Vimalakirti-nirdesa), and Shoman (Srimala-sutra). Japan had wrought a miracle in the short span of half a century. Her literature and Imperial palaces were on par with those of continental China. Japan emerged as a state when Prince Shotoku substituted tribal rivalries by a centralized system of Japan as a Buddha-ksetra. From the Buddhist monasteries established by Prince Shotoku, the Horyuji ‘The Temple for the Flourishing of Dharma’ (Dharmavardhana-vihara) still stands as the most ancient wooden building in the world. Its kondo or golden hall is adorned with murals, whose style has close affinities to that of India. It reflects the artistic achievements of the seventh century. In the years AD 643-646, 648-649, and 657-661 the entourage of the Chinese envoy Wang Hsuan-ts’e copied the frescoes on the walls of monasteries in India. Later on these paintings were compiled in 40 fascicules. Some of them were taken to Japan by the Korean artist Honjitsu, and they became the models for Horyuji murals. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of Horyuji, with a rich patina of centuries, evince a particular purity of line, surface and decoration and a desire to see humanity, flesh and blood, fused in most abstract of deities. The Horyuji monastery has yielded one of the most ancient Sanskrit manuscripts of the Usnisavijaya-dharani in the Gupta script. As early as the sixth century, an Indian yogin lived in the Kataoka village by begging alms. Shotoku Taishi wrote a poem on him. In the middle of the seventh century Dharmabodhi came via China and settled in Hokkezan. He had a small image of Thousand-armed Kannon. He restored the Emperor to health when all the royal physicians had failed. In 651 he instituted the Festival of the Tripitaka (Daizoe). The Japanese state found an invigorating stabilisation in Buddhism. The Daibutsu at Todaiji was the culmination of Japanese resourcefulness and technology. It was consecrated by the Indian Bodhisena who reached Osaka in 773. He taught Sanskrit at Daianji that showed the way to a phonetic system to suit the needs of the Japanese language.

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The vina under its Japanese form biwa is an integral characteristic of the Japanese Sarasvati. The most ancient biwa known today is preserved in the Shosoin Repository, dating to AD 757. In AD 799 an Indian was washed ashore somewhere in the Mikawa province. A young man of twenty years, with nothing to cover his body except a straw coat and short drawers, he was stranded in a country where none understood him. Years later when he became conversant with Japanese he said that he had come from India. He had seeds of cotton with him. He lived at the Kawadera temple at Nara. Two ancient chronicles Nihon-koki and Ruiju kokushi mention that he introduced the cultivation of cotton, which became the most important clothing material. The Japanese words wata or hata for cotton are derived from Sanskrit pata. With the advent of the ninth century, Japanese life had been transformed by assimilation with Buddhist civilisation. The blossoming of the great continental culture in insular surroundings reached its culmination in the personality of Kobo Daishi (AD 774-835), who visited China to drink at the purest springs of Dharma. Kobo Daishi’s new denomination of Shingon or Mantrayana was a new moral conscience of the country. He proclaimed Buddhahood to be the potential privilege of all as against the predestined few. He became an outstanding genius in Japan’s cultural evolution. For the first time he founded a school for the children of common people. Till then the academies were open only to children of families above the fifth rank. To achieve this historic democratisation, he created the Japanese kana syllabary of fifty sounds: a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko,etc. based on the Sanskrit alphabet. It was to spread education to the common man. The new syllabary was a revolutionary step in Japan’s civilisation: what was hitherto the prerogative of the pre-destined few became the potential privilege of all. The entire alphabet was woven into a poem wherein every syllable occurs once. This poem is called Iroha. It is based on the Mahaparinirvana-sutra. The Japanese have longed to be pilgrims to India. In AD 818 Kongo-sammai (Vajrasamadhi) came to India via China. He makes a realistic observation that millions of flies swarmed the dining rooms of Nalanda but disappeared when the monks settled down to eat. In the 850s Hodo undertook a hundred day long meditation. On the 70th day a beautiful lady entered the room and he fell in love. In remorse, he travelled to China and thence to the Vulture Peak in India to expiate his sin. The monk Myoe Shoin (1163-1122) was unable to visit India. He consoled himself by giving

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the Sanskrit name Pragbodhi to the hill in front of his monastery and calling the stream flowing by as Nairanijana. In the Tokugawa period, a great scholar of Avatamsaka Hotan washed his feet in sea water at a beach in the thought that the water extended to the shores of the motherland of Buddhism. Near Kyoto is the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji), which was the hermitage of Ashikaga Shogun Yoshimitsu as a Zen monk. It is a picturesque pavilion sitting in the pond, lending grace to the garden of Rokuonji temple. Here arises the ethereal pavilion of nirvana overlooking the ocean of existence (bhava-sagara). It recalls the Golden Temple of Amritsar. The Kinkakuji in the centre of the pond is the emergence of Brahma from the primal waters. The wonderful art of Ikebana, which means putting living plants in water, is to love flowers as living beings and to tend them with kind feelings. The Japanese bow before the flowers after they have arranged them. An aesthetic creation is the essence of life itself. It is pervaded by the warmth of the human heart, whereby one gives expression to the universal heart. The Japanese tradition speaks of “Indian monks who, in their universal love, were the first to pick up plants injured by the storm or parched by the heat, in order to tend them with compassion and endeavour to keep them alive”. India’s austerity was Japan’s elegance: minimum of lines to express plenitude of form. It is the aesthetic appreciation of stark poverty, of austere form, the sanyasa of rupa: Haiku is the incarnation of loneliness, of minimal words. The dusty leaf-hut of India is an abode of meditation in Japan with not a single particle of dust. The Ryoanji garden with its naked expanse of white sand acting as a setting for stones takes us back to the sea, to the ocean of existence (bhava-sagara). This supremely abstract monument, the kare sansui, the ‘dry landscape’ garden, was designed in the late fifteenth century. The rocks, tiny mounts Fuji, simply mean fuji, not two, that is, peerless, the abolition of all distinctions, the advaya. They are both literal levels and symbolic tangents thereof, crossing the sea of illusion towards the shore of satori ‘illumination’, to cross over the dry sandy ripples of the ocean of existence, the bhava-sagara. Zen is a product of the Chinese and Japanese soil from the Buddhist seed of Enlightenment, India’s hut and Japanese bamboos, India’s sophisticated thought and Japan’s bizarre koans: all leading to self-reliance (jiyu) and self-being (jizai). Along a road stands an egg-like rock on a flat roundish base of another rock, with the Sanskrit monogram RO. —— Sanskrit letters implying deeper levels. A modem Japanese girl in mini, her hair dyed blonde and perhaps

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with styrene injection for a rounded feminine form, stops by, graciously puts a tangerine on a piece of paper as an offering to the planets (nava-graha): RO is the symbolic bijaksara for nava-graha-puja. Such are the frozen levels of culture echoing at different strata of existence and consciousness. In our own times, the Japanese Okakura Tenshin stayed at the home of poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1902. It led to the cultural renaissance of India. Out of his talks with the Indian poet, Tenshin crystallised his essay on The Ideals of the East. The pioneers of modem Indian painting, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandlal Bose and others, used Japanese brushes and colours and reflected the diaphanous aura of Japanese paintings in their new creativity. This cultural encounter left a deep impression on our national ethos. Some of our revolutionaries sought refuge in Japan. The heroic struggle of Tenshin prevented the wholesale destruction of the cultural heritage of Japan in the orgy of foreignism sweeping the country. Yet, he spoke of humanity;in his own words “humanity has met in a tea-cup”. Let us go to South East Asia. Emperor Asoka sent his son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra to King Devanampiya Tissa of Srilanka in the third century BC. In the list of gifts, as recorded in the Dipavaimsa, sent by Asoka is nandyavarta whose meaning has been debated. It has been interpreted as a type of jasmine, or a gold vessel in the shape of crowclaws, or a gold flower. Nandyavarta is an architectural term: it is a sixstoreyed palace in the Manasara 24.24 or a pavilion with 36 columns in the Suprabhedagama 31.103. Asoka sent eighteen guilds of artists, craftsmen and painters along with Mahendra, well aware of the power of art to attract people to Dharma. By the time Mahendra died there was an art gallery (cittasala) in the capital of Anuradhapura. Promoting piety through painting has lingered throughout the centuries. Mahavainsa mentions painted vases in the reign of Devanampiya Tissa in 307 BC. A very early extant painting of the second century BC showing the Vessantara-jataka has been found in the relic-chamber of the Ruvanveli Seya from the period of King Dutugemunu (161-137 BC). There are other paintings of the second century BC in the Karambagala cave (ancient Kurandaka Lena), which are mentioned by Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhi- magga. The world famous paintings in the rock citadel of Sigiriya (Skt. Simhagiri) were done during the reign of King Kassapa I (479-497), who had come to the throne by murdering his father. He ruled the kingdom for 18 years surrounding himself with lissome women, trying to forget his aching conscience. The twentyone figures of sensuous ladies at Sigiriya bear a

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close resemblance to the art of Ajanta. Benjamin Rowland compares these maidens to the sculptures of Amaravati, whence Srilanka derived its sculptural style. King Kassapa, who transformed it into the most impregnable fortress, identified himself with Kubera, the God of Riches, .who was then held in high veneration. The abode of Kubera is on Mount Kailasa. On Sigiriya and its environs King Kassapa tried to create the verisimilitude of this Mount, especially after the lyrical Meghaduta of Kalidasa: The gallery is a 500 feet long concavity which ‘has been constructed to accord with the passage of the cloud in the Meghaduta, where the cloud is told to proceed northwards on its flight to Kailasa through an aperture in the Kraunca mountain. The high polish of the Mirror Hall of Sigiriya mirrors the heavenly damsels of the poet Kalidasa. The artistic treatment of the world-famed damsels, depicting them waist above clouds, together with their location in the Rock, portrays the lightning and clouds in the region of cloud-land above which rises the peak of Kailasa where Lord Kubera resides. Actually, this ‘part of the rock is girdled by clouds in December and early January. The Princesses of Lightning or vijju-kumari are fair and the Cloud Damsels or megha-lata are dark. These marvellous paintings precede their immortal counterparts at Ajanta. These damsels could be goddesses bringing blessings of heaven to assuage the gnawing remorse of patricide in the heart of King Kassapa. When Sigiriya passed out of eventful history, Anuradhapura came into its own. It was here that Dutthagamani, the national hero reigned. It was here again that the Buddhist works were committed to writing in Aluvihara or the Caves of Illumination. In the heart of this city is the venerable Bo tree with a recorded history of over two and a quarter thousand years. It is a branch of the tree at Bodhgaya under which Lord Buddha gained Bodhi. In March 1917, Sir John Marshall wrote to the Acting Director of the Colombo Museum to make copies of two paintings in the Gal Vihara, Polonnaruva, which are of the 12th century, because “we have scarcely any painting in India of this period”. The Simhala language is in line with Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali and others. Simhala has even preserved interesting words which are lost or have become obsolete in modern Indian languages. While Sanskrit asva is nearly forgotten in modern Indian tadbhavas, Simhala has as in the literary language and in several compounds like as-govva ‘horse-keeper’, as-hala ‘stable’. The Simhala language is important for understanding the evolution of modern Indian languages in their time-context: for in it we are able to

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follow the development through more than two thousand years, first in inscriptions and then in literary works. It affords time-points to locate the histories of words. The interface of the cultures of India and South East Asia was, in the words of Paul Mus, “India seen from the East”. The famous Chinese writer, Lady Han Suyin, speaks of the Indian initiative in South East Asia, as narrated in the Chinese dynastic annals. She writes: “One night two thousand years ago, a god visited a youth in India and said to the young man, named Kaundinya: ‘Find a bow, board your boat, sail toward the rising sun.’ Kaundinya went to the temple next morning and there found, on the floor, a bow with a quiver full of arrows; he embarked and the god-driven wind blew him across the elephant-backed sea to a shore where Willow leaf, the beautiful queen and leader of the Khmer amazons, reigned. The queen launched her war canoe to repel Kaundinya, but the youth shot it through with his arrows, and she submitted to him. They were married, and thus was born the dynasty of the first Khmer kingdom”, Thus the kingdom of Funan was founded by sage Kaundinya, who married the Nagi queen Soma. This kingdom is referred to in Chinese texts from the third to the seventh century. Sanskrit was the official language of Funan. The use of the Pallava script speaks of the cultural majesty of the Pallava kings. Cambodia is the only country named after a risi or sage. Kambuja kings were descendants of Kambu Svayambhuva and Mera. More than 800 monuments have been discovered in the jungles of Cambodia. Jayavarman II came to the throne in the ninth century. He liberated Cambodia from Javanese vassalage. There is an unbroken line of rulers from him to modern times. He founded Angkor around the fertile area of the Great Lake of Tonle Sap that is inundated by the Mekong. The word Angkor is the Cambodian pronunciation of Sanskrit nagara. The Cambodians believe that Angkor was built by Indra who moulded the city in clay, poured over it a sort of icing whereby it solidified. Great Indra looked upon his favourite land of the Khmers and noted that its King and Queen were childless. He gave a son to the Queen and showed the child glories of his Tavatimsa paradise. The son ruled over the Khmers and copied the heavenly realm at Angkor. Great Indra visited the earth for the coronation of his son, to give to his child’s realm its name of Kambuja, and to give the Sacred Sword which is the Lightning of Indra. It is kept to this day in the royal palace, and used in coronation rites. The coronation

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ceremonies are events of great pomp. The King is robed in the colour of the day (purple if it is a Tuesday). He is received in the palace by the Grand Master of the Order of the Baku, carrying an image of god Visnu. The royal feet are washed in coconut juice and perfumed essences by the Prea Reamea Reachea Thippedi (rama-rajya-adhipati). The Grand Master hands the statues of Siva and Visnu in the right and left hands of the King. When he hands over the Sacred Sword, he proclaims the formula: “Take, for thou art the Lightning of Indra”. Angkor flourished for six hundred years. The city was captured in 1431 by the Thais, and a curtain of darkness descended upon Angkor and the entire Cambodian civilisation. -In 1937 a Cambodian, in obedience to a dream, began to dig in the lake west of Angkor Wat and came upon a large bronze head. Later more fragments of the legs, arms, and bust were recovered. It is a most imposing statue of reclining Visnu, the central deity of Angkor Wat. The great, grave divine head is very celestial and timeless. Special scissors three feet long were used to cut the roots covering the upper storey of Angkor Wat. The regal majesty and calm repose of Angkor Wat has the imprint of the touching beauty of the Khmer mind. It was constructed out of space and time, and it still dominates the one and defies the other. Unsurpassable in magnitude, enormous in perspective, it has a symbolic power and undying glory in its immobility and repose, in the dawn breaking over the forest, the sun’s rays piercing the clouds, and the silence... It is a monument to a strong and vigorous people, worthy to confront their destiny. Exquisite harmonies of its architectonics: “Eyes, you may close, for this charming creation will never for one instant be absent from my thoughts” (a Cambodian inscription). The Cambodian kings transferred their capital to Phnom Penh, then called Chadomukh. With the advent of the new dynasty in the 15th century, the construction of temples and writing of Sanskrit inscriptions ceased, as the elite had been wiped out. When King Ponhea Yat founded the capital at Phnom Penh he gave it the imposing title: Krong chadomukh mongkol sokkala kampucheathipdei sereisothor parava intaputta borei rattharachasema mohanokor

Over a thousand Sanskrit inscriptions in ornate kavya style reveal the religious, social and political life of Cambodia. The Sanskrit inscription of Jayavarman VII reveals the magnitude of the Rajavihara of Ta Prohm

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where the king set up an image of his mother “as Prajaparamita. It had 439 professors and 970 scholars, and 66,625 people were employed to serve the deities of the temples. The inscription further relates that there were 798 temples and 102 hospitals in his kingdom. lndravarman (877 -889) laid out the network of irrigation channels, whereby the land produced in abundance. It reached its culmination in the huge sandstone temple of Bakong. Yasovarman (889-900) executed tremendous hydraulic works that made prosperity and Angkor synonymous. Angkor was an immense hydraulic system with supply channels, dykes, reservoirs, field runnels to store fresh water, collect rain-water, and to distribute it. The uncertainty of nature was replaced by a vast economic potential so that Khmer art could find expression in superb Pre Rup with its colossal terminal towers, or the Phimean-akas of Jayavarman V (968-1001) with its continuous galleries, or the colossal dimensions of Ta Keo, or the delicately chiselled jewel of a stone temple like Banteay Srei (968), or the supreme image of Khmer art in Angkor Wat, one of the largest temples ever raised by man. Even today, fairy-stories are wide-spread with yaksinis, Indra’s paradise, kings and queens, which are spun into long dramas with the water-music of the bamboo xylophones. The folk songs of Cambodia are of poignant beauty, living and so changing: I plunge into the forest thickets Searching my beloved. And then suddenly I see her Drawing water from the spring... But it is not she, it is not she, It is the morning star Drinking on the edge of the misty sky. The poses of Cambodian dance begin with the ai’ljali or great salutation which signifies homage, deference and admiration. Slow movements of the dance, waving fingers, swaying figures, vague eyes, noble gestures, intricate symbolism immaterialise the motives and passions of men, seeing through an enchanted mist, ageless and placeless. Ramayana provides many themes for the dances. The ritual of instruction is the same in the humble dance troupes of the countryside and in the royal court. Before each day’s lessons, salutation to teacher and gods is performed.

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Rites purge us of presumption, pride and prejudgement. The Cambodian cannot neglect the importance of rites. Thursday is an auspicious day for most things. Its colour is deep saffron, gamboge yellow, joyous and divine. It is picked for most ceremonies. The graduation ceremony for dance is held preferably in the month of phalgun (March) or pisak (May). A white cloth is put up. On it are placed the dancer’s masks and headgear. In the centre is the mask of sage Muk Eysey. There are the four-faced yellow masks of Brahma, the green visage of Indra and Rama, the golden face of Lakshmana, the red mask of Bharata. Candles and incense-sticks are lit. The flickering amber light, rippling liquid music, wisps of blue incense-smoke curling in the air, and the girls dance. A cotton thread steeped in holy water is tied on to every girl, as the guru blesses them for success in life. Cambodian is full of Sanskrit and Pali words: krut for garuda, mkot for mukuta. The pronunciation is compressed and clipped. The Supreme Court is Sala Vinichchang (Sanskrit: Vinischayashala). The monastery to the south of the Palace is Vot Botum Votdel (padmavati). Modern Cambodian literature begins with the poetry of King Ang-Duong (ruled 1841-1859). In the months of November-December the waters begin to flow down the Mekong main-stream. On an auspicious day the King takes up residence in his floating Royal Barge. He is purified in lustral water and its inhabitants are purified of sins. The barge flies the royal standard of Cambodia, the stylised trident. The ceremony of the First Furrow is held in the month of Qassak on a date determined by the hora or astrologers of the Court. The First Furrow is mentioned in the Ramayana. The hora play an important role in the life of the land. They decide what days are auspicious and what not. The cutting of the tuft is essentially the same for the child of the peasant or of the royal house. The coronation ceremonies are events of great pomp. The King is robed in the colour of the day (purple if it is a Tuesday). He is received in the palace by the Grand Master of the Order of the Baku, carrying an image of god Visnu. The royal feet are washed in coconut juice and perfumed essences by the Prea Reamea Reachea Thippedi (rama-rajya-adhipati). The Grand Master hands the statues of Siva and Visnu in the right and left hands of the King. When he hands over the Sacred Sword, he proclaims the formula: “Take, for thou art the Lightning of Indra”. Innumerable parallels and analogies echoe between us and Cambodia. The first Sanskrit inscription of South East Asia comes from Champa. It is the Vo-Chanh Rock Inscription dated to the second or third century AD on paleographic grounds. The Sanskrit epigraphic records are confirmed

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by Chinese sources. The history of Champa has been reconstructed from AD 192 on the basis of inscriptions and Chinese annals. They were a major catalyst of culture in Asia. Champa was a renowned centre of Sanskrit and Buddhist learning. A Chinese military mission was sent against King Sambhuvarman to bring 1350 Sanskrit Buddhist works as war booty to China. In 752 Emperor Shomu of Japan invited Buddhasthira from Champa for the sumptuous consecration ceremony of the Daibutsu Roshana (Rocana Buddha) at the Todaiji monastery. He introduced Sanskrit music and dance in Japan and it is part of imperial repertoire to this day. The Chams had no resources of population and they succumbed to the unequal collision of population in the 19th century. Fragments of their enchanted glory can be seen in folklore, which -is still full of stories of Indra, called Van In or ‘God Indra’. He is associated with the construction of a dyke above the valley of Song Luy, which magically dams up the celestial waters. In years of severe drought, the Chams pray to him to release the waters. The rise of culture in the Indonesian isles is attested by seven inscriptions of King Mulavarman, dated to ca AD 400 on paleographic grounds. By this century, the tradition of yajnas must have been fully established as the King donated thousands of cows to brahmins, established hospitals, and created an extensive irrigation system. The inscriptions were discovered on the Mahakam River, a name that can reflect the kamadhenu that secured the march of civilizing influences and material affluence. He erected a lighthouse (liklisadtpa) that indicates a developed infrastructure for transnational commerce. It was the dynasty of Kunduriga which has left the imprint of its glory in the Chinese name K’un-Iun for the SE Asian region. The inscriptions of Purl1avarman, King of Tarumanagara, from West Java, are of the fifth century. They reveal the use of the Pallava script of South India: Taruma is the Tamil spelling of Dharma. The concept of the king as an incarnation of Visnu and nagara tokens the idea of a state with a social system leading to concentration of political power that enabled large irrigation works to bring about economic prosperity. The interaction of Hinduism and Buddhism with Java and Kalimantan led to a higher state of civilisation with an alphabetic culture, effective administrative machinery, a powerful system of vast public works for economic prosperity, development of metallurgy and sculptural techniques and implements for sculpting divine images, and sophisticated architectural complexes of temples. Temples led to contemplation: beyond mere physical seeing it was the visualisation of the Divine. Paintings, sculptures and architectural structures enhanced

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meditation. The sculptures and architecture of the chandis represent the glory of classical Indonesia. The chandis of Borobudur, Prambanan, Kalasan down to the 15th century Sukuh and Ceto are pearls of the heritage of the emerald string of the Indonesian archipelago. The world of the narrator, bard and poet is represented by old Javanese literature, like the lexicon Chandakarana which includes metrics, grammar and alankara, the great parwas of the Mahabharata, kakawins like the Ramayana, philosophical texts like the Bhuvanakosa and San Hyang Kamahayanikan. For instance, King Sn Dharmavainsa Teguh Ananta-vikram-ottmiga-deva initiated the auspicious undertaking of putting the Mahabharata into Javanese (manjiiviikna) so that the tradition lives in the future. While this king carried out conquests, his queen presided over the creation of literature that became immortal fame. Local genius created a new cultural idiom of Hindu-Buddhist culture and civilisation in all its manifestations. Indo-Asian cosmosophy with its many gods and goddesses represents pluralism which has also to be the new sensibility. It is the openness to multiple forms of reality. They are the many structures of meaning and being in which we constantly live. Theo-diversity gives depth, a resonance of the transcendent function. It teaches reverence for the variousness of ourselves and of others. Life can have no rigid fences or boundaries. It needs horizons to purify, perfect and ennoble our existence. Buddhism has kissed this world with compassion, enwoven light and love in the hearts of men, kindled lamps in the forlorn recesses of sombre shades of life, offered flowers and lit lamps in place of rituals of slaughter. Buddha, the Prince of Peace, brought silence to the arid heart of man who ceaselessly runs in furious chase of victory. From the surging centuries of noise rises the prayer of love immeasurable: “Let Buddha be my refuge”.

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Fusion of Cultures A Case of Abdul Wahid Radhu Claude Arpi

Introduction Many years ago, we once asked the Dalai Lama how he would define the essence of Tibetan culture. His reply was straightforward. He said: “Tibetan culture has developed due to many factors - environmental, climatic and others - and Buddhism is the major factor in the development of Tibet’s unique culture. Even non-Buddhist Tibetans have adopted the mental attitudes and way of life of Buddhist culture. That culture is based on the practice of compassion and tolerance.”1 As an example, he mentioned the Muslim population living in Lhasa. Several years later, this prompted me to have a closer look at the Tibetan Muslims, also known as Kache. The Tibetan word Kache derives from 2 ‘Kashmir’.

The Kaches The Kache community forms a tiny minority in Tibet, but its members are accepted as Tibetans, unlike the Hui Muslims living in North-eastern Tibet, who are known as Gya Kache or Chinese Muslims. One charocteristic of the Muslims in Central Tibet is the fact that they are mainly of Kashmiri or Turkish descent through patrilineal lineage. Thomas Arnold, in his book, The Preaching of Islam3 , wrote: “Islam has also been carried into Tibet proper by Kashmiri merchants. Settlements of such merchants are to be found in all the chief cities of Tibet: they marry Tibetan women, who often adopt the religion of their husbands...” It is said that during the reign of the Persian ruler Umar bin Abdul Aziz (717-720), a delegation from Tibet requested the Caliph to send some Islamic missionaries to the Land of Snows. Salah bin Abdullah Hanafi subsequently

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went to Tibet. Though proselytisation was not successful among the local population, many of the missionaries settled in Tibet and married Tibetan women. Around the 12th century, migrants from Kashmir and Eastern Turkistan entered Tibet, but here again was no large-scale conversion to Islam. While heavy Islamic proselytisation took place in Baltistan4 and to a lesser extent in Ladakh between the 14th and the 16th centuries, it was minimal in Tibet probably due its strong Buddhist roots and the distance from the main source of the Islamic faith. In the 17th century a small community of Muslims flourished in Lhasa working mainly as butchers and traders. During the same period in India, the influx of Kashmiri immigrants in Ladakh and the subsequent conversions of many Buddhists to Islam created isolated conflicts between the two faiths. An example of this was reported between followers of the Soma Gompa and Jama Masjid in Leh. Masood Butt, a young Tibetan Muslim working for the Dalai Lama’s Administration in Dharamsala was one of the first to study the Tibetan Muslims. In January 1994, he wrote in the Tibetan Bulletin5 : “The arrival of Muslims was followed by the construction of mosques in different parts of Tibet. There were four mosques in Lhasa, two in Shigatse and one in Tsethang. In recent years, one mosque in Lhasa has been renovated, with Tibetan Muslims from India sending religious inscriptions to it for use. Tibetan Muslims were mainly concentrated around the mosques that they constructed. These mosques were maintained well and were the centres of Muslim social life in Tibet.” He further explained that the Tibetan Muslims had been fairly well assimilated in the Buddhist environment. They fully participated in the social and cultural life of the Land of Snows. As early as the 17th century, during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama, they received some special privileges from the Tibetan Government. Masood elaborates: “They were permitted to settle their affairs independently, according to the Shariat Laws. The government permitted the Muslim community to elect a five-men committee, known as ‘Ponj’ (Urdu for ‘five’). This system of governance6 allowed the community to look after their own interest. From among the Ponj, a leader (known as Mia to Muslims and Kache Gopa or Muslim headman among the Tibetans) was elected.” Tibetan Kaches had other advantages: they were free to set up business and did not have to pay taxes. It probably explains why most of the Muslim

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population in Tibet was involved in trade and lived in the main urban centres such as Lhasa and Shigatse. None of them did farming. One can easily understand that through their family connections in Ladakh, Turkistan, Baltistan or even Kalimpong, trade for them was the most suitable occupation. The Tibetan Muslims were exempt from implementing the ‘no meat rule’ when such a restriction was imposed on the Roof of the World every year during the holy Buddhist month of Saka Dawa (Budh Poornima). They need not remove their headgears to salute the Buddhist Lamas during this period. Muslims were also invited along with other different communities to commemorate the assumption of spiritual and temporal authority by the Fifth Dalai Lama in the seventeenth century.7 The Kaches had their own burial place. Masood added: “There were two cemeteries around Lhasa: one at Gyanda Linka about 12 km from Lhasa town and the other at Kygasha about 15 km away. A portion of Gyanda Linka was turned into a garden and this became the place where the Muslim community organised their major functions.”8 Most of these special privileges ended with the beginning of the Chinese occupation of Tibet in the fifties. After the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupants in March 1959, the Dalai Lama left for exile in India. He was followed by some 85,000 countrymen. However, the majority of Tibetan Muslims could not leave Tibet immediately. During the following year, the Communist leadership treated them even more contemptuously than their Buddhist fellow countrymen. They suffered a great deal and it is even said that for some time, food was not allowed to be sold to them. However, a few months later, the Tibetan Muslims in Lhasa organized themselves. They realized that the best way to escape the Chinese despotism was to approach the Indian Mission in Tibet and claim Indian citizenship using their Kashmiri origin. They approached Mr. P.N. Kaul, the head of the Indian Mission in Lhasa. The problem was that most of the Muslim leaders such as Haji Habibullah Shamo, head of the Tibetan Muslims Ponj and many others like Bhai Addul Gani-la or Rapse Hamidullah had been arrested under diverse charges. The Indian Government’s initial response was rather lukewarm. They were ready to grant citizenship only to those who had a permanent residence in the State of Jammu & Kashmir and visited India from time to time, or whose parents or grandparents were born in undivided India. Only these categories were eligible.

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However, a few months later, the Indian Government agreed that all Tibetan Muslims could be considered as Indian nationals, and application forms for Indian nationality were distributed9 . Muslims were granted Indian citizenship by the Indian Government, which considered the Tibetan Muslims as Kashmiris, and thus Indian citizens, unlike the other Tibetan refugees, who carry Refugee Status Certificates. Tibetan Muslims had their own architectural style. Mosques were built in a picturesque blend of Persian and Tibetan styles. Like in Tibetan architecture, they used colourful frescoes, sloping walls to withstand earthquakes, and put Katha (ceremonial scarves) at the doorways of the mosques. Today, very little is known of the present condition of Tibetan Muslims inside Tibet. According to some reports there are still around 3000 Tibetan Muslims and 20,000 Chinese Muslims. In the recent years, a few Tibetan Muslims outside Tibet have been able to visit Lhasa while quite a few came to India. According to Masood, “The total population of Tibetan Muslims outside Tibet is around 2000. Of them, 20 to 25 families live in Nepal, 20 in the Gulf countries and Turkey. Fifty families reside in DarjeelingKalimpong areas bordering Tibet in eastern India.”10 It is fascinating to study how the Tibetan Muslim and Buddhist cultures have been able to interact and blend, how a minority and a majority were able to live together for centuries without any major clash or even hostility. This is particularly remarkable when one reads about the forthcoming (or already existing) ‘clash of civilisations’ in which one of the communities of our case-study is shown as the main protagonist. In Europe, analysts and researchers have commented on the issue of ‘integration’ or ‘assimilation’ of the Muslims in the western societies, particularly with immigrants of North African or Turkish origin in Western Europe or from South Asia in Great Britain. The opinions are diverse on how far these communities have been able to ‘merge’ their Muslim singularity into the indigenous culture and life. However, the mere fact that the issue has been so much debated tends to prove that there is a serious problem which has become particularly acute after the events of the 9/11 in the United States and the ‘war against terrorism’ undertaken by the US Administration. In our case-study, we have the example of two communities who have lived together in harmony, respecting each other for centuries. The question is therefore to try to understand how this has been possible. The first factor which comes to mind is what the Dalai Lama pointed out in his interview: “Even non-Buddhist Tibetans have adopted the mental

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attitudes and way of life of Buddhist culture. That culture is based on the practice of compassion and tolerance.” When the basis of compassion or at least tolerance is present on both sides, it creates an atmosphere in which impossibilities become possibilities. To try to understand this phenomenon, we travelled to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to meet a person who represents in our eyes the harmonious symbiosis of two cultures, Buddhist and Muslim, while remaining firmly anchored in his Islamic faith. This person is a Ladakhi by birth, Muslim by faith, and he has lived for years in Tibet where many of his relatives belong to the Kache community that has been trading for centuries on the dusty tracks of Tibet and Central Asia. The life of Abdul Wahid Radhu is a perfect example of the successful fusion of two cultures.

The Life and Time of Abdul Wahid Radhu, the Last Caravaneer Some encounters are different. The one with Abdul Wahid Radhu will always remain very special for us. One of the reasons might be that for the past twenty years or so, we read a lot about him and hoped to meet him one day; however circumstances and ‘life’ (or karma) had not permitted it. Despite (or because of) his advanced age, this human being — very few such beings still exist today in our world of narrow-mindedness — who has been one of the last caravaneers of Central Asia and Tibet, can today look at his life and the historical events which changed the face of Asia with a certain detachment . Abdul Wahid had the privilege to witness and even sometimes to be an actor in dramatic events that marked not only his native Ladakh for ever, but also the entire sub-continent, as well as Tibet and the whole of Asia. Born in Leh in the province of Ladakh of the Jammu and Kashmir State, Abdul Wahid Radhu received his higher education from the Aligargh Muslim University where he lived in the midst of intellectual and emotional ferment; he saw the first ripples of the movement which was to shake the entire sub-continent: the creation of Pakistan, or the Partition of India into two separate States, forever enemies since then. The young Abdul travelled with one of the last caravans paying tribute from the Kings of Ladakh to the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa every three years. The educated Ladakhi was present in the Tibetan capital when the Chinese invaded the Roof of the World, supposedly “to liberate” the Himalayan nation from imperialist influence. He was then a friend with the Dalai Lama’s family and most of the Tibetan aristocratic families. He was very much a part of the Tibetan Muslim

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community, very liberal and in many ways remarkably integrated with the Buddhist Roof of the World. Abdul Wahid also had the occasion to exchange ideas and share the aspirations of a group of young Tibetan rebels living in exile in Kalimpong in North India in the forties. They had realized that the world was changing rapidly; they all dreamt of a modern and more democratic Tibet. 11 Abdul Wahid related to us his exceptional life. It was during the 18th century, when Sheikh Asad Abdul, the ancestor of Abdul Wahid migrated to Ladakh and established a trading house. It is said that a Persian inscription on the Sunni mosque in Leh mentions his name. Asad Abdul’s father, Sheikh Muhammad Radhu was an important religious personality of the Kashmir Valley. The tradition reports that he would have been the one who deposited a hair of the Prophet in the famous Hazratbal mosque in Srinagar. Abdul Wahid says that the Radhu family can trace its ancestors to a family of Kashmiri Pandits. They were known as the Trakru before converting to Islam. Sheikh Asad’s son, Faruq Radhu became the first caravaneer of the family. Thanks to him, the name Radhu acquired a great notoriety on the tracks and trails of Central Asia and Tibet. At the same time, other branches of the family began to open businesses beyond the Karakoram pass, in Kashgar or Yarkand in Eastern Turkistan12 . Most of them married in these distant regions and got integrated in the local society. The Radhus’ blood began flowing in many towns and trading centres of Central Asia and Tibet. Apparently, a branch of the family still resides in Xinjiang today, a few remain in occupied Tibet, while another lives again in the Kashmir Valley where we met Abdul Wahid. While Faruq Radhu’s two elder sons, Haider Shah and Nasr Shah decided to settle in Ladakh, another brother left for Tibet where he married a Muslim Chinese girl. The relations, mainly business ones, between the cousins living in Tibet and the Ladakhi branch remained close; the family continued thus to spread and prosper. Haider Shah’s son, migrated to Tsetang, a small town situated south of Lhasa and married a Tibetan Buddhist. In Leh, the Radhus were an envied lot. They owned the most beautiful properties and their coveted merchandises from all corners of Asia filled up their warehouses. It is in this cosmopolitan environment that the young Abdul Wahid grew. Several of his close relatives served the British Administration or the Maharaja of Kashmir, though there were always two divergent opinions in

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the family: while some thought that it was necessary to give to the children ‘modern’ education, in other words British education, others believed that a more traditional training as of caravaneer and trader was enough to carry on with the family trade. Haji Muhammad Siddiq, the grandfather of Abdul, whom the latter adulated, strongly believed that it was more important to preserve the family traditions. But the young Abdul wanted to see the world and even learn the language of the British. His grandfather tried for some time to oppose young Wahid’s departure to Srinagar, but finally he had no choice but to abandon his grandson to ‘his fate’: “My grandfather was a patriarch that reigned on a household of about twenty persons. He was one of the most eminent and popular personalities in Leh. Till his death, he was rather happy to have been able to preserve the family traditions”, recalls Abdul nearly eighty years later. When he arrived for the first time in the big city of Srinagar, the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Abdul made an extraordinary discovery: his cousin Ataullah could ride “a vehicle on wheels. He jumped on the machine. I never had seen such a thing”. It was a bicycle… Ataullah “mounted it, rushed, and fast as an arrow, he disappeared in a bend; suddenly he appeared in the opposite direction, driving at a staggering speed, until he came back to us. His demonstration stunned me.” Abdul had begun his discovery of the world; he would soon be initiated into a myriad of new things such as electricity, telephone, radio transmission, movie and even motor vehicles. Abdul remembers now that after a few days, he was already used to it. Today the wise man says, “It is only inner discoveries that one never tires of”. Ataullah, who for the past two years had attended a high school managed by the missionaries in Srinagar, quickly initiated the young Ladakhi into his new life. It should, however, be mentioned that very few youngsters from the high Himalayan mountains where timelessness ruled life, had the opportunity to attend western schools. The two cousins were a rare exception. During their childhood years in Ladakh, their contact with ‘outside’ was extremely limited. Beyond the massive ranges there were usually only tracks and tracks again. In Lhasa, the situation was slightly different. As the Muslim community was larger, madrassas (primary Koranic schools) were opened. The students were taught about the Koran and the pillars of Islam, particularly how to offer namaz (prayers). Apart from the Tibetan language, Urdu

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was part of the main curriculum. Before the Chinese invasion, there were two madrassas in Lhasa and one in Shigatse. Like their young colleagues in Srinagar, the Kache students were sent to India to join institutes of higher Islamic learning such as Darul-Uloom in Deoband, Nadwatul-Ulema in Lucknow or Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. Researchers have found the attendance of two foreign students, a Burmese and a Tibetan, in the 1875 Annual Report of Darul-Uloom Institute. Jamia Millia Islamia received its first batch of Tibetan students in 1945. The difference between the Kache youth and our Ladakhi friends was that the latter had attended a Christian Missionary school in Kashmir and had received their primary education in English. When Ataullah left Srinagar to enter Aligarh University, the blow was hard for Abdul Wahid. At first, he had no choice but to get used to his lonely schoolboy existence though he finally made some friends. It is symbolic of Kashmir before the venom of separateness entered the Valley, that the principal of the Christian school was a Brahmin octogenarian, the respected Pandit Shankar Kaul. The Himalayan children were taught not only Urdu language, but Persian literature as well. The school’ however, insisted on the importance of the English language as a medium. Abdul remembers: “The history courses were centred on England and the British empire. In a way, it was organized to make of us all good servants of the British.” As often with the Ladakhis, the young Abdul did not have an easy rapport with his Kashmiri schoolmates, though they belonged to the same Muslim faith. Most of his friends were, like him, natives of the highlands such as Gilgit, Hunza, Astor or Punyal13 . There was a deep solidarity and camaraderie between the ‘Himalayans’ who had come from regions so unlike the rest of India or even the Kashmir Valley. Their way of thinking, of eating, of behaving, the way they perceived the world was simply different. What his grandfather had dreaded was fast happening: “At that time, all of us went through a very strong attraction for the West, the ‘modern world’… We were anxious to dress like Europeans and for most of us, the highest ambition was to join one day the British administration. Waiting for that day, our uppermost dream, the greatest privilege of all, was to be on the list of those who every year were selected to go to London with a scholarship granted by the Government of the Maharaja. For us, England was at the centre of all our thoughts.” While he prepared his entry examination to Aligarh Muslim University, Abdul one day received the news that his grandfather was dying. Although

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the results were awaited any day, he had no choice but to leave immediately for Ladakh and thanks to his family contacts, he could use the ‘express way’ of the postal services. In seven days, he was in Leh. Being the only male descendant, his grandfather thought that Abdul Wahid would now take care of the family heritage and business. Decades later, Wahid wrote: “When Haji Muhammad Siddiq was alive, we did not realize fully the inestimable values that he embodied; often we did not listen to his advices and sometimes we even deliberately opposed his ideas and his principles. Indeed, we were all in love with western modernity.” Muhammad Siddiq died in May 1937, a few days after his grandson had reached Leh. The old man left his terrestrial sheath like the wise Sufi he was. With a perfect lucidity, he told his entourage: “Now my sight is dissipating, my sense of smell slowly disappears. The last moment approaches.” He asked for his grandson who, too frightened by the proximity of death, did not immediately come to his bedside. Decades later, Abdul wrote: “I often wondered if Haji Muhammad Siddiq did not want to transmit me a tradition, maybe of initiatory character, for he was connected with the Tariqa Chishti, the Indian Sufi Brotherhood. Maybe also it was his intention to teach me to recite a special prayer”. Later, Abdul Wahid, while emptying the attic of their Leh residence, found one of these Sufi texts. Since that day, he daily recites it “to try to make amends for the mistake committed by not replying to the patriarch’s ultimate call.” The death of Muhammad Siddiq was for the family the beginning of the end of the epoch of the great caravans; it was only a question of some years before the century-old tradition completely disappeared. Soon disputes erupted between the different members of the clan; nothing would be like before. The world around had begun to spin faster and faster and the remote Himalayan valleys were not spared. This was the time when the Valley of Kashmir saw its first ‘democratic’ movements led by a charismatic leader called Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah who was to play an important political role during the following years. At the end of the thirties and early forties, the Muslim population of Ladakh was an integral part of the society; they still lived in harmony with the followers of the other religions, primarily the Buddhists. In many ways they embodied a symbiosis of Buddhist and Islamic cultures. When one meets Abdul Wahid, one realizes that his immense admiration for his grandfather was due to the fact that Muhammad Siddiq was the perfect

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example of a typically Ladakhi combination. The old caravaneer was both a Tibetan by race and culture and a Muslim by religion: “His face, his clothing, his behaviour, the way in which he had furnished and decorated his house where everyone was welcome, were Tibetan. He always appeared dressed in a gown similar to the Tibetan one, but as a headgear he wore a white turban.” Wahid adds: “In addition, and this may have appeared unbelievable in an Indian society compartmented by classes, there were marriages 14 between families of the two communities. ” Having passed successfully his entrance examination and after some months spent in the enchanting surroundings of Leh, the young Wahid decided to join his cousin in Aligarh. A new life was beginning for him. In Aligarh, Abdul Wahid discovered the tremendous influence of Western thought in Indian Islam. Much later, the young Ladakhi realized that the religious beliefs of the leaders of the Muslim University, wanting to project themselves as tolerant towards Christianity and modern ideas, “remained in reality superficial and incapable of guaranteeing the preservation of our cultural identity in front of the intellectual enticements of the West.” In the room that he shared with his cousin, he often participated in long discussions on the meaning of ‘modernity’ and what he conceived then to be “the summits of human thought.” These western influences reigned supreme amongst intellectual Muslims of that time; for them the British civilisation represented the peak of societal evolution. Ironically, it was the same intellectuals who were at the origin of the concept of Pakistan, a ‘separate and modern State’ for the Muslims in the sub-continent. One of the characteristics of the teaching of Aligarh was a “constant usage of Western thought as reference.” Wahid explains that for these intellectuals, Western thought offered the deepest criteria to judge the validity of any knowledge, even when it came to the understanding of philosophies flowing from typically Eastern reflection or similarly for Islam. The main mentor or intellectual leader of the University was Muhammad Iqbal. Although considered by many as the most important Muslim reformist of the 20th century, he is viewed by others as the spiritual father of Pakistan. Abdul feels that Iqbal “favoured a form of political activism among the Muslims, thereby contributing to popularize the idea that they constituted a nation separate from the other communities living on the sub-continent.” He adds: “His prestige was considerable among my generation’s students. As early as 1947, many of them declared themselves Pakistani nationals.

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For their career, they left their native regions in India for the newly formed State of Pakistan.” He still believes that the main preoccupation of most of the history and philosophy professors was to reconstruct or rewrite the religious thought of Islam. They considered it necessary to ‘reinterpret traditional Islam in a modern way’. Abdul said that they commented “with sympathy of the theories of a Nietzsche, qualified by them of ‘modern prophet’, of a Bergson and even of a Freud.” Many years later, while the Ladakhi served the Dalai Lama, who had left Tibet to take refuge in India, Abdul Wahid learnt than the Tibetan leader had also studied western philosophers such as Kant, Nietzsche or Bergson. He sent him a note: “These philosophers are henchmen of the devil. For God’s sake, Your Holiness, please realize the level of lowness they are in comparison with the timeless wisdom Your Holiness represents.” It was in 1940 that the Ladakhi student discovered another world, with which he immediately felt a deeper affinity as compared with the rigid, superficial and ‘modern’ Islam of Aligarh University. He had been invited by his uncle to join him in Lhasa for the holidays. His visit to the Roof of the World provided the young Ladakhi a new and refreshing experience. For the first time, he perceived a new way to be; this was not only due to the physical magnificence of the landscape or the serenity of life in the Tibetan capital, but also because of a certain quality in the culture of this country and its people. He would remain deeply attached to Tibet for the rest of his life. And here, we come back to the Dalai Lama’s definition of Tibetan culture, “compassion and tolerance”. The young Ladakhi felt in consonance with this manière d’être. Unfortunately after two months, he had to return to Aligarh to complete his studies (at least till he obtained his BA); but in the Muslim University he continued to dream of Lhasa. It was during the summer of 1942 that his life took another turn. His uncle Abdul Aziz who was the leader of the triennial caravan of Ladakh, known as the Lopchak, invited his nephew in order to initiate him into a caravaneer’s life. This new adventure marked the young Abdul Wahid for the rest of his life. The official caravan was something specifically Ladakhi: the official tribute of the Buddhist people from Ladakh to the Dalai Lamas had to be carried to the Tibetan capital. The responsibility of the caravan was given to a Muslim family (the Radhus). Every third year, gifts were transported 15 from Leh and presented to the religious leader of Tibet in Lhasa.

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Following a border conflict between Tibet and Ladakh during the 17th century, the two nations had come to an agreement. It was decided that to maintain friendly relations and promote regular trade between Ladakh and Tibet, a Tibetan caravan would travel once a year from Lhasa to Leh and that, another caravan, le Lopchak (triennial) would be sent by the King of Ladakh to Lhasa every two years. The latter was considered as a sort a tribute from the Ladakhis to the Dalai Lama. Both the caravans were allowed to move freely and transport merchandises into each other’s territory. Not only did these exchanges contribute to maintaining good relations between Ladakh and Tibet, but it was also a rare opportunity for the caravaneers to ‘officially’ do some good business. Just graduated from the university and speaking fluent English, the young Abdul kept a daily journal of his adventures. He remembers: “Thanks to the slowness of the mules which in those years constituted our principal means of transportation, I fully had the leisure to record the details of our route. Often also, I could express the moods and thoughts of an idealistic young man, open to the modern world and who at the same time, had normally to maintain the trading tradition of his family.” Several decades later he wrote: “With the experiences gained through the years, I can now notice that this departure was for me the first steps of a very long journey which has never ended; since then it helped me to begin an inner and almost continuous development.” From that time onwards, he travelled not only on the large spaces of Central Asia, but also on the internal tracks of spirituality. He writes in his diary: “Today, September 19, 1942, twentieth day of my married life, I left my family residence, my wife, my aunt and my sister. I left for Lhasa to learn the trade of a merchant under the direction of my uncle, Abdul Aziz, the leader of the Lopchak.” In the mind of the young man, there were many contradictory feelings. On one side, he was conscious of the commercial and political importance of the caravan. At the same time, he suffered to have had to abandon his young bride. It was not easy for him to adapt to a caravaneer’s life; the first night alone in the camp, the young man cried. Abdul Wahid recalls that in the forties, Ladakh was one of the most isolated regions of the planet. It took twelve days by pony to reach the closest large city, Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. The first airplane with Gen. K.S. Thimayya on board landed in Leh only in May, 1948.

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For centuries Ladakh had been an independent kingdom though geographically, ethnically and culturally the region was close to Tibet. The young caravaneer remembers the stunningly beautiful landscapes: “During these days of September 1942, the landscapes were still austere. Barley was being harvested and the fields had become yellow, almost all greenery had disappeared. Only the willows and the poplars which stood up near the streams, had kept their foliage, but also the apple and apricot trees planted around some isolated farms. The snow had started sprinkling the summits.” It took three months for the caravan to arrive at Lhasa after many exciting and sometimes distressing adventures. It would be too long to narrate them all. In any case, were they not similar to those which punctuated the daily life of any caravaneer for centuries? In Lhasa, they were received by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan officials with the pomp due to their official position. Walking for months on the high tracks of Asia made the young trader realize that thereafter his life would be centred on the Tibetan world and more interestingly for him, he would not need to abandon his faith in Islam. However, his family would slowly start to realize that the commerce which had flourished for centuries between Leh and the rest of Asia was doomed to disappear in a not too distant future. The new modern means of transport would make the direct road between India and Tibet via Kalimpong, Sikkim and the Chumbi Valley the most economical way to move men and goods from the hot plains of India to the Roof of the World. The traders were often the first to realize the changes occurring around and very often quicker than others to adapt to new situations. It was clear for the elders in the Radhu family that sooner or later, the tracks leading towards the Karakoram Pass and continuing to Yarkand, Kachgar and Central Asia could not survive the world changes. In 1943, Abdul Wahid decided therefore to settle in Kalimpong, one of Asia’s new essential commercial (and political) nodes. He was soon to make interesting encounters with a few colourful personages dreaming like him of a new Asia. It would probably be necessary to write a book only on the life of Kalimpong, its intrigues, its secret agents, its plots and new political movements. Nehru once called the place a ‘nest of spies’. It is necessary to first mention the great khampa trading families, the best known being the Sandutshangs, the Andutshangs, the Gyanaktshangs and the Pangdatshangs. The reputation of the last spread to China, thanks to the monopoly they had on the trade of Tibetan wool which was exported in huge quantities up

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to America. “To welcome the Tibetan notability which frequently visited them, they had constructed in Kalimpong beautiful and vast residential places. They all competed in hospitality,” remembers Abdul Wahid. The Pangdatshangs were three brothers, Yarphel, Topgay and Rabgay. The first was the leader of the trading empire; he had an immense influence in political circles in Lhasa. Rabgay, the youngest was the revolutionary one, close to the nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-chek. Perhaps because he dreamed to see Tibet become a republic, he ended up being expelled from India. His ideas were too subversive for the British who wanted to keep the present political set-up on the Roof of the World. Empires do not survive on revolutions, but on status quo only. There was also Tsipon Shakabpa, a young Finance Secretary in the Tibetan Government who was a sort of official representative of the Dalai Lama in India and who several times had the occasion to meet Jawaharlal Nehru to negotiate (in vain) an Indian military and political support for Tibet. Shakabpa himself told Abdul Wahid how he made his fortune. He had noticed that in the minting workshop producing copper coins in Lhasa, the left-over metal pieces were thrown away after the strike. His idea was to collect these scraps and sell them in India where the price of copper was very high. He made such huge profits that Yarphel Pangdatshang himself became jealous: “Shakabpa was then rich enough to play the first roles on Tibet’s political scene” comments Wahid. It was at Rabgay Pangdatshang’s place that Abdul Wahid had the most interesting encounters. For example, Kunphela, a former confidant of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who after being unfairly blamed for the death of his master, had to take refuge in India; or Changlochan, who is said to have participated in a ‘republican’ plot in Tibet. Wahid remembers that these two personages had not totally renounced participating in political activities on the Roof of the World, especially as they were aware that the Asian world was beginning to go through a great turmoil. Perhaps more interesting was the young Ladakhi’s proximity with two personages who deeply marked the history of the modern Tibet. The first one was a young and brilliant Tibetan intellectual, Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal, known by the Tibetans as Phunwang. He was fiercely Communist, though at the same time deeply committed to Tibet. “An authentic Tibetan nationalist, he elaborated some ‘pan-Tibetan’ theories aiming to regroup together in a federation all the regions and cultures where ethnic Tibetan groups lived, it included Ladakh. Our discussions,

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friendly but differing, continued later in Lhasa where fate provided the opportunity to meet under unexpected circumstances.” Less than ten years later, Phunwang would be responsible for the entry of the Chinese forces in Lhasa. Unfortunately for him, though he was for a long time very close to Mao Zedong, he ended up spending 17 years of his life in Communist jails, most of the time under solitary confinement. During our interviews with Abdul Wahid, he constantly asked us if we had any news of Phunwang who has been partially rehabilitated and lives today in Beijing without much 16 contact with the outside world. A familiar individual in Pangdatshang House was Gedun Choepell, the Tibetan rebellious monk who undoubtedly was one the greatest scholars of his generation. A native of the Amdo province in Northeastern Tibet, he had studied at the Drepung monastery near Lhasa. He had already been noticed for his nonconformist ideas. After obtaining his diploma of geshe (doctor in theology), he began to criss-cross the Indian sub-continent from the North-West Frontier Provinces to Sri Lanka, studying Sanskrit, Pali and English, interested in everything from history, religions or customs of people (he even wrote a manual in Tibetan on the Kamasutra). What probably helped creating a great proximity between Abdul Wahid and the Tibetan scholar was that both were deeply interested in the study of other faiths17 . This was something rare at that time. When Gedun Choepell returned to Tibet in 1945, he was arrested and imprisoned for several years. The results of his linguistic and historical researches were confiscated (and probably destroyed)18 . His research in the ancient history of Tibet was a masterly work which is still considered as a reference. Who realized his genius then? He was probably too much ahead of his times. He died a destitute just a few weeks after the arrival of the Chinese troops in Lhasa; he had been abandoned by all (except some rare close spiritual friends such Abdul Wahid). When he left this world, many considered him a great yogi who had consciously chosen the time and place of his departure. The life of Gedun Choepell symbolizes a Tibet that refused to open up to the changing world, a society which did not accept different ideas than the ones propagated by the leading Buddhist monasteries. His life (and death) represents the struggle for a new Tibet against the conservative and entrenched forces of the aristocracy and the clergy who did not accept changes (some still believed that the earth was flat). Many in Kalimpong as well as in Lhasa 19 later considered Abdul Wahid a disciple of Gedun Choepell. When we asked him, he just said that they were intellectually very close. Gedun wanted

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Buddhism to become a religion open to the future20 , accepting and respecting other faiths on an equal footing. This is probably what the young Ladakhi dreamed of realizing with Islam. To come back to Kalimpong, Wahid was also in contact with Prince Peter of Greece, with the explorer orientalist Marco Palis with whom the Ladakhi discovered René Guénon and the great Russian scholar and artist George Roerich. Some months after India’s independence, Abdul Wahid met with new adventures, this time not very pleasant. He had left for China on a business trip with a Tibetan trader, and before he could discover that the latter was a fishy character, Wahid found himself under house arrest in Nanjing, the capital of Nationalist China. He was to stay there for more than a year. The matter was simple; he had made the mistake of travelling with a Tibetan passport while he was an Indian national; the Chinese wanted to use his Ladakhi identity for their own political ends. This period of his life was one of the most painful ones, he was cut from his family, his country; he could not even send a message back to Kalimpong. Thanks to his contacts with the Dalai Lama family as well as Rabgay Pangdatshang, he finally managed to leave Nanjing for Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang), which had not yet been annexed by China. A long series of eventful journeys eventually took the young Ladakhi to Gilgit, which had just been occupied by Pakistan and then to Karachi where he was promptly invited for tea by Mr. Ikramullah, the Pakistani Foreign Secretary. To Wahid’s great surprise, the diplomat offered him a post in the Pakistani Foreign Service. Some French friends with whom he had travelled in Central Asia managed to convince him that it was not the right thing to do. He belonged to the Himalayas, not to the sub-continent. After some hesitation, Wahid decided to politely refuse the offer. He finally managed to catch a flight to Eastern Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and returned to India via Calcutta. One interesting lesson of this long journey back home is that despite the conflict in China between the Communists and the Nationalists and in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the young trader could rather freely cross borders, particularly in the Gilgit area as well as between East and West Bengal. A couple of years into Independence, the borders were not rigidified as they are today. The other point to be noted is Pakistan’s great need of young educated Muslims to join its civil services, so much so that the Foreign Secretary of this country could invite for tea an unknown young man and offer him a relatively senior post.

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Let us return to Abdul Wahid. Some weeks later he was able to return to Tibet and was reunited with his wife who had remained without news of him all this time. Unfortunately, his uncles were not as happy with his return, as they had taken opportunity of his absence to take over most of the business. This undoubtedly helped Wahid to take the jump; he decided to return to Kalimpong where in no time, he ran a flourishing commerce again. An event was to change the face of the Himalayas for ever. On October 7, 1950, the Chinese Liberation Army invaded Tibet. A few weeks earlier, Wahid had decided to return to Lhasa to start a joint venture with a rich Tibetan trader. The next two years were to be enriching years, although the situation became day by day more difficult due to the arrival of the Communist troops. His stay in the Tibetan capital was nevertheless an occasion to renew his contacts with the Dalai Lama’s family and particularly with Gyalo Thondup, one of the brothers of the Tibetan leader with whom he had shared difficult times in Nanjing. We will not enter into the details of the first years of the Chinese occupation, but Abdul Wahid faced serious difficulties. After the triumphant entry of the Chinese troops in the Tibetan capital, his old friend from Kalimpong days, Phunwang was now the senior most Communist official in Tibet. Phunwang had been requested by Mao Zedong to make sure that the ‘liberation of Tibet’ was secured as harmoniously as possible. It is what happened… but during the first few months only. The young Ladakhi could clearly see the dark clouds looming on the horizon of the Land of Snows; he thought that it would not be long before the Tibetan population began resisting the forced Chinese ‘liberation’. During his long conversations with Phunwang, which were not as free as they used to be owing to Phunwang’s new official position, Abdul Wahid warned several times the young Communist cadre: “You will be getting into serious troubles before long.” When Phunwang would ask “Why”, Wahid would reply: “You are too much a Tibetan to be a true Communist”. At that time Phunwang could not probably understand his friend. He still believed that Communism could solve all the problems of Tibet. But the situation began to slowly deteriorate until the day the Dalai Lama was forced to dismiss Lukhangwa, his very respected and straightforward Prime Minister. The old man was definitively too nationalist in the eyes of the Chinese. Wahid was in a tricky position. On one hand he was on friendly terms with the Dalai Lama’s brothers and, on the other, he was still close to Phunwang who wanted to use him. Finally, the latter told him, “Wahid, it is

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your duty to collaborate with us and, if you do not, you will regret it one day. I know your devotion to Tibet and you must seize the occasion to participate in the great task of emancipation of the Tibetan culture which has just now begun.” A similar advice was given to him by Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, the principal minister of the Tibetan Government who had signed the famous (or infamous) 17-Point Agreement with China in May 1951. Being pressed to collaborate against his will and his personal beliefs, he decided to leave the Tibetan capital. “The best for me was to prepare my luggage and leave Lhasa, the dream city’s atmosphere had become nightmarish.” Paradoxically, thanks to his contacts with Phunwang and Ngabo, he could get a special pass which allowed him to return to Kalimpong under the pretext that he had to care for his wife’s health. He finally reached India and after a week’s stay in Calcutta, jumped into a train for Delhi. “After Lhasa where we felt constantly spied upon, I was happy to find again in India an atmosphere of freedom”. In Delhi, he was welcomed by Ataullah who offered him a place to stay. They had already shared a room in Srinagar and then several years later, in Aligarh University. The irony was that his cousin was now Second Secretary to the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi. He had taken up the offer that Abdul Wahid had refused; he was now a Pakistani diplomat.21 It is worth mentioning that after Wahid had returned to Kalimpong, Ataullah had also left Tibet. He had told Wahid about his intention to find a new occupation. When he had sounded out the Indian government, he had only received negative responses. Wahid had mentioned to his cousin about the offer he had received from Pakistan. Ataullah tried his luck and he was immediately welcomed into the Pakistani Foreign Service. Thus a Ladakhi Muslim became a Pakistani diplomat. Ataullah’s first posting was in the Pakistani Mission in Calcutta and later he rose to eventually become Pakistan’s Ambassador in different countries, including Nepal. What disturbed the young Ladakhi the most in Delhi was that nobody was interested in what had happened in the Land of the Snows. Intellectuals and well-connected people could only speak of the importance of friendship with China and the birth of a new cooperation between Asia and Africa. He still remembers: “At a time when everyone celebrated the new era of decolonisation, it was not appreciated if one talked about Tibet, a typical case of recolonisation”.

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During the following years, Abdul Wahid took up once again the family business, this time in Kashmir. In 1956, he was called by Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s brother, to start a ‘Tibetan’ business venture. Their association lasted till 1959. By then, the situation had become explosive in Tibet, and finally the Dalai Lama had no other choice but to take the road to India and request the Indian Prime Minister Nehru for asylum which was immediately granted. During the following months the Ladakhi trader worked as an interpreter for the Dalai Lama who had begun to build an exile administration. He was the ideal person to ‘officially’ perform this job, being an Indian national and fluently speaking English, Tibetan and Hindi. Unfortunately, after a few weeks, some Indian officials decided to remove Wahid from the Tibetan leader’s service. The Indian Intelligence (probably B.N. Mullik, the boss in Nehru’s Intelligence Bureau) thought that a Muslim was dangerous for India’s interests. Further he was probably suspected of informing the Pakistani authorities about the Dalai Lama’s life in exile through his cousin. The Dalai Lama is said to have commented: “I wonder what the poor Wahid has been doing to appear so fearsome to the Indian government.” The Ladakhi continued to take care of the Tibetan refugees in an unofficial capacity during the following years. Coming in contact with the sufferings of the Tibetan people and hearing the stories of the thousands who had lost everything during the so-called ‘liberation’ of Tibet, made him even more aware of the horrors of the new Marxist religion propagated by Mao and his colleagues. It only reinforced his belief in the virtues of tolerance and acceptance of other faiths. He collected thousands of testimonies on the abuses that the new Communist colonizers had committed (and continued to commit) and the unbelievable ordeal of the people of the Roof of the World: “They were reduced to a state of slavery in comparison of which their traditional and patriarchal bondage was a much softer, a more human system. I gathered thus a complete view of the Chinese actions who not only bear full responsibility for the unforgettable and stupid atrocities of this tragedy, as well as the destruction of the treasures of a civilisation, but who also have slaughtered in the name of an imported Western ideology, itself powerless for the happiness in the West, the last traditional theocracy of the world. It was perhaps imperfect and often corrupt, but it was able to give a sense to the life of all.” Wahid himself realized that Karl Marx’s religion was the most intolerant faith of all; his natal Ladakh was not as “modern” as new China, but it had a culture so much deeper and certainly more compassionate.

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It has been said that Abdul Wahid is a Sufi. Whenever we tried to bring up the question, he remained vague. His views on Islam are, however, fascinating, especially at a time when a certain type of radical Islam is questioned the world over. The years of studies that the young Abdul spent in Aligarh University had not taken him away from the spiritual tradition that his grandfather had inculcated in the young boy. Crossing the large uninhabited spaces and encountering so many extraordinary personalities, he very quickly understood that there were two basic tendencies in Islam and that in the course of world history, each of these two currents had prevailed at some time or another. Abdul explains the meaning of the zahir (the ‘outer’ Islam) and the batin (the ‘inner’ one).22 In a way, it corresponds to exotericism and esotericism. He feels that the history of the Muslim presence in India had demonstrated this duality. He adds: “The conquerors and kings have established by force the reign of Islam and their temporal power, but it is holy personages, mystics and Sufis, who by their spiritual charisma and influence attracted the most converts and rooted Islam into masses thirsty of the divine and absolute.” What is remarkable today when one often speaks of the clash of civilisations is that Abdul Wahid considers that the batin possessed a spiritual quality that goes beyond forms and allows acceptance of other religious traditions. For example, Buddhists are not considered as kafirs (infidel) by the Muslim followers of batin. The old Ladakhi points out that the contemporary world is unfortunately characterized by the predominance of all that is ‘outer’ and quantitative. Batin is therefore regrettably often foreign in today’s life. The ideal for him would be if zahir and batin were balanced. That would allow Islam to answer at the same time the believers’ worldly and social requirements while taking care of their highest spiritual aspirations. When the adepts of zahir (one could say this of any other organized creed) are only interested in converting to their faith the largest possible number of people, it can only result in confrontations and conflicts as we see today in the four corners of the planet. One proof of this is visible in Kashmir where the Hindu Pandits have been chased out of their ancestral villages by fundamentalist elements sponsored by Pakistan. The very identity of this nation, based uniquely on religious separateness, makes it intolerant. Most of the problems, today called terrorism or fundamentalism, are the direct outcome of the state of mind which presided over the creation of this State.

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Pakistan cannot be ‘esoteric’ since its birth is not a phenomenon based on a deep knowledge of Islam, says Abdul Wahid. For him, this was only an emotional demonstration of certain political leaders, driven by their thirst for power. Abdul Wahid adds that there were periods in the history of India when zahir and batin were balanced. He cites the example of Akbar, the Moghal Emperor. During close to a century, there was sectarian harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims. He points out that “tolerance shown by Islam [during Akbar’s time] was not a sign of weakness or lukewarmness, on the contrary, this was for Islam a time of magnificence, of radiating spirituality and of brilliant civilisation; many monuments remain admirable witnesses of this.” 23 According to Wahid, Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal in Agra was the last Moghal sovereign to practise batin. During the following decades and principally during Aurangzeb’s reign, zahir with its intolerance and puritanism dominated. The Emperor was in opposition with his elder brother Dara Shikoh who should have acceded the throne in his place. The latter was a follower of batin. He knew that there was a truth in other sacred traditions, particularly in Hinduism, and asserted that the non dualistic theories such as Vedanta and the Tawhid (Islamic doctrine of Unity)24 as it is interpreted by the Sufis, were essentially the same. It is said that Dara Shikoh translated the Upanishads into Persian; Dara Shikoh believed that these basic texts of the Vedanta expressed certain truths also present in the Koran. One can only regret that there are not enough Abdul Wahids in this world. Was it these long hikes in the vast spaces of Asia which made men wiser? Immensity probably helps to widen the mind.

The Khache Phalu’s Advices It is necessary here to mention a remarkable work called Khache Phalu’s Advices written supposedly by a Tibetan Muslim in the 18th or 19th century. Tibet being generally associated with Buddhism, it seems strange that a Muslim could write a treatise about the dharma in the Land of Snows. It is probably for this reason that the authorship of this work is still disputed today. Acharya Tashi Tsering, a Tibetan scholar wrote in the Tibetan Review25 : “There are a number of opinions regarding the authorship of the [work]. Some maintain that it was written by the Fifth Dalai Lama under a Muslim pseudonym... the most commonly held belief was that the [work] was written by one of the Panchen Lamas. But the actual authorship of the book languished in obscurity until recently.”

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Though some authors have cited the Seventh Panchen Lama, it is generally admitted amongst the Kache population in exile that it was written by one of their kin. “The textual evidence, as we shall see, seems to support the latter claim” says Prof. Dawa Norbu who translated the 26 Advice into English . The author would be a Muslim trader called Fazur-alla. Norbu says, “[the name Phalu] was probably a transcription difficulty or Tibetan corruption. A Muslim family who claimed Khache Phalu as coming from their ancestry showed me an old manuscript in Arabic and Tibetan. There his name was signed in Tibetan as Khache Phalug’s Zui, and in another place simply Khache Phalu’ Zui. Thus, the name Fazuralla is not too far off.” Abdul Wahid told Tashi Tsering in 1979 that Fazur-alla used for his Advice “the gist of the works of Sheikh Sa’di, the great 13th century Persian poet”. It is Sa’di who wrote the famous poems Gulistan (The Rose Garden translated into English by James Ross in 1900) and Bostan. These Persian classics are said to have been taught in madrassas in Tibet. But Norbu adds: “A close study indicates that Khache Phalu’s Advices are not an imitation of Persian classics, neither in its style nor in its content. It is in a class by itself.” For Tsering Tashi, it is written in “straightforward colloquial Tibetan refreshingly, free of ecclesiastical pomposity and tiresome literary conventions, and can be easily understood and appreciated by the common man, both young and old.” Dawa Norbu in the introduction of his translation explains what makes this work so special: “It opens an enormous vista to the folk-mind; its strength and weakness; its wisdom and follies; its suffering and yearning; its ideals and illusions; its social ethos and trickiness; in short, its way of life and world view. Never before have we had so much common sense with so little allusion to the classical literature. Never before have we had such a good glimpse into the workings of the folk-mind in Tibet.” The fascinating aspect is that Khache Phalu was a Muslim merchant, who could speak and write in a language understood by any Buddhist. As a trader, like all the Kaches, he was in a unique position, a Tibetan by culture, a Muslim by religion while at the same time a sharp observer of a society mainly centred on the Dharma of the Buddha.

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The author of the treatise shows that he appreciates and understands the Buddhist faith as practised in Tibet. While, like Abdul Wahid today, he remains a pious Muslim, at the same time he can be considered a ‘cultural synthesizer’ who does not see any contradiction between his faith and the one of the majority around him. Norbu feels: “The whole work is a testimony to the astonishing degree to which the Muslims in Tibet achieved a working spiritual consensus with the Tibetan Buddhist society. As a result, there was no case of Buddhist-Muslim conflict in Tibet.” Tashi Tsering in his scholarly article lists 13 points showing “the wealth of Muslim and allusions in the verses, which have no Tibetan and Buddhist flavour.” To cite only a couple, Kache Phalu writes: “These are the signs of the centre of the world, the path from this centre to the main centre” or again: “Trust and have faith in Khuda (Allah)” or “when the craving for meat arises it is better to eat lice that eat ill omen butcher’s 27 share of meat” (i.e. Muslims’ practice to eat only halal meat). Then Tsering proceeds to give twenty-five examples showing that the work is typically Tibetan and not a remake of Sa’di’s poems “because of the tremendous wealth of Tibetan folk wisdom, proverbs and sayings scattered through the [work]”. First, there is the Buddhist concept of India being the Holy Land (Arya Bhumi) and not Mecca. India is considered as the Land of the Aryans 28 (The Pure). Norbu who describes the work as “a mine of ethnographic data for social scientists interested in Tibetan religion and society” like Tsering shows the dual aspects of the Advices. He quotes from other verses: “I prostrate before the Chief of all Chiefs. In Tibetan he is called Godhar [Allah].” While advising children to be grateful to their parents, Khache Phalu says, “Above is Godhar and below Him are the two parents.” Allah is the ultimate relief. The author insists on the importance of practising to obtain a good Karma: “There are many who utter [the word of] Karma but practitioners of Karma are as scarce as gold.” From the first verses, the author mentions themes of Buddhist concerns: “the law of karma, sense of shame, love and compassion, custom and tradition etc.”. It is fascinating to see how the sentiments which Tibetan Lamas and scholars could not put into simple, ordinary language were beautifully expressed by a Muslim merchant. Exempt of all the embellishments and the superfluities of highly codified classical Tibetan, he was able to go straight

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to the heart of common folks. Like Milarepa’s songs seven centuries earlier, this made the success of Kache Phalu’s Advices. Norbu put it nicely: “Its directness is indicative of the Tibetan character. The author never minces his words; he says simply and directly what he wants to say. His folksy wisdom is shot through earthy Tibetan imagery borrowed from everyday life in rural Tibet.” Dawa Norbu summarized the Advices: “The ruler should rule his domain lawfully, that parents should bring up their children strictly, that everybody in society should know his limits and live according to 29 the law of Karma. But let us return to our Ladakhi friend. In some ways it is unfortunate that there are no longer caravaneers criss-crossing the Asian continent; today, the old border posts have been closed and the caravaneers have been replaced by CEOs jet-setting from one country to another. The old Ladakhi still remembers: “At the time when my journey began, when I left the highlands of my childhood for the first time, the Himalayan populations, to whom we belonged, led a natural and peaceful life, though it was also rough and austere, no doubt; but it was harmonious and beauty was manifest. Perched as we were on the Roof of the World, we constantly had to face the challenges of an overwhelming nature that forced us to work hard just to continue to exist. It was necessary to be hard oneself and as we were not any better than others, having our own human weaknesses and our bad instincts, our life as Himalayans was far from being rosy. Those who evoke this gone time, speak always about it as an almost lost paradise.” At the end of such a fully filled life, Abdul Wahid believes that with the disappearance of the caravans’ era, some unique human values have vanished from Asia. He believes that the last ‘Himalayans’ lived in harmony with their fate, progressing alongside the tracks, leisurely crossing the transHimalayan immensities. Nobody thought to rebel against his destiny: “One accepted it, one identified with it. This acceptance entailed a spiritual attitude of adoration and contemplation of the supreme Reality, Nature, which was still intact. Nature forebode the majesty and the perfection [of this Reality].” He recalls that the caravaneer’s life unfolded itself away from the futilities of the so-called civilized world. He recalled, “Its simplicity, its purity, its slowness, the impression of sacred were totally opposite to the secular modernity of our age.”

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Today the sense of the sacred has disappeared. The old man does not regret it, he just notes it. For him, one possibility only remains to continue to live this life, “While symbolically accomplishing an inner journey and with the divine grace, one will be able to reach towards new altitudes.” Abdul Wahid Radhu is the epitome of what Tibet (and Ladakh) was. Diverse races, with different faiths and beliefs lived in harmony together. One man could belong to two cultures without being ostracized by either. 30 When we asked Abdul Wahid’s son, Prof. Siddiq Wahid if it was possible to have several identities at the same time, he told us: “It is possible; in fact, one has to accept to have several identities at the same time in order to live a healthy life. My point is that I feel we all have multiple identities. For example, I am born a Ladakhi, I belong to a Tibetan culture area, I was educated by Jesuits in Darjeeling, I live in a country which is overwhelmingly Hindu, I am married to a Lutheran Christian, for the sake of travel, I have an Indian passport, so it is hard for me to reject any of these identities. I have a photo on my table with the Dalai Lama, Karan Singh and one of the leading Muslim scholars called Sayeed Abdul Nasser. I keep this photo because [it represents] my three [main] identities. Intellectually, Nasser is my identity, culturally I am a Tibetan, politically, Karan Singh is my identity.” One of the most pressing issues facing the planet today is that ninetynine per cent of the conflicts have their origin in the fact that one nation, one culture, one region, one caste or religion refuses to acknowledge the existence of others and to treat people as equal human beings. People like Abdul Wahid who could fully integrate in to their psyche two or three different cultures are disappearing fast; tolerance has today been replaced by brutality and kalachnikovs. Zahir and batin are not balanced anymore. In many ways, the Valley of Kashmir faces a similar situation. The Maharaja’s kingdom was socially and politically far from perfect, but populations from the Valley, from Ladakh, Gilgit, Hunza or Jammu lived together in harmony Will we see one day this multi-cultural tolerance flourish again? The future of humanity depends undoubtedly on this.

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Some Reading references about Muslims in Tibet Gaborieau, Marc, Récit d’un voyageur musulman au Tibet, Account of a Muslim Traveller in Tibet, Urdu text, French translation and annotations, (Nanterre Société d’ethnologie, 1973). Peter of Greece and Denmark, The Moslems of Central Tibet, (Royal Central Asian Journal, Vol. XXXIX, Part III-IV, London, 1962, pp.233-240.) Tibetan Journal, Gaborieau, Marc (Edit.), Special Issue Tibetan Muslim (Tibetan Journal, Vol. XX, No 3, Fall 1995, Dharamsala). Dr. Dawa Norbu (Trans.), Kache Phalu’s Advices on the Art of Living, (Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, 1987). Stoddard, Heather, Le Mendiant de l’Amdo, (Société d’Ethnographie, Paris, 1985). Tibetan Muslim refugees in Kashmir, (Tibetan Review, Delhi, May 1976, pp.15-17). Tsering, Tashi, The Advice of the Tibetan Muslim Phalu: A Preliminary Discussion of a Popular Buddhist/lslamic Literary Treatise, (Tibetan Review, Delhi, February 1988, pp.10-15 and March 1988, Delhi, pp.18-21). Radhu, Abdul Wahid, Islam in Tibet: Tibetan Caravans (Fons Vitae, Louisville, 1979). Goldstein, Melvyn C. & others, A Tibetan Revolutionary, The political Life and Times of Bapa Phuntso Wangye, (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004)

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Claude Arpi (Ed), The Dalai Lama in Auroville (Pavilion of Tibetan Culture, Auroville, 1974). The Indian State is known in Tibet as Kache Yul (Yul = Land in Tibetan). Thomas Walker Arnold, Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith, (Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division, 1984). Today in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Masood Butt, Muslims of Tibet, (Tibetan Bulletin, January - February 1994, Dharamsala). Probably similar to the Panchayat system in India. Known as Ganden Podhang, this system of government survived till 1959 when the Dalai Lama had to flee his occupied homeland.

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9.

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In Lhasa, there is a garden called Kha-che Lingka or ‘Kashmiri Park’ where the first mosque was built. The legend says that Pir Yakub, a Sufi who had come from India, used to pray on the Gyambo Utse, a ridge overlooking Lhasa. The Fifth Dalai Lama watched him each morning with his field glasses. One day he called Pir Yakub and asked him about his beliefs. They had long theological discussions and the Dalai Lama recognized Pir Yakub as a Saint. He asked him what would please him. The Sufi requested for a piece of land to build a mosque and bury the dead according to the Islamic rituals. The Dalai Lama gave him a large marshy land located to the west of the Potala where the Muslims could build their mosque and have a Park. Once the Dalai Lama had designated the place, arrows were thrown in the four directions to demarcate the site, thus the name of Gyanda was given to it. Pir Yakub died in Lhasa and his tomb is still to be seen in the Kha-che Ling-ka. [For more information, see Corneille Jest, Khache and Gya-Kha-che, Muslim Communities in Lhasa (The Tibet Journal, Vol. XX, No 3, Fall 1995, Dharamsala). See Ministry of External Affairs, Notes, Memoranda and Letters Exchanged and Agreements Signed by the Governments of India and China, known as White Papers (New Delhi: Publication Division, 195461), White Paper I, A Letter from the Consul-General of India in Lhasa to the Foreign Bureau in Tibet, 13 May 1959. “On the 27th April 1958, I discussed with you the question of Ladakhi Lamas and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir origin. You stated then that there were some Lamas from Ladakh but no one was in possession of any visaed documents. You enquired about the manner and the dates of arrival of certain other Indian Muslim nationals from Kashmir. I have looked into the position which appears to be as follows:Ladakhi Lamas and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir origin have traditionally come to Tibet without any restriction or formality. The former local Government of Tibet always treated the Muslims of Kashmir origin as foreigners and as distinct from their own nationals. These Kashmiri Muslims never declared themselves as Tibetan or deliberately renounced their Indian nationality. In fact these Kashmiris selected their own headmen who is called Khachi Ponpo, literally meaning Kashmiri Officer. …To the knowledge of the Government of India no notification or declaration was made by the local authorities in the Tibet region of China requiring the persons of Indian origin residing in the Tibet region to obtain registration or traders certificates if they were not actually travelling across the border.

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10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

…The position therefore is that these Lamas and Muslims have their origin in Jammu and Kashmir State in India, and, notwithstanding their long residence in Tibet or even marriage with Tibetans, they do not cease to be Indian nationals. Since no law or regulation has been announced and enforced previously by the local authorities of Tibet region of China, we do not agree with the contention that absence of travel documents deprives them of their Indian nationality. Some of these persons, it is now understood, applied recently as Indian nationals and the seizure of their application forms would amount to interfering in their legitimate claims to be treated distinctly as Indian. In view of the facts explained above, the Government of India urge that Ladakhi and Kashmiri Muslims and other Indians living in Lhasa and Shigatse should be treated as Indian nationals and their registration recorded accordingly.” Masood Butt wrote: “His Holiness the Dalai Lama continued to keep in touch with the situation of Tibetan Muslims. Knowing their problems, His Holiness, during his visit to Srinagar in 1975, took up the matter with the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir. He also encouraged the formation of the Tibetan Muslim Refugee Welfare Association. This Association began to chalk out projects for the economic and educational upliftment of Tibetan Muslims. With an initial financial assistance by His Holiness, coupled with assistance received later from Tibet Fund, New York, a handicraft centre, a co-operative shop and a school were established. A group of young Tibetan Muslims were given training in carpet making in Dharamsala.” For the present paper, we have used long interviews with Abdul Wahid Radhu and some quotes from his book: Abdul Wahid Radhu, Caravane tibétaine, (Peuples du monde, Paris, 1991). There is also an English adaptation: Radhu, Abdul Wahid, Islam in Tibet: Tibetan Caravans (Fons Vitae, Louisville, 1979). Today known as Xinjiang. Today part of the Northern Areas of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Though usually the wife had to convert to Islam. The Lopchak Mission was institutionalized through the Peace Treaty signed at Tingmosgang in 1684 between Ladakh and Tibet. The Treaty says: The Drukpa (red sect) Omniscient Lama, named Mipham Wangpo, who in his former incarnations had always been the patron Lama of the kings of Ladakh, from generation to generation, was sent from Lhasa to Tashi-gang, to arrange the conditions of a treaty of peace. The Ladakh

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[king] could never refuse to abide by the decision of the Omniscient One. It was signed as follows. 1. The boundaries fixed, in the beginning, when king Skyed-lda-ngeems gon gave a kingdom to each of his three sons, shall still be maintained. 2. Only Ladakhis shall be permitted to enter into Ngari-khor-sum wool trade. 3. No person from Ladakh, except the royal trader of the Ladakh Court, shall be permitted to enter Rudok. 4. A royal trader shall be sent by the Deywa Zhung [i.e., the Dalai Lama in Lhasa] from Lhasa to Ladakh, once a year, with 200 horse loads of tea, A ‘Lopchak’ shall be sent every third year from Leh to Lhasa with presents. As regards the quality and value of presents brought for all ordinary Lamas, the matter is of no consequence, but to the Labrang Chhakdzot shall be given the following articles: (a) Gold dust-the weight of 1 zho - 10 times. (b) Saffron-the weight of 1 srang (or thoorsrang) - 10 times. (c) Yarkand cotton cloths - 6 pieces. (d) Thin cotton cloth-1 piece. The members of the Lopchak Mission shall be provided with provisions, free of cost, during their stay at Lhasa, and for the journey they shall be similarly provided with 200 baggage animals, 25 riding ponies, and 10 servants. For the uninhabited portion of the journey, tents will be supplied for the use of the Mission. 7. The revenue of the Ngari Khor-sum shall be set aside for the purpose of defraying the cost of sacrificial lamps, and of religious ceremonies to he performed at Lhasa. 8. But the king of Ladakh reserves to himself the village of Minsar in Ngari-khor-sum, that he may be independent there; and he sets aside its revenue for the purpose of meeting the expense involved in keeping up the sacrificial lights at Kang-ri [i.e., Mount Kailash), and the holy lakes of Manasarowar and Rakas Tal. 16. His name came recently in the news for having written three lengthy letters to President Hu Jintao. His missives dealt with the role and power of the minorities in the People’s Republic of China. He is still considered by some in Beijing as the foremost Communist ideologue on the question of nationalities (and in particular of the rights on the Tibetan minority).

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17. Though Gedun Choepell once said: “When I speak to Christians or Muslims, their dogmatism is so heavy that I feel they could kill me.” He probably liked Abdul Wahid for his open mind. 18. Abdul Wahid told Choepell’s biographer (Heather Stoddard) that Gedun’s research was extensively used by Hugh Richardson, the Head of the British Mission in Lhasa, to write his Tibet & Its History (Boulder, Shambala, 1984). 19. Abdul Wahid told: “If you cross him in the market, you would have thought that he is an ordinary man, but after a talk with him, it was as if you had met a Boddhisattva. He was like nobody I had met before. His expression, his eyes were far beyond this world. His mistake was to have had no desire for fame… He attracted me because of his love for the human, whether a horseman, a trader, a servant, a monk or a peasant. I myself was a merchant without any intellectual pretension, but he was fascinating me”. Even today, Wahid seems fascinated when he speaks of Gedun Choepell. 20. In many ways, it is what the Dalai Lama succeeded to do during his years in exile. 21. An interesting story about Ataullah can be found in http://www.tibet.com/ Muslim/dipolmat.html A Pakistani diplomat in Tibet? When I first saw Ataullah Khwaja in Washington, DC in 1996, I was slightly intrigued. Ataullah, who, along with his family, had come to attend the ceremony to celebrate the birthday of HH the Dalai Lama, was introduced as a Tibetan Muslim who is a retired Pakistani diplomat. Although I had known that there were, and still are, quite a few ethnic Tibetans in the Indian Foreign Service, it was news to me that the Pakistani diplomatic corps included one of our kind. 22. In Arabic, Zahir can be translated as “apparent, visible, obvious, manifest, esoteric, exterior, literal, superficial” while Batin means ‘concealed’. AlBatin and Al-Zahir are two of the names of God. Al-Batin is The Hidden, The All Encompassing, while Al-Zahir is The Manifest, The All Victorious. (Ref. Wikipedia.com) 23. The Taj Mahal has just been recognized as one of the Seven Marvels of the World. 24. According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia, “Tawhîd (also transliterated Tawheed and Tauheed) is the Islamic concept of monotheism. In Islam, Tawhîd means to assert the unity of Allah. The opposite of Tawhîd is ‘shirk’, which means ‘making something a companion’ (to God) in Arabic, referring to idolatry.”

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25. Tsering, Tashi, The Advice of the Tibetan Muslim Phalu: A Preliminary Discussion of a Popular Buddhist/lslamic Literary Treatise (The Tibetan Review, New Delhi, Vol. XXIII No 2, February 1988 p 10-15 and Vol. XXIII No 3, March 1988, p 18-21). 26. Dr. Dawa Norbu (Trans.), Khache Phalu’s Advice on the Art of Living,(Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, 1987) 27. Halal is an Arabic term meaning “permissible”. In English it refers to food that is permissible according to Islamic laws. 28. If you want to go to the land of Aryans, India, you must eliminate ignorance from your mind; sink the black passions of desire and attachment to the bottom of the ocean; at which his readers are told to strive [translation Dr Dawa Norbu]. 29. Khache Phalu’s written advice may be a drop in the ocean of human culture law of karma, sense of shame (and respect), love and compassion, custom and tradition etc. This pearl of advice, hung in a string of verses, is like a small stream of realisation. The source of Dharma is the Vajra Throne; behind is the Rocky Mountain of Dharma—high in its glory; in front is the sea of compassion—full with glimmering light; there summer or winter, day or night, is the same duration; Summer is not hot, nor winter cold; in such a place with perfect weather, when the sun is right in the middle, neither darkness nor shadows in the house. These are the signs of the centre of the universe. To go from such a place to an even better one, I prostrate before the Chief of all chiefs! In Tibetan He is “the most Precious One” And in our language “Godhar”. If you want to go to the land of Aryans, India, you must eliminate ignorance from your mind; sink the black passions of desire and attachment to the bottom of the ocean; (you must) burn out your greed and envy; (you must) think, meditate and remember only one. …As you journey, you will see.....

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Whatever you do, will be religious; whatever you send, will be in the right direction; whatever you wish and desire, you will get in your hand; whatever you say, will be well-said. And whenever you bait, you will get the right number. [translation Dr Dawa Norbu]. 30. Prof Siddiq Wahid is the Vice-Chancellor, Kashmir Islamic University, Avantipura and was the first Ladakhi to be awarded a PhD from Harvard University.

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Religious Violence Evolution in Islam and Christianity Vinod Saighal

“I will do such things – What they are yet I know not – but they shall be The terror of the earth”. - Bertrand Russell quoting King Lear, on the verge of madness.

Introduction Christianity arose in the Middle East a good six centuries before Islam in the part of the world that came to be known to its followers as the Holy Land. Both these great religions that were destined to dominate the world – some would say crucify the world, seeing the bloodshed that came in their wake – shared their earliest ancestors and the land (Middle East) in which they took birth. The commonality does not end there. In the earlier centuries after their advent on the world stage, both Christianity and Islam manifested an urge to push northward, the latter following closely on the heels of the former. Such proximity could have had one of two outcomes: merging of the Abrahamic religions into each other with necessary doctrinal readjustments, or a violent clash to establish precedence over the other, in terms physical as well as theological. In historical terms, however, it was the titanic clash between these two religions that was to shape the history of the world for the millennia to follow. It is the continuation of the earlier clash that has given rise to the fresh orgy of violence at the start of the 21st century. It is not the intention in this discussion to go into the basic tenets of their respective theologies. There are fundamental differences of outlook that militate against a coming together of their followers, or even in appreciating the other side. Both religions have rigidity and inflexibility built into them as

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distinct from the universality of the Vedic philosophy that took root in India, millennia before the birth of Christianity and Islam. Going through (in the following pages), albeit very briefly, the history of the Crusades is it possible to discern a pattern of ‘cause and effect’? For example, had Jerusalem not been captured by the Muslim conquerors moving out from the Arabian desert, the clash between Islam and Christianity, lacking an institutionalized casus belli, might never have taken place, at least not to the extent that it did in the centuries that followed. After the passage of a full millennium it could again be Jerusalem that might become the final sticking point in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians (by extension, between the Jews, Christians and the Muslim world). Moving a step further, had the armies of Islam not crossed into Europe till halted by the Frankish King, Charlemagne toward the close of the eighth century, the retaliatory Crusades that followed might never have taken place. The Christian Popes of Rome who gave the call for the Crusades were undoubtedly motivated by the desire to bring back the Holy Lands under Christianity. Additionally, they may have held a lurking fear that were Islam not to be checked on the other side of the Mediterranean, future Islamic rulers, not satisfied with the conquest of Spain, might attempt another breakout from the bridgehead of Islam in Spain to other parts of Europe. That this latter fear was not unfounded came true many centuries later when the Turks were again knocking at the gates of Vienna in the late seventeenth century. Hence it can be seen that for nearly a thousand years i.e., the first thousand years of their shared history, the Crusades by the Christian kings of Europe notwithstanding, it was Islam that manifested the stronger urge to capture Christian Europe and bring it under the sway of Islam, rather than the other way round. The aims of the Crusaders were limited to the recapture of the Holy Lands. Up to that point in time it was perhaps never the intent of the pontiffs in Rome to conquer the entire Middle East. An attempt of that nature, never really successful, would come later, much later, after the industrial revolution in Europe and the colonisation of the world by the leading European nations of the day. In the first flush of victories in the new world, and several other parts of the world, the Christian missionaries at once went about concentrating on bringing Christianity – and their type of salvation – to the inhabitants of the new world. The first Crusade was launched toward the close of the eleventh century. Whatever its aims might have been, its unintended effect was to unite the warring Muslim tribes and petty kingdoms. The legendary feats of the great

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sultans, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent, can in some measure be attributed to the Crusades. This interpretation of the struggle between Christianity and Islam or Islam and Christianity from the seventh to the 17th centuries will serve as the backdrop to the discussion hereafter. In the process it will become clear that the struggle for dominance between these two religions has come a full circle and because of their inherent doctrinal inflexibilities the clash can be seen to manifest an inevitability about it. What remains of utmost importance is the effect of the clash between the Islamic and Christian civilisations, each having a historical propensity for brutal proselytizing, in India and parts of the world where they have sizeable population bases. Will they be content to live in harmony with host populations or will the siren song of extra-territorial and supra-national aggrandizement prove too strong to resist.

Background (Or the first one thousand years of the Islam-Christianity Face Off) The Crusades were a series of military conflicts of a religious character waged by Christians from 1095 to 1291, usually sanctioned by the Pope in the name of Christendom, with the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the “Holy Land” from Muslim rule. Originally they were launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty into Anatolia. The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through the 16th century in territories outside the Levant, usually against pagans, those considered by the Catholic Church to be heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic and political reasons. Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Sultanate of Rum during the Fifth Crusade. The traditional numbering scheme for the Crusades includes the nine major expeditions to the Holy Land during the 11th to 13th centuries. Other unnumbered “crusades” continued into the 16th century, lasting until the political and religious climate of Europe was significantly changed during the Renaissance and Reformation. The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions (such as the Fourth Crusade) were diverted from their original aim and resulted in the sack of Christian

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cities, including the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. The Sixth Crusade was the first crusade to set sail without the official blessing of the Church, establishing the precedent that rulers other than the Pope could initiate a crusade.

Western European Origins The origins of the crusades lie in developments in Western Europe earlier in the Middle Ages, as well as the deteriorating situation of the Byzantine Empire in the east caused by a new wave of Turkish Muslim attacks. The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire in the late 9th century, combined with the relative stabilisation of local European borders after the conversion to Christianity of the Vikings, Slavs, and Magyars, had produced a large class of armed warriors whose energies were misplaced fighting one another and terrorizing the local populace. The Church tried to stem this violence with the ‘Peace and Truce of God’ movements, which was somewhat successful, but trained warriors always sought an outlet for their violence, and opportunities for territorial expansion were becoming less attractive for large segments of the nobility. One exception was the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal, which at times occupied Iberian knights and some mercenaries from elsewhere in Europe in the fight against the Islamic Moors, who had attacked and successfully overrun most of the Iberian Peninsula over the preceding two centuries. In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given papal blessings to Iberian Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting both a papal standard (the vexillum sancti Petri) and an indulgence to those who were killed in battle. Pleas from the Byzantine Emperors, now threatened by the Seljuks, thus fell on fertile ground. In part, the Crusades were an outlet for an intense religious piety that rose up in the late 11th century among the lay public. A crusader would, after pronouncing a solemn vow, receive a cross from the hands of the Pope or his legates, and was thenceforth considered a “soldier of the Church”. This was partly because of the Investiture Controversy, which had started around 1075 and was still ongoing during the First Crusade. As both the sides of the Investiture Controversy tried to marshal public opinion in their favour, people became personally engaged in a dramatic religious controversy. The result was an awakening of intense Christian piety and public interest in religious affairs. This was further strengthened by religious propaganda, advocating Just War in order to retake the Holy Land—which included Jerusalem (where the death, resurrection and ascension into heaven of Jesus took place according to Christian theology) and Antioch (the first

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Christian city) - from the Muslims. Further, the remission of sin was a driving factor. This provided god-fearing men, who had committed sin, as an irresistible way out of eternal damnation in hell. It was a hotly debated issue throughout the crusades as to what exactly “remission of sin” meant. Most believed that by retaking Jerusalem they would go straight to heaven after death. However, much controversy relates to what exactly was promised by the Popes of the time. One theory was that you had to die fighting for Jerusalem for the remission to apply. This is closer to what Pope Urban II said in his speeches. This meant that if the crusaders were successful, and retook Jerusalem, the survivors would not be given remission. Another theory was that if you reached Jerusalem, you would be relieved of the sins you had committed before the crusade. Therefore you could still be sentenced to hell for sins committed after the crusades. All these factors were manifested in the overwhelming popular support for the First Crusade and the religious vitality of the 12th century. It is important to take note of these aspects because both Christianity and Islam are again using the same theological – and teleological – reasoning with twenty-first century updates to urge on their true believers to exterminate each other for spreading the truth to non-believers, i.e., the ghazi and the ‘Born Again Christian’ are at each others’ throats again.

Middle East Situation (of the time) Muslim presence in the Holy Land goes back to the initial Arab conquest of Palestine in the 7th century. The event leading to change in western perceptions, however, took place in the year 1009, when the Fatimid Caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Although his successor permitted its rebuilding and pilgrimage was again permitted, many reports began to circulate in the West about the cruelty of Muslims toward Christian pilgrims. These accounts from the returning pilgrims played an important role in the development of the crusades later in the century. At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II made an impassioned plea for taking back the Holy Land. The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the appeal of Alexius I to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into the territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire had been defeated, and this defeat led to the loss of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Although the East-West Schism was already beginning to grow between the Catholic Western Church and the Eastern

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Orthodox Church, Alexius I still hoped for a positive response. The response was much bigger than Alexius I had expected. The Pope called for a large invasion force to not merely defend the Byzantine Empire, but also to retake Jerusalem. When the First Crusade was undertaken in 1095, the Christian princes of northern Iberia had been fighting their way out of the mountains of Galicia and Asturias, the Basque Country and Navarre, with increasing success, for about a hundred years. The fall of Moorish Toledo to the Kingdom of León in 1085 was a major victory, but the turning points of the Reconquista still lay in the future. The disunity of the Muslim emirs was an essential factor, and the Christians were hard to beat: they knew nothing except fighting, they had no gardens or libraries to defend, and they worked their way forward through alien territory populated by infidels, where the Christian fighters felt they could afford to wreak havoc. All these factors were soon to be replayed in the fighting grounds of the East. Spanish historians have traditionally seen the Reconquista as the moulding force in the Castilian character, with its sense that the highest good was to die fighting for the Christian cause for one’s country. (The radical Islamists of the 21st century are using the same logic in their war against the West after exactly one thousand years). While the Reconquista was the most prominent example of Christian reaction against Muslim conquests, it is not the only such example. The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had conquered the “toe of Italy,” Calabria, in 1057 and was holding what had traditionally been Byzantine territory against the Muslims of Sicily. The maritime states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia were all actively fighting Islamic strongholds in Majorca and Sardinia, freeing the coasts of Italy and Catalonia from Muslim raids. This long history of losing territories to a religious enemy created a powerful motive to respond to Byzantine emperor Alexius I call for holy war to defend Christendom, and to recapture the lost lands, starting with Jerusalem. The papacy of Pope Gregory VII had struggled with reservations about the doctrinal validity of a holy war and the shedding of blood for the Lord and had, with difficulty, resolved the question in favour of justified violence. More importantly for the Pope, the Christians who undertook pilgrimages to the Holy Land were being persecuted. Actions against Arians and other heretics offered historical precedents in a society where violence against nonbelievers - and indeed against other Christians - was acceptable and common. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Gregory’s intellectual model, had justified the use of force in the service of Christ in The City of God. A Christian

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“just war” might enhance the wider standing of an aggressive leader of Europe that Gregory thought himself to be. The northerners would be cemented to Rome, and their troublesome knights could partake in the only kind of action that suited them. Previous attempts by the church to stem such violence, such as the concept of the “Peace of God”, were not as successful as hoped. To the south of Rome, Normans were showing how such energies might be unleashed against both Arabs (in Sicily) and Byzantines (on the mainland). A Latin hegemony in the Levant would provide leverage in resolving the Papacy’s claims of supremacy over the Patriarch of Constantinople, which had resulted in the Great Schism of 1054, a rift that might yet be resolved through the force of Frankish arms. For Gregory’s more moderate successor, Pope Urban II, a crusade would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and perhaps bring the East under his control. (It is now uniting Islam in reverse). Undeniably, the Crusades had an enormous influence on the European people in the Middle Ages. In general, the Crusades could be portrayed as the defence of Roman Catholicism against Islamic expansion. The objectives of the Crusades were to check the spread of Islam and to retake control of the Holy Land. The Crusaders initially enjoyed success, founding a Christian state in Palestine and Syria. However, the continued growth of Islamic states ultimately reversed those gains. By the 14th century the Ottoman Turks had established themselves in the Balkans and would penetrate deeper into Europe despite repeated efforts to push them back.

It isn’t over yet (Or the Next Thousand Years of the Christianity-Islam Face Off) The early period of Islamic-Christian history brings out clearly that their shared history has been, almost without break, a history of violence since the coming to the world of these religions. The statement is not made as criticism per se of what transpired; it is simply a narration of the indisputable facts as recorded by their own historians. If there were periods of tranquility in parts of the world where they came into contact with each other, those periods were when one side or the other was completely in the ascendance. An example would be the first few centuries of the Moorish conquest of Spain. That was the period when arts and culture flourished in parts of Spain securely the under the Moorish rule.

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When societies become rich and flabby they are reluctant to engage in bloody fights. The desert Arabs who carved an empire became soft after lapping up luxuries from the conquered Byzantine and Persian empires. By the mid-9th century the caliphs started recruiting Turkish nomad slaves from Central Asia for fighting. With the route to Turkish slaves blocked by Persians, the Ottomans recruited non-Muslim Christian Slav boys from the Balkans as the “new soldiers” (or Janissaries). In the beginning, the best among them ran the empire. After a few centuries, once they became a law unto themselves, the Janissaries were terrorizing both their Christian enemies in Europe as well as their own sultans, overthrowing and killing some. Their destruction when it finally happened, led to the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. Looking at them in reverse the Crusades were regarded by the Islamic world as cruel and savage onslaughts by European Christians. Currently, people in the Arab world condemn the Western involvement in the Middle East as a modern day Crusade. According to the historian Peter Mansfield, the most devastating long-term consequence of the Crusades was the creation of an Islamic mentality that sought a retreat into isolation. Despite the failure of the Ninth Crusade to leave a permanent Western coalition of states controlling the region, the European powers returned in a war against the Ottoman Empire over 600 years later. This time, however, it was not a religious war that was the subject of the conflict but instead the interests of the individual nation-states in World War I. With the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon and Syria ended up under the control of France. The French also occupied Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia at various times during the early part of the 20th century. Italy took control of the areas that made up Libya. The British took control of the areas that became Iraq, Palestine, and Trans-Jordan.

The American Century The American Century began in the early 20th century when European economic and military power – with Great Britain being the first among equals – started declining and was gradually transferred to America – from the City of London to New York’s Wall Street. World War I made possible the entry of the new power from across the Atlantic. But the United States had to wait till the end of World War II, to announce its brutal advent as a global power of the first magnitude with the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at a time when no other world power had such a weapon.

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It is only natural therefore that when the West again decided to pick up the challenge posed by a resurgent Islam after the Middle East became the principal supplier of hydrocarbons to the world that the USA should lead the charge. The Europeans, other than the British, physically exhausted after the two world wars and the Soviet domination after World War II, and mentally exhausted by the historical memories of the brutal but largely unsuccessful crusades, are reluctant followers. The 21st century has been called the American century. Actually the American domination of the world as the sole superpower started in true measure after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union. From World War I up to the end of the Cold War the Americans could not have made unilateral interventions – except in their own backyard, the Americas – as there were several checks and balances. In the interwar years the checks were from the European powers whose colonies were mostly intact, and after World War II from the Soviet Union. During this period the leading Christian nations made Islamic nations their ally against the godless Communists. Islam had ceased to be the hindrance to Western global ambitions. Even before its defeat in World War I, Turkey had become the ‘sick man of Europe’. Islam was thought to be in terminal decline in as far as its influence on the world stage was concerned. In the modern era it had practically nothing to contribute in the fields of arts and sciences and in the technological advancements fast spreading around the world. Once the Soviets had been pushed back from Afghanistan and the Soviet empire in East Europe and Central Asia fallen apart nothing remained to prevent the USA from casting its glance around the world to expand its reach and influence. The Middle East was a natural starting point. Although the Muslim countries had been mobilized as allies against the godless communists, the Khomeini revolution in Iran rudely brought home to the West that Islam had woken up. The awakening was made possible by the oil wealth flowing into the coffers of the Muslim oil producing countries that had become master suppliers to the world. Had it not held the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world the Islamic world of the Middle East, the traditional challengers to the Christian expansion in the earlier centuries, might have continued to fitfully slumber for another hundred years, seeped in centuries old primitiveness and not evoking the neighbour’s envy. The fabled clash of civilisations would not have been re-ignited, or not in the form that it has taken now.

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In a way the re-ignition started earlier, almost immediately after the end of World War II with the creation of Israel, the Jewish state in the midst of the Arabs. Just as Spain was to be the bridgehead for Muslim expansion into Europe over a thousand years ago, Israel was to be the bridgehead for Western inroads in the Middle East for the decades to come. The violent Arab reaction was only to be expected. What came as a surprise to the Muslims the world over was the fierceness with which the fledgling Jewish state resisted the combined Arab attempts to throttle it at birth. Heavily outnumbered, the Jews fought the Arabs to a standstill. In the later rounds, although well endowed with superior American technology, the Israelis crushed the combined Arab armies again and again, under their own military prowess. Fighting with their back to the wall – literally, a thin strip of land leaning on the Mediterranean Sea – such was the scale of their victories that a devastating blow was delivered to the psyche of the entire Muslim world. It has yet to recover from those blows. Realizing that they would perhaps never be able to take on the Israelis or the American-led West, the transition to asymmetric warfare by way of terrorist attacks and suicide bombings was almost inevitable. In this they were helped by the overwhelming size of their demographic mass and the backwardness of their traditional society, as seen from the modernist standpoint. It meant that there would be an inexhaustible supply of canon fodder for their preferred method of fighting, no matter how long it took for them to bring their adversaries to their knees. Sheer grit and determination, with an unending supply of committed manpower on one side, opposed to the most lethal technologies on the other; but with a gradual ebbing of the will of their populations to take up arms in distant lands, fighting for causes which they neither understand nor support. The question then arises as to who is winning this fight – so far primarily between Christian nations and the Muslim world. Can it be referred to as the third round, or continuation of the earlier crusades? Perhaps not! This time around the stakes are much higher. For one, the Christian world, the descendants of the original Western crusaders, has now ranged against them a very sizeable portion of the Muslim ummat. The theatre of operations is no longer limited to the Middle East or the northern shores of the Mediterranean. It now embraces practically the whole world. Underlying the deepened rift is the latent, practically irresistible, urge to expand well beyond traditional frontiers. Both sides having realized that there is not going to be an easy victory have hunkered down for the long haul.

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The fight could last decades or even the best part of the century. Going by present indications, the losers ultimately are likely to be the practitioners of Islam, not Islam the religion. Islam cannot be destroyed by force of arms. No religion can be destroyed by force of arms unless its practitioners are wiped out or decimated to a degree from which recovery becomes impossible, like the aborigines of Australia or the Red Indian tribes of the USA. (The Chinese are experimenting with something similar in Tibet). The reason for the decline of Islam would be internal. In practically all the Muslim countries it is the forces of regressive, medieval theology that have come into the ascendant. Unless modern education and fresh ideas and breezes wafting from many shores are allowed to blow over the face of the living religion a tendency sets in to shrink and decay. (A sentence from the book, “Restructuring Pakistan”* that came out several years ago reads: “The great religion Islam cannot be destroyed from without; it can only wither on the vine from within”). The process of decay has set in for Islam. In the 21st century half the citizens of Muslim countries - the women - do not have equal rights. They are denied even basic freedoms that are available to most human beings in free countries. There are so many other fields where unthinking anti-modernism is going to put those populations at a complete disadvantage in the world as it is developing. Modernity does not necessarily mean the rejection of one’s traditions or adapting in its totality the American or Western way of life. People must be left free to make sensible adaptations and to reject or accept what suits or does not suit them. Unfortunately where the Muslim clergy and radical elements have come to the fore, the practice of Islam has become synonymous with cruelty and coercion. Lack of free choice can never be the lasting basis of any religion that talks of the compassion of the Almighty. A draft bill in Pakistan’s National Assembly would impose the death penalty on Muslim men - and a life sentence on Muslim women - if they renounce Islam. The bill having received its first reading is before a standing committee of the National Assembly. It was tabled by Muttahida Majlis-e-Ammal, an alliance of six fundamentalist Islamic political parties. The proposed apostasy legislation would also allow the forfeiture of property and a loss of legal custody of children for those who renounce Islam. A section of the draft bill says the offender’s own confession in court or incriminating testimony by two or more adults would be sufficient grounds for conviction. Islam and Christianity, wherever they confront each other, have no respect for the beliefs and values of the opponent and compassion is marked

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by its absence. This becomes evident from the pictures of extreme cruelty that have been emerging from the prisoners taken by one side or the hostages abducted by the other or the random and mindless terror visited on unwary civilian populations, comprising mainly women and children, the old and the infirm. This is where both sides can take a lesson from the Indian Army. The Indian Army, having been continuously exposed to terrorist-type violence of one type or another for several decades running, has evolved a more humane pattern of fighting. Terrorism in India commenced well before the West and Russia, amongst many other countries, understood what being exposed to terrorism was all about. As to how most armies across the world deal with opponents or terrorists is well known. The American, Russian and Chinese forces have used extreme ruthlessness. The Pakistan Army raped half a million women and killed over a million Bengalis in Pakistan’s East Bengal province in 1970-71, while it was still a part of that country. The same army has indulged in large-scale butchery in the restive provinces of Baluchistan and Baltistan. Aircraft and helicopter gunships supplied to it for operations against Al Qaeda have been diverted by the Pakistan Army for massacring its opponents within Pakistan, most recently in Baluchistan. One of the biggest land grabs in contemporary history is taking place in that hapless province. Baluchis are being deprived of their land and assets to allow for the joint Pakistan Army-Chinese PLA interests, and the overpopulated Punjabi heartland to expand into Baluch areas. The way in which the Indian Army has dealt with its opponents can be deemed to be exemplary by most humanitarian standards. So great is the care taken to avoid collateral damage that a very high number of young officers, sub-unit and even unit commanders lose their lives leading their forces against terrorists holed up in civilian areas. Even the Indian courts seem to have gone to extremes in putting limits on the Indian Army. In one case, the courts had decreed that hot food be provided to terrorists that had been surrounded in a mosque by the security forces, while they were negotiating their surrender. That is not all. The Indian Army had captured ninety thousand Pakistani Army prisoners after the fall of Dhaka in 1971 as a consequence of the surrender by General Niazi. During their incarceration in POW camps in India there was not a single case of brutality - even mistreatment for that matter - reported by the returned prisoners. This was in spite of the fact that Pakistanis routinely torture and kill Indians taken prisoners. Perhaps the finest example of model conduct by any army was that of the Indian Army while liberating East Bengal in 1971 to form the

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independent country of Bangladesh. Throughout that operation and till the Indian Army withdrew from Bangladesh not a single case of rape was reported from anywhere in the country. Such restraint by a liberating army is without parallel in world history. To this day, the most respected peacekeeping force, anywhere in the world, remains the Indian Army. The clash between the main antagonists – the USA and Islam – is assuming inevitability as political Islam – incorporating or primarily comprising hardcore elements – has taken over state functions in many countries, if not directly, sufficiently, to become the arbiters of public mores and morality to a stifling degree. In like manner, the USA too seems to be headed in that direction as would be apparent from the following quotes selected at random from published material: •

•

•

•

•

George Bush is an evangelical Christian; there is no doubt about that. The president’s evangelicalism means he believes in the truth of the Bible, with a capital T: the virgin birth, the death of Christ on the Cross-for our sins, the physical resurrection, and most important, a personal relationship with Jesus. (Richard Land, Chief Washington Representative of the Southern Baptist Convention, 2003). The Bush administration’s worldview is one grounded in religious fundamentalism – that is, it emphasizes absolutes, authority, and tradition, and a divine hand in history and upon the United States. Such a worldview is disastrous for a democratic system. (David Domke, God Willing, 2004). The election of 2004 did not greatly change the alignments of 2000. Religious sentiments played an important role along with the fear psychosis of the September 11 attacks. It is seen that Bush’s speeches often had religious and political goals. Bush often signalled attentive Bible readers that he shared their private scriptural invocations by suing phrases from the revelations of St. John and Isaiah. (Authorship obscure) Besides changing the nature of the Republican and Democratic Party competition, the Southernisation of American governance and religion was abetting far-reaching ideological changes and eroding the separation of powers between church and state. The theology soaking in US politics was also bringing hints of theocracy. (Authorship obscure) One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. (Bill Moyers, 2004)

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•

In Republican politics theological correctness – call it TC – became a policy shaping force in determining Middle Eastern geopolitics, combating global AIDS, defining the legal rights of fetuses, pretending that oil was not a cause for the invasion of Iraq, and explaining geological controversies in language that was compatible with the Book of Genesis. Unfortunately the international consequences of US misjudgment in the Middle East – from the loss of American prestige and rising oil prices, to occupied Iraq’s role in breeding not relieving Islamic terrorism – could not be so easily ignored. The issues of the military casualties in Iraq and the national budgetary deficit arose together. As in Britain, nearly a century earlier, evangelical religion, biblically stirred foreign policy, and a Crusader who was mentally ill, all beneficially served a great power that was decreasingly able to bear rising economic costs of strategic and energy supply failure. If anything, the United States of the early 2000’s (for all that it lacked Britain’s established church) was under George W. Bush in the grip of a considerably more powerful religiosity, constituency pressure, and biblical worldview. Moreover, large amounts of money were channeled to a wide variety of organisations that were faith based and connected to the religious right – pregnancy crisis centers, abstinence programs, anticondom organisations, and passion-for-prayer. (American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips)

Muslims increasingly feel that Jews have been turned into scapegoats by the Western powers in order to control the Middle East. They have seen – or felt - Christianity from Europe moving in upon Muslim lands in the wake of European colonisation. Wherever there is a clash of arms the Muslim nations have not been in a position to stand up to the superior Western fighting machines. The terrorism techniques brought in asymmetry to offset the superiority to an extent – if not fully neutralize the high-tech devastation that the Americans can visit on their adversaries. Hence the jihadi suicide bomber is not beyond the comprehension of most Islamic fundamentalists or even the Muslim street. For Palestinians, the war of 1967 made a profound impact. It led to a clearer definition of Palestinian identity. Resulting from the unimaginable psychological devastation brought about by the scale of the Israeli victory over the combined Arab forces Palestinians, nationalism was forged. According to Michael Oren of the Sahlem Centre in Jerusalem, the author of a book on the war, the 1967 conflict “hastened the downfall of Arab secularism and opened the doors to the new idea of Islamic radicalism.”

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US President George W Bush’s call after the 9/11 attacks on the US mainland for a “crusade” and “Infinite Justice” expressed the stark reality better than any of the later slogans like “war on terrorism” and “Enduring Freedom”. The Muslim people watching the occupation of Iraq, without any justifiable casus belli, are becoming convinced that a Western crusade is very much on. (One of the reasons for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was the latter’s insistence that Iraq must return the $10 billion granted by Kuwait to fight Iran. Kuwait finally ended up paying more than $50 billion - as did the Saudis. The US, meanwhile, collected a cool $150 billion or more for basically protecting its own interests.) The call for jihad is a logical consequence for the Muslim hardliners. Was it not the US that helped create the monster of Islamic fundamentalism? After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, many in the Islamic world have been attracted to extreme religious movements. The US now spends staggering sums to defend itself. Apart from killing the Taliban and ceaseless bombings the special forces of the United States, the United Kingdom and other allies have not been able to catch the main leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. At home, the US reaction after the September 11 attacks has fundamentally changed the US society. The UK also has a big Muslim population, which sends volunteers and huge sums of money to support terrorism in the South Asian subcontinent and elsewhere. A few of them are al-Qaeda members involved in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and other terrorrelated or hijacking activities. European countries such as Germany and France have big Muslim populations of many millions from Turkey and North Africa. Being on the margins of society they become fertile ground for recruitment. Besides Chechnya and other places in the Caucasus, Russia has a large Muslim population. This is a long-term danger for much of the Christian world.

The Uncertain Future Israel now sees itself as fighting not just 200 million Arabs, but 1.2 billion Muslims, armed with weapons it cannot resist and an ideology it cannot counter. Israel is not the only country threatened. Terrorist bombings have taken place in Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan and India. Large-scale arrests were made in Saudi Arabia. Not a single major European nation can be said to be immune. Terrorism remains active in Sudan, Somalia, and places like Nigeria where Muslims and Christians live together.

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Six years after the 9 September 2001 climactic fight against global terrorism is as far from being won as it was on that fateful day of the Twin Towers, collapse. Even the global consensus arrived at after the ghastly tragedy has frayed at the edges. Deep differences within the western allies, the cornerstone of the global consensus, tend to further erode the efficacy of the fight against a foe that has metastasized to assume a phoenix-like indestructibility. By almost any reckoning western democracies and countries like India – as distinct from China and some other totalitarian regimes – have not found satisfactory answers to the growing pattern of random violence against innocent civilians perpetrated by shadowy figures with supra-national agendas. National response patterns, ignoring several alternative strategies, still hover between retaliatory insufficiency and retaliatory overkill. It has to be kept in mind, nevertheless, that while many countries have willy-nilly been dragged into the unending fray in one way or another, the remaining superpower is gradually being pushed off its pedestal to the extent that a second entity comprising non-state actors has also developed a global reach. Just as the USA is able to project force almost anywhere in the world, its principal adversary of the opening decade of the new century has developed the potential to hit US interests almost anywhere in the world, including in the heartlands of the USA and its closest allies. The fight between these contenders has not yet moved into the domain of weapons of mass destruction. It is only a matter of time before this threshold is crossed as well. Can it be prevented? This is the milieu in which India is fast emerging as a global power based on an economic resurgence that could propel it into the front ranks of global decision makers sooner rather than later. Seemingly chaotic and unwieldy India remains, nevertheless, the largest democracy in the world. For all its ills it is indubitably a vibrant democracy. India, in spite of being at the receiving end of various forms of terrorism far longer than almost any other country, has one of the most humane and least draconian laws to deal with the scourge. This may not help the country check the menace effectively in the manner that most other countries conduct such operations. It represents, nonetheless, an attempt to bring about the desired change as humanely as possible in keeping with its age-old traditions, no matter how imperfectly understood or practised. In spite of millennial domination by rulers of non-Indian denominations that came to rule India from across the seas and from across the formidable

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Himalayan frontiers, India’s ancient civilisational heritage remained largely intact. Similarly, despite large-scale conversions at the hands of its foreign occupiers the vast majority of Indians continue to adhere to the faith of their ancestors. The Vedas enshrined beliefs that arose in the ancient land in the mists of antiquity, several centuries before the rise of the Abrahamic religions that spread across much of the world in the last two millennia. Prior to that, Vedic inspired denominations had also spread beyond Indian shores, mostly in the East. But, as distinct from the spread of Christianity and Islam, the sword had no part to play in the Eastward expansion of Vedic thought and Buddhism. Nor did the pacific expansion of Indic thought lead to bitter interdenominational strife in the regions where it spread. It is important to keep this subtle but important difference in mind when examining the influence that an economically resurgent India might wield as the world moves deeper into the 21st century. Europe (the land of the first Crusaders) has never been so prosperous, secure or free as a continent as it is now. There is internal harmony between the states that form part of the European Union and external harmony with the whole world in the sense that no state as such poses a threat to Europe. Looking well into the future it is difficult to see Europe being troubled due to internal rifts between its component states or the external world. Even the emerging giants of the new century, especially China and India look on Europe with great favour. Russia, its giant neighbour to the east, would like nothing better than to coordinate its policies with Europe for meeting fresh global challenges that may emerge. Against this background, the terror incidents unleashed by Islamists in Madrid and in the UK and the killing of Van Gogh (a descendant of the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh) in the Netherlands have shaken European society. More so, because as distinct from the 9/11 attacks in the USA, the Islamists carrying out the terror attacks in Europe were of the homegrown variety. Almost all of them were people who were long timers, i.e., they were born in Europe, had been living there, and were European passport holders. They could hardly be termed as outsiders. For the average European citizen the paradox described above of a peaceful, prosperous and secure Europe becoming the spawning ground for terrorists from within on a denominational basis by individuals from immigrant communities who are mostly second and third generation citizens of Europe creates an unease for which there does not appear to be any palliative, except to hunker down for the long haul with its partners in the Global War on Terrorism.

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An enlarged European Union that might be willing to take on greater international responsibility would need partners for international cooperation. India and the EU have perhaps the strongest joint commitment to peace, stability, liberty and economic prosperity. India and the EU have the common objective of combating international terrorism, containing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in resolving ethnic conflicts peacefully. European nations had started reassessing their position vis-à-vis the USA with respect to the rest of the world. 9/11 reunited them. It turned out to be a temporary interlude. Going beyond 9/11 Europe cannot blindly tread the American path. The divergence in this case does not signify mistrust or hostility. The Western countries remain solidly allied to the USA, but not in the manner they were allied during the Cold War years, or in the policies that they are likely to pursue to safeguard European interests and European security. Europe no longer faces a military threat, as was the case during the Cold War. Other threats have emerged. They may or may not require a military response. They certainly might not require a joint Europe – USA high-tech devastation of other parts of the globe. The EU countries and India have a major role to play in easing global tensions in a manner that the US is not excluded from these formulations altogether. Both the EU and India share the view that while the US needs to re-examine some of its policies a catastrophic decline in US power is not in the interest of overall global security at this juncture. Of all the countries that interact with or oppose the US on global issues, the latter could become more amenable to advice from the EU and India in the coming years, if jointly rendered. One of the factors for a more ready acceptance from EU-India would be due to a lack of animus or innate anti-US feeling in these countries, as distinct from fierce opposition to US policies. It may be recalled that in many of the global polls conducted on attitudes to the USA, the views of over 70 per cent of the Indians polled indicated a pro-US stance. It would mean that excluding the Muslims, who form approximately 20 per cent of the population of India the rest of the people were near-unanimous in their positive feelings for America. A staggering level of support that surpasses the support levels in countries considered solid allies of the USA. According to conventional wisdom, the USA, being the remaining superpower is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, possibly up to the mid-21st century. Situating oneself away from Washington or the other power centres of the world like London, Moscow and Beijing, another, perhaps greater, player can be clearly discerned. In several ways resurgent

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Islam with its runaway demographic surge is emerging as a major challenger to the US global hegemony. Resurgent Islam is today the only power entity that has the ability to challenge the US - and Western - interests almost anywhere in the world. The expansionist urge of militant Islam is its third expansionist wave in history since its founding nearly a millennium and a half ago, its first major expansion having taken place toward the end of the first millennium when its was stopped by Charles Martel of France in the 9th century CE, and the second when the Turks were stopped at the gates of Vienna at the close of the 17th century. Potentially, the third wave, the current demographically expanding wave, can neither be dismissed lightly nor wished away. As opposed to all other denominational strains resurgent Islam has the demographic mass, unity of the Muslim ummat and the commonality of goals to attempt a preeminent global presence. It has already established sizeable population bases in non-Islamic countries of Europe, USA, China, India, Russia and several other countries where it is expanding by the day, both through natural increase and immigration – legal as well as illegal. In addition, colossal wealth is flowing into the coffers of Muslim countries that have large hydrocarbon reserves. It is no exaggeration to say that with or without 9/11 having taken place, should the USA not have intervened decisively, no other country has the stomach or the capacity to meaningfully take on resurgent Islam. The Palestine-Israel standoff, which has a spillover effect on several West European countries and India owing to large Muslim populations in these countries has been artificially projected as the sole cause of West Asian unrest, thereby conveniently submerging the other causes and preventing these from being examined with the same degree of transparency as obtains for the Palestinian question. First of all, the Palestine question directly concerns Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians themselves. Other Muslim countries are not concerned directly, or even indirectly. Emotions have been whipped up over the years to hide the deficiencies of their own intractable problems and the systemic failures of their systems of governance, especially after the oil price increase of the early 1970s. While there is no question that an equitable solution to the Palestine question is the prime need of the hour, the Palestinian issue need not arouse the ire of the entire Muslim world simply because victims happen to be from the same faith. Should that be the case, there should have been an outrage of several orders of magnitude higher than the outrage against Israel when the Pakistan army in less than one year slaughtered several

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million East Bengalis (Bangladeshis) who were fellow Muslims from the same country. Measured against the time and scale factors, these killings in just 10-12 months rank higher than the pogroms carried out by Stalin in Russia and Hitler’s killings of Jews in Europe from 1939-1945. Typically, human security comprises two major elements, i.e., freedom from fear and freedom from want Taking these elements as the basis it will readily be seen that whereas in Europe freedom from want has diminished greatly in the decades following World War II, in Asia it remains the single most important concern for a large percentage of the population. Fear thereby gets subsumed into the basic concern for survival, in most cases subsistence survival. More recently, consequent to the rise of global terrorism in the form of Islamic jihad, many countries in Europe that felt safe under the military might of NATO and its nuclear umbrella are no longer so sure of their personal security. They too have experienced a rising surge of fear. More so, since it now requires lesser effort to kill a larger number of people, or to shatter across the board the tranquility of people who felt safely ensconced in their post-Cold War security. The EU and India, more than most other countries, have to take into account the demographics of global terrorism, as both of them will continue to be threatened by this phenomenon. The single biggest factor sustaining Islamic jihad is the runaway population growth in Muslim societies, creating its own problems in the social domain for host countries and wherever else an expatriate base has been established. A few aspects that need to be urgently highlighted are: •

•

Going by current trends Israel could cease to exist as a Jewish state well before 2050. The fertility rate for Palestinian women in Gaza is about 7.3, for the Arab Israelis in Israel it would not be much less, whereas for the Jews it would be several notches lower. When an Israeli soldier gets killed or a soldier from the coalition forces in Afghanistan gets killed the chances are that he or she would be the single child or one of two children of his or her parents. In the case of their opponents several other siblings would be around to ensure that the parents are not left totally bereft. This is the stark reality, limited manpower supply on one side, inexhaustible supply on the other. It has been seen that no family, irrespective of denomination, would allow its children to go for jihad type of activities if the family size remained small – one or two children - as is fast becoming the norm for educated middle classes the world over.

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Presently, Europe has about 15 million Muslims. By about 2050, if not before, the figure is likely to exceed 50 million. At that stage, even without the accession of Turkey, the Muslim population of Europe would have become large enough to face intractable existential problems.

The population explosion in the Middle East and the Islamic Crescent will have a profound effect on the EU countries and India, as they are geographically contiguous on either side of this rapid growth. Therefore both the EU and India have a major stake in the stabilisation in Afghanistan as well as the stabilisation of Afghanistan. EU countries have forces deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere, most of them involved in tackling the growing menace of Islamic radicalism, or in support of prior American intervention. When the latest US Quadrennial Review talks of a long war on global terrorism it automatically translates into a perpetual war or war that is unlikely to end in our lifetime. This is not mere apprehension on the part of the US administration. It is part of their effort to convince the remaining doubters amongst the US population, mostly the erstwhile liberals and conscientious objectors, of America’s manifest destiny of global domination, however long it takes. This belief in America’s manifest destiny draws its sustenance from world history and the earlier global empires, Rome, the Mongol Empire of Chengiz Khan and more recently the British Empire. What the neocon-inspired Pentagon warriors have failed to realize is that in the age of weapons of mass destruction it becomes a dangerous doctrine to propound. While they may be able to, at least for the next few decades, force a sort of tacit acceptance of US global hegemony on the part of competing nation states like China, Russia and India, the same cannot be said for the new breed of hegemony challengers, currently being designated as Islamic Jihad. Following the lead of the USA, the world refers to them as non-state actors. Looking ahead a few decades down the line, these shadowy figures can also be seen to be coalescing into an Islamic super state, which too can draw on historic parallels: the Grand Caliphs of Baghdad or the Ottoman Empire. The contours of the Islamic super state, re-forming from the struggle against the civilisation-defiling West – this being their perception – can be clearly discerned through the fog of global terror let loose by Islamic Jihad and the global war on terror unleashed against them. The fact is that wherever there are Muslim populations in sizeable numbers subterranean currents are now carrying them in the direction of the global Muslim ummat. There

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is a seeming inevitability about it, from the enlarging Muslim pockets in Europe to the Middle East, Central and South Asia. It is the Salafi orthodoxy and not modernism that is gaining ground day by day in the Muslim street, practically everywhere in these countries, including Turkey. The difference in outlook emerges from the furore over the Danish cartoons. Even after several world leaders, including Presidents Bush and Putin had condemned the publishing of the controversial cartoons the Muslim clergy-inspired mob fury continued unabated in many countries. One of the reasons was that they had smelled blood. They realized that Denmark was wilting and many in Europe were frightened of a heightened backlash. Were that not the case mass hysteria on a global scale across the Muslim world could not have been sustained for so long. The righteousness of the anger professed was also questionable, if not untenable. It may be recalled that just a few years ago a far worse sacrilege was carried out in the Muslim world. On a scale of 0 to 9 if the offence given by the cartoons is put at 4 or 5 the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas tips the scale well beyond the maximum 9 on any comparative basis – not that outrages can be compared or quantified. Yet no Buddhist asked for the head of the perpetrators, nor was any Muslim property burned anywhere in the world. No Muslim was harmed. What is more, no Muslim even felt afraid of a backlash from any quarter. The announcement that the Bamian Buddhas would be destroyed was made several days before the threat was carried out. Pakistan, where the riots were spreading faster than elsewhere, had the capacity to intervene decisively to prevent the most abominable desecration that the world has witnessed in modern times. It did not intervene. Nor did Saudi Arabia or the OIC. The ulema in India put the highest price on the cartoonists’ heads. Their protests spread to other cities in India. None of these worthies asked for the head of the Taliban leadership of the time. There was not a single riot after the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas. The Muslim world should have realised that the anguish and gloom caused to the Buddhists in every corner of the globe, including the Koreas, Japan, China, Mongolia and several other countries would have been infinitely more deep than that caused by the offensive cartoons. There are many denominations whose followers across the world number in the hundreds of millions or more than a billion. They feel sacrileges, slights and threats to kill (the infidels) as keenly as Muslims do. If they do not react in the fashion of the Muslims it is because they might have actually moved up civilisation’s ladder. Their religions teach them that every life, regardless of whether it

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is that of a believer or a non-believer, is sacred. The Buddhists who must have been knocked senseless by the sheer magnitude of their loss internalised their suffering and prayed for forgiveness to the perpetrators. There is a lesson in this for Muslims if they would still like to call Islam a religion of peace. Meanwhile the world cannot allow itself to be boxed in by a regressive interpretation of the theology of a single denomination just because it has demonstrated a capacity to activate mass hysteria supra-nationally for a well thought out long-term geopolitical quest. In developments in Islamabad in the first half of 2007, a bunch of maulvis and a gaggle of girls brought the mighty military dispensation to a state of semi-paralysis. Grapevine had it that a large number of girls in the forefront of the agitation in Islamabad were adopted, kidnapped, or induced in other ways to join the madrassas set up by hardline outfits after they were orphaned in the massive earthquake that struck Kashmir some years ago. The military dispensation that ruled the roost in Pakistan was clearly on the back foot. Gen. Musharraf seemed to have painted himself into a corner by the illconceived and too-clever-by-half sacking of the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The high-handedness against some television stations enraged the media – both national and foreign. Meanwhile, the clamour for introduction of the Shariah gathered momentum. In many places the hardliners went on rampage, burning down beauty parlours, music shops and several other establishments not liked by the Jihadis. According to AHRC (Asian Human Rights Commission): “Shariah law taking the place of civil law and Shariah courts taking the place of country’s common law courts is an even greater attack on the judiciary than the initial attack on Chief Justice Choudry (sic). This displacement of the law and its courts by Shariah law and its courts will have far deeper implications for the future of the country than the military regime may have intended. The whole issue of the civil liberties of the people in Pakistan, as well as the problems of property have been risked by this move. The most affected sections would be the women of Pakistan against whom Shariah law has been misapplied to the detriment of their rights. The present crisis is of tremendous importance from the point of view of democracy, human rights and rule of law in the country”. (Unquote). This standoff became a historic moment for freeing Pakistan from the clutches of the military and the mullahs once for all. The troubles for Pakistan in the past have stemmed from the fact that enlightened leaders (like Benazir Bhutto) have failed to take a clear and uncompromising stand against the

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hardliners. In many countries, and increasingly so in Pakistan, the fair name of Islam is being tarnished by the hardliners – as well as by those viscerally opposed to them. The former, who are in the minority, are well organised, well armed and vociferous. The latter, the tax paying middle class and civil society, which far outnumber the Jihadis are laid back, passive and nonassertive. For them as well as for much of the non-Islamic world the great religion that arose from the Arabian desert to dominate half the world of the time has, in its 21st century avatar, been reduced to just a three-word descriptive, namely, “cruelty, coercion and fatwas”. Civil society, the much larger component in Pakistan and in many other Islamic countries, fails itself if it refuses to get organized to take on the Jihadi menace before it is too late. In country after country the silent majority gets pushed to the wall under the agitational weight of much smaller bands of people whose firebrand tactics intimidate the government as well as law-abiding people. Most significantly, the larger plurality, especially in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has been let down by the very leaders – in both cases women, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, and Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh – in whom they reposed their faith. Both these ladies had a fantastic political legacy and large public following. They could have been hands down winners. Their one fatal flaw was to have compromised with the hardliners to garner just that little bit extra – no more – electoral support from the latter against their opponents. In almost every case the support that they got from the Jihadist did not translate into many electoral seats, but in the process they lost the support of many of their backers, horrified at the devilishly opportunistic accommodation with the fundamentalists against whom they should have been fighting tooth and nail. In the process they too did their bit to empower the fundamentalists and fell between two stools. If their close advisors do not remove the veil before their eyes they will continue to fall between two stools. Invariably the winners will be the hardliners, who know what they want and never compromise with their opponents till they meet a superior force, like the Pakistan Army and its agency the ISI. Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan Peoples’ Party would be well advised not to compromise once again with military rulers or the mullahs. The time has come to stand up and be counted. The hardliners need to be categorically denounced for attempting to impose the Shariat, portions of which are an abomination on the human race. They are a crime against women and a taint on any civilised society. Civil society in Pakistan is fed up with the advent of the killjoys. It is natural to sing, dance, play, fly kites and roam

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about where fancy takes one. Man was born free, woman more so. Who are these 21st century fanatics to legislate what people should eat, drink or do? Where they congregate and with whom they do so, as part of free people, is their own business, not of the self-appointed guardians of morality. Civil society across the subcontinent has now before it the ideal opportunity to fearlessly denounce the Shariat and the fundamentalists in Pakistan and elsewhere from every pulpit. Leaders of democratic parties have to unequivocally announce to the people of the subcontinent that this time they stand for the freedom of women and their emancipation. Islam in its essence is a religion that is sublime and compassionate. Terror and tyranny should have no place in it. The new rallying cry for civil society, fed up with the mullahs and their fatwas, has to be Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. A basic error that the global community has been committing in confronting global terror since its dramatic advent on the global scene on 11 September 2001 has been the collective descent into a denial mode. The time has come to call a spade a spade. What is being witnessed today is most definitely a clash of civilisations.1 It started well before Samuel Huntington came on the scene to articulate a hypothesis that earned him accolades and criticism in equal measure. In practically every country, almost every action tends to accentuate or sharpen this divide – on a denominational basis and more recently on a demographic basis as well. By acknowledging it to be a clash of civilisations, obfuscations and euphemisms can be avoided. By being straightforward there is a better chance of finding a solution, failing which the clash of civilisations could lead to an extinction of civilisation. It is becoming painfully apparent to both the sides involved that adherents of the Islamic faith living in Western countries, especially in Europe, might not be able to cohabit very peacefully with their host populations for a long time to come, for reasons that may now lie beyond the control of the disaffected populations or of the majority of European nations so affected. As long as the Islamic ummat functions as a monolithic entity that is able to influence the thinking and, at times, the behaviour patterns of its followers worldwide, no amount of concessions by governments in Europe and elsewhere are likely to induce a change in behaviour, because the inspiration for what is going wrong – from the point of view of non-Muslims – lies beyond the boundaries of these countries. One can even say that the Muslims hearing the siren song of Islamic jihad are not to blame, nor for that matter the host governments. No matter what concessions they make to enable the Muslim migrants feel more at home, the effect can often be nullified by

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happenings closer to the home countries or within the home countries of the immigrants. It does not seem to matter any more whether they are first or second generation immigrants. In the true meaning of the word the young homegrown Muslims in the West who are rallying to the cries of militant Islam cannot be called criminals, nor should they be treated as such. They are responding to a call that resounds from hundreds of millions of throats across an entire arc that earlier stretched from the southern shores of the Mediterranean to Indonesia and even the Philippines. Their incarceration or vilification is not going to have much influence on their future behaviour. The call of the ummat exceeds their loyalty to the nation whose citizens they have become on account of an earlier phase of migration by their parents. That they would be more disillusioned were they to go back to their countries of origin and worse off in the living conditions obtaining back home is hardly the point at issue. Where the confrontation, which has become denominational, if not civilisational, will ultimately lead is anybody’s guess. The opposing sides are hunkering down for the long haul. How long would long be is again a point rather far away on the horizon. Till that point is reached, provided it does not recede further as it is approached, mayhem on a worldwide scale is likely to remain the order of the day. Religion might be important for a person, but it should not become the major determinant of that person’s political affiliations. Assuredly there has to be freedom for religious pursuits and beliefs. However, when religion is given a role in the affairs of the state it ends up creating polarisations and societal fractures. Unless religion is moved out of the political domain ‘cohabitational compatibility’ in pluralistic societies is likely to fall by the wayside. Therefore, further intake into the EU to make up for the shortfall from declining and ageing populations might have to be encouraged from areas whose denominational assets allow for easier, if not seamless, merging with populations of host countries. The European Union (the erstwhile crusading nations) and India would become natural allies for maintaining global equilibrium. Their geographical location also propels the EU and India toward closer alliance to contain the two most virulent threats that could fan outwards from the Middle East and the Islamic crescent. The most potent of these would be: the demographic dynamic and the continuance of terror by the Islamic radicals. Unless drastic measures – both internal and external – are taken to contain the demographic

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upsurge (the doubling time of these populations being 30-40 years) Europe and India, located on either extremity of the seething demographic cauldron, could be submerged by the demographic expansion erupting therefrom.

Concluding Remarks Much has been made in India and the world about the glorious chapters of Hindu-Muslim unity in India’s pre-partition history. Apparently, it was a well-intentioned attempt to dampen the flames of Hindu-Muslim disunity that on the eve of the British departure from India led to one of the worst carnages in history. Normally, it is the hated foreign rulers who are the targets of rioting and killing when they quit, or are forced to quit a land that they had colonized. Several instances from recent history can be cited: the French in Vietnam and Algeria, the British in Kenya, the Portuguese in Angola, and so on. In India, however, the British were cleverly able to turn the two communities against each other. It was a natural culmination of the divide and rule policy that they had adopted in the first half of the 20th century. Whatever the British policies, bloodshed on the scale that followed the Radcliffe Award could simply not have taken place unless the centuries long latent hostility was there to be exploited. As a matter of fact, the British did not have to actively instigate the latent hostility. It was so deeply embedded for such a long period of time – a millennium – that all they had to do was to step back and allow the natural destructive urges of one community against the other to take over. What followed is too recent and too well documented in print and photographic footage for another summation. The truth is that right from the time that Bakhtiar Khilji at the end of the th 12 century demolished in its entirety one of the most renowned seats of learning of the time (Nalanda), the adherents of the Vedic heritage were routinely slaughtered from time to time, right up to the coming of the British. Doubtless, there were periods of inter-communal harmony when wise rulers ascended the throne. Akbar was a fine example of a far- seeing ruler. Compared to the period under the Muslim rule much less inter-communal killings took place during the British rule in India. Therefore, it can be seen that communal harmony was maintained for relatively long periods when there was an impartial central authority. Excepting pockets in parts of the country where the princely rulers took good care of their subjects, communal discord lurked just below the surface. It merely required a stray incident, a rumour, or deliberate act of mischief on the part of an agent provocateur to start a full-fledged communal conflagration. This is still the case today in

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practically every part of the subcontinent. In Pakistan, the non-Muslim communities have been reduced from 25 per cent at the time of partition to less that 2 per cent. In Bangladesh the percentage of Hindus since partition has come down from 35 per cent to less than 20 per rcent. According to some writers the figure is much lower. In India, since partition, the number of Hindu-Muslim riots, large and small, would certainly have crossed the 10,000 mark. More likely, the actual number would be higher. The scale of violence in all countries of the subcontinent could not have been so great unless there was latent hatred and mistrust that had been simmering under the surface for a very long time. Hence those who continue to propagate the myth of a golden past of Indian syncretism are inadvertently hindering the process of assimilation. The question of assimilation, in reverse, of Hindus in the Muslim countries of the subcontinent simply does not arise. Misleading and false histories serve to perpetuate the past. Had the leaders of India after partition allowed the searchlight of truth to shine on the depth and extent of communal discord, communal harmony would have had a better chance of coming to the fore in the 60 years since independence. To re-stress the point made earlier, communal harmony based on equality would be unthinkable in the Muslim states of Pakistan and Bangladesh for a long time to come. Acknowledging the full scale of the horrors of the shared history of the past, India has to now show the way toward lasting communal harmony, because India is the only country where the philosophy of the great Vedic heritage sets out the principle of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam as the basis of harmonious co-existence. At the dawn of the Third Millennium, when the two dominant faiths of the world, Christianity and Islam, are irreconcilably opposed to each other and retain the ambition to dominate the world, India has to set an example. It is an essential condition for India’s march to great power status. It becomes the prerequisite for human survival in a civilized form in the age of weapons of mass destruction. Needless to say, syncretism in its true sense will remain illusive unless both the Muslim orthodoxy and the extreme form of Hindutva are both ejected from the land. At the dawn of the new millennium after Christ, when one looks around, it becomes abundantly clear that the spiral of violence within societies, and between nations, has reached a self-energizing momentum that might only be stilled by a cataclysmic event, the likes of which have not been witnessed before in human experience. Between societies and groupings that cohere to form nations the ideal situation that must be worked towards would be one where the need for

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primacy does not arise. Non-violence appears to be the antithesis of the global reality in today’s world. Nevertheless, the concept of non-violence which can be deemed to be the most profound contribution that ancient Indian thought made to the world must regain its primacy, within India and without, if human society is to continue to retain a civilized form. That the essential harmony of all sentient beings, indeed sentience itself, as put forward by Mahavira, Gautama Buddha and many others, was made the basis for India’s freedom struggle by Mahatma Gandhi should not be looked at in isolation as a mere reiteration of non- violence. By introducing the ancient precept into the mainstream of the anti-colonialism struggle in India, Gandhi may have been looking well beyond to the universal projection of his innate belief in the virtue of non-violence as a survival imperative for humanity, just when scientific breakthroughs were on the verge of putting immensely destructive capabilities into the hands of mankind.

1.

‘Dealing with Global Terrorism: The Way Forward’ Pp 9-11. ISBN - 932705 - 00 - 7. New Dawn Press, Inc., 244 South Randall Rd#90, Elgin, IL 60123, USA (2004).

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Education, Coloniolism and Attack on Culture Need for Remedies J. S. Rajput

Abstract The most dependable weapon to subjugate a nation, a civilisation or culture is to delink people from their own heritage, indigenous knowledge and traditions. It makes them rootless, demoralized and demotivated. The inferiority complex sets in and they become easy targets of dominance, ready and resigned to accept the hegemony and superiority of the alert, wily and crafty subjugator. This dominance and the resulting subjugation extend their wings to several dimensions of human dignity, approach, attitudes and acceptance. The British enslavement of India is one of the most illustrative of the examples in history of a well planned and dexterously executed plan of dehumanizing the spirit of a people who could not foresee the import and implication of the silent yet cunning and clever decimation they were being subjected to. The continuity of the aliens’ approach and attitude to Indian culture and heritage persists amongst a certain set of Indian scholars and historians who continue to belittle India’s contribution to the world civilisation. The inherent universality and established potentialities to achieve social cohesion and religious harmony are to be unearthed and awakened to present the Indian way to achieve a nonaggressive global culture. Universality, non-aggressiveness, and humanism are three of the essential values which Indian culture derived from the spirituality of her Upanishads. Its concern is with man as such and not man cut up into caste, creed, sect, or race. The achievement by man of his highest glory and excellence is what it seeks and advocates. The Upanishads taught India to see the excellence in spirituality. Swami Rangnathananda (1995)

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Context The British rule in India extended to almost two centuries. With a noticeably small numerical presence of Englishmen, India could not have been subjugated for such a prolonged duration simply on the basis of by now universally known and very effectively used policy of ‘divide and rule’. The British realized early that a great civilisation that India was could be subjugated only through ‘cultural imperialism’ and not by any other means. Arriving as mere well-behaved traders, they studied and analyzed the Indian culture, tradition and above all the Indian mind. The abundance of diversities of every conceivable variety, on the one hand could easily provide the ammunition and opportunity to create dissensions and distrust among people. On the other hand, the sources of knowledge and wisdom and also the systems of creating and generating these had to be slowly and gradually demolished to demoralize the communities. They combined both these strategies with precision, tact and foresight. British imperialism in India was not a consequence of a planned invasion or a victory in war. It just happened. As a group of traders in search of business opportunity, they found that they had much more available to them without much effort, far beyond expectations, just for the asking! They found the prevailing socio-economic and cultural conditions and the behaviour and approach of the locals far too conducive to exploit resources, maximize profits and reap the related benefits. Shrewd enough as English traders were, they studied the culture, traditions, economic enterprises and the way Indians lived as a society. The divisions of various kinds that existed within the society were indeed astonishing for any outsider. Its institutions, adherences and loyalties were found relevant and potentially rewarding areas of scrutiny and analysis. The British pretended to just become ‘one’ with the traditional Indian Banias in maintaining cordiality with every group of people and functionaries at various levels and stages. They put to practice two of the important dictums: first, information is an asset. The second one was more pragmatic: when information is intelligently sifted and knowledge gained, it becomes power. They followed both of these assiduously with precision and perseverance for decades together and pleasantly found themselves occupying the seat of power. India became a jewel in the British crown. To retain the jewel, the British needed a well-planned strategy that could delink Indians from their heritage, culture, traditions and beliefs. And replacing the civilisation system of creating, generating, disseminating and utilizing knowledge could best do this. It was to become the cornerstone of

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sustaining imperial hegemony over what they preferred to label India: ‘the Indian subcontinent’. The relationship between the Indian society and the making of the British Raj has been studied and analyzed from diverse angles. Lynn Zastoupil and Martin Moir have edited a significant document entitled ‘The Great Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781-1843’. It contains a detailed analytical introduction to the developments. It has been frequently used in the discussions in this paper. C.A. Bayly (1) has argued for the existence of a public arena in preBritish India, which in itself was quite diverse. Bayly (2) called it ‘ecumene’ and included in it the literate classes, learned scholars as also the itinerant bards, bazaar rumour- mongers and those in the ‘realm of oral and popular culture’. Bayly argues that British military and diplomatic successes ‘owed much to their ability to work with and learn from, the literate classes in the upper ranks of the ecumene, as well as their facility in using the various methods for gathering strategic information long employed by Indian rulers’. Particular mention is made of ‘Munshis’ who were the keepers of the administrative culture of the eighteenth century. The British needed them in their manoeuvrings and they were happy to guide their employers. The strategy of acquiring knowledge-rich local information paid rich dividends and in more than one way, helped the British propel to power. It also helped the British to win popular support after having acquired power. In actual practice the process of enslavement of India required much detailed planning and formulation of specific strategies right up to their minutest details and description. The British were only too happy to pay that price as they not only eyed power but also a higher evangelical goal in their mission. That was a great motivational factor in those days and it brought new dimensions in the strategic planning and execution. Early in their efforts, the British noted the existence of widespread network of persons from all walks of life, scholars, bards, bazaars, melas, messengers and others operating in ‘organized’ manner as a popular form of India’s oral culture. It was capable of transmitting information and, when needed, creating an impact on public perceptions in matters of new developments and policies. The level of success of any effort of the type East India Company had in mind needed a close rapport with this traditional system. They manipulated it to their advantage because they could assess early its criticality in their march ahead.

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An overview of the important developments in education during the British hegemony of India clearly reveals the pride and prejudices that were to be expected at that juncture of history. Most of the Indian scholars of history of education in British India focus on Thomas Babington Macaulay and his oft-quoted ‘Minutes’ (Macaulay, 1835). No education discourse in India, even in the 21st century, is considered complete unless some reference to Macaulay is made. To understand Macaulay, the following excerpt from his address to British Parliament made on February 2, 1835 would be comprehensive enough: I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values. People of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conqure this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their selfesteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.

It also needs to be remembered that much had happened in the area of policy formulation in education before Macaulay’s advent on the educational scene. The name of Warren Hastings must find a place in the initial stages of the consolidation of the empire as he was convinced of maintaining the continuity of governance in terms of laws, practices and procedures as were followed in India before the advent of the British. He was GovernorGeneral during the period 1773-1784 and there was not much surety of the survival of the British authority in India at that stage. His vision was to consolidate the gains and acquisitions by appearing to act like Indian rulers and without discarding the existing systems of governance. He and his team had a fascination for Indian scholars and Indian culture. Hastings founded an Institution of Muslim Higher Education for which he was approached by a group of Muslim scholars, created a Professorship of Arabic in Oxford, got Sanskrit and Arabic legal texts translated into English and got a grammar of Bengali prepared, all for the benefit of the Englishmen and towards lengthening the roots of British power and authority deep into the Indian soil. In return he earned a reputation as the benefactor of India’s indigenous knowledge and heritage.

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The focal concern of the East India Company, during the period 16001765,was to promote trade and commerce between India and Britain. It did not concern itself with education in any way. Education entered the scene in an interesting yet indirect manner. Proselytizing was included in the Charter of the Company in 1689. Consequently, the Company appointed Chaplains in all the three Presidencies. They were supposed to instruct the “Gentoos that will be the servants or slaves of the same Company or their agents in the Protestant religion”. These Chaplains established a number of charity schools, which were run on the subscriptions raised by them. The Company assisted them by way of providing grants or sites and other support. It formally came into the realm of education in 1765 when it became a political power vested with administrative powers as well. It decided to do something ‘positive and good’ to the people! It had also observed that missionaries had gained considerable popularity amongst people because of providing education. It provided them greater access to families and hence a chance to influence them even for the evangelical cause. During 1765-1813, the Company established two main institutions. Warren Hastings founded the Calcutta Madarsa in 1784. The objective was to endear the Company to the Muslims by qualifying Muslim boys for jobs in the Company. It was also expected to create a favourable impression among the general public. Further, the British needed well-trained individuals to assist them in judicial administration of Bengal. Hastings considered it impossible to impose British laws on Indians. He was certain that British presence would remain secure if it acted like the Indian rulers and this included accommodation of Indian laws, customs, opinions and attitudes. He and several of his followers were fascinated by the Indian culture. He was responsible for the preparation of a grammar of Bengali, translations of Arabic and Sanskrit texts into Persian and English and efforts to create a professorship for Persian in Oxford. (Marshal, Kopf, Rocher). A certain set of Indian intellectuals did find some satisfaction in theses pursuits of Hastings. Jonathan Duncan, the Resident of Benaras founded the Benaras Sanskrit College in 1791. Apart from providing a sop to the Hindus on par with the Calcutta Madarsa, it aimed to prepare persons well versed with the Hindu Law. They were then to assist the British judges who were supposed to administer justice according to the traditional tenets of Hindu Law. The institution was also to function as a nursery for educated young Indians who would be proficient enough to assist the European judges in the administration of justice. Duncan shared Hastings’ scholarly fascination

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for another reason as well: at little expense, the British might accumulate ‘a precious library of the most ancient and valuable general learning and tradition now perhaps existing in any part of the globe’. (Kopf, pp 29-30). It also became evident during this period that not all in the Company were really keen on playing a role in education. However, the realisation of getting into education on a bigger scale was gaining ground. A resolution was passed in the House of Commons in the year 1813: …a sum of not less than one lac of rupees in each year will be set apart and applied to the revival and improvement of literature and encouragement of the learned natives of India and for the introduction of and promotion of the knowledge of the British territories in India…..(Sharp, W.H)

This was incorporated in the Company’s Charter Act of 1813. It gave unfettered access to missionaries, who were to be given such facilities as might be necessary to accomplish their benevolent designs. This was to become the beginning of the widespread system of education on the lines of the West. Eleven years after the founding of the Calcutta Madarsa, Jonathan Duncan suggested that it was necessary to take concrete steps to project initiatives that would have the potential to bring the Hindu community nearer to the ruling aliens. Duncan also had his own perspective: apart from creating a favourable impression on the Hindus, the founding of the Institution of Sanskrit learning in Benaras would provide a treasure of knowledge at minimal financial cost, “a precious library of the most ancient and valuable general learning and tradition now perhaps existing in any part of the globe”. The East India Company was successor to Hindu and Muslim Indian rulers. Traditionally, rulers from both these communities invariably encouraged scholars and learning in classical languages. The Company realized early that continuation of these traditions would help it consolidate its rule in India. It had to move beyond charity schools and establish centres of higher learning for Hindus and Muslims separately. These were the initial conceptual inputs to the evolution of the Company’s Orientalist Policy in Education. The missionaries were opposed to this. Wilberforce moved a resolution in the House of Commons pleading that “it was the bounden duty of the British Legislature to promote the interest and happiness of the inhabitants of the British Dominion in India by means of taking effective measures for their advancement in useful knowledge”. This, in short, meant

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complete liberty to the missionaries to denigrate religions other than Christianity and to go ahead with their proselytisation efforts. It was, however, rejected on political grounds and it was argued that “Hindus had as good a system of faith and morals as most people and that it would be madness to attempt their conversion to give them any more learning or any other description of learning than what they already possessed”. (Nurullah and Naik, 1945). This led to a prolonged tussle between the Company and the missionaries for several years. Missionaries could not do much in India and hence resorted to seek support from their friends in England. An intensive agitation began there to persuade the Parliament to give the desired level of freedom and support to missionaries for their evangelical tasks in India. Foremost amongst those who strived hard in favour of the missionaries to give them full liberty to convert Hindus to Christianity was Charles Grant. The cultural context of India during the British period and also in the postindependence period can never properly and comprehensively understood without a thorough familiarity with the role of Charles Grant. One needs to peruse his “Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to morals; and the means of improving it”. The following from these Observations would indicate Grant’s own understanding, prejudices, biases and probably ignorance: In the worst parts of Europe, there are no doubt a great number of men who are sincere, upright and conscientious. In Bengal, a man of real veracity and integrity is a great phenomenon; one conscientious in the whole of his conduct, is to be feared, is an unknown character… Power entrusted to a native of Hindoostan seldom fails to be exercised tyrannically, or perverted to the purpose of injustice. Official or ministerial employments of all sorts, in all gradations are generally used as means of peculation… The distribution of justice… has commonly become a traffic in venality; the best cause being obliged to pay for success, and the worst having the opportunity of purchasing it …. Such is the power of money, that no crime is more frequent, hardly any less thought of, than perjury… The apathy, with which a Hindoo views all persons and interests unconnected with himself, is such as excites the indignations of Europeans. Patriotism is absolutely unknown in Hindoostan.

Grant disliked the idea that the British should act like Indian rulers respecting Indian institutions and traditions. To him, India was backward because Hinduism was depraved, wretched and amoral. It prevented all of the

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material and social progress. Ignorance and want of a proper religion were responsible for the plight of the Indians. Grant found Indian religion and social life ‘unnatural and wicked’ and wondered how the British could remain passive spectators to its continuity. He queried: “Are we bound for ever to preserve all the enormities in the Hindoo system?” To him, Christianity and western learning were essential to improve the lot of the Indians! He wanted English to be used, as the (only) medium of instruction and emphasis in teaching should be on natural science in order to ‘free Indians from the shackles of superstitions’! He also suggested teaching of mechanical inventions to bring about industrial and agricultural development. Some consider these suggestions as having the hidden agenda of spreading Christianity far and wide, particularly amongst the poor and rural people. Grant was firmly of the view that for the spread of Christianity, the mindset of Indians needed to be changed and that would be possible only with the introduction of the English language. More than this, he very cleverly conceived the idea of destroying the very fabric which had provided the bond within the Indian society. After the 1813 Charter, the emboldened missionaries opened schools and colleges and started getting patronage from the well-established families for these schools. People saw future for their wards in learning English as they themselves were convinced that English was essential to get closer to the British, get good placements and secure a space for themselves and their families with the rulers who ‘were there to stay’. Gradually, the missionaries and Grant’s supporters began to pressurize for the opening of more schools and colleges imparting education through English medium. The attitudinal transformation of the English educated and ‘acculturated’ Indians had already begun. Raja Ram Mohan Roy of Bengal is given a place of much honour and reverence in Indian history of the modern times, particularly for fighting against the abhorable practice of ‘Sati’. On a separate pedestal, he was instrumental in promoting the British plans, policies and efforts to demolish the traditional Indian knowledge systems in favour of ‘the more modern and advanced looking British education! It was just one exemplar case. There could be many more such citations. What Indians did is best exemplified by the case of Raja Ram Mohan Roy who went to the extent of opposing the very establishment of the Calcutta Sanskrit College and suggested, instead, the establishment of a college where European literature and science could be taught! To him teaching of Sanskrit could keep Indians in dark and in ignorance of real knowledge! His approach surprised even the British. The General Committee

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for Public Instruction did not accept Roy’s views as those of the Hindu community but treated them as the thoughts of “one individual alone, whose opinions are well known to be hostile to those entertained by almost all his countrymen” (Bishwas, 1992). The alienation of the Indians from their own culture and heritage had begun in ample measure. Individual and class considerations had begun to take precedence over the nationalistic and patriotic feelings and determinations for these stood diluted. It is well established that Roy invited a Scottish missionary, Alexander Duff, in 1830s to Calcutta. Duff opened a school to provide western learning through the English language. It attracted wealthy and influential classes of Indians. Roy even intervened to allay the fears amongst the students and their parents arising out of the prominent Christian message that was part of the curriculum. By 1837, the original school founded by Duff had around 700 students, three times the initial strength. (See Laird, McCully, Crawford). It is indeed a case of amazing similarities of attitudes of the ‘upper classes’ of Indians who participated in a mad rush to put their wards in the English medium ‘Public Schools’. The British initiative to create a distinct class of the westbound Indians still has a visible continuity that strives consistently to widen the economic and social divide even in the 21st century. The World Bank Report of 2007 entitled ‘Global Economic Prospects’ finds that the pace of increase in diversities is fastest in India! Some of the scholars of the history of education in India emphasize Grant’s suggestions on teaching of science and scientific inventions as more pertinent than others. They even see him as the ‘father of modern Indian education’. Others fiercely disagree on this evaluation. To them, Grant was acting as a hardcore missionary with his eye on evangelical achievements for which he considered India as the right target. It is indeed interesting to note how Grant could make a prophetic suggestion on teaching through English medium! He probably realized the eagerness of the Indian people to learn English and to ape the British in all possible ways. Grant’s observations were published in 1797 and widely circulated. Grant had held important position in India; he had been an M.P. in Britain and all this paved the way for the inclusion of these clauses in the Charter Act of 1813, that were in favour of the missionaries. However, during the next forty years from 1813 to 1854, the Company did not pay much attention to education, as the rulers were busy in conquests and consolidation of territories and power. As and when certain problems arose, education did come up for discussions, mostly confined to civil and military officials with little aptitude

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for education or concern for the Indians. There emerged two schools of thought on how education was to be imparted. Those who pleaded for ‘downward filtration theory’ felt that education be designed for the elite and from there it would drift downwards from the upper classes to the masses. This theory was given much importance by Macaulay in his formulations of 1835. There were others who were convinced that the social and economic structures in India would not permit any success of the downward filtration theory. They wanted the masses to be targeted for education through a massive programme. Medium of instruction in schools is a subject of perennial controversy in a multi-lingual and multi-religious society that India is. The discussions on it even in current times continue. It was discussed in great details in the period under discussion. The supporters of Sanskrit and Persian wanted the western science and knowledge to be taught through the medium of these languages. Others wanted these taught through the medium of the modern Indian languages. The missionaries and the young employees of the Company pleaded for the teaching of science and western knowledge through the medium of English alone. Initially rather weak, this group gripped ascendance when Macaulay came to India in 1834, became the Chief of the Public Instruction Committee and drafted his famous/infamous minutes of 1835. Thomas Babington Macaulay still remains a ‘household’ name amongst Indian educators. Most of the deficiencies of not only the education system but also of the socio-cultural context are blamed on Macaulay The system developed by Macaulay deserves kudos for the preceptor’s foresight and commitment to the specific objectives identified for the ‘masters’ of the Indian subjects. Macaulay has been, and is still being, discussed in India in great detail. Some owe their progress and upward social mobility to his policies, perceptions and foresight. Others find him a crude crusader for the English language and one fully convinced that there was no match to the English language and Englishmen in knowledge, wisdom and capacity to lead the rest of the world. Most of the details of educational developments in the British period are analyzed as the approaches of the ‘Orientalists’ and the ‘Anglicists’. Macaulay despised all that appealed to the orientalists. A few of the extracts from Macaulay’s Minutes would reveal not only the details of what became the education policy of the British in India from 1835 onwards, these would also reveal the thinking behind the very formulation of these Minutes. Further, these also reflect the personality of the formulator, his biases, prejudices and inadequacies. His contempt for the entire Indian civilisation is reflected in the following words:

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I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabic.

As if there was need to say more, Macaulay does not stop in his denigration only at this point. He goes on further in his Minutes: Assuredly it is the duty of the British Government in India to be not only tolerant, but neutral on all religious questions. But to encourage the study of a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value, only because that literature inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we shall agree, to be sacredly preserved. It is confessed that a language is barren of useful knowledge. We are to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company of a false religion.

Macaulay’s was not a submission of a professional but that of a biased and prejudiced individual who was willing to adopt coercive measures to receive the approval of the Governor-General. He had clearly indicated that if his Minutes were not approved, he would like to retire and go back ‘home’. The situation did not arise as everything proposed by Macaulay was duly approved for implementation. No reference to or discussion on Macaulay’s Minutes could be complete without reference to the most-quoted of the nuggets he had gifted to India: We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern— a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect.

And that has been the biggest success of probably any of the educational planners and policy makers anywhere in what was the erstwhile colonial world.

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Education Before the British The manner in which the post-independence generations in India have been presented the details of their own culture, heritage and sources of knowledge reveals just an uninterrupted continuity of the British approach. Several of ‘eminent’ scholars and historians still believe that India was never a nation; only the British made it a nation! Not only this, the very initiation of a system of education is also attributed to them, practically discarding fully the systems of education and scholarship that evolved over centuries before the British arrived on the scene. Obviously, to such a mindset, when the British arrived, only illiterates devoid of knowledge and skills living in abject poverty and darkness inhabited India! Gandhiji was to explode this myth. On October 20, 1931, addressing the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham Lines, London, he said, “I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago’. Not only this, in the same speech Gandhiji held the British responsible for ‘instead of taking hold of the things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished.” He also elaborated how the sources of support to the indigenous schools were cut off and why the poor found it unaffordable to take ‘advantage ‘ of the new system of education. As expected, the assertion was challenged by Sir Philip Hartog, one of the founders of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, challenged Gandhiji’s assertions. He could not believe it. He wanted a proof. Daulat Ram Gupta and Professor K.T. Shah wrote articles drawing upon the records, which they could lay their hands on, supporting what Gandhiji had very rightly pointed out. It did not satisfy Sir Hartog. The task was taken up voluntarily by Dharampal, an outstanding scholar and devoted Gandhian. He researched deep into the records prepared by the British officers and presented his analysis of the facts, which were irrefutable and squarely endorsed Gandhiji’s assertion beyond any doubt. These facts are available in the well known book The Beautiful Tree. Records prepared by British officers are available for the 1820 — 1830 period. Indigenous education was imparted through Pathshalas, Madrassas and Gurukulas. This trio of institutions played a great role in the spread and acquisition of education in the traditional Indian way. William Adam has put it on record that there were around 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around 1830s. Thomas Munro observed that ‘every village had a school’. In 1882,

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G.W. Leitner’s observations show that the spread of education was of similar extent in Punjab. The Beautiful Tree clearly explodes the myths spread deliberately that education was confined only to certain castes or classes. If these indigenous systems were allowed to continue, India probably would have become fully literate even before the United Kingdom. The new scientific and modern education could have been introduced along with the existing systems or even separately. That was not to be, as those holding the reigns of power and the purse strings were not interested in India but in its physical assets and their exploitation. They needed an illiterate India, an ignorant India and an impoverished India. They worked for it. It would be indeed relevant to cite the research of Dharampal as a unique individual effort to unearth the truth of the contemporary history. He began his work around 1965-66. He was convinced that an intensive and in-depth research in the records available in India and the UK could really reveal the unbiased truth The spirit that motivated him to launch his monumental effort could be seen clearly in his own words (Dharampal, 2000): Today, we feel encircled by hostility- much of it in fact generated by our own ineptitude and inaction. From around 1947, we have treated ourselves as cousins of the West. Dominated by the West, it may be necessary at the moment to rely on Western knowledge and products. But this can be only a short-term proposal. Very soon, whatever Western know-how or products seem essential to us, we must learn to produce them in our own way, with our own material, variations and modifications.

In the meanwhile, however, we must set our ordinary people free; remove the obstacles in their path relating to the use of their local physical and material resources, and encourage them to use their talents to rebuild their own shattered worlds in their own various ways…For all this to happen, a profound alteration in our attitudes towards our people and our past has to take place. We must enable our people to feel more self assured, confident, hopeful, proud of their talents and capacities and encourage them to regain their individual and societal dignity. Dharampal’s work marks a distinct phase in understanding the history of education in India. Dharampal (Dharampal, 1995) elaborates his approach in the volume entitled The Beautiful Tree in the following words:

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The present work is not being presented, however, with a view to decry British rule. It should be seen rather as the continuation of an effort to comprehend to the extent it is possible for the author through material of this kind relating to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the reality of India of this period, its society, its infrastructure, its manners and institutions, and their strengths and weaknesses.

A response like the one offered by Dharampal was very much needed as Hartog challenged Gandhiji’s assertion in 1931 itself as the representative of the British rule in India. He wanted Gandhiji to give “precise references to the printed documents on which the statements were based”. He remained unsatisfied and four years later delivered three lectures at the Institute of Education London countering Gandhiji’s claim. Dharampal’s contributions are a guiding force to the Indian scholars to undertake more researches to understand India during and before the British times. One of the finest treatises on education in ancient India is the Ancient Indian Education, Brahmanical and Buddhist by Radhakumud Mookerji. It is a scholarly research presented in a sustained and methodical manner and traces various aspects of the strength, weaknesses and the aspects that made Indian way of creating and disseminating knowledge different from that of the others. Its perusal in full reveals comprehensively how India could earn the place of pride in spiritual knowledge and why all those interested in spirituality worldwide acknowledged Indian superiority in this area. While detailed description would not be necessary here, it is worthwhile to recall certain description penned by Mookerji under the chapter ‘Education in the seventh century A.D.’. This chapter is based on the accounts of the celebrated Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang (Yuan Chwang), who narrates it in following words: “Amongst the various castes and clans of the country, the Brahmins were purest and I most esteem them. So from their excellent reputation the name ‘Brahmana-country’ had come to be a popular one for India” (p. 140). It is relevant to recall the following from the traveller’s tale: “The predominance of Brahmanism is further evident from the fact that Sanskrit became at that time the language of the cultural classes in which even wrote all the most famous Buddhist teachers. Hiuen Tsang regards the spoken and written language of mid-India as at once the parent and the standard of all the dialects of North India”. He goes on: “The people of mid-India are pre-eminently explicit and correct in speech, their expressions being harmonious and elegant, like those of the Devas, and their intonation

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clear and distinct, serving as rule and pattern for others”. The Brahmanical education stands justified by its products. “The pedagogic methods pursued in these schools were not the mechanical, soulless and oppressive ones which crush out the very taste for learning in the students when they leave them, as is often the case with the modern school system”. (Mookerji, p 507, 1998). Innumerable young persons were imbued with the mission of devoting their life in search of truth and thereby in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. The system produced high level of scholars in large numbers. Learning received universal respect, regard and support from the king and the commoners alike. Learned men combined intellectual superiority with morals. This remained the key principle of education in ancient India at various stages of educational development and irrespective of diverse approaches in religious faiths coming up. The principle was equally acceptable in Gurukulas, residence of the ascetic guru teaching the select ones in his own place or the monks in Jain and Buddhist monasteries. Education was designed to prepare the young to take ahead further a society that honours the scholars on a pedestal higher than that of kings and emperors. The implications were indeed positive for cultural empathy and civilisational universality and its continuous evolution. The continuity provided strength to the cultural traditions and that precisely is the reason for the survival of Indian cultures in spite of all the assaults and invasions to demolish it, which continued for hundreds of years incessantly. The arrival of different faiths like Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam were all welcome, a phenomenon that was unique to India. At cultural level there was a constant give and take and in the spirit of ‘the world is one family’, Indian culture emerged more strengthened, following the principle “let noble thoughts come from all sides.” The story at the political power level was not that simple. History records attempts to convert people to other religions by force, torture and exploitation. It also records umpteen instances of persecution and sacrifices of those who refused to get converted. Indian culture accepts the rights of those also who got converted to religions other than their own with equal respect and accepts their right to follow the faith of their choice. The ancient Indian culture developed as an outcome of learning that came from a well-served system of search for truth and endeavours to understand man, nature and all that may lie beyond it. From this system emerged a constant stream of scholars and eligible researchers of truth who were distinct — they dedicated their lives in the search of truth and service of the country. Homelessness, dependence on alms, poverty were no deterrents

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but provided more time and chance to ‘know more’! They chose a life of self-denial of the unimaginable variety if viewed from the present-daycontext. What a change! The best of the young Indians, after availing the best of the learning facilities the nation has created, prefer to rush to the affluent-most country in search of materialistic pursuits! Once well off and included in the list of the wealthiest of the world, they expect India to honour them in all possible ways! In the idiom of the present times, it is relevant to recall how Sri Aurobindo summarized the essence of the Indian culture: “The tendency of the West is to live from below upward and from out inward…. The inner existence is thus formed and governed by external powers. India’s constant aim has been on the contrary, to find a basis of living in the higher spiritual truth and live from inner spirit outwards”. (India’s Rebirth, p. 109). Learning got primacy, Guru was considered a representative of God. He got profound respect from kings and commoners alike. Everything was taught — art, literature, polity, and the science of war, the development of body, medicine and much more. Teaching and learning took place in natural environments away from the hustle and bustle of large and big towns and habitations. Excellence in search for truth extended itself to all walks of human activity and endeavour. It included all the four purusharthas: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Every one owed a debt to parents, family and society, the learned ones and the gods. Some spent their entire life in worldly pursuits while others after repaying the debt to parents and ancestors and the Guru, renounced the world and became ascetics and yogis. There again, they began training the young ones in how to live a fulfilling worldly life that prepares for the next stage beyond this world as well. The cycle thus perpetuated itself. Creation, generation, assimilation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge were considered to be the essential ingredients of the ancient Indian system of teaching and learning. Adhyayan, Manana, Chintan and Upayoga were considered the four necessary stages. The best-known institutions of teaching and learning in ancient India were the ‘Gurukulas’. The pupils were accepted in the abode of the Guru at the tender age for the nourishment of their body, mind and spirit. This was initially the present day equivalence of the universal elementary education but differed in the sense that the learner left the Gurukula only after he had acquired full proficiency in the area of both general and specialized learning to the satisfaction of both the learner and the teacher. There were other institutions, which

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provided learning beyond the stay-in education received in the Gurukulas. Those who imbibed life-long urge to discover the truth and continuously augment their learning had access to ‘Parishads’ consisting of outstanding specialists and creative luminaries in specific areas. These Parishads could be considered on par with the Academies of the present times. In certain cases the quest for truth and specialisation in one’s area may need opportunities for interactions and discussions at a still higher level. The conferences convened by the rulers or by the renowned ‘Rishis’ themselves for the highest level of scholarly and academic debate and discussions provided such opportunities. These were like national and international conferences in the present parlance. The system evolved itself continuously. The equivalent of the present day university education system did take shape in the fourth century B.C. It initially developed in the Buddhist monasteries. Here the Guru was not the head of a family but of a monastery. Education systems in every civilisation are developed as a part of the system of the culture. It applies equally well to the ancient Indian system of education, which too developed as a part of the general system of Indian culture. “This system at once indulged and controlled man’s nature; it fitted him for his social role; it stamped on his mind the generous ideal of an accomplished humanity, refined, harmonious in all its capacities, ennobled in all its members; but it placed before him too the theory and practice of Yoga, the theory and practice of a higher change, familiarized him with the concept of spiritual existence and sowed in him a hunger for the divine and the infinite”. (Kireet Joshi, 2003) The child was equipped with numerous ways and disciplines to prepare him to strive for ‘a higher self which he had within him beyond his little personal ego’. Some of the ingredients of the ancient system continued to give strength to the growth and development of the system till it was disturbed, decapacitated and planned attempts made to destroy it on a large scale by the alien rulers as a part of their well considered strategy to subjugate a nation by delinking it from its culture, heritage and the treasure of knowledge generated over centuries in the past. Even in the 21st century, can any one ignore the critical and essential components that were the pillars of education in ancient India? The great emphasis on disciplines and the code of conduct prescribed for the Brahmacharin — the learner— is to be interpreted in the context of the time. Living in the Gurukul was not just the stay in a residential hostel of the present times. It was a probation time for the life ahead and preparation for participation in every skill and activity of the

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establishment was compulsory. ‘Learning to do’ was perfected through on the spot training in actual field level situations. In a larger sense this discipline acquainted the learner with values that included pursuit of kindness, harmony, love, ahimsa, renunciation, non-accumulation and development of purity of body, emotions and thoughts. It included ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’ and ‘learning to be’, the terms being used internationally today. The pursuit of materialism was overruled in a subtle and gradual manner through the practice of renunciation of self-acquisitions and material possessions. “The most important idea governing the ancient Indian system of education was that of perfection, for developing the mind and soul of man” (ibid, p. 32). Could ‘learning to become’ be articulated away from this concept? The development of mind and soul was possible only when these were well synchronized with the ‘excellence’ of human body, the growth, development and looking after of which was an equally important component of the teaching learning process. Swadhyaya (self-acquired learning) emphasized what we now term as ‘life-long learning’. It was supposed to develop continuously the powers of memory, imagination and thought. The Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the 21st century, titled ‘Learning: The Treasure Within’, submitted in the year 1996 (UNESCO, 1996) appears to be a restatement of the basic tenets of the Indian belief that each soul is divine. Vedanta envisions divinity in each human being. “The human being in Vedanta is looked upon not as some kind of creature crawling on the earth in fear and trembling, but as being endowed by the very fact of consciousness with essential divinity”. (Karan Singh, Vedanta, Rupa and Co, New Delhi, 1996) Divinity need not necessarily be interpreted in any sense of specific faith or religion but as an indicator that each of the learners has unimaginable capability, creativity and spirituality within himself/herself. It has to be supported and assisted to flourish and evolve. Every human being could become an illumined individual with the facilitating role being played by the family, teacher and the society. This Report identifies four pillars of education: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be. It speaks volumes of the strength of Indian system of teaching and learning which took care of all these aspects during the process of the growing up of the learner right from the days of the Gurukul system. There could hardly be any harm if these facts are made known to the learners of today. From a near total emphasis on ‘marks’ alone, education has to be a comprehensive enterprise that brings in values and morality. Without these, the dream of social cohesion and equal respect for all religions shall remain only a daydream.

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The Global usage of ‘Life-long learning ’could certainly find an ancient example in the oft-quoted adage ‘World is but one Family’— “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”. There are no better examples of lifelong selfless pursuit of exploring the frontiers of knowledge than is present in Indian heritage. The march ahead from Gurukulas to monasteries and then to the universal learning centres of Varanasi (also called Kashi), Taksashila and Nalanda represents the grand time-line of the growth of Indian education and evolution of its culture that considers acceptance of diversity instead of its tolerance as the only acceptable practice in everyday life. It has sustained India and its culture till this date. Sri Aurobindo, analyzing how the Indian civilisation flourished, writes: “It lived with a noble, ample and vigorous order and freedom. It developed a great literature, sciences, arts, crafts, industries; it rose to the highest possible ideals of knowledge and culture, of arduous greatness and heroism, of kindness, philanthropy and human sympathy and oneness. It laid the inspired basis of wonderful spiritual philosophies, it examined the secret of external nature and discovered and lived in boundless and miraculous truths of the inner being. It fathomed out self and understood and possessed the world”. (Foundations of Indian Culture, pp. 116-117).

On education, Sri Aurobindo is again very clear. Education builds nations and prepares them to meet the challenges of the future. It helps individuals to grow in their efforts to engage themselves in deeper and more intensive search for truth. The role of the past, the present and the future in education is presented in these words: National education…may be described as the education which starting up with the past and making full use of the present, builds up a great nation. Whoever wishes to cutoff the nation from its past, is no friend of our national growth. Whoever fails to take advantage of the present, is losing us the battle of life. We must therefore, save for India all that she has stored up of knowledge, character and noble thoughts in her immemorial past. We must acquire for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her and assimilate it to her own peculiar type of national temperament. We must introduce the best methods of teaching humanity has developed whether modern or ancient. And all these we must harmonize into a system which will be impregnated with the spirit self reliance, so as to build up men and not machines. (India’s Rebirth, p. 30).

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The National Policies on education that India formulated in the post independence period did mention some of these ideas but remained hesitant on how to deal with the ancient Indian contribution to world civilisation and how to motivate the young Indians to engage themselves with pride and passion to discover the knowledge and wisdom contained in Indian epics and other treatises like the Vedas, Vedangs, Smritis and Puranas. Generations of Indians have been deprived of familiarity with the treasure of knowledge and wisdom discovered and accumulated by their ancestors, constituting the rarest of the rare treasures that could illuminate the path for global understanding and progress.

Policy Continuity in Indian Education The type of education that Indians were being given attracted the attention of not only the enlightened and patriotic Indian leaders but also of some Englishmen. In the first decade of the 20th century, Sri Aurobindo wrote editorials in the Bande Maatarm urging greater attention to national education. At that stage there were two prominent views on what should be done to move towards a national system of education. One of the possibilities was to establish a parallel chain of national schools to the government schools; the other alternative was to ensure that the nationalistic ideas infiltrate the existing system itself. Interestingly, W.W. Hunter wrote: “Your State education is producing a revolt against three principles which, although they were pushed too far in ancient India, represent the deepest wants of human nature— the principle of discipline, the principle of religion, the principle of contentment”. In fact, by this time the results of Macaulay’s objectives were seen everywhere amongst the educated Indians. They were apparently competing to prove worthy of Macaulay’s vision—Indians in colour and birth but more English than the Englishmen. About this Britishcreated, prepared and patronized class of Indians educated in the spirit of Macaulay’s minutes, Hunter goes on to say: “What are you to do with this great clever class, forced up under a foreign system without discipline, without contentment and without God?” (Manoj Das, 1999 p. 31.) Valentine Chirol made a very revealing, and still pertinent, assessment of the Indian education in the British period in his well known work Indian Unrest (1910). Chirol observed (Manoj Das, P.32). The fundamental weakness of our Indian educational system is that the average Indian student cannot bring his education into any direct relation with the world in which, outside the class or the lecture room,

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he continues to live. For that world is still the old Indian world of his forefathers. And it is far removed as the poles asunder from the Western world, which claims his education. If one analyses the above sixty years after independence and a century after Sri Aurobindo had pleaded for national education, one finds startling similarities. It was the contentment and search for higher truth and its understanding that gave Indian education and culture the vision to see the oneness of all human beings, every Atman being the part op the same Parmatman. From this enlightened view of the universe, the aggression of the initial stages of evolution, and whatever was left of it, could be vanished completely. It gave rise to one of the most respectable non-aggressive civilisation. What the external political dominance attempted successfully was to create wedges amongst people on the basis of faith and such social aberrations as castes. Impressionable young Indian learners were made to despise and denigrate their own heritage and culture in every aspect and respect. The education system was unrelated to the realities of life and also to the culture of the country and the communities. The English educated person found himself totally rootless. He felt different from his own family and hence even the family values. The education received had already instilled in his mind that values of contentment were essentially responsible for lack of initiative on the part of the Indians and hence, for India’s poverty. This diverted the attention of the young persons from the loot of the Indian resources that was going on unchecked under government instructions and policies. This educated class was not concerned with the misery being thrust upon Indian artisans, farmers and those surviving on local products. Education had no ‘local element of the curriculum and its roots were in no way connected to the Indian soil’. Luminaries like Sri Aurobindo, and later Gandhiji, not only realized these disastrous anomalies but also presented alternative plans to overcome these through people’s initiatives and efforts. The British would not permit establishments of centres of national education as every such school or institution had to follow the rules, regulations and structures of education prescribed by the rulers of the day. The British government would not recognize any system of education which was not stamped with their approval and not in tune with their policies derived from Macaulay’s minutes. Doors to professions were open only to those who were products of education that was in fact designed to create a denationalizing impact on each of the learners! In additions a clear division of another type was also allowed to flourish: the educated as the superior

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class and the deprived and illiterates who were to be kept away from knowledge growth and the benefits emanating out of it. The other aspect referred to above by Hunter and Chirol was the absence of God in education. This deserves to be examined in the context of the present day interpretations of secularism in education. God has been completely stamped out of education. The politicians have cut India between two sharp segments: communalists and secularists! The government system, irrespective of claims to the contrary, permits no innovation unless it is within the confines of state established boards, universities and professional bodies. India is a multireligious society because the ancient Indian culture was evolved enough to see the universality of humanity. It evolved a system that treated every civilisation, every faith and every individual on equal footing. Unfortunately, these sublime factors were always, under well thought out strategies, ignored by a certain set of historians in favour of social aberrations like caste system and untouchability which had nothing to do with religion. The stranglehold of the leftist-Marxist historians has successfully created distortions to their own liking and ideological compulsions, at the heavy cost of the loss of objectivity and even neglect of established facts. They do it in the name of secularism, which they interpret in their own way and expect everyone else to just endorse it. Some four decades ago, C. Rajagopalachari had foreseen the damaging implications of the approach and had warned the nation very clearly about it: To misunderstand the ‘secularity’ to which people think we are pledged, and to treat religion as untouchable is one of the many unfortunate follies our government has fallen into. It is not impossible, or even very difficult, to deal with and include in a nationwide effort to make men truly religious, each in the way shown by his or her own religion, and add to it a spirit of understanding and respect for other people’s religion and way of life.

In continuation, this outstanding statesman- cum- scholar gives an advice in terms of a basic principle: “The conclusion of the matter as I see it is that parliamentary democracy will be a waste of expense and produce no good unless this true education of the people is undertaken by a general consensus among all statesmen and politicians” (Rajagopalachari, 1978). Unfortunately, that has not yet been even attempted ever.

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Indian Civilisation– What robs its capacity to guide the world. If the British had a reason to attempt the destruction of the universality of Indian culture through the devastation of the indigenous education system that had grown and flourished for over 5000 years, the Marxist historians had none except to show their loyalty to the ideological Masters. To them what Marx had written about India in the New York Daily Tribune (1953) was sacred and still remains the Gospel Truth: There cannot, however, remain any doubt that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindoostan is of essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindoostan had to suffer before… All civil wars, various invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strongly complex, rapid and destructive as successive action in Hindoostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptom of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of new, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the recent misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindoostan, ruled by Britain from all its ancient traditions and the whole of its past. (Karl Marx, 1853)

While Marx appears critical of the British in the above, in his second article published in the Tribune on August 8, 1853, he does his best to justify the destruction of Hindu society, polity, economy and all that he was lamenting earlier. (Makkhan Lal with Rajendra Dixit, Educating to Confuse and Disrupt, India First Foundation, New Delhi, 2005). The following also deserves to be quoted: India, then, could not escape being conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is history of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India being conquered by the Turks, by the Persians, by Russians, to India conquered by Briton. “England has to fulfil a double mission in India; one destructive, the other regenerating-annihilation of old Asiatic Society and laying the material foundation of western society in Asia”. (Karl Marx, 8th August

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1853) In the same dispatch, Marx makes another of his analytical inferences. He finds Arabs, Turks and Tatar invaders of India having an inferior civilisation to that of the Hindus. On the contrary, he declares the British as the first conquerors of India who had a superior civilisation that was ‘inaccessible to the Hindu civilisation’! He goes ahead to state, “They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society.”

The history of India as written and presented by Indian authors before the young of India has, astonishingly enough, remains confined to the understanding and perception of Marx and Macaulay. The secularist historians, as they themselves like to be identified, come from the class that Macaulay desired to create in India through his policy on education. In order to establish their secular credentials beyond any iota of doubt, they were determined to establish the ‘authenticity’ of Marx’s view of Indian history. The situation has come to such an impasse that even a reference to the Vedas, Smritis and Puranas as sources of knowledge, values and ethics is scorned! An incisive analysis of the works of the historians who ignore the basic principles of history writing and allow themselves to be swayed by personal and ideological compulsions has been comprehensively presented by one of the most erudite of India philosophers of the current times, Kireet Joshi, in the following words: “There are, of course, historians who would like to convince us that the ancient times were barbaric, and that it would be vain to look for ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’ in the traditions or records of those barbaric times. They would, of course, grant that these barbarians had some kind of religion, but this religion, they would maintain, had no profundity in it. They treat the history of religion as a kind of logical development, of gradual refinement and clarity, starting from animism and spiritism and superstitious magic to the presentday universal religions of monotheism, or theism or of existentialism. They would refuse to grant that there could have ever been in those ancient times anything better than any animistic or spiritistic practices or beliefs, or anything better than fetishism, totemism or tribal polytheistic cults or traditions. According to them, a hierarchical and systematic polytheistic religion was itself a later development, parallel to the political developments of early nations. To find, therefore, among the ancient records beliefs compared to civilized and developed notions of pantheism or deism or theism would be, according to them, an impossibility” (Kireet Joshi, 2003).

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Not everyone is willing to accept their line of argument as new data is emerging fast. However, it must be mentioned that the approach described above has done tremendous damage to the acceptance of the Indian system of knowledge and wisdom that was evolved in the pre-Vedic, Vedic and post-Vedic periods. India’s political subjugation for centuries together resulted in Indians distancing themselves from what was their own rightful heritage of which they could be justifiably proud! The culture that propagates “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, or “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah” is developed only by illumined minds, which could rise above the mundane worldly desires of accumulation, ego and dominance. Above all, such an all-embracing approach can evolve only in a culture, which can perceive the commonalities of the human bondage over and above region, colour, creed, religion or belief. It grew over the centuries and it sustained itself even in the most unfavourable of the circumstances and against all odds. India developed the culture of acceptance and not of mere ‘tolerance’. This represents a great difference in the process of human evolution. It is being increasingly realized that tolerance alone is not sufficient. The next step and the stage is that of acceptance of the otherness with equal respect. That alone can ensure the dream goal of equity, equality and social justice. India was subjected to aggression by other civilisations for centuries together. India’s own resistance to these was not up to the mark and it suffered the consequences of this unpreparedness. It paid the price through loss of dignity and stature. It suffered the plundering of its resources and the majority of its population was consigned to live in abject poverty and penury. Its quest for synthesizing the three elements “self, society and nature” suffered in the process. Its scholars could not keep themselves abreast of the developments resulting out of the growth of modern science and western approach to life. If they had synchronized it with the Indian knowledge and wisdom and presented it to the western world in the modern idiom, acceptance would have been total. Indian scholarship has sustained the cultural continuity of the process of knowledge generation and transmission. It could not, however, counter the forces let loose by those who have consistently strived hard to denigrate all that is ascribed to ancient Indian thought, culture and civilisation. These elements are Indian and from within India. Their ways of the interpretation of Indian heritage could certainly make Macaulay and Marx proud in their graves. Jawaharlal Nehru beautifully articulated the strength of this heritage of India while addressing the convocation of the Aligarh Muslim University

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on January 24, 1948, just six days prior to the assassination of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru had this to say to the AMU: I am proud of India, not only because of her ancient heritage, but also because of her remarkable capacity to add to it by keeping the doors and windows of her mind and spirit open to fresh and invigorating winds from distant lands. India’s strength has been twofold: her own innate culture which flowed through the ages, and her capacity to draw from other sources and thus add to her own. She was far too strong to be submerged by outside streams, and she was too wise to isolate herself from them, and so there is a continuing synthesis in India’s real history and the many political changes which have taken place have had little effect on the growth of this variegated and yet essentially unified culture.

Nehru went on to add, “I have said that I am proud of our inheritance and our ancestors who gave an intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India”. Unfortunately, this notion of India’s pre-eminence has consistently remained an anathema to a certain political ideology and consequently, to a school of historians. To them, India had nothing worthwhile to talk about ‘before the British came to its rescue and civilized it’! To the Marxist historians of Indian origin, there can be no better statement than this in ‘secular India’ to combat ‘communalism’! This is the continuing success of Macaulay’s system of education and a glaring failure of the post-independent India to replace it with a system of education that could be “rooted to Indian culture yet committed to progress ahead”. The detractors of Indian culture and heritage discard even these universally accepted perceptions. The UNESCO Report Learning: the Treasure Within presents these aspects as one of its ‘pointers and recommendations: “It is the role of education to provide children and adults with the cultural background that will enable them to make sense of the changes taking place. This presupposes that they are capable of sorting the mass of information so as to interpret it more effectively and place events in a historical perspective.” (UNESCO, 1996, p. 67) The strength of the Indian thought, culture, wisdom and universality of acceptance in intellectual discourse is probably being realized more outside India than in India. The whole world looks towards India to seek guidance in aspects of spirituality and the pursuits of higher objectives of life. When Arnold Toyanbee puts it in clear words, none can ignore it: (Palkhiwala, 1994)

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It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race…At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way- Emperor Asoka’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of nonviolence and Sri Ramakrishna’s testimony to the harmony of religions. Here we have an attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family – and in the Atomic age, this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves.

Every culture envisions the ‘man’ who represents the best of its ideals and pursuits. It could be worldly or spiritual or unworldly depending on what it values the most. No rigid classifications are possible. However, Indian culture is heavily weighted towards renunciation and unworldly pursuits. The deepfelt aspiration of Indian people has been spiritual and not materialistic. Dr. Radhakrishnan so succinctly describes these sublime aspects of Indian culture in his book Eastern Religions and Western Thought (pp. 381-82) The ideal man of India is not the magnanimous man of Greece or the valiant knight of medieval Europe, but the freeman of spirit, who has attained insight into the universe by rigid discipline and practice of disinterested virtues; who has freed himself from the prejudice of his time and place. It is India’s pride that she has clung fast to this ideal and produced in every generation and in every part of the country, from the time of the rishis of the Upanishads and Buddha to Ramakrishna and Gandhi, men who strove successfully to realize this ideal.

What makes India so distinct from others? Indian civilisation spread far and beyond India without any military conquests, a unique and unparalleled chapter in the history of the evolution of major civilisations of the world. The Indian civilisation survives even after umpteen number of foreign attacks and a thousand years of alien rule. The Indian civilisation found out its own world of ideas, behaviours and values, which excludes none and despises nothing in other people’s culture, belief and faith. It treats the whole world as a family and all human beings as one big family, which has to live in peace imbibing the spirit of universal brotherhood amongst each of its members, irrespective of individual differences of varied kinds. It is this vitality of the spirit and the strength of spirituality that has sustained India and its civilisation for ages against all odds. It has been greatly assisted in its willingness to accept ‘truth, goodness and beauty’ from anywhere and

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from every one. There are no preconditions in accepting ‘otherness’ so long as its objectives are to grow as human beings and to serve humanity to march ahead to higher levels of evolution and enlightenment. The civilisation has evolved through the inputs from noble persons at every stage. They have helped to create knowledge through the explorations of the secrets of nature as part of their eternal search for truth. They searched for the fundamental principles of social, economic and political principles on the one hand and, on the other, explored and understood the need to blend these harmoniously in such a manner that the norms for living a life would be in harmony with nature. All these and the quest for the very existence of human beings and this universe, the eternal spiritual quest, became the major ingredients of ‘Dharma’, the way of life in this world that also prepares for the life beyond this world. An acquaintance with the concept of Dharma clearly brings out that the search for truth invariably passes through the gates of peace, love and brotherhood. Basic human rights are its essential strength as these are intended to secure happiness to all. Justice K. Ramaswami summarized the essence of Dharma, as culled out from the ancient Indian scriptures and epics, in one of the Supreme Court Judgments delivered in 1996: (Rama Jois, 1997). The word Dharma denotes upholding, supporting, nourishing that which upholds, nourishes or supports the stability of the society, maintaining social order and general well being and progress of mankind. Whatever conducts to the fulfilment of these objects is Dharma. Dharma is that which approves to oneself or good consciousness or springs from due deliberation for one’s own happiness and also for welfare of all beings free from fear, desire, disease, cherishing good feelings and sense of brotherhood”.

In the current context, the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution of India represent basic values cherished by the people of this country since the ancient times. Evidently, these intend to protect the dignity of every human being and to create an environment in which every one can develop and grow to the highest possible level. Indian civilisation accepts the principle of ‘let everyone and all be happy’. And that is its greatest strength.

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A mental and moral discipline was considered essential not only to lead a good life in this world but also as the basic prerequisite to move ahead in the realm of spirituality. The concept of State was evolved to support the rule of Dharma. The influence of Dharma was dominant all around in the lives and actions of the Hindus. Practically every action was related to Dharma in one way or the other. The basic objective was to generate a feeing of brotherhood all around and realisation of the ultimate truth through gradual illumination of the mind and strengthening of moral faculties. Learning in ancient India was never pursued for material acquisitions and accumulations. Its sole objective was to learn to live life as per the dictates of the Dharma and in the process, prepare for the ultimate goal: Moksha! These aspects and their correlations to the psyche of the Indians were studied in depth and analyzed thoroughly by the British in their efforts to plant deeper the roots of the British rule in India. Macdonell puts it in the following terms: “We find Indian literature bearing an exclusively religious stamp: even those latest productions of the Vedic Age which cannot be called directly religious are yet meant to further religious ends. This is, indeed, implied by the term Vedic, or Vedas, primarily signifying knowledge (from the root Vid, to know), designates ‘sacred lore’ as a branch of literature. Besides this general sense, the word has also the restricted meaning of ‘sacred book’. (Macdonell, 1900) Every enlightened human being experiences the urge for morality in human life. This urge transcends all the barriers of time, place and faiths. The continuity of this urge is in fact a great strength of human evolution. It also establishes the universality of morality in human life. Take an illustrative instance. Einstein considered development of morality as the foremost task of education. Ancient Indian education had realized it much early and made it an integral part of the process of teaching and learning. Einstein puts it in these words in November, 1950: The most important human endeavour is striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend upon it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. To make this a living force and bring it to a clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education.

Einstein was a great admirer of Gandhi who represented the essence of Indian culture and values in the broadest sense and with a world view all his life. His total dedication to the search for truth and Ahimsa extended

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the non-aggressiveness of Indian wisdom and approach to so many admirers worldwide. The strength of Ahimsa is the strength of Indian civilisation and culture. Gandhi interpreted it in the contemporary context. How great was the impact created could be elaborated with so many examples. J. Robert Oppenheimer wrote in Einstein: A Centenary Volume: Einstein is also, and I think rightly, known as a man of great goodwill and humility. Indeed, if I had to think of a single word for his attitude towards human problems, I would pick the Sanskrit word Ahimsa, not to hurt. Harmlessness.

The solution to the ever-increasing violence and terrorism has been known to the Indian civilisation for ages. It has to be put before the young of the world in the language and the idiom that they comprehend at this stage.

Education in the New Millennium The 1986 National Policy on Education, revised in 1992 (NPE 1986/92) very clearly noted ‘the growing concern over the erosion of essential values and an increasing cynicism in the society’. As expected, it emphasized the need for curricular changes in order to make education ‘a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values’. It went ahead to plead further: “In our culturally plural society, education should foster universal and eternal values, oriented towards the unity and integration of our people. Such value education should help eliminate obscurantism, religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism”. This was the need of the times and also a chance to link education to Indian ethos, heritage and culture, the essential ingredients to perceive a model of national education. The essential spirit of the policy recommendation found a forceful endorsement in the 86th Report of the Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Ministry of Human Resources Development. This was a report on Value Education submitted to both the Houses of Parliament of India on February 26, 1999. As per the standard practice, it was passed on to the concerned ministry for implementation with the authority of the Parliament of India behind it. Two of the recommendations pertained to values and religions in very clear terms. It identified Truth (Satya), Righteous Conduct (Dharma), Peace (Shanti), Love (Prema) and Non-violence (Ahimsa) as the universal values which could become the foundations of education programmes. The Committee also emphasized that in view of the diversities of all perceptible

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types in the country, young persons must imbibe national values. They should be familiar with ‘the history of India’s freedom struggle, cultural heritage, constitutional obligations and the features comprising our national identity. The most prominent and ‘bold’ recommendation was concerning religions. The Committee went ahead with the following: Another aspect that must be given some thought is religion, which is the most misused and misunderstood concept. The process of making the students acquainted with the basics of all religions, the values inherent therein and also a comparative study of philosophy of all religions should begin at the middle stage in schools and continue up to the university level. Students have to be made aware that the basic concept behind every religion is common, only the practices differ. Even if there are differences of opinion in certain areas, people have to learn to coexist and carry no hatred against any religion.

The process of the renewal of the school curriculum completed in the year 2000 (NCFSE, 2000) seriously considered the above-mentioned recommendation as an expression of the continuity of India’s heritage of acceptance of diversity, which emanated out of the ancient Indian storehouse of scholarship, knowledge and wisdom. In a world torn asunder practically every day due to religious fanaticism and terrorism, the value of nonaggression has to become the key concept spread over the entire process of teaching and learning. Whatever be the other reasons and causes, the two nation theory that led to the bleeding partition of India was certainly an outcome of the lack of mutual trust and of the absence of true understanding amongst the two major communities of India divided on religious lines. If only the human values common to both the religions had been internalized across the board, the politicians would not have been allowed to play that disastrous game. No further justification would be needed in the current times to strive hard to let all the young persons know the basics of all the religions and develop mutual respect. This alone can lead to reestablishing the much needed social cordiality and religious harmony in India. This could be achieved only when the citizens are prepared with an attitude to not only strive to do ‘good’ but also remain ever alert to work and suffer for ‘good’. Their endeavour must always aim to achieve the most sought after: Satyam, Shivam and Sundaram; Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Help comes in achieving this attitudinal transformation from the inheritance of history, culture and customs. Help comes from the inherited traditions, scriptures,

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epics and literature the value of which, despite planned efforts to demolish it, is universally recognized and realized. Such education cannot be organized except on a ‘religious basis’. While pleading for such education, C. Rajagopalachari wrote: “To misunderstand the ‘secularity’ to which people think we are pledged, and to treat religion as untouchable is one of the many unfortunate follies our government has fallen into. It is not impossible, or even very difficult, to deal with and include in a nationwide effort to make men truly religious, each in the way shown by his or her own religion, and add to it a spirit of understanding and respect for other people’s religion and way of life”. In continuation, this outstanding statesman-cum-scholar gives a piece of advice in terms of a basic principle: “The conclusion of the matter as I see it is that parliamentary democracy will be a waste of expense and produce no good unless this true education of the people is undertaken by a general consensus among all statesmen and politicians”. (Rajagopalachari, C., Rescue Democracy from Money Power, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1978) The world of today is sick as it suffers form violence, bloodshed, terrorism, distrust and bigotry practically everywhere and at every moment. The world of tomorrow needs a healing touch and a curative balm to put it back on the health track. The quintessence of ancient Indian culture has survived all possible onslaughts over the ages but has survived as it accepts unbreakable unity and the universality of all human beings. In terms of values it can be put in five inter-related ideals that find consistent mention in practically all the epics and scriptures that ancient Indian seekers of the ultimate truth have presented to humanity. Conflicts, strife, wars, battles and violence occur at various intervals, mostly due to ignorance, ego and misinterpretations. The five ideals that survive eternally are: Truth (Satya), Righteous conduct (Dharma), Peace (Shanti), Love (Prema) and Nonviolence (Ahimsa). Those who internalize these will find equal substance in every religion and faith, an essential requirement for the very survival of the planet earth and the existence of humanity on it. It is a great irony of the present times that religions, which actually should be leading towards social cohesion and religious harmony, are being used to achieve just the opposite. India’s age-old wisdom very clearly predicts the way out: “Samavaya eva Sadhuh” – Concord alone is correct and proper. This wisdom was not confined only to discourses and discussions amongst the learned scholars but was put to practice as a way of life at each stage. Dr. Radhakrishnan and Swami Rangnathananda have referred in their academic

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contributions to a quotation from the book: Murray’s Discoveries and Travels in Asia; (Vol.2, p. 20). It describes one of the many historical events that highlight the essence of Indian culture and conduct as testified by foreign visitors and emissaries. This one refers to Abdul Razak who came to India as an Envoy from the Court of Persia to Indian states: “The people (of Calicut) are infidels; consequently, I consider myself in an enemy’s country, as the Mohammadans consider everyone who has not received the Koran. Yet, I admit that I meet with perfect toleration, and even favour; we have two mosques and are allowed to pray in public”

Once it is accepted that there is a divine spark and limitless potential in every individual irrespective of caste, colour, creed or religion, there shall be no place for aggression, fundamentalism and, hence, violence and terrorism. The human ingenuity would be in a position to devote itself with greater commitment and devotion to further its quest for the search of truth in order to make life better for fellow human beings. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (What can I give You, 2006) recalls this aspect of the Indian culture in a universally comprehensible manner, recalling the advice of Gandhiji’s mother: “Son, in your entire life if you can save or better someone’s life, your birth as a human being and your life is a success. You have the blessings of the Almighty”. It illuminates the path in search of solutions to the problems of humanity.

References

Swami Rangnathananda, Eternal Values for a Changing Society; Education for Human excellence, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1995, p. 9 C.A. Bayly (1), Empire and Information. Bayly has discussed in detail the role of Indians in founding of British Empire in ‘Indian society’. C.A. Bayly (2), Empire and Information, passim. Marshal, ‘Warren Hastings’, pp 245-56, English Education, p. 19; Kopf, British Orientalism, Part I; Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry and the Millennium, pp 48-54, 74-6, 82-3, 240-1,245.

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Kopf, British Orientalism, pp 29-30. Sharp, W.H; Selections from Education Records. 22 Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1835). Minutes recorded in the General Department by Thomas Babington Macaulay, law member of the Governor-General’s council, dated February 2, 1835. Karl Marx, (1853). The Future of British Rule in India, Published in New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853. Karl Marx, (1853). The British Rule in India, New York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853. Lynn Zastoupil and Martin Moir (1999). The Great Indian Education Debate; Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781-1843, Curzon Press, Surrey. Marshal, ‘Warren Hastings’, pp245-56, English Education, p. 19;Kopf, British Orientalism, Part I; Rocher, Orientalism, Poetry and the Millennium, pp. 48-54, 74-6, 82-3, 240-1,245.) Nurullah, S. and Naik, J.P., A Students’ History of Education in India, p. 38 D.K. Bishwas (ed.), 1992, The Correspondence Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Vol. I, p. 200, Calcutta. Kopf, British Orientalism, pp. 29-30. Laird, Missionaries and Education, pp. 202,22 (Roy’s role is discussed in detail on pp.199, 203-4); McCully, English Education, pp.40-4; Crawford, Ram Mohan Roy, pp. 119-20. Rama Jois, Human Rights and Indian Values, 1997, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), New Delhi. Macdonell, A.A., A History of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1900), p.39. Macdonell, A.A., A History of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1900), p.39 Mookerji, Radha Kumud; 1998, Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist, (p. 507), Motilal Banarasidas, Delhi Kireet Joshi, The Veda and the Indian Culture, pp. 33-34, Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan, New Delhi, 2003). Foundations of Indian Culture, pp. 116-117. India’s Rebirth, p. 30 Manoj Das (1999). Sri Aurobindo on Education, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), 1999 p. 31. Ibid p 32. Rajagopalachari, C., Rescue Democracy from Money Power, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1978. Makkhan Lal with Rajendra Dixit (2005). Educating to Confuse and Disrupt, India First Foundation, New Delhi, 2005.

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Ministry of Education (1966), Education and National Development – Report of the Education Commission (Kothari Commission), Government of India, Ministry of Education, New Delhi. Dharampal. (2000). Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, Other India Press, Goa, India. Dharampal (1995). The Beautiful Tree, Keerthi Publishing House Private Limited, Coimbatore GOI (1992), National Policy on Education-1986/92, Government of India, Ministry of Human Resources Development, New Delhi. Dr. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religions and Western Thought (pp. 381-82) Value Education; 86th Report of the Standing Committee of the Members of Parliament for the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India, Rajya Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, 1999. NCFSE, 2000 NCERT, (2000), National Curriculum Framework for School Education, National Council for Educational Research and Training, New Delhi. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2006). What can I give you, Foundation for Unity of Religions and Enlightened Citizenship, New Delhi. Palkhivala N.A. (1994). Essential Unity of All Religions, Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, Mumbai. UNESCO, (1996). Leaning: The Treasure Within; Report to the UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, UNESCO Publishing, Paris.

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Dialogue Across Cultures Search for a Methodological Foundation Arvind Sharma

Introduction I would like to begin by referring to a thesis that has been developed over the last decade, associated with the name of Professor Samuel Huntington, which foresees a “clash of civilisations” along the fault lines in the religious and cultural geography of the world, as replacing the old cold war, on the global theatre in the foreseeable future.1 Other scholars, such as Dieter Senghaas, offer a less apocalyptic vision of the future by comparison and place greater confidence in the religions and cultures of the world to regenerate themselves globally without necessarily coming into conflict with one another.2 Thus a dialogue of cultures may be held out as an option to the thesis of the clash of civilisations. Such a view does not replace a star-crossed clash of civilisations scenario with a starry-eyed dialogue of cultures scenario. It is not as if the dialogue of cultures, in some optimistically predetermined way, simply replaces the threat of the clash of civilisations. Rather it is the case that, if I have understood the matter correctly, this dialogue will have to be conducted in a certain way to bring about the desired outcome. For what the grand thesis of the clash of civilisations overlooks is the detail, that due to globalisation the entire globe is also undergoing pluralisation, a process which challenges the monolithic concept of civilisation on which the thesis of the clash of civilisations rests, at least in part. Professor Dieter Senghaas has therefore proposed a reorientation of the intercultural dialogue by focussing on the question: How do different cultural discourses deal with pluralisation? I would like to address the issue from a Hindu perspective and I would like to start by concurring with the view that the cultural essentialism, inherent in the Huntington thesis, needs to be contested, in view of the ‘inner

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differentiation of different cultural discourses regarding the growing pluralism in every society of the globalised world.’ And I would like to bring the Hindu offering to the table as it were—on the nature of its cultural discourse dealing with pluralism, a phenomenon so characteristic of our times, in three parts. The first part will be devoted to outlining the nature of Hindu plural discourse in general. I shall use caste here as the methodological foundation from which to proceed. In the second part I shall identify, and try to correct, what I think is an erroneous conclusion which has been drawn in this regard in the global context by instituting a comparison between India and the West through the category of caste. In the third and last part I would like to identify what I regard as the appropriate extension of the Hindu discourse on pluralism around caste to the global theatre.

Part I In this First Part I would like to speak on the topic of caste and pluralism, especially in relation to Hinduism and India and I would like to begin this part with a citation from the Kûrma Purâna, which runs as follows in Sanskrit: bhâratesu striyah puruso nânâvarnâh prakîrtitâh nanâdevârcane yuktâh nânâkarmâni kurvate3

Now why would I inflict a quotation from an ancient language on your modern ears? There is, however, an overwhelming reason for doing so and the reason has to do with the relevance of the verse just cited to our present topic, for when translated this verse means: ‘The peoples of India, men as well as women, belong to many castes, worship many divinities and perform many religious rites’.

Right here in this verse, already by the fourth century A.D., we have a clear recognition of the plural context one is wont to associate with India. The verse is rather simple, almost casual, in its observation that the Indian people—both men and women (in a precocious nod to feminism as it were)— belong to many varnas or castes, worship many devas or gods and practise many karmas or rituals and yet this simple statement, I will put it to you, is also profound from the point of view of our topic today. Let me now share

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my reasons for holding such a view on this point with you. (1) First of all, let us consider the expression used for India. India, as you may or may not know, is called Bhârata by Indians. In Sanskrit usage, when one refers to a geographical area, one traditionally refers to it by the name of the people who reside there. Were I to say in Sanskrit “I am going to Germany,” the expression would literally translate as “I am going to the Germans.” Please note the psychological implications of this usage. Germany is an abstract entity; Germans are living tangible beings. It is almost like the difference between pluralism—which by virtue of an ism has already become an abstraction—and plurality, which is also an abstract noun but not as abstracted a noun, as it were, and conveys the sense of a living plurality. This is one point to keep in mind. The other is that the word “Germans” is plural in form, while Germany as an expression of a country consolidates and amalgamates the plurality of the people who compose it. Such an amalgamation is less likely to be subliminally implied when we use the expression Germans, an expression which preserves recognition of the multiplicity of the composite units and prevents it from being over-aggregated in a term such as Germany. I have now arrived by degrees to my point, which is that the very way in which Indians refer to themselves, as Indians and not so much as India as demonstrated by the expression employed in the verse, gives us a head start as it were, in the context of the discussion of pluralism in the ancient Indian context. The second point to note is the direct reference to both men and women. Hinduism has often been accused of being patriarchal or at least endocentric, somewhat in the way we used to use the word “men” in English to include “women.” In English law, the word men was used to refer to both men and women; as a witty lawyer put it, in English law, “he embraces she.” Note that not only does this statement of plurality refer to Indians rather than India, it refers to them as men as well as women—without eliding their biologically settled differences, so celebrated in the French expression— vive la différence. My third point relates to the word nânâ—the Sanskrit word used in the verse for “many.” The word, I submit, is very significant. Other Sanskrit words for “many” exist. Indeed many words for many exist in Sanskrit. One such word is aneka, which literally means “not one,” therefore many. But note that in referring to the many it has already invoked the idea of one. One could argue, in these post-modern times, that a subversively homogenizing semantic tendency lurks under the word aneka, if it posits

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the many as that which is not “one.” The word nânâ steers clear of this semantic trap and in fact serves an opposite end—it is employed when one wants to counter the impression of an implied oneness. For instance, the Hindu school of philosophy called Sânkhya believes that human beings, in the state of liberation, exist as units of pure consciousness. It is easy to see that, from this, one can glide to the assumption that as all these liberated beings consist of pure consciousness, there exists only one homogeneous pure consciousness—which may indeed be identified as the philosophical position of the school of Advaita Vedânta on this point, which is sometimes referred to as ekâtmavâda. But it is not the position of Sânkhya and so, to differentiate its position from that of Advaita, it refers to its own position as that of nânâtmavâda or the doctrine of many (nânâ) and not one âtman or Soul. The word nânâ also possesses another vital implication—that of diversity and not just of plurality. If a particular thing or even a person was cloned and the result was a perfect clone, then we would have plurality of clones without diversity. Now, who wants plurality without diversity, except on a factory assembly line? The word nânâ also tends to freight the word plurality with the implication of diversity. My next point is going to be by far the most important and is going to detain us the longest because it goes to the heart of the theme we are now discussing. It relates to the expression nânâvarna, which conveys the impression that Indians belong to different varnas, a word which may be loosely translated for the time being as “castes.” Simply said then- Indians belong to many castes, just as they worship many gods and perform many rituals. Things are, however, soon going to get complicated. But in order to keep them as clear as possible let me begin by citing the remarks of Professor A.L. Basham on the word caste. In his celebrated book, The Wonder that Was India, he writes as follows in the chapter entitled: “Society.” I quote him now: “In the whole of this chapter we have hardly used the word which in most minds is most strongly connected with the Hindu social order. When the Portuguese came to India in the 16th century they found the Hindu community divided into many separate groups, which they called castas, meaning tribes, clans or families. The name stuck, and became the usual word for the Hindu social group. In attempting to account for the remarkable proliferation of castes in 18th and 19th century India, authorities credulously accepted the traditional view that by a process of intermarriage and subdivision the 3,000 or more castes of modern India had evolved from the four primitive classes, and the term ‘caste’ was applied indiscriminately to

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both varna or class, and jâti or caste proper. This is a false terminology; castes rise and fall in the social scale, and old castes die out and new ones are formed, but the four great classes are stable. They are never more or less than four, and for over 2,000 years their order of precedence has not altered. All ancient Indian sources make a sharp distinction between the two terms; varna is much referred to, but jâti very little and when it does appear in literature it does not always imply the comparatively rigid and exclusive social groups of later times. If caste is defined as a system of groups within the class, which are normally endogamous, commensal and craft-exclusive, we have no real evidence of its existence until comparatively late times”.4

This passage sets three words in play in relation to what is commonly known as India’s caste system: varna, jâti and “caste.” Let us take the word ‘caste’ first. It is used to refer to a group within which one dines and marries and which follows a craft exclusively. In other words, it is a kind of cross between the English club and a medieval guild. This is the sense in which the word is most usually understood and in this sense ‘caste’ dates from relatively late times, or as Basham puts it, “late medieval times,”5 say, the sixteenth century. Next, consider the word Jati. The word literally means a group one is born into. As a word it appears after the word varna in point of time within Hindu literature. For an insight into the relation between these two terms— varna and jâti—one may turn to the Manusmriti, an authoritative Hindu law-book. It was among the earliest Sanskrit texts to be translated into English and is usually assigned to the second century A.D. This text refers to about “fifty different” jâtis as against the four varnas and significantly from our point of view, in one verse (X.31) confuses (or con-fuses) the two terms. The word “jâti,” as Basham noted, is not much referred to in literature and “when it does appear in literature it does not always imply the comparatively rigid and exclusive social groups of later times.”6 Next the word varna, which appears early in literature and is constantly attested to. Very briefly then the three words varna, jâti and “caste” denote three broad movements in India’s social history. The word varna represents the earliest and the most flexible stage, when the caste system may have been close in practice to what it is meant to be in theory—that is, a functional division of society, for, as A.L. Basham states, “the fourfold division (into varna) was in theory functional.”7 By the seventh century the jâti divisions begin to take over. Note that in

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the classical period these jâtis were explained as emerging from the intermarriage of the four varnas. Later on, each jâti came to be assigned to one of the varnas. That is, in theory, every jâti was now conceived as belonging to a varna, whereas earlier it was primarily conceived as arising out of marriages among them. This shift in connotation seems to indicate that the jâtis had now become the primary units of social life. By the seventeenth century “caste,” as we know it now, takes over. One might say, in shorthand, that varna gets jatified and jâtis get casteified, with the passage of time.

Part II This attempt on my part in guiding you through these convolutions in the development of the caste system has an underlying purpose behind it, which is to test a view quite popular nowadays—that Hindu tolerance of religious plurality is predicated on Hindu social intolerance as epitomized by the caste system. That is to say, there is a trade-off, as it were, between tolerance in thought and tolerance in social life. It is then argued that Hinduism could be free-wheelingly tolerant in terms of worship because Hinduism was socially intolerant. The West may provide an opposite example, which yet supports the thesis. Throughout its history the West, it is then claimed, has tended to be rigid, to the point of being intolerant, in religious matters, but conversely, and by contrast with India, more egalitarian in social life. The verse from the Kûrma Purâna, which I cited earlier, does not seem to support this view. It seems to look upon the various diversities in terms of communities, divinities and rituals as the combined expression of a more general and diffuse plural ethos—no trade-offs here, if anything, mutual reinforcement. If we take the attitude embodied in this verse as representative of Hindu thought then it would implicitly challenge the modern view I just outlined. From the point of view of the verse, the different varnas are a component of a general Hindu plural world-view and not a cause or effect of it. I would like to resist the idea, on the basis of this verse, that Hindu religious tolerance represents a balancing act between religious egalitarianism and social inegalitarianism as a high-wire trapeze performance of the Indian cultural circus. I would like to maintain–specially in view of the fact that the same attitude of religious tolerance characterizes Hindu thought even as different notions of caste mutate from varna to jâti, to “caste” proper or improper, over the same period of Hindu history over which Hindu tolerance remains the same– that Hindu religious tolerance is an independent variable.

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Thus the significance of an East-West comparison may not lie in the antithesis between India and the West in the trade-off between religious and social freedom but elsewhere.

Part III I would now like to take the first steps towards instituting what for me constitutes the proper comparison between India and the West on the point of caste. Fundamental to what I will be saying is the understanding that the membership of one’s caste is closely tied to one’s birth, that basically one is born into a caste. It is possible to overstate this point as there is considerable evidence that conduct was regarded as the determinant of one’s caste rather than birth, at least in some circles and at least at certain times. Moreover, one could lose one’s caste, a fact which weakens the connection with birth. Similarly, at certain times and under certain circumstances one’s castes could change. However, when the caste system emerges in our modern consciousness and enters modern cultural discourse, it does so as a system tied to birth. Social stratification in some form or another characterizes all societies, so there has to be some feature which sets the caste system apart from these other forms of social stratification—and that factor, it is claimed, is birthascription, at least for the modern mind. So this is where I would like to begin, with birth ascription. If the raison d’être of caste is birth-ascription, I would like to ask the following question to advance the discussion: Which cultural (as distinguished from natural) dimension of human existence in the West is defined by birth?8 The answer is evident: nationality. In the West one’s national citizenship is just as firmly based on birth as caste is. This concept is almost religious binding. Couples from Hong Kong have been known to travel to Canada, with the wife in an advanced stage of pregnancy, so that their child could be born in Canada. The child is then a natural born citizen of Canada, who can, upon reaching the designated age, sponsor his or her own parents as immigrants! Birth-ascribed nationality can make a child “the father of man” in a way Wordsworth could not imagine. It is worth noting that a child born to U.S. citizens in the United Kingdom is automatically a British citizen, even if the parents are not entitled to hold British passports. Such is the miracle of birth in modern polity. Although citizenship can be acquired, birth still has priority, as demonstrated by the fact that it constitutes an eligibility requirement for the U.S. presidency. Note that the place of birth, then, defines a political space.

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A citizen of a country is likely to marry a citizen of the same country and is likely to mix primarily, although not exclusively, with fellow-citizens of that country when overseas. In other words, the circle of connubium and commensality tends to be constituted by one’s nationality, just as in the case of caste. To a lesser extent, one’s predilection toward a certain careerorientation is often associated with nationality, as revealed by expressions such as Yankee ingenuity, German technology, British diplomacy, etc. Nationality thus provides the proper analogue for caste with this important difference: the place of birth, in terms of caste, constitutes a social space. We shall return to this important distinction between political and social space, but first let us consider some similarities. Notwithstanding the hierarchy among castes, all are equal within a caste. There is perfect democracy, and one is even judged by one’s peers. Caste also constitutes one’s social security net, just as the nation, with its social services, constitutes a citizens’ safety net. Indians have no social security number; they have their caste. A conclusion emerges in that both citizenship and caste membership are determined by birth, although differences develop when this shared starting point diverges in terms of society or polity. When applied politically, it gives rise to the nation-state. In both Indian and Western societies, the principle of birth determination was applied at a particular point in time. This point is unknown in the case of India. In the West it is said to follow the Reformation. The application of the principle produced comparable results, in keeping with the respective social and political idioms in terms of which the scenario unfolded. Being stateless and being casteless are comparable misfortunes. The emergence of India as a nation provides an important illustration. To begin with, the virtual absence in the Hindu psyche of the concept of the nation-state has often been remarked. However, when large numbers of people are organized as a society in terms of caste, many of the functions of a state come to be handled socially. Such functions include, to some extent, even aspects of the administration of justice. Empires rise and fall; society continues, as it has in India, whence follows the inadequate politicisation of a people, from a modern point of view, and the weakness of national feeling. This is one point; the other is that, while politically organized groups are involved in an external hierarchy of nations, socially organized groups based on caste are involved in an internal hierarchy. The former is fluid, and the latter is more or less fixed, at least in broad terms and for longer periods than the political hegemony of nations. Third, the direct relationship between the citizen and the state is mediated by a caste in societies organized by

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caste. In India today the competing ideal of a nation has been placed alongside caste, although both are based on birth. The government is attempting to convert all Indians into one caste: the Indian caste, as it were. India is caught, then, in the shift from “society” to “polity.” Inasmuch as the latter form of organisation is very different from the former, India seems adrift. However, inasmuch as both are based on birth, India possesses a “home ground” advantage. In cases of both caste system and nation-state, the scale has created the phenomenon, and the basis of the phenomenon in both cases is birth ascription. This example, we hope, illustrates that when the principles of otherwise apparently antithetical plural systems are uncovered, a radical revisioning becomes possible. In order to proceed with this revisioning I would like to introduce the word casteism at this point—to refer to socio-political phenomenon based on birth (gender excluded). From such a point of view the Indian castes and the Western nation-states, both represent two manifestations of casteism, one vertical, the other horizontal. Western casteism follows the vertical model, where different nation-states are stacked up side by side in distinct geographical areas, with membership based on birth. In the case of India these “nations” or castes are horizontally spread out all over India, in layers, which were vertical in the case of the Western example, but are now horizontal as several layers occupy the same geographical region in the case of India. Now the question arises: what significance does this insight possess in the context of pluralism? One should begin by noting that both are manifestations as well as denials of pluralism and involve subtle compulsion rather than open choice, by being based on birth. One can’t normally change one’s caste or citizenship. At this point I would like to ask: Why not? As an individual, as a human being, as a member of a global community, I should be able to belong to any caste or let us say, community and any country. In other words, casteism must be abolished in all its forms. The implication is radical and inescapable—we should be able to move as freely from one country to another, as from one job or community to another within a country. A casteless society in India and a world sans frontiers are on the surface two distinct challenges. Our analysis has shown that they are radically similar as issues to be faced by a global plural society, so that in the end we must move in the direction of a casteless India in a casteless world.

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References 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Dieter Senghass, The Clash Within Civilisations: Coming to Terms With Cultural Conflict (London: Routledge, 1998). Also see Henrik Schmiegelow, ed., Preventing the Clash of Civilisations: A Peace Strategy for the Twenty-First Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999). S. Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (New York: Macmillan, 1927) p. 12. A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (New Delhi: Rupa, 1999 [1967]) p. 148. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 136. This section draws upon the analysis presented in Arvind Sharma, Hinduism and Human Rights: A Conceptual Approach (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003) pp. 63-64.

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Towards Civilisational Harmony Kireet Joshi I It is significant that United Nations and UNESCO have underlined the theme of unity and diversity of humankind. It is also significant that recently, United Nations under its General Assembly Resolution concerning global agenda of dialogue among civilisations has emphasised that “a common humanity unties all civilisations and allows for the celebration of the variegated splendour of the highest attainment of this civilisational diversity.” These affirmations impel us to conceive a progressive path that can lead us to a union of humankind that permits and enhances free diversity, and consequently, forms the basis of a durable civilisational harmony. Civilisation may be defined as the state of society, which is governed, policed, organised, educated, and possessed of knowledge and appliances. Civilisation transcends barbarism and philistinism precisely because it promotes education, science and ethical and spiritual values. Civilisation is that evolved state of society in which there is not only a sufficient social and economic organisation but also the activity of the mental life which seeks to cultivate knowledge for its own sake; it also seeks to infuse knowledge in all aspects of physical, economic, social, scientific, philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic life. The fact that humanity has developed varied systems of civilisation and that there has been celebration of unity and diversity among humankind is perhaps an achievement that we prize most and cherish most. And yet, the clash of civilisations and cultures has increasingly been recognised as a central issue of the contemporary world. This clash has for its setting the irreversible globalisation of the world. The world has grown global; and even though global consciousness has not seized humanity, the ideal of human unity has begun to figure largely among the determining forces of the future. The scientific discoveries have made our planet so

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small that civilisations and cultures cannot grow in isolation from each other. At the same time, the angularities and the sharp edges of civilisations and cultures are now openly in battle with each other. And the Time-Spirit demands that these battles are worked out in a new way. Dialogue among civilisations is emerging today as a new paradigm in international and intercultural relations. But in order that this new paradigm gets firmly established, it should be made clear that a true and sincere dialogue aims at tolerance; but even this is not enough. It must aim at understanding – understanding of the otherness of the other and of the necessity of that otherness; it must go farther and aim at mutual respect. The new culture of dialogue needs to encourage respect of other ways of thinking, and respect of values and experiences other than one’s own. This respect contains a sense of humility to learn from what is different and even to wish that what is different is a valuable element in total enrichment. In India, we have the tradition of respecting swabhava and swadharma of each one, each one’s nature and each one’s law of development; it is even suggested that while one should adhere to one’s own unique nature and law of development, one must wish and promote in everybody else adherence to his or her own intrinsic nature and law of development. The time has come when this noble lesson of Indian culture can be shared by the whole world for its application. Dialogue must aim at knowledge; dialogue must seek the knowledge of what is common in all, and where exactly differences lie and how those differences can be fostered for purposes of enrichment of unity. Dialogue must aim at excluding exclusivism and it must promote inclusiveness. And yet inclusiveness should avoid the mistake of imposing uniformity in the world. Even the world culture, which is being generated today under the forces of international interchange, should not be allowed to be a worldwide expansion of one culture; our path should be directed towards the blending of many cultures worldwide, a blending that benefits from the wealth of diversity created over time throughout the entire world. And yet, it must be admitted that the contemporary trends in globalisation do not seem to be favourable to this path. II Four factors have combined together to generate the present phenomenon of globalisation. Firstly, there is the amazing triumph of science and technology which have been applied on a large scale to the production of

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services and goods and their transportation across the globe. Secondly, social, political, commercial and industrial institutions have tended towards standardisation, mechanisation and even dehumanisation in the processes of management, governance and even in human relationship. Thirdly, there has been a grim battle between the ideals of capitalism, socialism and consumerism which stands today at a point of disequilibrium that tilts heavily towards privatisation and capitalistic forces that favour the growth of multinationals and expansion of markets that promote multiplication of physical and vital wants, motivations of economic security, competitive methods of enrichment, and profit-making. And, fourthly, science and philosophy, the two great magnets that uplift the powers of reason towards greater heights of truth, beauty and goodness, have tended towards the denials that emerge from materialism resulting in refusals to inquire into claims of ethical and spiritual domains. The general climate that rules the globe today is that of the pull of humanity downward towards the confinement to the demands of the physical and vital life. In terms of the history of civilisation, humankind is turning more and more decisively and globally, not only towards philistinism but even a kind of barbarism where the barbarian can roam about the world taking full advantages of civilisation that has been created so far by the past achievements of culture of reason, ethics, aesthetics and religious and spiritual pursuits. This is a kind of invasion of barbarism that aims at its own physical stability in what seems to be a hostile world. In the past, history has witnessed the floods of the overpowering invasions of barbarism that have devastated the cultures that had reached some kind of climatic points of achievements. In the present stage of history, on account of the fact that science has reached such a triumph of knowledge that the invasion of the barbarians from outside, except in terms of terrorism and allied forms, may become impossible. But the point of greatest concern is the invasion of the barbarian from within, from the circle of civilised world itself. And this peril — the peril of the monstrous barbarian controlling the civilised world on a global scale — needs to be combated if the future is to be saved from the suffocations and sufferings that afflict the inner spirit when it is denied its natural upward surge towards its cultural fulfilment. Indeed, there are behind the contemporary globalisation higher and nobler motives at work, the most important of which is the drive towards the fulfilment of the dream of humanity to arrive at a form of organisation that would foster united family of humanity in a state of perpetual progress,

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prosperity and multilayered happiness that comes from constant ascension from height to greater heights. These nobler and higher motives that have inspired the ideal of human unity and brought about the birth of noble and momentous institutions such as those of United Nations and its international agencies do not, however, seem to be strong enough to meet the present perilous situation that confronts us today. We need to study the reasons for this so that we may arrive at better propositions of solutions than what have been offered to us so far.

III We have to examine a deeper question of human consciousness which is triangular in character and which manifests conflicting tendencies of rationality, ethicality and aestheticity with some kind of exclusiveness. History has given us examples of the conflict between ethical culture and aesthetic culture, illustrated forcefully in the conflict between Sparta and Athens; and in modern times we observe a sharp global conflict between rationalistic cultures on the one hand, and the ethical and aesthetic cultures, on the other. In fact, in our difficult times, the rationalistic tendency has become so predominant that art is increasingly looked upon as a matter of pastime or a kind of decoration for sensuous satisfaction, and the conflict between science and values has come to a sharp collision. A greater difficulty has arisen on account of the latest trends in the field of rational thought, particularly with the development of the philosophy of postmodernism. Postmodernism is a signal of the end of confidence in objective or scientific truth as also in Utopian visions of perfection, and it signals the denial of any fixed reality and truth or fact to be the object of inquiry. In a sense, it is an end of the curve of Reason which began its ascent five hundred years ago all over the world of multisided questioning and inquiry and ushered in the hope of establishing by means of rational and scientific methods a new world of liberty, equality and fraternity. Great achievements have been registered during these five hundred years, but it has become clear that rationality can never deliver infallibility and possession of knowledge on the grounds of which the fond hopes of Reason can be realised. Postmodernism can be looked upon as a seal of certainty on the uncertainties of the adventures of Reason. Where does humanity proceed from here? Is postmodernism a stage of equilibrium? Or is it not a call to rest in

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disequilibrium? At the best, it is an invitation to a quest and to a state of humility to seek, to build temporary edifices of structures of knowledge and society, knowing very well that they can be no more than makeshifts through which we may hopelessly hope to manage to live and survive but never to arrive. But will this arrest the movements and invasions of certainties of instincts and impulses of the infra-rational, on the one hand, and the movements and invasions of certainties of religious beliefs that claim to be derived from the supra-rational, on the other? Postmodernistic rationality will be found, it appears, too, weak to prevent these two invasions, and considering that globalisation is irreversible, it is not difficult to envisage that the global age will witness a critical struggle between the infra-rational forces and the forces that will claim the right to prevail on real or supposed guarantees of the supra-rational.

IV During the course of this struggle, there is a possibility that the human mind may seek refuge in a return to the religious idea and a society governed and sanctioned by religion. It may be argued that postmodernism will weaken the power of religions and that, in any case, in the sharp struggle that is likely to be waged between science and religion, the influence of religion over humanity will decline. It is true that the relevance of religions has been greatly changing during the last five hundred years during which humanity has been passing through various phases of scepticism, and even today religion or religions have no answer to the scientific demand for public demonstrability of the validity of the claims of the truths that they have proclaimed. That this demand of science has come to occupy a nervecentre of the latest trends in epistemology implies a challenge that can be met only by a very great effort, which is likely to occupy all defenders of religions, particularly when, in the context of globalisation, the plurality of religions will impel sharp conflicts among religions themselves. The shield of dogmatism which has long remained a powerful armour against rationalistic questioning will be found now vulnerable where one dogma will be required to defend against another dogma. If each religion insists on the authority of its own revelation and its dogmatic assertion, how can the conflict be resolved? Thinkers like Hick and Cottingham have in recent decades endeavoured to answer this question. According to Hick, the truth-claims of religions need to be subordinated to

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the wider realisations that the truth of religions or spiritual systems is inexpressible, and therefore cannot be brought into the field of debate where articulate formulation is indispensable. In this light, adherents of different religions need not quarrel, and acceptance of the available formulations need not be insisted upon, but can be left to the cultural climate to which one is familiar for acceptance, realising, however, that basically the truths of religion and spiritual experience are fundamentally ineffable. But this solution is hardly likely to satisfy the adherents of different religions. The issue is much more fundamental. Even the thinker like Cottingham, in his recent work The Spiritual Dimension, has admitted the inadequacy of this solution and tried to find some better solution. He admits that salvation of the human soul cannot and need not be tied up with a banner of a religion on which it is supposed to fly out in its return to its ultimate destined place, and there is no alternative to the development of the sense of toleration among all religions. But even then, he admits that religions do claim superiority of the truths that they proclaim; at the same time, since their claims cannot be examined as they are all based on revelations, and since each one claims finality to its own respective revelations, some other criteria for determining their veracity have to be found. The solution that he suggests is to judge the validity of a given revelation in terms of its power to infuse in the adherents inspiration to cultivate higher and higher degrees of morality culminating in the ideal morality proposed by Aristotle who defined Virtue as a mean between two excesses. He also suggests another criterion. Which religious doctrine guides the adherents better and better in arriving at the highest possible integration? And by integration, he means the kind of integration that Jung and others have advocated, so that the collective subconscious and the individual conscious can attain integration and balance by the discovery of a deeper integrating centre in the human personality. It will be evident that neither the criteria of moral excellence nor of integration will be able to resolve the problem. Each religion claims to provide the best possible ethical inspiration and each religion, if pressed, will suggest that its own method of integration is the best method.

V If religions cannot resolve their conflicts among themselves, we shall have to fall back on the state of crisis that humanity is confronted with today. On the one hand, there is a force that is striving to assert the powers of the

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infra-rational which are likely to develop new forms of barbarism within the civilised state of society. For it is possible to utilise the present scientific and technical knowledge to create an order of existence in which physical and vital wants of the human beings can greatly, if not fully, be satisfied, and this order of existence can be maintained by mechanical devices and application of the power of machines that can imprison the human spirit. It can be said that the latest trends of competitive individualism and capitalism as also of materialistic communism are likely to nourish the modern economic barbarism, unless some radical changes occur in the ideals of Capitalism and Communism. On the other hand, there is likely to be still a new lease of life for the scientific and philosophical or anthropological rationalism; postmodernism may be overpassed, and new avenues of rationalism may come to develop. Rationalism may come to drop its dogmatism that binds it to assume that only the sensible is intelligible. But these developments will take time, and, in the meantime, intellectual though can only hope at the best to continue to spin larger or narrower circles of dreams but will never be able to fulfil them. There is, of course, a third alternative in which the human being consents to rise to higher levels than those of Reason and of Religions and consents to be spiritualised under the illuminating light of living spiritual experiences and realisations. The question, therefore, is whether the human being will choose to remain arrested in some kind of intermediary typal perfection of economic barbarism like earlier animal kinds or whether the human being will consent to rise to higher levels of illumination and spiritual realisations that transcend the limitations of dogmatic religions. That the choice has to be made by humanity during this emerging global age will be found to be an imperative, and this imperativeness creates a state of crisis, particularly because the choice to pursue higher levels of illumined spiritual realisation is not only difficult but appears to be at first almost impossible.

VI Sri Aurobindo, the foremost philosopher, mystic and pioneer of the new world, has, therefore, designated the present crisis as an evolutionary crisis, since the higher choice that is available to humanity requires on the part of humanity or at least on the part of the leading portion of humanity to make an evolutionary choice, — a choice that would require a process of transition and evolution from mental consciousness to supramental consciousness. Indeed, religions can play a crucial role, provided they arrive at a very

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important point of agreement among themselves. Can religions agree to exclude exclusivism? This is the central question for religions and societies in the twenty first century. Admittedly, the issue is perhaps the hardest among all the issues of the contemporary world. But the conditions of the contemporary world demand from religions a new critical research, a new critique of Reason and Revelation and a more comprehensive opening to enriching understanding and more ennobling and more integral spiritual experience. At one time, it was believed that revelations were special gifts of Prophets and Founders of religions and that therefore they could not be subjected to any scrutiny. Happily, however, in recent times there is increasing acknowledgement of Yoga, which lays down methods of cultivating powers of revelation, inspiration and intuition, and the resulting knowledge can be tested on the anvil of repetition and confirmation and even modification by the employment of the same methods and arriving at the same predicted results. Thus, as we begin the 21st century, the promise of yoga as scientific method of the knowledge opens out the possibilities of a new turning-point in the climate of the global world. The Philosophy of Yoga seems to be a promising possibility as the philosophy of the emerging global age. Already, in the statements of the advanced yogins of the world, there is the affirmation of harmony among the revelations of Christ, Krishna and Buddha, and they found no difficulty in embracing them and many others who have left in the human heritage the messages of their revelations. It is contended that it is possible to rise to higher levels of consciousness, and as there is a wise counsel to be as perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect, it is possible to dwell in higher and higher levels of consciousness in which all conflicts are transcended. And where is the limit of the heights of consciousness, once the gates of Yoga are opened? Sri Aurobindo conceives of the possibility and inevitability not of ascending to the supramental levels of consciousness but even of such radical transformation of the human body by the descent of the supramental consciousness on the earth that it could even satisfy the demands of science to have public demonstrability of the claims of the truths of supramental consciousness. That would, indeed, mean an eventual harmony and synthesis of science and spirituality. VII But in the meantime, one cannot minimise the gravity of the crisis, and the necessity of the seriousness and sincerity on the part of humanity to confront

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the crisis with full sense of responsibility to itself and to posterity. We are living today at once in the best of times and in the worst of times. Ours is the best time because at no time in the world history, men and women have aspired for human unity as ardently and as comprehensively as today. The fact that the combined will of the people of the world has produced the agency of the United Nations to prevent war, to maintain peace and to subserve the goal of universal solidarity, is a concrete proof of the fact that we are living at a very propitious moment. And yet, we find humanity gravitating downward, in spite of tremendous scientific advances — or else because of these very advances, which have provided ready means to gratify and multiply material pleasures — into a state of arrestation from where higher aspiration can easily be exiled. We are threatened by the possibility of nuclear bombardment at the hands of some capricious will and of collapse of the environmental protection; we are threatened by the spread of diseases, which destroy the principle of life itself; we are threatened by the possibility of misuse of biological engineering, which can create monsters or anti-human species, perhaps much worse than dinosaurs; we are threatened by the warming of the earth; and we find ourselves in the grip of acute accumulation of inertia, on the one hand, and uncontrolled passions of competition and search for the gratification of undying hunger, on the other. This is the proof that we are living today in the worst of times. This battle between the best and the worst can triumphantly be settled in favour of the best if three wise counsels prevail: 1.

2.

3.

That humanity rises in maturity so as to make the right use of scientific discoveries and inventions in order that they are not utilised in the service of the lower impulses but for raising the heights of cultural life; That the nations of the world cooperate with each other in assuring environmental protection and raising the standard of life even of the least developed countries; and That human beings become global in their consciousness so as to generate genuine goodwill and sense of universal brotherhood.

It is fortunate that in the advanced thought of the world, these three things are being advocated, but the voice of this advocacy is rather shrill and it is hardly heard by those who matter. The real difficulty is that these three things demand a radical change in human nature, and humanity does not seem to be prepared to respond to the demands of this change.

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As far back as 1967, U. Thant, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations Organisation, had stated the need for this change. He had declared: That a fraction of the amounts that are going to be spent in 1967 on arms could finance economic, social, national and world programmes to an extent so far unimaginable is a notion within the grasp of the man in the street. Men, if they unite, are now capable of foreseeing and, to a certain point, determining the future of human development. This, however, is possible if we stop fearing and harassing one another and if together we accept, welcome and prepare the changes that must inevitably take place. If this means a change in human nature, well, it is high time we worked for it, what must surely change is certain political attitudes and habits man has.¹

In clear terms, the solution lies in creating a new psychology that is able to sustain interrelationship between nations which does not allow freedom to lapse into egoism, sense of rivalry, sense of division. Freedom must be wedded to the sense of mutuality and interdependent sharing of the contributions that each nation would bring into the common pool of richness of culture. This necessarily implies an inner change. Once again, we come back to the issue of unlocking the spiritual light and force, which lies latent in all of us, and which alone can bring about the needed inner change.

VIII Two ideas have become prominent in our times, and if they are rightly fostered by humanity, we can arrive at universal solidarity and durable civilisational harmony that are based upon freedom and mutuality. The first idea is that of internationalism and the second idea is that of the religion of humanity. But both these ideas will require to be more chiselled and much more forged than what they attempt to convey to us today. Mere internationalism may provide a sense of wideness and globality. But unless internationalism comes to acknowledge and practise not only the political ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but also their psychological, ethical and spiritual implications, internationalism may run the risk of falling into the peril of the World-State. The cause of the world union of free nations would then come to be injured. Therefore, we have to integrate internationalism with the religion of humanity. But, again, the religion of humanity must not be construed in the image of a dogmatic, ritualistic and institutional framework

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of any particular creed. Religion of humanity should be conceived in terms of spirituality that transcends the boundaries of institutional religions. Spirituality demands, not adherence to any credal belief, but a living sense of fraternity. It is only when fraternity generates mutual goodwill among human beings and among nations that we can avoid the downward gravitation of unity into uniformity. It is only on the basis of real brotherhood that the ideals of liberty and equality can become united. As Sri Aurobindo points out: Yet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development of the divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil itself in the life of the race.2

IX This will mean a vast movement of civilisational harmony. This movement will look upon every individual as a living soul, and each one would be given the help and the power so as to grow into self-perfection. This movement would give to every individual not only the joy of work but also free leisure to grow inwardly, and lead a simple and beautiful life. Spirituality applied to politics would aim at realising the ideal law of social development. This ideal law would seek the harmony of the individual and the society, of the nation and the constituent groups, and the nations and civilisations amongst themselves. There is no better formulation of the ideal law than that of Sri Aurobindo:

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Thus the law for the individual is to perfect his individuality by free development from within, but to respect and to aid and be aided by the same free development in others. His law is to harmonise his life with the life of the social aggregate and to pour himself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity. The law for the community or nation is equally to perfect its corporate existence by a free development from within, aiding and taking full advantage of that of the individual, but to respect and to aid and be aided by the same free development of other communities and nations. Its law is to harmonise its life with that of the human aggregate and to pour itself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity. The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be ready and not only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity of its individuals and constituent aggregates.3

X The path that lies before us is a difficult path; many might even consider it to be impracticable; many, even if they concede that it is practicable, might not pursue it, since it might seem to be a path that would take extremely long to arrive at success. But we have to consider the fact that humanity has irreversibly become global; civilisations have come in close relationship with each other; and the advantages of globality and of the meeting of civilisations and the disadvantages or conflicts and clashes can be avoided only if we can apply the truth of spiritual knowledge to the difficult issues of unity and freedom. If this path is to be declared impracticable, we shall still need to make experiments on this path before we can scientifically declare it to be impracticable; similarly, to those who may refuse to walk on this path simply because success on that path would be so far off as not to be achievable in their own life time, we have to make an appeal by reminding ourselves that we do not live for ourselves, that we can only sow in our lifetime seeds of trees which can give fruits only to the coming generation. At the same time, who can say that success would not come now? History teaches that unexpected events take place suddenly because of the past accumulation of the forces. We know of revolutions that have swept

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off the obstacles of the past within a relatively short period. We may also find, by means of detailed scrutiny of the revolutions of the past that behind them a spiritual revolution was already taking secret shape. It would not, therefore, seem unreasonable to predict that, considering the critical stage through which we are passing today where no solution that seems to be practicable will ultimately work, there would grow up an increasing number of individuals and even groups with a new urge and resolution to break a new path and to arrive at some fulfilling result rapidly rather than slowly. In any case, for those who see that spiritual solution is the only solution, the only course of action is to pursue that solution resolutely, irrespective of whether we shall attain success in our own lifetime or whether the effort we make today will bear fruit later and benefit the posterity. Let us then conclude that we have no reason to fear to aspire; we have no reason to feel discouraged in determining the spiritual course of action; we have no reason merely to stand and watch — we have every reason to take the staff in our hand and set out for the journey.

References

1. 2. 3.

“La Suisse”, Issue of 1967. Sri Aurobindo: Social and Political Thought, Centenary Edition, Volume 15, pp.546-47. Ibid., pp.63-64.

PART II

It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in selfdestruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family. Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) British historian1 “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future. Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things.” Will Durant (1885-1981) American historian2

Religious Faiths and Modern Civilisations Their Actualized Potential and Propensities to Promote, and to Avoid and Resolve, Conflicts S. Gurumurthy

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 2. A Caveat– West-centric and Western Monologue . . . . . . . . . . 428 3. The Immediate Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 4. The Theological Debate . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5. Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 6. Islam . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494 7. Rules of War in Religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514 8. Monotheism Conflict-Prone? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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9. Modern Western Civilisation and Conflict Promotion and Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552 10. An Epilogue: The Key to Conflict Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558 11. References and Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

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I- Introduction

1. A Prologue– The Key and the soul of this text 1.1.1

History comes back with a vengeance

The undated Human history of conflicts, many believed, had ended with the collapse of communist order. But after deceiving the world into believing for a while that it had written its own obituary, the history came back stunningly as the 20th century was closing. And it came back with a vengeance and opened a chapter of new conflicts – conflicts of such virulent character that seemed a replay of the barbaric models of blood-letting of the forgotten past, on TV screens in the modern world. This deceptive, hide-and-seek game of history, culminating in its vengeful return, has turned world more insecure today than it ever was in the Coldwar days. With clouds of conflicts and war darkening by the day, some thinkers understandably prognosticated the emergence of civilisational conflicts along the faultlines of different faiths and civilisations, ancient and modern.

1.1.2 War on terror – over-simplification of a complex issue The 9/11 Islamic terror attacks on the United States and later against Spain and United Kingdom, leading to the stand off between radical Islam and modern West, popularly known as the “War on Terrorism” – a name given by its proponents – were, and even now are, seen as a symbolic manifestation of that conflict. But, more closely observed, the Islamic terror, which is undirected by any state or systematic force, is anarchic. It has no national address. It just bears an abstract Islamic address. It is mobile and operates through wireless religious connections. It intensifies and extends through the global current of Islamic sentiments and identity that transcend the confines of nation-states. This anarchic conflict is becoming more and more complex as it intensifies, since it is directly and indirectly influenced by the history of the forces and ideas in conflict dating back to several centuries past. Despite this complex, anarchic character of the conflict, the West, whom it targets,

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seems to over-simplify this phenomenon. Result, the conflict that has manifested in the “War on Terrorism” is too narrowly construed by the West, its establishments and intellectuals. Consequently, it has got cast and presented as an issue between modern, freedom-loving, liberal, democratic peoples, societies, and states on the one side and the forces medievalism, fundamentalism and extremism [variously termed as ‘Radical Islam’, ‘Jihadi Islam’, ‘Islamic Terror’ ‘Islamo-fascism’] on the other.

1.1.3 More complex than conflict of the modern vs the medieval But this paper, based on the facts and circumstances it brings out, severely seeks to distance itself this oversimplification. A main theme of this paper is that the present conflict, which is driven by complex mix of different forces and sentiments, cannot be reduced to just a tussle between modernity and medievalism. This is notwithstanding that these elements undoubtedly form an integral part of the whole lot of complex forces involved in today’s global stand off pointing to a clash of civilisations in future. The present discourse based on this reductionism does not seem to comprehend adequately the whole range of ideas, forces and factors underlying the emerging phenomenon. Consequently, the understanding about it and appreciation of it seems compartmental and truncated, and therefore inadequate. For example, many seem to agree on the intense civilisational drift in the present conflict, but not on the content and character of the different civilisational elements involved; nor on what inspires the civilisations in, and to, conflict. For some, it is confrontation between faith-driven civilisations; for a few, it is tussle between the modern and the medieval civilisations; for a few more, it is conflict among pre-modern, modern and post-modern civilisations. So every analysis appropriates the conflict as due to reasons exclusive to its perspective, while, as this paper strives to show, in the present and the emerging conflicts, multitude of causes and complex forces are involved. In view of this disconnect in understanding and appreciation of the causes and forces involved in the conflict, even as the conflict is on and questions are asked about nature of the civilisational forces seen to be in conflict, the debate on both seems to be moving without a clear idea or consensus as to what is conflicting and with what and why.

1.1.4 The conflict is multi-dimensional and complex This paper sees, comprehends and approaches the issues of civilisations

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and the perceived conflicts among them under debate, as multi-dimensional and as a complex mix of diverse current and historical issues and more. It is a cocktail of abstract faiths with divergent concrete interpretations and practices; of differing experiences and evolutions in, and away from, such faiths; of peoples and institutions holding irreconcilable views on modernity and the traditions; of faiths and faithfuls with uncomfortable memories of their past and with equally conflicting eschatological expectations and materialist forecasts about the future; of faiths and their adherents with mutual suspicion amounting even to hate; of the religious and the irreligious with mutually opposing convictions about the purpose of this world and the life on this earth and beyond and not the least, of powerful and dangerous forces ranging from the democratic to the anarchic. It is equally a complex issue of jealous Gods and exclusive religions directly and indirectly inspiring and driving the forces in the conflict and providing the emotional and psychological logistics to lend rigour to it and sustain it. It is made more complex, and even lethal, by highly motivated and equally aggressive persons for whom their emotional ideas of community, religion and God alone matter, not themselves as individuals or their lives. And they are in direct confrontation with an equally motivated, and atomised yet powerful, people organised under modern nation-State, for many of whom individual right and liberty matter more than anything else including even family, with religion and God relegated to only matters of personal belief, if not an anathema, or a wholly irrelevant irritant. Consequently, the conflict that is on, with more in the offing, intimately affects, and is affected by, the theological and secular positions of the faiths and the faithfuls and those without faith involved in the conflict.

1.1.5 Clash between who want to enjoy living and who do not care to die The complexities of the conflict do not seem to end here. The issues discussed in this paper also touch upon domestic and geo-politics of different players in the global arena. It impacts upon, and is impacted by, political models ranging from godless-secularism to monotheistic theocracies. It is , in another perspective, an alloy of domestic and global politics and religions in some situations and of domestic and global politics and secularism in some others. Consequently, this mix is further complicated by the differing stakes of the conflicting forces – with individual rights, democracy, liberalism and modern

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culture at stake for some and with community, traditional culture, religion and God at stake for others. It is also a direct conflict between the pure, even Godless, materialism which provokes the believer and the sacred view, which reacts violently against such provocation. It is a tussle between powerful nations and peoples who love to live and enjoy well on this earth without, or without too much, concern about God or the life beyond, and people who do not care to die in the cause of their God to kill those who, including the provocative materialists, they see as adversaries of their religions for rewards in the life beyond.

1.1.6 Unequal war and warring forces More, unlike the conflicts of faiths and politics known to history, the warring forces are not nations or armies targeting at each other and through conventional war models, even though US is trying to presume and pretend, by invading Afghanistan and later Iraq, that it is a war between nations. It is a new and an utterly anarchic, barbarous and low-cost warfare in which the faithfuls perish, willingly and with pride, to cause massacre of innocent and defenceless victims and inflict high credibility cost on powerful states shaming them as powerless to protect the victims. This barbaric warfare is planned and executed with modern devices by highly motivated radical individuals, who are seen by many of their co-faithfuls as jihadis or soldiers of their faith. And there is no explicit evidence that most of other faithfuls belonging to the faith do not sympathise with, or constructively support the radicals, besides being terrified of them. That not many from within the community of the faithfuls dare to oppose the radicals and take them on openly bears testimony to this apprehension. There is one more angle. The radicals feel not only justified, but motivated, by their faith and therefore target and kill innocent people and non-combatants, whom the state has the duty to protect. And yet the radicals cannot be handled by the affected states by same way, that is, the states cannot kill them in the way they massacre the innocents, because the state has to follow the law and cannot take law into its hands. So while the extremists are not bound by law, the state is, more particularly when it is run democratically. Again the more liberal the democracy, the greater difficulty the state is in to handle the extremists. So, on the disciplines of modern idea of nation-state, the battle on the ground thus is unequal, loaded against the lawful and in favour of the lawless.

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1.1.7 Present terrorists were former allies of the West Yes, the Islamist terror is barbarous. But given the history of the War on Terrorism, a neutral mind may not see this as a fight for any high principle. For, it is the very US and the West, which have declared this war today, that had helped to shape global Islamist philosophy and terror architecture of the Taliban, Islamic religious students motivated to wage religious wars, and those who later founded the Al-Qaeda, and trained and weaponised them in 1980s. This was when association with these forces as allies suited the USWest in their strategy to fight their Coldwar adversary, the Soviets. Today when the very terrorists, whom they had used for their drive against communism in Coldwar days, have begun pursuing what they believe to be the cause of their own God and turned against them, the US and the West have declared a war on them. So no high principles, only the contemporary self-interest of the West, are seen involved in the present War on Terrorism. More. The US-West did not think of declaring any war on terror when the very forces of terror were devastating countries like India. Nor did they, even after the 9/11 terror attack on the US, see Pakistan, which had used Islamist terror on and against India for a long time, as a terror merchant. Instead they saw that main source of terror, Pakistan, as a strategic ally. More, the US was, as part of its Coldwar strategy, constructively and psychologically encouraging the terror against India through the 1980s and even in 1990s. It was aligning with Pakistan which was mothering the Taliban to help the US on the one side and the nurturing the Hizbul Mujahideens and Lashkar-e-toibas to bleed India on the other. This dualism, one rule for self and another for others, exposed the moral hollowness of the War on Terror. The uncomfortable facts are self evident. When the very Islamic terror had been targeting India for decades, it was never recognised by the West and the US as a threat to the world or as a menace to humanity. It acquired that stature in its mind only when it hit the US. So it is not the fault of the neutral minded if they do not see any high principle of fighting terror as a common evil of humanity in the US-led war on terrorism. The West – read the US – would not have encouraged and be-friended the very radical Islam it is now battling against had it seen it as a danger to itself or the modern world later. It only saw it as a highly motivated mercenary to fight for its cause. Even as, by the 9/11 attack, the Islamist terror acquired high stature as a danger in the mind of the West, it equally became a matter of high pride for a large number of Islamist faithfuls thanks to the high stature of the new targets of these forces, namely the US and the West.

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1.1.8 What is truth and what is politically correct Any discourse on such multidimensional phenomenon as the present and emerging conflicts — which involves such complex mix of conflicting convictions and views about Gods, religions, lifestyles, objectives of life, and cultures and which is also a cocktail of conflicting views on politics, society, individual, gender and all else — has to be ruthlessly open about the real thoughts and forces that stimulate and drive the conflict. But, in the discourse today, only that which is politically correct is being mostly said and discussed, thanks to the domestic and geo-political compulsions, regardless of whether it is the truth or the whole truth or not, and, the rest, even if true, is scrupulously avoided in the discourse. Incidentally, this political correctness binds only those who are the targets of the terror and the responsible world, but those who perpetrate violence and terror are not constrained by any such limitation and they say what they have to say and get their constituency emotionally involved in, and support, their cause. Thus the terrorists connect to their constituency by their open and unedited communication. But those who fight them struggle to communicate their true views and are unable to tell the truth for two reasons. One, the proponents of the War on Terrorism are restrained by their own professed values from the use of any politically incorrect idiom to communicate what, in their view, really drives the war. For instance Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of UK has lamented that he could not profess his religious faith which hugely influenced him in his decision to go for the Iraq war because secular Britons viewed religion itself with suspicion[infra]. Two, even otherwise responsible governments cannot speak in the language of the desperadoes nor reply to them in their language or idiom for obvious reasons in a democracy. So, in addition to the imbalance between the lawless waging war on the lawful on the ground, there is also a complex imbalance in the war of words, between the extremists, who want to destroy peace at any cost and the establishment, which wants peace to prevail at all costs.

1.1.9 Needed open discourse on the theological compatibility of different faiths But, without being constrained by the limitations of just what is generally regarded as politically correct, this paper endeavours to understand the basic thoughts and forces at work behind what is apparent and what are the different drives that energise and activate such forces. Being more a plea

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for a discussion to stimulate a truthful discourse on its content, therefore, the content of this paper, in itself, is not a debated position or conclusion. Therefore, in the correct sense, it is a monograph on the most basic issue raised in this paper, namely the theological potentials and propensities of faiths and civilisations to promote, and to avoid and resolve conflicts, that is as yet not discussed freely and openly thanks to the pressure on those responsible, in and outside the establishment, to be politically correct. The intention of this paper is to raise this issue in the public domain for open discourse and debate. For instance, in the case of religions, this paper asserts, with reference to the theological texts of different faiths, that the theologies all faiths do not accept, and, therefore, cannot live with, the other faiths, as some of them reject other faiths and some of them accept other faiths as valid; that some even label other faiths as false and tell their followers to convert the adherents of those faiths to their own faiths. That is why conflicts between the faiths which reject other faiths and other faiths arise.

1.1.10 Intra-Christian secular discourse discriminates against faiths which accept other faiths And on this basis this paper argues that this truth about the critical theological difference between the exclusive and inclusive faiths gets buried in the unchallenged assertion repeatedly made that all religions have the same goals and share the same character and tell their followers similar things; with the result there is no discourse or debate on which theologies have the potentially promote conflicts and which have the potentiality avoid and resolve. This places the faiths which accept other faiths a considerable disadvantage and without a level playing field as compared to the faiths which terms all others as false faiths, particularly when law or governments treat the two totally different categories of faiths as of the same character. Thus, critiquing modernity and democracy as indiscriminate, this paper finds that secularism and liberal democracy ignore and even reject religions as a whole in the public domain, and therefore, do not distinguish between faiths which are compatible with secularism and democracy and faiths which are not compatible with them. But treat them both alike! And on this basis it argues that this truth gets buried again under the politically correct view that secularism has to reject, or stand neutral between, all faiths, regardless of whether a faith accepts other faiths or rejects them; with the result there is no debate on the compatibility or otherwise of religious theologies with

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modern liberal and secular democracies. This is because the current discourse which presumes that all faiths are equal — that is, they are either equally good or equally bad — is an intra-Christian evolution. This discourse is unfamiliar with faiths like the Hindu-Buddhist faiths which theologically accept other faiths as valid and truthful as they themselves are. This view which is unfamiliar with the Hindu-Buddhist faiths places the later category of faiths which accept all faiths constitutionally at a disadvantage and without level playing field in polity as compared to faiths which declare all other faiths as false faiths. That is, based on the current religious and secular discourse, which is an intra-Christian evolution and therefore did not factor in faiths which accept other faiths, democratic and secular constitutions treat two un-equals as equals.

1.1.11 Monotheism is incompatible with liberty and democracy How the theological drift of a faith shapes its approach to its own adherents as a group and towards others outside is, thus, critical for evaluating the compatibility of certain religions and their beliefs to plural and liberal democracy which is today the bench mark of the modern world. It is evident from the developments of the last decade and more that secular democracies have to come to terms with a few fundamental truths about human existence. One, the God phenomenon cannot be ignored or done away with despite all that science and modernity have done to undermine the faith of the peoples in Him. With the result, atheist and rationalist movements anywhere in the world, have been a non-starter. Second, despite the concept of secular and democratic polity striving to reduce faith in God to just the choice of individuals and to the right of individuals to profess or not to profess it, religious faith has not ceased to be a collective affair. This is particularly true of the One Single God phenomenon of Monotheistic faiths. In the monotheistic world, while faithfuls unite in the name of the One Single God, the faithless and the Godless, who are just individuals and also highly individualistic, cannot unite except against the One Single God himself. Human history has shown that it is impossible to wage war against God, whether single or several. And therefore God’s consistent and continued success in collectivising His constituency of faithfuls, the intervention of modernity notwithstanding, is still not matched by any similar successful human effort disconnected from God. This is demonstrably true of the AbrahamicMonotheistic Gods, who command their followers to congregate in the name

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of their faith and God and mobilise themselves in His cause. There is no place for individual right, discretion or even experience in the AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths in their pure and original form. For example there can be – and there are and there were – non-believing Hindus or Hindus, and Hindus like those in Arya Samaj, who reject, idol worship which other Hindus believe in and still call themselves and be regarded Hindus without any one protesting. But there cannot be a Christian or Muslim, who does not believe in the God of his respective religion. A non-Believer can be neither a Christian or a Muslim. More, a Muslim participating in a non-Islamic worship, or a Christian in a non-Christian worship, is classified as an apostate who will receive corporeal punishment. But nothing prevents a Hindu from entering a mosque or church and praying without questioning his own faith or be questioned about it by any one. Actually it can be the other way round. A Christian or a Muslim may not be allowed to enter a Hindu temple, but, Hindu is not commanded not to go to a mosque or church. Again, Islam and Christianity being, by faith and practice, Congregational, and therefore mobilisational, religions, they grant no liberty to their adherents except to follow the course in the sacred texts of both. Even the Protestant revolt in Christendom was not a revolt for religious individualism. It was not against collectivising Christians as a constituency but it was only against the monopoly right of the Christian church to collectivise the Christians. That was why the diverse groups of Protestants also formed their own Churches, but without Vaticanising them. But, given the common task of creating Kingdom of God on this earth, the different Protestant Churches had to start, and did start, efforts to unite themselves through Ecumenical movement to facilitate, in the main, organised evangelicalism and conversion of non-Christians so as to ensure that only Christian religion prevailed on this earth. The Protestant revolution did lead to the formation and secularisation of the Christian states in the West. But the secularisation process was purely intra-Christian and not trans-religious in the sense of including or giving space to non-Christian faiths. It merely restructured the working relation between the Christian state increasingly resting on individualism and the Christian church firmly founded on collectivism – both being Christian and also mutually conflicting in character, therefore needing the intermediation of secularism. Thus, firmly founded on collectivising Congregational agenda that has, as its principal purpose, the divinely ordained programme to convert the whole world to become part of the Christian collective, the religion of Christ, whether of the Orthodox,

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Roman Catholic or Protestant or other variety, continues to retain and emphasise on its collective character. So is the case with the latest version of the Abrahamic-Monotheism, Islam, with an identical agenda, but without a church, which makes its position worse, and not better, than Christianity.

1.1.12 The effect of Contemplative faiths and Congregational faiths It is only in Eastern religions, particularly in the Indian school of religions consisting of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh religions which rested largely on contemplation and emphasised on the inner experience of adherents, individual faith and religious experience generally prevailed over any collective dogma. Any effort to collectivise them was founded on local factors and local traditions and that was non-monolithic and non-hierarchal and certainly never against any, except that the Sikh faith organised itself in self-defence and in defence of Hindus against the Islamic onslaught on both. So Christianity, like Islam, being basically Congregational in its character and programme, the structure of secularism in Christendom, which regards faith as an individual’s choice, is basically flawed because it is based on the totally wrong assumption that faith, particularly Christianity, can be reduced to a matter of personal faith and can be atomised, when it is fundamentally Congregational in character. This reductionism will work only if the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths give up their collective global agenda to turn the world to their respective God’s way. But, they can give up their global agenda only if they refuse to regard themselves as the only true faiths and accept the truth and validity of other faiths. The undeniable truth is that, till that happens, as a concept, secularism will not be compatible with the theologies of both Christianity and Islam and equally, the unmoderated, exclusive theologies of either will not find comfort in secularism. Once a religion is based on collectivising its faithfuls and has an agenda to convert others to make them part of the collective of its faithfuls, its collective character will not allow it to be an individual’s choice and therefore it will never lend itself to religious pluralism which is the test of secularism and democracy. Thus the practise of such religions cannot be a private affair and yet secularism still assumes that Christianity and Islam can be reduced as a private affair of the faithfuls.

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1.1.13 Explosive implications of Monotheistic faiths rejection of other faiths as false What is the implication of the theologies of Islam and Christianity to declare other faiths as false and target and convert their adherents, on the modern world? In one word, what they attempt is no propagation of a faith. It is in substance religious colonisation. A great potential for conflict inheres in that model. It needs some explanation. Given the compulsions of the people world to live in a multi-religious environment from country to country, from place to place and from street to street, it is not what a religion tells about itself to its followers, but what it tells its followers about other faiths and their adherents, that is critical for not only pluralistic and secular democracy but also for harmonious relation between different religions and the faithfuls belonging to them. When the concerns of religion is limited to only guiding its adherents and respects faithfuls belonging to other religions, like for instance, the Indian school of religions do, that is totally compatible with a multi-religious locality, society, nation and the world. But when a religion becomes totally obsessed and concerned about those who are its nonadherents and seeks to bring them into its discipline, like Islam and Christianity are, it sets rules not only for its adherents, but also for non-adherents. For instance, Islam makes classifications of its non-adherents as Kafirs and Zimmis and prescribes varying treatment to them, ranging from slavery to death, unless they accept Islam. Christianity likewise classifies its nonadherents as pagans or heathens and prescribes how the faithful should treat them, which included death, unless they become Christians. Thus, these two Abrahamic Monotheistic faiths, with their global agenda to convert all peoples of the world, are concerned about their non-adherents and thus frame rules for their treatment by the faithfuls. When the non-adherents belong to other faiths, the rules the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths frame for their non-adherents,directly impact on the relation with those faiths Thus, what a religion tell its adherents about those who, belonging to other faiths, are not its adherents is the true test of that faith’s compatibility with other faiths and with plural democracy and secularism. Thus when Islam or Christianity lays down rules for the treatment of those who are not their adherents, clearly the two religions have potential for conflict with other faiths and is also incompatible with plural democracy.

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1.1.14 Potential of faiths and faithfuls to promote and resolve conflicts To pursue this point further is important. Even when a religion preaches respect for all faiths, out of human propensities, its adherents may still not obey the command of the religion and may be or become intolerant of other faiths or their followers. For instance, if a religion, like those in the Indian school of religions does, tells its followers that all religions are valid and what other religions profess is also true, obviously it has no potential for conflict with other faiths; on the contrary, it has conflict-avoidance and conflict-resolution mechanism inbuilt in its very belief system. And yet its followers, driven by human propensity to assert their superiority or the superiority of their faith, may have a tendency to undermine other faiths and clash with their faithfuls. But, this normal human propensity is not legitimate as it does not have the sanction of the faith that declares all other faiths as true; and in addition, such a faith has the potential to restrain its followers from conflicts. So if, for instance, a Hindu or a Buddhist adherent is intolerant to other faiths, that is his individual attitude, not that of the Hindu or Buddhist faith which is doctrinally tolerant, and even accepts other faiths as valid. Therefore, the even-minded within the faith can openly disagree with and control the individuals who promote conflict. But, on the contrary, if a religion itself tells its followers – as the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths tend to do – that what it professes alone is the truth and what other religions speak is false, then such a religion, as a religion, has little potential to avoid conflicts with other faiths and further, the faith itself has the potential and the propensity to promote conflict with other faiths. And that is why, as part of their religious duty, the adherents of Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths endeavour to establish the superiority and inevitability of their faiths and convert others, which is an invitation for conflicts and violence. But if the same faith goes further to tell its adherents, as the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths do, the ways and means to convert and expand the faith, and if well-known leaders of the faith even advocate wars and violence for the purpose, then not only it has the potential to conflict, it also has the propensity to conflict violently. It needs no great pundit to say that the conflict-avoidance and conflict-resolution potential of the faithfuls of a faith cannot exceed that of the faith itself. Consequently, a Hindu, who is intolerant of other faiths, acts against the tenets of his faith; on the contrary a Christian or a Muslim who accepts other faiths as valid he acts contrary to his faith. Even if he tolerates other

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faiths, he is remote from the tenets of his own faith. That is the extent of the difference between faiths which are concerned only with its adherents, and faiths which are obsessed with its non-adherents and lays down rules, intolerant rules, for them.

1.1.15 Intolerant faiths invite reactive intolerance from faiths otherwise tolerant. There is another dimension to this emerging conflict which has not been adequately discoursed and that is, the intolerance of intolerant faiths triggers and breeds reactive intolerance in and from faiths which are otherwise tolerant. The Indian experience is that Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, which are intolerant of other faiths, tend to force the Indian School of religions which are tolerant of other faiths into intolerance, just as an intolerant Christianity forced the Roman Empire into intolerance when Christianity had entered Roman territories. In recent times, this phenomenon of reactive intolerance is spreading in India where the tolerant Indian School of religions interfaces and encounters intolerant Christianity and Islam. Otherwise tolerant of other religions, including those of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic school which are intolerant of the Indian school of religions as a whole, and accepting them all as true, the Indian School of religions, whose tolerance limits have tested repeatedly in history and still remained tolerant, have of late begun reacting to the intolerance of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths. In truth, this is not active intolerance, but reactive intolerance of the other, intolerant faiths. This reaction is, in the perception of some in the Indian School of religions, purely in self-defence, as the two aggressive AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths with a global agenda to convert the faithfuls of others religions are exerting pressure on the tolerance limits of the Indian School of religions and their followers with their programme of proselytising. In the case of Islam in India, its programme had transcended mere proselytising and became political and divisive of the society and the country itself, while this trend in Christianity is limited only to the North-Eastern part of India. These trends are being increasingly resisted by the Indian school of religions, who, in the process of resisting, are also becoming reactive and intolerant of the intolerant elements of Islam and Christianity. The natural human propensity to react and reaction born out of it is regarded by the establishments of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and by even the secular West, as intolerance in the Indian school of faiths. But, in substance and in

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truth, it is only intolerance of the intolerant – a human, not theological, reaction to intolerance. The traces of reactive intolerance that is seen of late in the Indian school of religions is thus their reaction to the intolerance that inheres in the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths. Yet the western intellectuals and many the secular intellectuals in India, tend to see this new phenomenon of reactive intolerance of the intolerant in India as religious fundamentalism of the Indian school of religions. Some even characterise this as Semitcising, that is Abrahamising, Hinduism, while in substance, it is just reactive intolerance and opposition to the fundamentalism of the two faiths. To see such reaction as intolerance and fundamentalism is a distortion as the fundamentals of the Indian schools of religion that promote religious harmony. The reactive intolerance is essentially a human propensity for self defence. The scholarship of secular Indian and Western thinkers on the reactive intolerance betrays the absence of empathy in its understanding of the Indian schools of religions which have no level playing field with the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths. The reality is that if the intolerance, which triggers reactive intolerance disappears, the reactive intolerance also will disappear forthwith. This reactive intolerance is the most proximate reason for the conflict among religions that is seen of late in India which otherwise has had no history of religions conflicts of the kind that the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, peoples and geographies had witnessed.

1.1.15 Conflict Avoidance and Conflict Promotion — Potentials of Faiths and Their Faithfuls In view of the varying potentials and propensities of different faiths, including tolerance faiths developing intolerance because of the intolerance of the intolerant faiths, this paper appeals for, and endeavours to promote, an open discourse on the theological potential and propensity of, or the lack of both in, different faiths to live in harmony with other faiths. In the absence of this frank and open discourse, today an unproven and general assumption prevails almost universally, namely that all faiths seek harmony and good relations with other faiths. In the present discourse, as discussed, the theological potential and propensity of a faith itself for conflict should be distinguished from the potential and propensity of the faithfuls, as human beings, for conflict. If this distinction is made, how the potential of faiths for conflict gets lethal will become self-evident. Suppose, for instance, if some followers of Islam,

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openly assert that the other faiths are false faiths and should have no place on this earth, and if this view finds support in the theology of the faith itself. The other faithfuls within the faith, who would like to underplay this universalistic claim of their faith in modern times, cannot dare object to them, because they will show them the Book which supports them. And this effectively closes the door for generating any internal restraint within the faith, on conflict with other faiths. What is true of Islam here is equally true of the Christian theological position. On the contrary, assuming, in the Indian school of religions, the followers who, out of human propensities, tend to have conflicts with other faiths, will find no support from their faith which accepts all faiths and thus the faith itself moderates the propensity of its adherents to conflict. So the potential and propensity of different faiths to promote, avoid or resolve conflict is a critical factor to assess whether a faith is conflict-prone and therefore are its followers and whether the faith is not, but its followers are, inspite of the faith. Without such a transparent debate there is no scope for evolving a conflict resolution mechanism. An open discourse on such issues, however sensitive, is the key to open the gates for conflict resolution.

1.1.16 Conflict resolution needs input from outside Monotheism In this background, the perceived conflict is, as the paper unfolds later, between the two claimants to conflicting universalism within AbrahamicMonotheistic school in theological and practical terms. In truth, and undeniably the only universal principle in matters of faith is that no one principle can be universal. And every claim for universal validity of any particular thought has been the very origin of conflict and violence. Result, universal religions like Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and ideologies like the erstwhile communism or even the present day comprehensive global interface, have more potential to lead to conflicts than produce solutions. Consequently, any conflict resolution model for the present global stand off, which has deep religious and civilisational implications, has to evolve only, or with extensive input from, outside the Abrahamic-Monotheistic school, that is, mainly from the Eastern faiths, particularly Indian School of religions namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, which are basically compatible, and thus avoid conflict, with other faiths. Yet, the present debate on faiths, civilisations and conflicts is practically monopolised within their paradigm, by and among, the Abrahamic-Monotheists, particularly in Christendom, and their different derivatives including the secular and democratic schools as have evolved

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out of Abrahamic-Monotheistic civilisation. In that sense, as this paper argues, the civilisational debate that is on, is just the monologue of the West and intra-Abrahamic-Monotheistic group of faiths and civilisation. Therefore, this paper sees itself as an endeavour (a) to get at the root of the simmering civilisational conflicts in the Abrahamic Monotheistic world and its consequences to the world in general and the world of faith itself and (b) to expand the scope and reach of the current discourse to involve the nonMonotheistic faiths, ideas and peoples for building an alternative paradigm for evolving a global conflict-resolution model.

1.1.17 Introspection and repentance as the formula for conflict resolution The soul of the conflict-resolution mechanism which this paper seeks to discuss is founded on a simple formula that awakens the noblest values of human beings, that is, introspection and repentance. So, it endeavours to make out a case to call upon global players in different faiths, particularly in the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, who are keen about global peace, to introspect on what in their makes their faiths conflict with other faiths and thus persuade them to reinterpret those conflict-prone aspects of their faiths to remove the potential and propensity of their faiths for conflict and also change their mind and psyche, through proper discourse and dialogue. It also seeks to persuade the modern liberals to introspect on the role of God and religion in the modern world which has to live with, and not discard traditions, and repent for attempting to universalise Godless materialism, secularism and democracy. So there has to be an all round introspection. The rethink on how to move forward has to be founded on the conflict avoidance models of the Eastern/Indian school of religions and other nonconflicting traditions, as within its paradigm as demonstratively evident, the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths do not seem to have a possible solution for the current stand off on the religious front. This paper, therefore, suggests the time-tested mode – of introspection and repentance by different faiths and civilisations, both in respect of the propensity of the faiths for conflict within and among their followers and with others outside – for the resolution of conflicts between faiths and civilisations. It must also be said at this point that while the Abrahamic religions have an uncomfortable record of intolerance within and outside, the Eastern faiths, which have high tolerance outside, have no equally matching reputation for tolerance within their

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hierarchical society in some aspects, thus establishing that a faith may be noble and tolerant to others, but its internal conduct may not be consistent with that. So the Eastern faiths, including the Indian school of religions, would need to introspect on the necessity to increase the tolerance limits within their hierarchical society.

1.1.18 Conflicts with Western beginning to have Indian ending in resolution At the end, the Epilogue of this paper cites two great historians of the 20th century whose profound remarks about the ancient Hindu civilisation are set out as the symbolic key to this paper. The two great scholars have explicitly told the world after studying the history of different faiths and civilisations that the West must learn tolerance from India and that if the world were not to end in the self-destruction of the human race, it must look to Hinduism and India for salvation and guidance. This paper believes that the Indian/Eastern religious-civilisational model which has successfully avoided conflicts of the kind the world is witnessing and which the world has missed out in the past, has the potential for supplying the software key to resolving the conflicts of today and thus it needs to play a global role. But this cannot happen and will not be allowed to happen unless there is introspection by every one involved in the stand off, including the spectators of the conflict today who may be candidates for the conflict in future. Ancient wisdom anywhere in the world teaches that introspection and repentance are powerful remedy for human wrongs. These twin medicines can, and can alone, treat the present disturbed and distorted psyche that is driving the world toward conflict. With this, the journey into a bewildering and complex web of traditional, religious, civilisational, political, modern and secular thoughts, institutions and peoples populating and constituting the world – which, being unable to contain or harmonise the different elements that are driving themselves to self-destruction, is undoubtedly at war with itself – commences.

1.2 Background to the emergence of civilisational paradigm 1.2.1 Fall of communism deceives the West After the Cold war world order collapsed and the communist regimes fell, a sense of victory for what the West believed it had stood for, did, for a while,

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mesmerise the Western world. It deceived many Western thinkers into believing that modern civilisational brands of the West – individual freedom, liberal democracy and capitalist economic model – had finally emerged as the new and unchallenged Gods of the secular human world order for ever in future. In the excitement generated, the Western establishment, by wisdom bestowed by the sudden, favourable turn of events, tended to see the Cold war, in retrospect, as a struggle between democracy and free market on the one hand and dictatorship and communism on the other, and as nothing more. Consequently, the reason for collapse of the Cold war was entirely reduced to the supremacy of democracy and free market. The truth is that the collapse of communism occurred for diverse reasons, including mainly religion, with which Communism had always had an adversarial relation, declaring it as opium of the masses3 that ultimately proved to be its undoing. But, under the toxic effect of the perceived final victory for liberal democracy and market capitalism of the variety and character that autogenously evolved in the historicity and the conditions specific to the West and its peoples, many Western intellectuals gravitated away from the real world and turned Utopian in their prescriptions for the West and for the world in future. It is a fact of history that the West is pre-conditioned by its underlying Geo-Christian mindset that had always tended to universalise the Western experiences, as in religion, in all spheres, for all.4 Consistent with its nature that universalises and prescribes its experience for all, the West began a discourse virtually insisting that its ideas and institutions of liberal democracy and market capitalism which, it believed, had prevailed against communist dictatorship were the model without alternative that was destined to win, which all other peoples of the world, without exception, should aspire to adopt. But the logic on which this discourse was founded needs to be analysed to figure out how practical is the insistence of the West. Francis Fukuyama had estimated that, in the year 1991, about 44% of the global population in 62 countries [that did not include China and Russia] were under democracies and he had estimated this tally to go up to half to two-thirds of the world population should Russia and China democratise.5 But not all these are liberal democracies in the Western sense of the term; many of them are “illiberal” to use the concept of Fareed Zakaria.6 Even assuming Fukuyama’s estimate to be correct, qualitatively and in arithmetic, even now more than half of the human population of World is firmly – some, perhaps, even voluntarily – living under forms of government other than democracy, including in Communist China and under different Islamic regimes. Yet, the

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West insisted that the fall of Communism was the victory for liberal democracy. Consequently the whole post Coldwar discourse – articulating how the West has finally won against the Rest and how, if the Rest has to develop like the West, it is for the Rest to follow the West as the best course – was founded Western experience and its perspectives based on that experience. That was how the package of ideas and institutions of liberal democracy and and market capitalism – read global capitalism – was asserted by thinkers in the West like Francis Fukuyama as the ultimate satisfaction of humanity’s ‘deepest and most fundamental longings’ in what was ‘end of history’ in the Hegelian sense.7 This was, thus, seen as the end of all conflicts and, therefore, history itself. This West-centric global monologue remained unchallenged and un-responded by the Rest or by any one else from the West, in the immediate years after the end of the Cold war. In this exercise, none from the Rest had obviously any say or role, as the shocking turn of events of the dying moments of 1980s had reduced the status of the Rest into a spectator, not a player, in the geo-political and global economic theatre that was monopolised by the West.

1.2.2 Communism felled by democracy? Or by the Pope? The fundamental premise of the post Coldwar discourse of the West was that it was liberal democracy and market capitalism that did down communism. But, was the conclusion that the Cold war collapse was a victory for liberal democracy and market capitalism or the underlying assumption that democracy and free trade brought down communism borne out by facts? In assuming that, in the battle against Communism, it was liberal democracy that won, the Western intellectuals perhaps missed out the role critical played by other and more fundamental sensitivities than liberal democracy in doing down communism. A look at the sequence of events that finally triggered the collapse of the communist order might offer another explanation that may point to – rather than the liberal democratic urge as the underlying drive of the changes – the Christian character of the Polish resurgence for democracy in 1989 and the later Russian resurgence of 1991.8 There are any number of studies and conclusion based on them which would credit Pope John Paul II, who rose in Poland and in the Roman Catholic hierarchy finally to become the Pope, for strategising and executing the fall of Communism in Poland which really started the communist collapse

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elsewhere. Wrote Jane Barnes and Hellen Whitney in John Paul II and the Fall of Communism: “John Paul II’s 1979 trip was the fulcrum of revolution which led to the collapse of Communism.” Timothy Garton Ash put it this way, “Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of Communism.” In fact, Gorbachev himself gave the Kremlin’s long-term enemy this due, “It would have been impossible without the Pope.” It was not just the Pope’s hagiographers who told us that his first pilgrimage was the turning point. Sceptics who felt Wojtyla was never a part of the resistance said everything changed as John Paul II brought his message across country to the Poles. And revolutionaries, jealous of their own, also looked to the trip as the beginning of the end of Soviet rule. It took time; it took the Pope’s support from Rome – some of it financial; it took several more trips in 1983 and 1987. But the flame was lit. It would smoulder and flicker before it burned from one end of Poland to the other. Millions of people spread the revolution, but it began with the Pope’s trip home in 1979. As General Jaruzelski said, “That was the detonator.”9 The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the collapse of the community order and the credibility of the communist philosophy. Thus the rise of Christian consciousness against the communist regimes, particularly in Poland and Germany and its judicious use of the Church by the US and the West in strategising the breakup of the Cold war could well be the principal reasons for the communist collapse. This is not without basis. To assert that the collapse of communism was the joint enterprise of Christian Church and the West, particularly the US, some have gone as far as this. “New revelations, from the horse’s mouth, linking the Pope to the CIA and US foreign policy during the cold war confirm allegations, first made in a 1996 book but dismissed as wild by commentators, that ‘his holiness’ was locked in an anti-communist alliance with American intelligence - an alliance, Muslims are justified to conclude, is now chiefly directed against them, given that Islam has since replaced communism as the west’s principal enemy. The revelations, which come in a BBC documentary, are made by such unassailable insiders as general Vernon Walters, former CIA deputy director, and Richard Allen, president Reagan’s national security adviser, among others. Walters describes how Pope John Paul II was roped in as CIA and white house operative, while Allen hails the collaboration between the Catholic Church’s leader and the genocidal global imperial power as ‘the greatest secret alliance of modern times.”10

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Thus, it could well be asserted that the sustained rise of Christian conciousness in Poland under the guise of democratic movement, powerfully supported by the Roman Catholic Church and by the Western states and establishments, laid the foundation for the turn of events that led to the eventual break up of the Warsaw Pact and collapse of the Berlin Wall. That, in turn, created the conditions that inevitably led to the fall of communism. The power of religions to confront successfully the atheist communism was obviously recognised by the secular West even during the Cold war days. It was realising the potential of religion against an irreligious system, that the West made strategic use of Islamic religious urge against Communism in the Afghan war. And this gave birth to the Taliban and later to Osama bin Laden and the outfit he has created, the Al-Qaeda, which today torments the West, the original benefactor of radical Islamic thrust against communism! One of the reasons why the Communist order collapsed was the weakening of the Soviet Union which was the backbone of the global communist order. And the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was also a reason for the weakening of the USSR and the communist order.11 So, a powerful, if not the sole, inner drive of the battle against communism – which had frozen and driven under the ground the religious sentiments of the people, in the Islamic world and in the communist part of the Christendom – was the brooding religious consciousness of the people in communist societies in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and even in Russia that ultimately detonated the anti-communist upsurge. So the Western intellectual view that liberal democracy and market economics were the new Gods that vanquished the evil of communist dictatorships and socialist world order might well be just presumption without adequate evidence to support it. The more fundamental reason could be that the Christian and also Islamic religious disapproval of Communism and their determination to see its end. It could well be that the religious sentiments and urges of the suppressed people vanquished communism and emerged victorious. The subterranean religious urge obviously found its expression in the more acceptable form of struggle for democratic and human rights, but the emotional drive for the communist collapse seems to have been supplied by religion in the main. Anyway, the tumult caused by the collapse of the communist order lasted only for a brief while and the view that there could be no challenge to the institutions of liberal democracy and market capitalism was equally powerfully challenged by the history returning through violent turn in geo-politics and in the West itself.

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1.2.3 Civilisational paradigm emerges Under the deeper, yet subtle and subterranean, religious, cultural and civilisational influences, the old sentiments – that went and remained underground, having been de-legitimised by, and in, the secular modern West – seemed to reappear and re-manifest in the various political and geo-political developments that took place in Europe particularly after the dawn of the post-Cold war.12 This was partly and implicitly – but with no one explicitly admitting it – caused by, and in response to, the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism in the post-Cold war world. The rise of radical Islam, in particular, compelled some Western scholars to underplay the post-Cold war obsession of the West with liberal democracy and global capitalism as signalling the end of all conflicts and history. That also forced them to turn and seek the answers in religious, cultural and civilisational domain for the question why the history, which was supposed to end, was continuing and even intensifying in conflicts, and particularly conflicts which brought the memories of the barbaric past back. The toxic belief of liberal democracy as the end of history thus began losing its obsessive effect and monopoly value. In other words, the powerful religious and cultural forces with violent character that had dominated the West in medieval times seemed to reappear, but with a more respectable name of civilisational paradigm preferred by the scholars of the West. This respectable brand for the forces of the old times reviving in modern times is perhaps calculated to imply that while arraigned on the other-side are dark forces of religion, on the side of the West it is modern Western civilisation. But this view needs closer look. The modern secular West originates from and through Christian evolution. It had assumed, wrongly, that it had banished these violent forces from its geography and demography in the last two centuries. But secular modernity, which had denied legitimacy to religion in the public domain, also seems to be a cause of the religious revival. Thus faith-motivated and culture-driven civilisational issues have, as thing paper brings out later, come back on play in the US and in the West, and, therefore, on the global, stage. If the civilisational paradigm as a challenge to the West and to the world and as an alternative approach to handling global issues and global relations is being discoursed extensively in the West and elsewhere now, the credit for initiating and forcing this discourse must go to Prof Samuel P. Huntington. Prof Huntington started a stormy debate with his article ‘The Clash of

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Civilisations?’ in the Foreign Affairs journal in summer 1993.13 In his article, which later in the year 1996, he transformed into a best selling book, Prof Huntington asserted that ‘culture and cultural identities which, at the broadest level, are civilisation identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration and conflict in the post-Cold war period’.14 The civilisational paradigm that emerged through late 1980s and early 1990s, but noticed much later, has been only validated by developments, pointed out by Prof Huntington himself in his book. These developments, in a sense peaked in the Islamic terror attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, which was responded to by the West and the US with the declaration of war on terror. The war on terror has so far resulted in two wars by the West against Islamic nations, one in Afghanistan in 2002 and the other in Iraq in 2005, with no hope that there would be no similar wars in future. It does appear that the perceived conflict is between cultures driven by faiths. But, on a more penetrative look, it is as much a conflict between modern West and the Rest of the world. The reasons is that the culture of individualism on which the materialist civilisation of the modern West is founded has, in the last couple of decades turned into a kind of cult of individualism in the West, with freedom turning into licence and undermining all traditional norms including family norms. Consequently, this conflict, which is essentially between the West and the Rest, has its echo in the West also. In the West, even Francis Fukuyama, who celebrated the collapse of communism as the end of history, later began to lament how individualism socially isolates people, and turns them selfish.15 Thus even in the West ‘the bedrock of whose civilisation is individualism’16 there is increasing awareness about how it erodes social values. So it is not a clash of civilisations driven by merely religious faiths. It has a more complex character. Nevertheless, it has a powerful religious drift. So religious and civilisational urges, which were in a state of suspended animation in the last two centuries, have reappeared to drive the world into conflicts in diverse ways and are challenging, from within and without, the cult of materialism and individualism comprehensively promoted by the West. Therefore, it is necessary, in the interest of conflict avoidance and conflict resolution, to understand the recent and current background to the perceived clash of faiths, cultures and civilisations and the role of religious faiths and modern materialism and individualism in triggering the conflicts. But, before analysing the immediate background to the present conflict, this paper presents a caveat as to the west-centric character of the debate and its consequences.

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II- A Caveat- West-Centric and Western Monologue When, after the collapse of the Coldwar, the West was celebrating its final victory over the Rest, it was Samuel Huntington who succeeded in making the West call off its celebrations and look at the new risks which the ‘final victory’ was unfolding, namely, the emergence of the civilisational paradigm, threatening unleash religious and civilisational clashes, and not guarantee peaceful and prosperous politico-economic globalisation as prognosticated. So in a way Huntington is the author of the current Western discourse on civilisation. While the West was growing complacent with its perceived victory and superiority of its civilisation after the fall of communism, Huntington warned the West against insisting on the superiority and universality of the western civilisation and imposing it on the Rest. He warned that such claims would accentuate the possibility of civilisational clashes. Again, eventhough the present discourse on civilisation seems to include all civilisations, it needs no strenuous efforts to confirm that it is intra-Christian and intra-Western in its dialectics. So, it is necessary to bear in mind at the outset that the civilisational discourse that is on today is not inclusive enough to bring within its scope civilisations all over the world, and is exclusive to the western perspective of what civilisation means. The current discourse, which is wholly Western in its content, concerns and character, just pretends to be, and not actually, global discourse. It is just a western monologue, event though claiming to be inclusive and global. How this is just a western monologue would be evident by tracing, briefly, the origins of the present modern civilisation.

2.1 Origins of Western civilisation: Hellenistic-Monotheism to liberal democracy The very concept of civilisation currently in discourse is of recent origin. The idea of civilisation, as understood and discoursed in the world today, is of modern Western anthropological construct. It usage of the term civilisation in the current sense had its beginning in early 19th century.17 Therefore, the evolution of the idea and the current discourse and debate on civilisational conflicts have also been largely, and even understandably, Western in its origin and western anthropological in its character. What is the origin of today’s West and civilisational content become a very relevant issue. Unless the historic origin and subterranean character of the West, in the religious,

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cultural and civilisational sense, are captured, it is not possible to understand, in what sense, has the West comprehended the idea of civilisation. Only then it would become clear as to how the West sees the emerging civilisational clashes today and what is the bias and what are the inadequacies in the Western discourse on civilisation and civilisational clashes. See the anatomy of the Western civilisation. Anything that is Western is a confluence of four historic and modern currents – in religious terms, it is dominantly influenced by Monotheistic Christianity; in cultural sense it is shaped by Hellenism; in social and political terms it is marked by secular democracy; in the economic model it is a product of science, technology and market capitalism. The combination of Monotheism – read Old Testament and Christianity – and Hellenism define the traditional West. The alliance of secular democracy, technology and market Capitalism, which evolved out of the process of Enlightenment constitute the foundation of the Modern West. Says, George Soros, a die-hard capitalist, The Enlightenment did not spring into existence out of nowhere: it has its roots in Christianity, which in turn built on the monotheistic tradition of Old Testament and on Greek Philosophy.18

While the traditions of the West influence the Western approach to other religions and cultures, secular modernity in the West influences the Western attitude both to its own religion and culture and, more importantly, to the religions and cultures of others. Because of this cultural disposition, even atheism in the modern West is a product of the Monotheistic origins and impulses of the West. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica: Because Christianity is a monotheistic religion, the monotheistic conception of the divine has assumed for the Western culture the value of a self-evident axiom. This unquestioned assumption becomes clear when it is realised that for the Western culture, there is no longer an acceptable choice between monotheism and polytheism, but only between monotheism and atheism.19

This stark choice between Monotheism and atheism showed that the influence of monotheism was, and it continues to be, so strong and so penetrative and pervasive, that the West even today will have either The One Christian God or no God at all! That is, the Christian origins of the West will not allow the West the choice of God belonging to any other faith as an alternative

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to the Christian God. As there is no choice of other Gods, the only choice was and still is between the Christian God or godlessness. Again, Christianity which conquered over, evolved in and influenced, the West was not, according to many, the original Christianity which Jesus Christ had preached, but, Hellenised Christianity, that is, a Christianity thoroughly and dominantly influenced by Greek Culture. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: The process of Hellinisation [of Christianity] was not limited to just dogma but included other aspects of church activities – e.g., liturgy, politics, mysticism, and ecclesiastical art, symbolism, and iconography. Late Judaism, like Christianity, had gone through an extensive process of Hellenisation.... . The process of Hellinisation was achieved in a powerful and dramatic dialectic. After the victory of Christianity as the state church in the Roman Empire, pagan academies were closed in connection with the tumultuous destruction of pagan temples, and the leaders of pagan schools of Athens, Alexandria, Antioch moved to Syria and Persia. Invasions by German tribes continuing in the 5th century, also led to a reduced pagan [Hellenistic] educational system in the West.20

So, Christianity in the West became a cocktail of aggressive religious Monotheism and culturally aggressive Hellenism. This defines the traditional West. The modern West and the concept of modern nation state which evolved in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries too were an extended sequence of the traditional West. And the later developments like gradual democratisation and secularisation of the state and the society also constituted a continuous process of revolution-cum-evolution within the Christendom. So was the advent of colonialism and the transformation of colonialism into capitalism, with socialism and Communism evolving later as a reaction. These were part of the processes of action and reaction within the West. The evolution of the modern nation-state in Europe was preceded by the collapse of the medieval ideal of a universal world state of Christianity. Henry Kissinger writes, What historians describe today as the European balance-of-power system emerged in the seventeenth century from the final collapse of the medieval aspiration to universality – a concept of world order that represented a blending of the traditions of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. The world was considered as mirroring the Heavens. Just as one God ruled in Heaven, so one emperor would rule over the secular world, and one pope over the Universal Church.21

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Kissinger adds: in Western Europe, the potential and from time to time actual, conflict between the pope and emperor established the conditions for eventual constitutionalism and separation of powers which are the basis of the modern democracy. It enabled the various feudal rulers to enhance their autonomy by exacting a price from the contending parties. This, in turn, led to a fractioned Europe – a patch work of duchies, counties, cities, and bishoprics. Though in theory all feudal lords owed fealty to the emperor, in practice, they did what they pleased. Various dynasties claimed imperial crown, and central authority almost disappeared. The emperors maintained the old vision of universal rule without any possibility of realising it. France, Great Britain, and Spain did not accept the central authority of the Holy Roman Empire, though they remained part of the Universal Church.22

Thus, it was all a historic sequence. First, the pressure of Monotheism which forced its adherents to worship only one God and reject other Gods as false led to the prescription of one Church as the body of Jesus Christ himself and this also led to the idea of one State. The reactionary Protestant movement and the defiance of this ideal of one state led to the weakening of both the Holy Roman Empire and the sole Church. This defiance of authority of the One church and One State helped the modern nation-states to evolve. Sequentially extended, in modern times, this process led to secular polity and liberal democracy. But the secular polity and society of the West, which at the start was trans-church but Christian in character, turned, over a period under the influence of materialist economic institutions, in substance, trans-religious and, in fact, at present partly even, Godless, that is atheist. Parallely, industrialism and economic colonisation brought about by the combination of science, technology and acquisitive colonial exploration driven, first, by the burning urge of Christian Mission (e.g., Christopher Columbus) wanting to establish the Kingdom of God on earth to facilitate the return of Christ23 and later, by mercantilism, evolved into capitalism and as a reaction to capitalism, was born socialism and communism. Right through this entire process evolution, including the final phase of secularisation of the society resulting in atheism, it was the Hellenistic-Christian spirit that directed the history of Christendom, whether it was about the sacred or the secular. Even the Atheism of the West is Monotheistic Christian atheism and not atheism in the sense of rejecting all Gods. Again, even the revolutionary forces and methods in Christendom were indirectly influenced by the intolerant

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Monotheism and the aggressive Hellenism and even the political revolutions were thus violent in their character. Says the Encyclopaedia, The legacy of Christian intolerance and the methods it developed (e.g., inquisition, or brainwashing) operates in the intolerance of the ideology and techniques of modern political revolutions.24

It is in this sequence that is unique to the West, its latest sequential advent, the modern West — which is symbolised by democracy, secularism and market capitalism — too emerged as the final product so far. Without the pressure of a Monotheistic faith and God, a universal Church and State would not have been conceived. Without a universal Church and Christian state there would have been no protestant revolution or evolution of nation-states as a reaction, nor the sequence of colonialism as a result or the development of capitalism as a consequence or the advent of communism as a reaction. Thus, both capitalism and communism are products of civilisational evolution-cumrevolution that led to action and reaction within Christendom. But, after the collapse of communism, the sequence extended virtually to proclaim the individual right and liberty, liberal democracy and Godless materialism and secularism as the universal social and political values, and actually the new God on earth, of the West. The liberal democracy of the modern West incorporated individual liberty, secularism and market capitalism at the one end while at the other, the communist order denied validity to individual rights and market capitalism and rejected religion as an opiate. Since communism collapsed, the liberal democracy and market capitalism emerged victorious as they had won the ideological war over communism, within the materialist paradigm. This is what led Francis Fukuyama to conclude that that was the end of history as the human race has achieved and attained the ideal form of society. Fukuyama rested his thesis on the Hegelian conclusion that evolution of human progress would “end when mankind had achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings”, as according to Fukuyama, “there could be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions [beyond liberal democracy], because all of the really big questions had been settled”.25 So the Fukuyama thesis certifying that the West has achieved the perfection which has been eluding the human race so far is the logical extension of western universalism. Consequently, the Rest, in the view of the Western thinkers convinced about the end of history, has to do only thing: follow the West as the best course.

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While Fukuyama and Huntington may differ on whether history has ended or continues, they both agree on the content and character of the Western civilisation. There is no disagreement between them on that liberal democracy inclusive of individual liberty, secularism and free market constituted the foundations of modern Western civilisation, with the only difference that Huntington would include powerful religious element into it and Fukuyama was not emphatic on that. But both of them, and particularly Fukuyama, missed out the fact that equally the Marxian and communist evolution is also part of the modern Western evolution sequencing from Emmanuel Kant and Hegel to Marx. But since that lost out, the Western thinkers tend to disown the loser, namely the Communist interregnum, as not part of the Western civilisation. It is on this evolutionary sequence within Christendom that the victory of one force within Christendom, namely liberal democracy, over another force that had also evolved only within the Christendom, namely communism, that the scholars of the West tended to prescribe its victory mementos, democracy and capitalism, as the inevitable road map for the whole world. This was not only because of the reduction of the entire process of communist collapse as due to liberal democracy, but also because of reducing the whole world to fit into the western perspective, based on western experiences and sequences based on those experiences.

2.2 The current discourse: just a Western monologue The second aspect, that the Western civilisational discourse is a monologue, follows from the first, namely that the very idea of civilisation in the discourse is based on Western anthropological construct and is sourced in Hellenism and Christianity. The fact that the West, in the past, including in the recent past, never recognised any other civilisation to be civil at all and such a sense of superiority is even now implicit in the discourse, limits the current civilisational discourse into a Western monologue. The Western establishment hardly ever recognised in the contribution of any other civilisation. The Western establishment references in the discourse to other civilisations have never been in the context of their contribution to the common civilisational resources of humanity or how to establish a mutually enriching relation with them, but, is generally in the context of the need to tolerate them in the interest of avoiding clashes with them. It is not just because the content and the idea of civilisation in the discourse today is exclusively a product of the experience of the West with itself, that the current discourse on civilisations is West-centric. Historic reasons seem

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have turned the current civilisational discourse compulsively West-centric. The untold but underlying philosophy of the discourse is the presumed superiority of the western civilisation which is sourced in the highly uncomplimentary value judgement of the peoples and the ways of life of the Rest of the world by the West. This is a historic sequence. Thanks to the pervasive influence of Hellenistic Monotheism on the West, the approach of the West to non-Western civilisations is identical to the attitude of the Monotheistic faiths to non-Monotheistic faiths. And consequently the presumption of superiority of the West over the Rest as a civilisation is a historic continuity with the West. Monotheistic-Hellenism inhering in its DNA, the West, like Monotheism had considered all other faiths as false and their adherents pagans and savages, had always approached other civilisations and cultures on the premise that they were all inferior and the adherents of such cultures were savages and uncivilised. Thanks to Hellenistic Christianity, which, with its monotheistic emphasis would not relate to any other faith or any God other than its own and just as even the atheism of the West benchmarks itself only against Monotheism, the West became psychologically disabled to interact and transact with other civilisations as cousins with an alternative experience of life. Thus, the West became endogamous in shaping its civilisational paradigm. The fundamental flaw in the current discourse, which is founded on the Western view of the Rest, is that, in the West, besides being descriptive, the concept of civilisation evolved, even in the modern sense, as normative idea, in the sense of humans being polite and civil as distinct from being barbaric and uncivil. This interesting historical and anthropological analysis is crucial to understand the incompleteness of the current discourse in and by the West. With the psychology of presumed superiority dominating its thought, the West, even after centuries of its interface with the non-West, could never accept or benefit from the non-Western civilisations. With the result, the western discourse on civilisation, which postulates, without being explicit, a normative evaluation of other civilisations relative to the Western, is a subtle continuation and re-articulation of the philosophy underpinning the colonisation drive which was an extension of Hellenistic Monotheism. The impact of this normative perspective in a country like India, which became free after being subjected prolonged colonial rule, should be captured to assess how this normative approach has left the former colonised society deeply divided within. The continuing colonial mindset in India would regard a village or tribal society in India, for instance, as underdeveloped, if not as uncivilised as in colonial days, and as backward if

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not as savage as colonial rule would see them. In the colonial days, this normative approach helped to justify imperialism of all kinds, like for instance, “bringing civilisation to savages”, as in the Victorian era which even rationalised the liquidation of many ancient cultures and civilisations, like the American, Mayan and African, as part of the exploration and colonisation. And this normative model of evaluating other inferior cultures and civilisations was even celebrated as the ‘white-man’s burden’. ‘The White Man’s Burden’ was a poem originally written by Rudyard Kipling on Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and later Kipling changed the subject of ‘Burden’ to the U.S. conquest of the Philippines and other former Spanish colonies.26 What Kipling meant was that it was the white-man’s duty and also authority to conquer and rule those whom they considered less civilised on their normative understanding. With the result, as Samuel P. Huntington observed, “Europeans devoted much intellectual, diplomatic and political energy to elaborating the criteria by which non-western societies might be judged sufficiently ‘civilised’ to be accepted as members of the European dominated international system”.27 Thus, ‘The White Man’s Burden’ idea inhered and shaped the Euro-centric approach which regarded other cultures and civilisations as inferior ones and denied them their due space in the global commonwealth of culture and civilisations. The concept of universal civilisation which modernisation and Westernisation actively promoted was a distinct and direct extension, if not the product, of the notorious idea of ‘White Man’s Burden’. This has been conceded by Samuel Huntington when referring to the 19th century assertion of whiteman’s burden, he says: ‘At the end of the twentieth century the concept of a universal civilisation helps to justify Western cultural dominance of other societies and the need for those societies to ape Western practices and institutions. Huntington adds: “Universalism is ideology of the West for confrontation with the non-Western cultures.”28 This undermining of other civilisations on the norms of the West in today’s discourse still continues in a subtle way as an integral part of the universal civilisation thesis. So this normative relativism employed by Western scholarship to deny due space to other cultures and civilisations is derived from Hellenistic-Monotheism through historical processes ending up in colonialism as the penultimate stop to modernisation in the Western sense. Fukuyama view that the Western civilisational icons of liberal democracy has finally won for the Rest of the world to internalise it is also a logical extension of the subtle notion of whiteman’s burden implicit in the universalism of the West.

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This is the view that the emerging civilisational conflicts challenge. What the Western scholars had earlier dismissed as lower cultures and civilisations were actually the cultures and civilisations of the most majority of the people in the world. Therefore normative relativism in whatever form it inheres in the Western approach to the civilisations of the Rest creates a hierarchy of inferior and superior civilisations and, therefore, has the potential to create disharmony and conflict. Prof Huntington refers to this risk in the Western claim to superiority in different contexts in his work on clash of civilisations. Yet, this should not lead to the assumption that the idea of normative relativism is totally out of the discourse initiated by Prof Huntington. While Huntington says that he has not discussed idea of civilisation in normative terms,29 he does, subconsciously, weave in the very Euro-centric normative idea which he refers to in his discourse as civilisation in the singular sense, even though he asserts that that was not the sense in which he had used the idea of civilisation in his book.30 He says that the idea of civilisation in the singular sense has reappeared in the argument that there is a universal civilisation. The writer says that this cannot be sustained, but, he adds, ‘it is useful to explore’, referring to the final chapter of his book, “whether or not civilisations are becoming more civilised.”31 This is again an effort, may be unconscious, to smuggle in the disturbing West-centric normative view of the West as the best for the Rest. Thus even now, and even in a book which warns the world about civilisational clashes, normative relativist approach to the civilisations of the Rest bench marked on the Western civilisation inheres in the discourse. The issue of who is more civilised is smuggled in through the back-door by a discourse on which civilisation is more civilised. As will be evident in the course of the discussion in this paper, the West-centric normative classification of cultures, faiths and religions is in itself a cause of civilisational and cultural disharmony, as Prof Huntington himself admits. How untenable is the claim to superiority for Western civilisation which is the mix of Abrahamic Monotheism and Hellenism has been captured in this paper in Chapters 5 to 8 infra, by the comparing difference between the norms of behaviour and also the actual conduct — in peace and in war times and particularly war times — of Monotheistic faiths and an ancient faith, Hinduism, which is older than Monotheistic faiths. The more important test of the civilised character of a civilisation [about which for instance Prof Huntington does not speak a word in the last chapter of his book titled Whether Or Not Civilisations Are Becoming More Civilised?] is the ethics it professes and practices in Wars and in war times, which brings out the worst dimensions of a

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faith or civilisation. On this test, the discussions in Chapter 7 establishes that the war ethics of the Hindu civilisation conceived and actually practised for thousands of years has been so noble in theory and practice and the war ethics in the modern times under regimes devised by global treaties and supervised by global institutions are far inferior to the ancient Hindu war ethics. Even though a global discourse, dialogue and debate founded on civilisational paradigm is long overdue and is taking place not a day sooner, the current West-centric approach, continues to keep out, just as the West had, for centuries, disregarded if not trivialised, the ideas, values and principles of other civilisations and cultures whose adherents constitute more than two-thirds of the global population. So, to that extent, the Western perspective on issues of civilisation and culture, which ignores contributions of cultures and civilisations of more than two thirds of the world population, has been incomplete and inadequate to handle, comprehensively and on a global scale, the discourse on the issue of civilisational clashes. This is despite the fact that of late some scholarly work from the West has begun to acknowledge the contribution of other civilisations to the common fund of world wisdom and go to the extent of even accusing the Western scholarship of appropriating the scientific ideas of other civilisations as their own.30 Yet the Western approach to other civilisations and cultures approximates to the approach of the Hellenistic-Monotheism to other faiths. The point to note is that the present discourse is clearly and undeniably a western monologue. The result of this deficit in the discourse is, as the discussions that follow indicate, far reaching. One of the consequences of this deficit is that, to state briefly, the current discourse emphasises more on the clash of civilisations rather than on their harmony, only because it is bereft of contribution from the Eastern and Indian School of religions and civilisations which have a history of conflict avoidance while the Western history, a product of Hellenistic-Monotheism, has been largely a formula for conflicts and conflict promotion. With this general background to the emergence of civilisational paradigm, it is necessary to grasp the more immediate and current background to the civilisational discourse that is on at present.

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III- The Immediate Background 3.1 Shocking developments of late 1980s and early 1990s The tumultuous and destabilising developments the world witnessed from the late 1980s in the 20th century which turned the world upside down formed the initial background to the discourse on civilisational paradigm that emerged out of the unprecedented churning that later swung the world from what appeared to be the end of history to what may turn out to be its vengeful return. The sudden and rapid – equally unprecedented and shocking – transformation in the world order and in geo-politics, in science and in technology, in trade and in economics, in culture and in lifestyle that confronted the world in the dying years of the 20th century posed the greatest challenge to the individual nations and their domestic leadership and equally powerful challenge to the collective of the world nations and global leaders to handle and manage the changes that seemed incapable of orderly management. The collapse of the bipolar, Cold war world order in the last days of the 1980s and in early 1990s, blew off the assumptions underlying political and economic relations between different nations that dominated the Cold war order. The consequence of this development was a void of a scale and size that was difficult to handle and fill. Also the suddenness of the development made painless adjustment to absorb the changes extremely difficult if not impossible. Boundaries of not just ideological constructs like Soviet Union and Warsaw Unions but also of nations like Germany and Yugoslavia were redrawn. And nations that were once adversaries turned friends or neutrals of one another, with no one of consequence proclaiming or reiterating any irreversible adversarial position towards any other, and with every one, including those who wished for such change, shocked by the massive and sudden turn events.

3.2 The impact of technology, wireless internet communication Apart from the geo-political changes impacting on and re-writing the rules of global trade and economy, the technological revolution that transformed global trade and communication through wireless, mobile and internet models completely altered the ground rules of trade and economics impacted on culture and lifestyle, and even redefined the limits and quality of sovereignty of nations. These developments seemed to challenge the very concept of nation state that had evolved in Europe in the last few centuries. For example,

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these changes even threatened to substitute the restrictions on the movement of humans which geo-political and statecraft had designed as a political and economic safeguard by teleworking through wireless regardless of where the supplier of the service and the user of the service were situate. All this went in the name of globalisation and globalisation became the catchword and many even began talking of global village and some even about global and mobile citizenship as an alternative to the narrow idea of nationality! Thomas L. Friedman, one of the world’s most respected and influential journalists, renowned for his expertise on international affairs and economic issues, has, in a recent book ‘The World is Flat – the globalized world in the twenty-first century” identified ten forces that have flattened the world. Among them he mentions uploading of information through internet and cited as the most important element of the community-uploaded information, the Wikipedia site. ‘The site has been a runaway success in the first year and gained a loyal following, and now, as against the Microsoft Encarta Standard 2006, the best selling encyclopaedia brand, with 36000 articles, as on November 25, 2005, Wikipedia reported that it was working on 841,358 articles!33 As Friedman says he has often used the wikipedia in writing his book,34 in this paper also the information contained in Wikipedia has been often accessed and used.

3.3 World on its head: As Russia seeks US help and Coke enters Vietnam The changes were so far reaching and dramatic that geo-political relations of the Cold war based on national sentiments and ideological block loyalties became irrelevant over night. Survival efforts under the new situation created strange spectacles of new and complicated relations. For instance, with the USSR disintegrating, Russia, the backbone of the Soviet Union, turned to US, its greatest adversary in the Cold war days, for economic assistance and co-operation burying decades of hate and enmity. This was as much symbol of the victory of the West and its world view over the Rest and their view of the world as the giant Coca Cola exhibition bottles kept in the most visible part of Hanoi signalling the entry of the proud commercial symbol of US, the Coke. These unbelievable developments had rightly excited Francis Fukuyama and others like him to conclude, and many other thinkers of the world to accept, that with the liberal democracy and the market economics of the West asserting their claim to universal acceptance and acquiescence, the diverse ideological conflicts that the world had witnessed in the last

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several centuries were part of history which would not repeat. Another thinker, Lester Thurow, also agreed with this view of Francis Fukuyama [supra] that in view of the unchallenged position of capitalism and democracy and in the absence of any viable competitors for the allegiance of minds, it 35 has been called the end of history.

3.4 Catch 22 situation: individualism of as potential dynamite A little reflection would have cautioned these great minds that human longings could not be reduced to, or exhausted by, market economics and democratic governance which are founded on individual at the centre. Human life, particularly outside of the West, is so powerfully influenced by the society that the individual has to share a large part of his space to the family, community and the society under the influence of religion and culture. So the conclusion reached by the elite scholarship in the West purely in the context of the victory of capitalism over communism that “in the contest between the individual values and the social values the individual values have won”36 is not applicable to the relation based societies where the individual shares his sovereign space with family, extended families, communities and society. Even in the West the process of atomisation of the society has led to incompatibilities. In fact, Lester Thurow admitted that the changes within capitalism in the West are the making even the family and the market less and less compatible.37 Even in his later works Francis Fukuyama laments that unbridled individualism is eroding the social capital of the Capitalist world.38 These admissions show that even a tussle between the most fundamental human collective unit, namely the family, and the individual is inherent in the concept of liberal democracy and market capitalism fostered by atomising individualism. But the very institutions of liberal democracy and free market capitalism, which Francis Fukuyama hailed as symbolic of the end of history, are founded on individual liberty and individualism. What started as individual freedom and liberty from Church later turned into freedom from religious influences and what was rationalised as freedom from the dominance of the State has now turned into freedom from social and filial influences and discipline. The modern thoughts and institutions are inevitably leading to aggressive feminism, gay marriages, lesbianism and other developments which the purely religious minds in the West and almost the whole of the Rest would understandably resist. With the result there is a catch 22 situation in Fukuyama’s prognosis of the final victory of liberal democracy as this victory itself is possibly leading to more fundamental conflicts within the liberal democratic societies. That

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is, even as, in the modern western view, only individualism and individual liberty will sustain liberal democracy and free market, the same individualism and individual have the potential and do undermine families and communities and thus erode social capital which Fukuyama postulates as an important institution for even the success of the market economy. Thus the very civilisational resources needed to sustain the liberal democratic and free market order will weaken with the collapse of the family and community mechanism. So, while promoting individualism is necessary to sustain liberal democracy and free market, the very same individualism, when it becomes unbridled, will, eventually dynamite both! This demonstrates the extent of atomisation, isolation and alienation of the individuals implied in the twin institutions of democracy and market capitalism and the dangers of such atomisation. This kind of atomisation cannot be easily sold to people of the non-West whatever material prosperity and enlightened individualism that the capitalist and democratic order promises to bring to them. Any prognoses that such unbridled individualism, democracy and market economics would rule the non-Western world unchallenged, as much as such ideas and institutions dominate the West, would be an over simplification. This is particularly so as the world is unimaginably complex and diverse and therefore, is incapable of accepting such West-centric view as universal and applicable for all. This ‘West as the best for the Rest’ prescription attempted to be sold by the establishment of the West through global regimes like the World Trade Organisation and other Multilateral regimes, and through the global media, which equally influences the domestic media of different nations, contained an agenda homogenisation that militated against the very nature of the world that is diverse. The critical omission in the scholarship in the West – thanks to the excitement that the collapse of communism generated among them — was that their prognosis would not ipso facto apply to societies which were not atomised like the West is and are unlikely to atomise like the West has done. The excitement of the capitalist victory over the socialist order blinded the West to conclude that the Western individualism which was at the core of democracy and free market capitalism in the West, would atomise the Rest of the World through the very vehicles of democracy and free market. What this conclusion failed to reflect on was that the evolution of democracy and free market in the West was the consequence of the development of individualism, and not vice versa, that is to say, individualism was not the product of democracy and free market capitalism. At best these two

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institutions give a philosophic justification for individualism and were not the cause of it. The role of diverse human collectives particularly in the nonWestern part of the world and their intense influence over the individual through, amongst other things, religion and culture, was not factored into the prognosis of the West about how the post-Coldwar world would progress. This was a fundamental flaw in the Western understanding of the Rest of the world. This flaw deceived the influential thinkers and the policy makers in the West as well as its establishment to look at the Rest with the Western perspective and this led them to totally incorrect assumptions and conclusions about the final victory of the West over the Rest.

3.5 The ‘pop music and discotheque’ universal culture fails Again, it was not just a case of the Western technology and democracy or the Western capital or goods seeking entry into the Rest of the world, but also a case of the lifestyle, food, pop music and discotheque and along with those the permissive morals that went in the name of liberal society also held out as symbols of modernity seeking and acquiring space in the Rest of the world. This space seeking attempt was founded on the condescending assumption that the West and all that the West had stood for deserved to be universally applied for all and it was for the Rest of the world to follow and copy the West as the best model of life and goal for them to pursue. In fact in the response to Samuel Huntington’s view in his article ‘Clash of Civilisations?’ some intellectuals of the West went to the extent of countering his view on the ground that pop music and discotheque, and jeans and coke, would ensure that a universal civilisation evolved and avoided any clash between modernity and cultures [Chapter 9 infra]. But those who turned aeroplanes into missiles and hit the World Trade Centre towers on 9/11 were actually jeans-clad and coke drinking Muslims only, whom the American culture failed to integrate in itself. On the contrary, it alienated them and turned them against itself, even as they were in the US itself. Actually what the dissenters of Prof Huntington held out as the universalising elements of the West, like fast foods, pop music and discotheque, is what Islamic civilisation would regard as symbolic of the Satanic American culture trivialising women and youth and act as a cause to trigger anger and hate against the West and the US in the mind of the ordinary Islamists. Ordinary Muslim is as much frightened of the Islamic society catching the contagion effect of such distortions which the Islamic mind will never accept. This actually works in favour of the radicals who, despite being jean-clad and

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discotheque-going are seen by the ordinary Muslims as fighters against these low morals. Mohammed Atta, who hit the WTC with the plane he had hijacked and perished in the effort, was a while before he did that, in discotheque! [Chapter 9 infra] While this cultural incursion of the West is generally resisted by the Rest, it invites aggressive reaction particularly from Islamic societies where the bikini, which is the symbol of the liberated Western women, is resisted by the burka which, according to Islamists, symbolised the high esteem of Muslim women in Islamic tradition.39 It is amateurish to think that this imposing approach of the West would work on the Rest, without the latter reacting. That it would not as it has now been amply demonstrated by the way particularly the Islamic world responded aggressively and even violently to such universalistic view. So the West, which wanted to experiment its experience on the Rest, seems to be understanding, if Prof Huntington’s highly debated views are any indication, that such a course is inadvisable.

3.6 Jihadi Taliban raised by US and West, targets both When the West prognosticated that the post-Cold war world would be largely a modern Western-construct, it made a huge error of judgement in omitting to factor in, besides the Hindu-Buddhist view points, the Islamic world and particularly the radical Islamic forces which the West itself had promoted. In a way this omission, in retrospect a surprise. For, the US had consciously encouraged and cultivated geo-political Islamic forces like the Taliban that specialised in Islamist extremism and terrorism against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The US funded and armed the Taliban and encouraged radical Islam to fight the Soviet aggression on Afghanistan. The US knew well that forces like the Taliban were not part of the ideological or cultural fraternity of the West; if anything, they were the other pole and the very opposite of the Western notions of liberal democracy and individual freedom. Their alliance with the West was due to the accident of the Coldwar ideological polarisation of the world. Their theology which fundamentally hated the Godless communism found in the ideological hate of the West against the Communist bloc a sentiment comfortable to work with on the principle that enemy’s enemy was one’s friend. But once these forces lost their theological enemy in the demise of communism by the termination of the Cold war, their ‘enemy’s-enemy-is-friend’ concept ceased to rationalise and support their alignment with the Capitalist West, particularly the US. More, the orphaned ideological formations of the Cold war which targeted communism

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as its enemy were suddenly jobless. Being essentially a theological war force, they began seeing the US which was already at war with the Islamist Iran as anti-Islamic thanks also to the US invasion of Iraq immediately after the end of the Cold war. Thus, soon, the US became their targets as their theological commitment to Islam, which made them fight against the Soviets, guided them to see the US and the West as enemies of their faith. The reason for this was obvious. The Islamists regarded the very icons of the West, the liberal democracy and individual liberty, namely atomising individualism, destruction of families, gay rights, lesbianism and the like, as the symbolic of the Satanic American culture. These distortions of the West produced extremely violent reaction in the Islamist minds. Thus, as was in a way inevitable, the radical Islamist forces which targeted the communist USSR with the war cry of Jihad for invading the Islamic Afghanistan found that the new regime of the West as a more comprehensive threat to the Islamic way of life itself and thus declared Jihad against the West in the last years of 1990s and the in early 21st century. These forces also turned against the Islamists who were seen to be aligning with or not objecting to the Satanic way of life of the West. Thus, what those without reflection prognosticated as the dawn of the world without conflict missed was, among other things, how the highly motivated radical Islamic forces would respond and react to the new world order after the Coldwar. They had in fact become unemployed and had, in fact, become unemployable and had no legitimate space for themselves in the new world order. This is where the modern and secular West, which had fallen in deep love with itself, failed to see the depth and power of religious and civilisational urges of the people and believed that trade and commerce, assisted by the universalist cultural icons of discotheque, MacDonald and coke, would dominate the world to the exclusion of the sentimental predispositions of the people.

3.7 ‘The End of History’ scholars see civilisational paradigm emerging The toxic effect of the collapse of the socialist order which had excited many influential thinkers of the West into self-delusion about the superiority of the West as manifest in the theses of Francis Fukuyama and Lester Thurow did not last for too long. Soon enough many perceptive thinkers in the West, like Samuel P. Huntington, as already mentioned, and Lawrence E. Harrison began unveiling the cultural and civilisational paradigm which

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conflicted with the view of those who prognosticated the demise of all collectives based on relations and rise of atomised individualism founded on contracts. In fact the cultural and civilisational paradigm as a global drive articulated by Prof Huntington was so persuasive and logical — and it was entirely in line with the developments that the world began witnessing post Cold war — that Francis Fukuyama, almost reconsidered this exclusive politico-economic approach in his next book.40 In this book Fukuyama extolled and explained the virtues of culture and its influence on economics. This amounted to at least a partial U-turn from his earlier work, ‘End of History and the Last Man’. This forced the Journal of Democracy of John Hopkins University Press in its review of the Book critique his new work as ‘End of Economics’! 41 Nevertheless culture and civilisational issues stormed into the discourse in the West forcing it to realise the undeniable influence culture and civilisation in geo-politics and even in global trade and economics. The most proximate reason for this introspective scholarship in the West was perhaps the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism at the global level, but that was at best a mere trigger for the introspection. The substantive reason for the turn in the Western scholarship was that the initial toxic effect of the victory of the West over communism, which had deceived the West into believing that it was not just victory over communism but over the Rest of the world itself, had worn off. So, under more dispassionate conditions, thinkers like Prof Huntington began understanding the complex world without being blindly West-centric. Thus thanks to the more sober scholarly work about itself and about the rest of the world, the West began to see very different and powerful undercurrents in the rest of the world driven by religious and civilisational forces. This opened the eyes of the West to the power of religion.

3.8 Religion rises as a dominant global force, including in US. According to Samuel Huntington “the late twentieth century has seen a global resurgence of religions around the world”42 Religions exercise the most powerful influence on humans all over the world. The pervasive influence of Gods over people confirms that people — whether they live in United States, rated as the most advanced and developed nation, or in Rwanda, condemned as among the most underdeveloped nations — cannot live without religions and Gods. Secularisation and modernisation powered by science and technology and materialist economics could not undermine faith in the unknown and un-knowable God. Statistics collected by different sources show the hold of religions over humans, and it is revealing. The US

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Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] World Fact Book 2004 estimates the proportion of ‘non-religious people’ in the world population as just 12.5% and ‘atheists’ as a mere 2.4%. It means that the balance of over 85% are believers in some God or higher force.43 Adherents.com, a popular website on religion, estimates the proportion of ‘secular, non-religious, and atheistic’ population in the world as 14%,44 which matches with the CIA Fact Book 2004 estimates. A British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] survey of 10 countries estimates the average population which does not believe in God at 17% even though in England it is as high as 39% and in Nigeria it is ‘Nil’. A 2005 poll by Associated Press surveyed 10 developed countries which found that, in the US, only 2% of the Americans are atheists and only 4% are agnostic, meaning that the rest are believers in some force or the other. Eurostat Eurobarometer poll 2005 estimates that 52% of the EU citizens have belief in God and a further 27% of them believed in ‘some sort of spirit or life force;’ only 18% do not believe ‘in God or in a spirit or life force.’45 In an article titled ‘Atheism contemporary rates and patterns’ by Phil Zukerman (published as a Chapter in Cambridge Companion to Atheism edited by Michael Martin Cambridge University Press 2005) which confirms the statistical data cited before, estimates the proportion of population of atheists, non-believers or agnosts in Communist China at 8-14% only and again the proportion of those in the US at 3-9% only. The paper estimates the number of non-believing, agnostic and atheist population at 500-700 millions. It says that the ‘non-believers’ form the fourth largest group after Christians [2 billions] Islamists [1.2 billions] and Hindus [900 millions].46 According to the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan World Values Survey 1995-97 the US had a higher record of Church attendance than any other country which is at comparable levels of development. At that time 53% of the Americans considered religion very important in their lives as compared to far less figures in Europe, namely, 16% England, 14% in France and 13% in Germany.47 The pervasive influence of religion over the people of the world, including in the materially advanced US and West, is self evident.

3.9 Post 9/11 US in search of religious basis for its national identity? With religion already a powerful factor in the US, the 9/11 attacks seem to have compelled the secular elements in the US to factor in religious and civilisational issues even in official policy making in secular US. Thus, the

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US establishment – which has always been religious, but, has successfully confine religion to private lives of the people – seems to be undergoing a fundamental change. Despite the US being highly religious nation, its foreign policy approach in the past had been independent of its religiosity. But how this has changed post 9/11has been captured by Peter Singer, a senior fellow in Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. Singer says: “Five years later it is clear that 9/11 attacks created a new dynamic in global politics and thus American foreign policy centering around the changed relationship between the State and religion.”48 The significance of 9/11 on the US has to be seen not only from the foreign policy angle which Singer says is redefining the Church-State relations in the US. Significantly, the US was the first country in Christendom which separated the church and the state. The internal changes which are taking place in the US under the impact of 9/11, which seem to have brought to the fore the issue of the American identity, are equally important. In this context the recent book of Samuel Huntington says, America’s Great Debate WHO ARE WE?’, is clearly indicative of the intense churning which is on in the US about the identity of the Americans and of America itself. This discourse, and the consequent debate and its conclusions, will have far reaching implications for the rest of the world and also on the issue how far and how intensely the religious-civilisational paradigm will influence the geo-political relations and policy of the US. In his foreword to this book, which is very critical and significant, Samuel Huntington says, “Following Independence, the idea of an American nation took hold gradually and haltingly in the nineteenth century. National Identity became pre-eminent compared to other identities after the Civil War, and the American nationalism flourished during the following century. In the 1960s however sub-national, dual-national, and transnational identities began to rival and erode the pre-eminence of national identity. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 dramatically brought that identity back to the fore.49

Prof Huntington says that so long as the Americans see their nation endangered, they will have a high sense of identity with it and once that perception of threat fades, the other identities could again take precedence over national identity. He adds that with ‘race and ethnicity now largely eliminated’, ‘the Americans see their society as multi-ethnic, multiracial society”.50 Prof Huntington adds: The ‘American creed’ as initially formulated by Thomas Jefferson and elaborated by many others, is widely viewed as the crucial defining element of the American identity. The creed however was a product of the distinct

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Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers of America of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Key elements of that culture include: the English language; Christianity; religious commitment....;the rights of individuals; and dissenting Protestant values of individualism....51

He adds, “Anglo-Protestant culture has been central to American identity for three centuries.”52 He commends that, “Americans should recommit themselves to the Anglo-Protestant culture, traditions, values that for three and half centuries have been embraced by Americans of all races, ethnicities and religions” and this, he argues, is “not for the importance of the AngloProtestant people” but “for the importance of the Anglo-Protestant culture”.53 The already deep religious character of the US and the churning which is taking place in the US about its identity, which Prof Huntington has, in a forthright manner, articulated – coupled with the rising sentiments against Islamism and Islamic people as captured in the next part – will have a far reaching impact on the global relations that are being shaped by civilisational paradigm, as further discussions on this subject emphasise.

3.10 US draws battle lines between itself and Islam! It is evident from the discussions earlier and that which follows, that the present conflict that seems to be forcing the West, and particular the US, to battle Islamic terror, is also perceived as a war between modern-Christian West and the Islam. This is of course, formally and from time to time’ denied by the Western and US establishments as it is politically incorrect to allow or admit it, but there is no denying the fact that, in the public domain, deeper religious sentiments influence public and establishment opinion in the US and in the West in the war against Islamic terror. One of the earliest indications of this phenomenon was the way the entire US leadership rushed to the Church for prayers in the aftermath of 9/11 to the public view and the way President spoke of the battle against terror in Biblical terms like ‘crusade’ and ‘evil’ also explicitly brought in religious elements into the War Against Terrorism. Even at the opening, President Bush went to the extent of naming Islam as a faith, but declaring respect for Islam and its adherents including those who misuse it! So even at the outset Islam found its due place in the US configuration of the phenomenon of terror. As years passed, the tendency to associate Islam with terror increased. A leading US journalist Daniel Pipes in his column on New York Sun on Oct 11, 1005 catalogued how George Bush and Tony Blair have gradually moved and clearly and explicitly

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began targeting Islam and Islamists in their different speeches on the war. After prefacing that the first era of the stand off between Islam and the US started with Iranian Islamists seizing the US Embassy in Tehran which the US wrongly perceived it as a criminal act and not as War, Daniel Pipes writes about the second and third era of the war: The second era began on September 11, 2001. That evening, Mr. Bush declared a ‘war against terrorism’ and the U.S. government promptly went into war mode, for example, by passing the USA Patriot Act. Though welcoming this shift, I, during four years, criticized the notion of making war on a military tactic, finding this euphemistic, inaccurate, and obstructive. Instead, I repeatedly called on the president to start a third era by acknowledging that the war is against radical Islam. Bush did occasionally mention radical Islam – in fact, as early as nine days after 9/ 11 – but not with enough frequency or detail to change perceptions. The British prime minister, Tony Blair also advanced the discussion in July, when, after the London transport bombings, he focused on ‘a religious ideology, a strain within the world-wide religion of Islam.’54

Daniel Pipes added: But the third era truly began on October 6 with Mr. Bush’s speech to the National Endowment for Democracy. He not only gave several names to the force behind terrorism (“Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism”), but he provided ample details. In particular, he: Î Presented this “murderous ideology” of Islamic radicals “the great challenge of our new century.” Î Distinguished it from the religion of Islam. Î Drew parallels between radical Islam and communism (both are elitist, cold-blooded, totalitarian, disdainful of free peoples, and fatefully contradictory), then noted in how many ways the U.S. war on radical Islam “resembles the struggle against communism in the last century.” Î Pointed out the three-step Islamist drive to power: ending Western influence in the Muslim world, gaining control of Muslim governments, and establishing “a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia.” Î Explained the “violent, political vision” of radical Islam as comprising an agenda “to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to

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intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation.” Î Defined its ultimate goal: “to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.” Î Observed that Muslims themselves have the burden of doing the “most vital work” to fight Islamism. Î Called on “all responsible Islamic leaders to join in denouncing” this ideology and taking steps against it.

Pipes went on: “The detailed texture of Mr. Bush’s speech transforms the official American understanding of who the enemy is, moving it from the superficial and inadequate notion of “terrorism” to the far deeper concept of “Islamic radicalism.” This change has potentially enduring importance if finally, 26 years later, it convinces polite society to name the enemy.” The message is loud and clear: it is a clash between the US and Islam itself.

3.11 Anti-Islamic sentiments in West Not just in the US establishment, anti-Islamic sentiment is widespread in the West and in the US among the public. It cannot be denied that terror attack on the US and later on against Spain and England in the last few years seems to have created suspicion in the minds of the people in the West against the very concept of Islam and resulted in muted to open anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim feelings in the public domain. At the level of the establishment, which professes liberal democratic values and therefore has to stand by its profession of liberal democracy, this anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim feeling is underplayed in its public discourse in the interest of speaking what is politically correct. But despite the efforts to underplay the rising popular resentment against Islam, there is an open public discourse and debate on about whether it is criticism of Islam that is portrayed as anti-Islamic or it is Islamophobia in the West. The term ‘Islamophobia’ became popular after the 9/11 attack on the US and this indicated prejudice and discrimination against Islam and Muslims.55 While those who used the term asserted that there was prejudice against Islam and Muslims, those who opposed them countered by saying that the term Islamophobia has been used to undermine what is legitimately criticism of Islam.56 The strong words used in the debate on the controversial Islamophobia indicated the depth of the feelings on both sides. In 1996, a Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, established by the Runnymede Trust published its report Islamophobia: A Challenge

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for Us All in November 1997. According to the report Islamophobia consisted of eight distinctive elements: 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change. It is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them. It is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist. It is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of civilizations. It is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage. Criticisms made of ‘the West’ by Islam are rejected out of hand. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal.

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, one of the members of the Runnymede Trust’s Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia argued that “it may be more apt to speak of ‘Islamophobias’ rather than of a single phenomenon. Each version of Islamophobia has its own features as well as similarities with, and borrowings from, other versions.” The American writer Stephen Schwartz has defined Islamophobia as the condemnation of the entirety of Islam and its history as extremist; ‘denying’ the existence of a moderate Muslim majority; regarding Islam as a problem for the world; treating conflicts involving Muslims as necessarily their own fault; insisting that Muslims make changes to their religion; and inciting war against Islam as a whole.57 Opposing the proponents of Islamophobia, historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote “There really isn’t a phenomena like ‘Islamophobia’ - at least no more than there was a ‘Germanophobia’ in hating Hitler or “Russiaphobia” in detesting Stalin.”58 Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch and an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation who, the book says, lives in a Secure, Undisclosed place, says “All this indicates that ‘Islamophobia’ is virtually useless as an analytical tool. To adopt it is to accept the most virulent form of theological equivalence, and to affirm, against all the evidence, that every religious tradition is equally capable of

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inspiring violence.”59 In his recent Civitas report, We’re (Nearly) All Victims Now, the criminologist Dr David Green argued that “The pseudo-psychiatric term Islamophobia is a statement that any criticism of Muslims is evidence of clinical pathology. Yet the label is often attached to valid criticisms of particular Muslims whose behaviour has laid them open to legitimate censure.”60 In his essay Islamophobia myth, essay by K. Malik, Prospect Magazine, February 2005, published at communautarisme.net the author says “The trouble with the idea is that it confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims on the one hand with criticism of Islam on the other.” Rushdie, Salman said in ‘Writers’ statement on cartoons’, BBC News, March 1, 2006. “... Islamophobia, a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatisation of those who believe in it.”61 The largest project monitoring Islamophobia was undertaken following 9/11 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Their May 2002 report ‘Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001’, written by Chris Allen (UK) and Jorgen S. Nielsen of the University of Birmingham, was based on 75 reports — 15 from each EU member nation. The report highlighted the regularity with which ordinary Muslims became targets for abusive and sometimes violent retaliatory attacks after 9/11. Despite localized differences within each member nation, the recurrence of attacks on recognizable and visible traits of Islam and Muslims was the report’s most significant finding. Incidents consisted of verbal abuse, blaming all Muslims for terrorism, forcibly removing women’s hijabs, spitting on Muslims, calling children “Usama,” and random assaults. Muslims have been hospitalized and on one occasion paralysed. The report also discussed the portrayal of Muslims in the media. Inherent negativity, stereotypical images, fantastical representations, and exaggerated caricatures were all identified. The report concluded that “a greater receptivity towards anti-Muslim and other xenophobic ideas and sentiments has, and may well continue, to become more tolerated.”62

3.12 War of Words: criticism of Islam’ Vs Islamophobia’: The illustrative acts alleged as Islamophobia, which indicated the division at the ground level between Islam and the people of the West, catalogued in the Wikipedia are extracted here: Carl Ernst, a scholar of Islamic studies, and the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations has alleged that Robert Spencer is ‘Islamophobic’. Spencer responded to this labelling, and invited Ernst to debate.

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations has stated that the views of Ann Coulter are Islamophobic. Oliver Duff of The Independent said in 2006 that the British National Party attempted to use increasing Islamophobia to make gains in local elections. Liz McGregor and John Hooper of The Guardian, has alleged that the views and writings of Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist and author of The Force of Reason, was ‘Islamophobic’ [sic]. The Islamic Human Rights Commission gave U.S Attorney General John Ashcroft a nomination for their 2003 ‘Islamophobe of the year’ award for publicly saying, “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you” The Islamic Human Rights Commission made Daniel Pipes a nominee for their 2004 and 2005 ‘Islamophobe of the year’ awards. A December 2005 interview by Vlaams Belang front man Filip Dewinter with the American-Jewish news weekly The Jewish Week included a question if “Jews should vote for a party that espouses xenophobia”. Dewinter responded by saying: “Xenophobia is not the word I would use. If it absolutely must be a ‘phobia,’ let it be ‘Islamophobia.’” The UK Minister Peter Hain’s statement that Britain’s Muslim community is ‘isolationist’ was met with accusations of Islamophobia, as well as Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s public claim that Western civilization is superior to Islam. Some suggestions in the United Kingdom debate over veils (which concerned the circumstances in which Muslim women should be required to remove the Niqab) were considered Islamophobic by MP John McDonnell. CAIR and the Associated Press called United States Rep. Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA) Islamophobic for his Dec. 2006 letter stating that Repelect Keith Ellison’s desire to use the Qur’an during the swearing in ceremonies was a threat to “the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America” and for saying “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies.” Concerned at the US state of North Carolina’s position (as expressed by their attorney general’s office) in the ongoing case of ACLU of N.C. & Syidah Matteen v. State of North Carolina that the only swearing-in for testimony in court that was valid had to be on a Christian Bible (and that all

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others must choose to affirm), CAIR’s Legal Director in Washington D.C, Arsalan Iftikhar, said “This shows there’s a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, especially here in the United States.”63 The instances listed make it clear that Islam versus the West syndrome cannot be dismissed as a reaction that will fade away with time considering that, even five years after the 9/11 attack on the US, as the surveys and the analysis cited below, mutual hate is still as fresh as it was, and that 90% of the Muslims consider the US as a security threat to their country.

3.13 US and Islam as the opposite poles of Geo-politics The American Broadcasting Corporation News has reported that “public views of Islam are one casualty of the post-Sept. 11, 2001 conflict: Nearly six in 10 Americans think the religion is prone to violent extremism, nearly half regard it unfavourably, and a remarkable one in four admits to prejudicial feelings against Muslims and Arabs alike.” They also report that 27 percent of Americans admit feelings of prejudice against Muslims. According to Gallup polls, 40 percent of Americans admit to prejudice against Muslims, and 39 percent believe Muslims should carry special identification.64 The Christian Science Monitor Sept 11, 2006 edition reported Peter Singer, a Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, as saying, “Five years later it is clear the 9/11 attacks created a new dynamics in global politics and thus American foreign policy centering around the changed relation between state and religion.” He adds, “Whole Europe may have become a target and centre of operations for terrorist cells, the US and Islam are the two poles around which the 21st century geo-politics may increasingly revolve.” This does not mean, says the Christian Monitor, that the world is enduring a ‘clash of civilisations’ as defined by the Harvard Prof Samuel Huntington 1996 book of that name. Dr Huntington himself has said that that hasn’t happened, and that Islam and the West now simply have many issues between them, with some handled more successfully than others. ‘You have a lot of complexity within Islam itself’, says Mr Harrison, who edited the book ‘Culture Matters’ along with Samuel Huntington. “Yet one thing Muslims appear to agree; nearly 90 percent of the public in Islamic countries view the US as the primary security threat to their country”, according to Mr. Singer. “The events of 9/11 have opened the world’s eye to a new conflict, driven by mutual hurt, fear and suspicion. The conflict is not a battle between, but a battle within. It is not two blocs

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locked in battle but about a new global construct of mutual insecurity that has emerged”, writes Singer in his analysis of the event of 9/11 five years.65

3.14 The war on terror as conflict between Islam and West This is where the stand off between the West, particularly the US, and Islam and the Islamists rests today. The logical question that arises is how – in-spite of hundreds of years of suspension of hostilities between Islam and the West and how in-spite of their close relations during the Cold war — could their relations could so easily turn, as if it were waiting to so turn, mutually hostile in a comparatively short period of less than a decade. It looks as if the distrust between Islam and the West, whose visible symbol today is the US, is not a sudden or new development. It rather seems a revival and reinstatement of what seems seems historical and has been kept in a state of suspended animation. This distrust also seems to stem from the callous manner in which, in the Islamic perspective, the Islamic regimes in different countries had been turned into the strategic instruments of the West like the Shah Phehalvi’s regime of Iran yesterday and the different Middle Eastern Sheikdoms of today. Since Iran, a non-Arab and a nonSunni Islamic country was never considered to be the mainline Islamic power, the Khomeini Jihad in 1980s against the US was balanced by US alliance with Iraq against Iran and the Taliban alliance with the US against the the USSR. The strategic use of Islamist sentiments by US against the USSR in the Cold war days evidently brought together the US and the Islamists, to fight a common enemy, who otherwise did not have much in common between them. On the contrary, they might have had as much to disagree between them as the Islamists and the USSR. When the common enemy disappeared, the inherent contradictions between the US and the Islamists came to the fore. With the change in the global political map on the de-freezing that followed the end of the Coldwar, the civilisational issues — which the old situation had kept hidden and new situation exhumed — aided by the unrelenting flare-up in the Middle East brought to the fore not only the old memories of the past, but also incompatibility between traditional Islam and Western civilisation. When that became intense and Islamic extremism, which detested the Islamic regimes as much as it hated the US and the West, also turned its disgust with the Middle East Islamic rulers against the US. Thus this complex set of forces seemed to have not created any new hostility between the West – read Christian in the mind of the Islamists – but merely revived the subterranean religious and cultural hostilities that always existed in the memory of Islamic

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theologians and believers and was only waiting for an opportunity to re-emerge. Coupled with the Islamist categorisation of the US culture as Satanic and therefore a danger to Islam, the West and Islam turned opposite poles within a short period of less than a decade. The long story shortly captured is this: the sentiments in US has turned antiIslam and anti-Muslim and in a sense, in an already deeply Christian country, the sentiments have become even more intensely Christian and that too in the context of Islam emerging as a risk and danger in the mind of the US people at large. Otherwise Prof. Huntington could not have written a book explicitly characterising the identity of the US as a Protestant Nation. That only the changed situation has made such a claim, by a well-known intellectual, about the character of the US possible is evident; such a book could not have been written about America’s identity in the Cold war period, and never even afterwards till terror struck the US on 9/11. Consequently, regardless of the politically correct phraseology that is used to capture and describe the forces playing out the present war on terror, it is Samuel Huntington’s prognosis of Islam, in its present form with medieval substance, versus the West, with its medieval spirit and modern form, that seems to be unfolding in effect. But, while Islamists clearly recall the medieval Jihad, the West, for reasons of political correctness which the Islamists couldn’t care less, only obliquely indicates that it is Crusade against Islamist terror. Is it thus a replay of the sentiments of Jihad and Crusade that had symbolised the old war between Islam and Christianity and seems to have re-invented itself in a new situation and in a new name and by new methods? Is it the spirit of Jihad and Crusade nevertheless that seems to be driving the present war by and against terror? The answers to these questions seem to be in the positive if the subtle views of the Western leaders and opinion makers, discussed earlier and later in this paper, are properly construed to get at their true meaning.

3.15 US confused about how to name the ‘real’ enemy The US and the West know, and also seem to subtly acknowledge, that they are actually battling Islam. Yet they seem to be short on proper words to name the ‘real’ enemy. The Western establishment blames radical Islamists for global terror and conflicts. But it is not keen to discuss what is the radical element in Islam. Not only that, periodically the leaders of the West keep certifying that Islam itself is a peaceful religion, even while saying radical Islam is the enemy. If Islam is a peaceful religion, then why call the radical Muslims as Islamic Radicals or the Muslim terrorists as Islamic terrorists? But the Western

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establishment intentionally uses prefix Islamic to identify the radicals as Islamic radicals and the terrorists as Islamic terrorists, so that the link between Islam and terror is not lost sight of. Here what Daniel Pipes wrote in his article of October 11, 200566 is worth recalling again. When the US President George Bush in his speech named the evil as ‘radical Islam, as ‘militant Jihadism’ and as Islamo-fascism’, Daniel Pipes believed that such references would transform the official American understanding of ‘who the enemy is’. Pipes said, if it convinces polite society ‘to name the enemy’ – meaning and implying that the enemy is still to be named – the change would be of enduring importance. Pipes indicates that the naming of ‘the enemy’ has to be done by the society, not by the State, which has already gone the farthest by using the term radical Islam, jihadi Islam, Islamo-fascism and similar indicative words. What will the use of these terms mean? Says Pipes, “the law enforcement and immigration authorities can take Islam into account when deciding whom to let into the country and whom to investigate for terrorism offences.” Note the word ‘Islam’. He adds, “focussing on Muslims as the exclusive source of Islamists permits them finally to do their job adequately”. What Pipes intends to convey by what he has said is obvious. He wants Islam tracked and Muslims investigated. But, Pipes faults Bush for quoting from Koran takes him back to 2001 when he instructed the Muslims about the true nature of their faith; his comment about extremists distorting “idea of jihad” unfortunately implies ‘jihad’ is a good thing. Pipes also objects to Bush limiting the “radical Islamic Empire” to just the Spain-to-Indonesia region, “for the Islamists have a global vision that requires control over nonMuslims countries too – and specifically the US.” Pipes concludes that ‘first their universal ambitions must be understood and resisted, only then their universal ambition can be resisted. The last sentence in his article is telling. “Only when Americans realise that Islamists intend to replace the US Constitution with Sharia will they enter the fourth and final era of this war.” What Daniel Pipes means is that this no war in the normal sense of war with a physical force. It is a war with an enemy who has not been identified with sufficient clarity and named for four years. “Now”, accordingly to Pipes, “Bush has taken the understanding about the enemy to a ‘deeper level’, namely Islamic radicalism. But even this according to Pipes does not name the enemy. He says that this change has the potentially enduring importance, if it finally convinces the polite society ‘to name the enemy’. If naming ‘radical Islam’ does not amount to naming the real enemy and Pipes says that this has the potential to convince ‘the polite society to name the enemy’, it is anybody’s guess as to who Pipes has in mind as the enemy – it is and can only be Islam. But as much as there is

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a risk in not naming the enemy as Pipes obviously apprehends, there is another risk, perhaps un-apprehended, and that is that naming the enemy as Islam and debating Islam will not stop at only Islam and bring in the other two cousins of Abrahamic family into the discourse, for the very reasons for which Pipes would want Islam named.

3.16 US can discourse on Islamic theology, but not on Christian theology A question remains that even Daniel Pipes, who went as far as to say that Muslims as a community should be focussed in matters of investigation of terror related offences and also on who should be allowed into the US, did not touch upon the tenets of Islam nor did he call for a discourse on whether the tenets of Islam itself has the potential and the propensity for conflicts. The advent of radical Islam or radical Muslim is not possible if Islam itself does not have the radical potential and propensity for that. This is precisely what the Western establishment or intellectuals would not be too keen to discourse on it in the open. If, as Daniel Pipes says, Islamists have a global vision that requires control over non-Muslim countries, and are therefore targeting to convert the US and impose the Sharia on the US, then why not discuss whether Islamic theology permits or commands them to do what Pipes is obviously worried about – namely Sharia in the place of the US Constitution – or forbids them from so doing. If the latter be the case, the Islamists are acting against the tenets of Islam and the War against Islamist Terror is actually a War against un-Islamist Terror. If that be not the case, it means Islam itself inspires terror, commands the faithful to wage war to impose Sharia on the US replacing the US constitution. The answer to this question will be evident if the theological content of Islam is debated. This is where the West is reticent, even embarrassed. Since the West, which is the principal arbiter of what is the drive of the terror, is reticent about a theological discourse and debate, the Rest is also silent on the issue. With the result a huge deficit in the global discourse about Islamic terror persists. Why the West seems disinclined about a discourse on Islamic theology? Is it because once the theological Islam is brought into discourse and debated, the Islamic establishment and even the secular West will discourse on theological content of Christianity also and ask for a debate? That appears to be, by implication, the reason. That is, if a discourse on the theology of Islam is forced, then forthwith a discourse on the theology of Christianity will become unavoidable. That will have to follow as night follows the day, given the theological similarity between the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic

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cousins. Both Islam and Christianity share the same world view – Islam sees the world universalised by Islam and Christianity sees the world as universalised by Christianity. But this perceived logjam, that bails out Islamic theology from being discoursed and debated as to its theology on the ground that Christian theology will suffer the same fate, has to be broken in the larger interest of conflict avoidance and conflict resolution. Neither of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic twins is likely to initiate the discourse and debate. The initiative, if it comes from the secular establishment in the West, it would turn into a global discourse. The non-Monotheistic school in the East, which has no global agenda like its Abrahamic-Monotheistic cousins which promote conflicts, should also be brought into discourse to show the escape route for the world from conflicts. But, since Islam is the third, and not the first, monotheistic advent in the Abrahamic family of religions, it is necessary to study the potential and propensity of the two faiths in the Abrahamic-Monotheistic School, namely Christianity and Islam, which are massive in their power and reach and which each confronting the other now. But one thing seems clear. The US has hit a road block on further deepening of its references about Islam beyond radical Islam. The point where the discourse has stopped now leaves only Islam as a faith and as a theology unnamed. But that would call for a high level of discourse and debate about the entire Islamic theology and history. While what seems to be bothering the Christendom is that the moment Islam is brought to the global intellectual market place for being discoursed and debated as a religion, similar debate on Christian theology will become unavoidable, such a discourse and debate cannot be and should not be avoided. It can only be deferred till the West feels comfortable to call for a debate on the theological disposition of Islam towards the non-Islamic peoples and non-Islamic religions of the world. This debate is bound to rock the world any time. While the theology of all three AbrahamicMonotheistic cousins will be debated not only by the West, all non-Abrahamic peoples and faiths will also discuss their theology. Once the AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths come in for scrutiny as to the compatibility of their respective theology to the modern world and also their potentiality and propensity for conflict between themselves and with other faiths, as a contrasting benchmark the theology, more appropriately, the philosophy of the Indian school of religions consisting Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism will also be discoursed and debated so as to look for an alternative paradigm for positioning different faiths without conflict. This discourse and debate about the fundamentals of different faiths cannot be avoided for a long time; it will be sooner than later. The US

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establishment might do well to commence this discourse and debate it sooner rather than delay or avoid it. As a prelude to the discourse and debate that cannot be avoided for too long and as a brooding appeal to the conscience of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic world, this paper discusses in the next chapter the theological content of two of the three Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, Islam and Christianity and also as a contrast, Hinduism from the non Abrahamic-Monotheistic school to compare the respective potential and propensity of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and the non Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths for conflict promotion and conflict avoidance. The discussion necessarily leads to a critical appraisal of whether the theologies or principles of the three faiths, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism have the potential to avoid and resolve conflicts or to promote conflicts. The discussion involves critical analysis of the theology and philosophy of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths as compared and contrasted with non-Monotheistic faiths, particularly Hinduism, which in a sense, includes Buddhism which is the other major non-Monotheistic faith. The secular and liberal West has not paid adequate attention to the theological bases and practices of different faiths, in either of the two schools, namely Abrahamic-Monotheistic and the non Abrahamic-Monotheistic. Without knowing the theological bases and drives of the different faiths for conflict promotion and avoidance, it is difficult to arrive at any conflict resolving mechanism. The endeavour in this paper is to appraise the different faiths as to their potential and propensity to promote or avoid conflicts and clashes. Principally the discussion will be confined to two of the three AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam, and Hinduism as a representative of the non-Monotheistic family as well as of the ancient faiths that pre-date the Abrahamic faiths.

IV- The Theological Debate The most vital aspect of this paper is the discussion about the actualised, not the theoretical, propensities and potential of religious faiths and civilisations to promote, avoid and resolve conflicts. This calls for a cross religious analysis moving beyond the current assumptions that all religions preach the same view, or have the same goal or see one another in the same way. This opens up the need for a diagnostic appraisal, and equally critical comparison, of

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the theological foundations of two of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, namely, Christianity and Islam on the one hand and of Hinduism as the representative of non-Monotheistic school on the other. This appraisal, comparison and contrast are integral to the further analysis and comparison of the actualised propensity and potential of these faiths and civilisations powered by them to promote and resolve conflicts based on the theological and historic evidence in Abrahamic-Monotheistic and Ancient Hindu civilisations. The discussion that follows is extremely important in the context of the emerging civilisational paradigm and of the possible civilisational conflicts.

4.1 The worlds of Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and Hinduism – a quick Introduction In the context of an overview and comparison of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and the Hindu faith and before further and detailed discussion, here is a peep into the fundamental distinction between Abrahamic faiths and the Eastern faiths, inclusive of Hinduism and Buddhism as seen from a study of different faiths instituted in the US. When, in the early 1990s, the issue of religious fundamentalism became the central concern of the West and just as when the 21st century opened terrorism became the principal issue, the Chicago University had constituted a project to study Religious Fundamentalism and had brought out five volumes on different aspects of religious fundamentalism. In the first volume titled Fundamentalism Observed, the editors of the five part study, Martin E Marty and R. Scott Appleby, capture and compare the essence of the Monotheistic-Abrahamic faiths with the core of the non-Abrahamic ones in the East in the context of ‘Understanding Fundamentalism’ as a phenomenon in their conclusion in Chapter 15 at the end of the volume. What they say is relevant in the context of the later discussions on the comparative potential and propensity of the Abrahamic-Monotheism and the ancient Hindu faith. The editors say: Some of the traits of fundamentalism examined here are more accurately attributed to the “People of the Book”, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, than to their first, or distant, cousins in the fundamentalist family: Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Confucians. Sacred Texts do not play the same constitutive role in South Asian and Far Eastern Traditions as they do in the Abrahamic faiths, nor is history conceived as of a structured drama proceeding inexorably to a climactic final act.67

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What is the effect of this difference between the two sets of faiths, the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and Hindu-Buddhist faiths? This is what the editors say: Such dramatic and dualistic readings of sacred texts and renderings of meta-history provide the fundamentalists with a cosmic enemy, imbue fundamentalist boundary-setting, and purity-preserving activities with an apocalyptic urgency, and foster a crisis mentality that serves both to intensify the missionary efforts and to justify extremism.68

So the fundamental difference between the two sets of faiths consist in the potential of the Abraham faiths to ‘justify extremism’, as the Fundamentalism Project finds. Herein lies, as the discussions that follow affirm, the potential and propensity of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and their respective adherents, the people of the Book as the editors call them, to justify extremism against their own and the followers of other religionists. This potential and propensity translated as the Christian Crusades and Islamic Jihads in history.

4.2 Non-Abrahamic Monotheism synthesises Monotheism and Polytheism The debate about religious phenomena of world has been on geo-Christian platforms and was therefore, centred around the experiences and the terminologies derived from the three Abrahamic-Monotheistic Faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A brief reference to the theologies of the three faiths on the basis of their own idioms is necessary to capture their potentials and propensities. To compare the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths with the Indian School of religions, inevitably on the idioms of the AbrahamicMonotheistic world which cannot adequately capture the spirit and soul of Hinduism, is not fair to both. For instance, as the discussions here show, it is an admitted position that there is no equivalent of the word Dharma’, in any language in the world. But that word is central to understanding Hinduism and without understanding the inner meaning of this profound term Dharma it is difficult, even impossible to grasp the full meaning and content of Hinduism. Yet, unfortunately, it is only with the aid of the tools and idioms of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic religions Hinduism will be discussed here. So, to that extent the understanding about Hinduism will be from the AbrahamicMonotheistic idioms.

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4.2.1 Abrahamic-Monotheism versus Polytheism The Abrahamic faiths originating in Judaism are regarded as founded Monotheism, which means belief in one divine being without a second. Monotheism means “belief that there is one, but the only one, divine being. The term is used more specifically for belief in the supreme personal creatorGod of JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM, although the doctrine of trinity – the Father, the Son [Jesus] and the Holy Spirit – is a Christian variant, and a later development.”69 Here Monotheism is defined in the sense of Monism. Monism means ‘as a world view, belief that reality of one kind’.70 But Monotheism in the sense in which the three AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths are structured is, as will become evident in the discussions that follow, not actually Monotheism. The direct contrast to Monotheism is Polytheism which means, “belief in, or worship of many Gods.”71 The Abrahamic-Monotheistic understanding of religions – which later translated into the geo-Christian and pan-Islamic and began hunting down the Gods and faiths of other peoples – got entangled between these two specifics of the One and the Only Divinity [that is, Monotheism] vs Many Divinities [that is, Polytheism]. In addition it got into a more complex entanglement of belief in a named Single Personal God for the whole community of believers, with other Gods and Gods of others being clearly evil and false, being alone regarded as Monotheism and as a contrast the belief in more than one God or many Gods being regarded as Polytheism. Thus this did not remain as some simple theological difference between worshipping a Single God and worshipping Multiple Gods. It is not only belief in the Only God and in no other God, single or multiple, but, it is belief in not just a defined but an identified Personal God. That the Only Personal-cum-community God is the true God and all other Gods, either Single or multiple, of others are false Gods is fundamental to Monotheism. Is it Monotheism in the sense in which that concept means?

4.2.2 Abrahamic-Monotheism is Mono-Godism, not Mono-Theism The concept of Monotheism could as well be interpreted to mean that the belief that the Only Personal God is true God is actually not Monotheism; it is actually single-Personal God religion or Mono-Godism, not Mono-Theism. Theism means belief and Mono-theism means belief in One Divine Being. So, to regard single-Personal God faiths as Monotheism is not a correct understanding of Monotheism in the sense of belief in One Single Divinity.

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When that Personal God becomes compulsorily the Personal God of all people of a faith, then the identified Personal God is no more the individual’s personal God, but it becomes the collective God of the community. Result it is no more the Personal God of the choice of the individual faithful but the collective imposition on him. But One Single Divinity is a very different concept as compared and contrasted with one named God. It is a concept and not a God in the sense of a person. Once a God is named and identified, it cannot be the Single Divinity. If Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths had been monotheistic in concept then they would have had no issue with other Gods, or between themselves. It is because the Monotheistic concept of God became Mono-God, that is the concept became the person, conflict arose on the identity of the God which the concept of One Single Divinity. Turning the character of monotheism as a concept into a personal God, made the monotheistic faiths, as they are known in the Abrahamic family, conflictprone. Yet, to this day, the idea Single God as a person and not Single Divinity as a concept, remains the unalterable fundamental theological premise of all the three Abrahamic Mono-God faiths popularly regarded as Mono-Theistic faiths, while, in truth, they are just Mono-God faiths worshipping their particular brand of God. In the full and true sense of the term monotheism, the Abrahamic-Monotheism is not monotheism at all. Consequently, only when prefixed with its Abrahamic origin, its character as something other than what the concept of Monotheism conveys, its true nature as MonoGodism. That is why in this paper the three Abrahamic faiths are not referred to as simply monotheistic, but Abrahamic-Monotheistic, faiths. This is to convey that they are not monotheistic as they are presumed to be. In the true sense of the term monotheism, as the discussions later will bring out, it is Hinduism which will emerge as monotheism, without any prefix or qualification. Further discussions will explain how the loyalty to the Only God fostered in individual Monotheistic faiths became loyalty to the God of the particular religion and how it did not amount to Monotheism in the sense of worshipping the One Supreme Reality. So understood Monotheism in the sense of worship of One Supreme Reality does not exist; what exists in actual practice is one Supreme God and that is posited as the reality. Actually, in the AbrahamicMonotheism, there is only mono-God but there is no mono-Theism at all. What in practice prevails in the name of Monotheism is Single-God religions and not Monotheistic faiths. It is true that belief in Single Personal God is an understandable religious and spiritual pursuit. In fact among the Hindus

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who recognise the reality of crores of Gods, millions and millions worship only their chosen personal God, Ishta Devata, the ‘Chosen God; in Hinduism, the deity principally worshipped by an individual or family’.72 But the theology of the Mono-God or Single-God religions, incorrectly classified as MonoTheistic, do not stop at commending the worship of the Single-God, even assuming that the worship of a Single chosen God amounts to Monotheism. But the theology of every one of the three Single God religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – is belief in the existence of the only personal God. But that belief calls upon its adherents not just to disbelieve other Gods, but to de-legitimise and even demonise Gods other than their own Personal God, as Evil and Satan. This de-legitimisation and classification of others’ God and other Gods as false, evil and Satan may be said to transform the three Single God religions of the Abrahamic tradition into Monotheistic faiths. Their Monotheistic character consists but is not completed by believing only in their respective individual Single Personal God; it is completed only when that belief is supplemented by disbelieving other Gods and others’ God and de-legitimising them as false and Satanic. This de-legitimising of other Gods and others’ God, is inseparable from, and is integral to, Monotheism as practised by Judaism, Christianity and Islam which constitute exclusive Monotheism. “For exclusive monotheism only one god exists; the other gods either simply do not exist at all, or, at most, they are false gods or demons; i.e., being that are acknowledged to exist but that cannot be compared in power or in any other way with the one and the only true god. This position is in the main that of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”73 So Monotheism which is exclusive is not Monotheism in truth, but Mono-Godism. But that is not the way the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths are debated and understood. What is the consequence of the concept of One Single Divinity in monotheism turning into One Single Personal God in mono-Godism? In one word: conflict from the moment the Single God religions came into being and it continues ceaselessly.

4.2.3 Hinduism: Monotheism diversified and polytheism harmonised As compared and contrasted with the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism has a different origin of beginning-less beginning, with its antiquity dating to prehistoric-history. Unlike in the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism did not originate in any single great mind’s experience of the Ultimate. Therefore, it has a different, in fact, a unique, understanding of the Ultimate Truth. To use

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inadequate the Abrahamic-Monotheistic terminology to explain Hinduism, it is Polytheistic in appearance and Monotheistic in substance. This the clue to how it avoids the clash of the Only God vs Many Gods of the Monotheistic and Polytheistic contrasts. The religions of India and China show an astonishing multiplicity of form, but exclusive monotheism, unless imported or stimulated by foreign influences, seems to be absent. All other phenomena treated in this survey of monotheism, however, are to be found in their religions. Inclusive monotheism and pantheism fit very well with the Indian notions of religion, particularly in Hinduism, as is witnessed by the reflections on the Brahman, the self of the world, and Atman, the self of the individual man. As the Upanisads say: ‘Truly, in the beginning existed this Brahman, that only knew itself, saying: I am Brahman.’ Although in many cases one god, such as Siva [Shiva] and Visnu [Vishnu], receives nearly all the attention of the faithful, this emphasis never leads to a negation of other gods as such.74

Here, Hinduism is clearly Monotheistic in concept. In fact monotheism begins only when identified Gods cease to exist in the mind of the person in pursuit of the Ultimate. But the moment one looks at the externals of Hinduism that will totally contradict its Monotheistic character from the Abraham perspective. The Hindus worship, and the hundreds of Hindu texts approve of the worship of, all Gods and Gods in all forms; the Hindus themselves proudly say that the number of their Gods is 330 million! In this perspective Hinduism may well qualify as Polytheistic. But reducing Hinduism to being merely Polytheistic will thoroughly distort its true character. Religious traditions may acknowledge the existence of more than one God or Goddess giving rise to the category of Polytheism. Hinduism is such a tradition. Hindus acknowledge gods and goddesses for virtually every aspect of human existence; cultic heroes or saints fulfil the same functions in other religions. That Hindu gods and goddesses do function in this way along side a strong tradition of there being one supreme deity or primordial being raises the question about the category of Polytheism being applied to Hinduism.75

Says the philosopher-statesman, who was the second President of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan:

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Hinduism accepts all religious notions as facts and arranges them in the order of their more or less significance. The bewildering polytheism of the masses and the uncompromising monotheism of the classes are for the Hindu the expressions of the one and the same force at different levels.76

Sri Aurobindo, regarded as Maharishi or a high seer and a great Hindu philosopher of the 20th century said: Indian polytheism is not the popular polytheism of ancient Europe; for here the worshipper of many Gods still knows that all his divinities are forms, names, personalities and power of the One; his gods proceed from the one Purusha [the primordial being], his goddesses are energies of the one divine Force.77

In form and in substance, the Hindu Text and the Hindus accept the reality of several Gods, but stress that these are the manifestations of the same truth, which is the Ultimate reality. The oldest Hindu Text, the Rig Veda, says, in Sanskrit ‘Ekam Sat, Vipraha Bahudavatdanti’ meaning ‘the truth is one, the learned men think it to be many’.78 Hinduism rejects the classification of religions as Monotheistic and Polytheistic or into any other categories. So it is neither Monotheistic nor Polytheistic in the sense in which the Abrahamic tradition, based on its own experience, understands Monotheism and Polytheism. In truth any effort to understand Hinduism as a religion in terms of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic dictionary meaning might lead to incorrect, even distorted, understanding of Hinduism. So Hinduism, even though it believes in one Ultimate Truth or Reality, called the Brahman or differently by wise men79 also recognises the several forms of Gods as the manifestations of that Ultimate Truth or Reality. As it firmly believes in One-without-a-second and Ultimate Supreme Reality and also equally firmly recognises as manifestations of that Ultimate Supreme Reality, Hinduism harmonises the contradicting poles of Monotheism and Polytheism and integrates the essential substance of Monotheism but sans the Abrahamic intolerance of other Gods. In the process, Hinduism actually recognises and accepts other Gods and the diversity enshrined Polytheism which is a belief in diverse gods but which do not have a unifying and non-differentiating philosophic text to link them to the Ultimate Truth or Reality as Hindu text repeatedly stress. But Hinduism has the philosophy to harmonise the worship of several Gods through the idea of the one Ultimate

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reality, the Brahman. Thus Hinduism may be described, using the AbrahamicMonotheistic terminology, as Monotheism diversified and Polytheism unified. In contrast the three Monotheistic faiths suffer from exclusiveness and for want of inclusiveness, forcing them to deny diversity of faiths and methods of worship to the world. And the Polytheistic faiths suffer for want of a principle to unite the different Gods. That is why the Hindus for thousands of years had emphasised unity in diversity which, looked at in another way, is also diversified unity. Viewed thus, Hinduism is also the harmonising formula between Monotheism and Polytheism, while the AbrahamicMonotheism sees Polytheism as a contradiction and even as an enemy that cannot be tolerated. So Hinduism supplies the philosophic basis for synthesising Abrahamic Monotheism and its adversary Polytheism. Yet, looking at the externals of Hinduism, both Islam and Christianity, perceive it as Polytheistic and therefore apply the standards which the respective religion prescribes for handling and dealing with Polytheists. As Polytheists are the greatest adversaries of the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, Hinduism is also assessed, wrongly, as Polytheistic, and thus even at the outset of their interface in India with Hinduism, Islam and Christianity developed disrespect and avoidable hostility towards the host faith.

4.2.4 Three Single, jealous Gods clash; millions of Gods co-exist The irreconcilable contradiction, which the Abrahamic Monotheism sees in Polytheistic faiths, against which it even mandates and casts a duty on its adherents to eliminate them by force if necessary, is the basic potential for religious intolerance and clash between religions and between cultures and civilisations influenced by the Abrahamic Monotheistic faiths and others. Extended, this intolerance of other Gods in individual Abrahamic Monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, also led to their intolerance mutually among them – intolerance of the Judaic/Islamic traditions by Christians, of the Christian/Judaic traditions by Islamists and of the Christian/Islamic traditions by Judaic people, eventhough the Gods in these traditions are of the same origin – from Abraham or Ibrahim. In all the three AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths, Abraham is the Friend of God and along with Moses, is mentioned frequently in the Quran as the first Prophet.80 Yet, with this unifying history the three Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths share the bloodiest relations in religious history. The three Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths have one God each to propitiate. They are Single God religions – or Mono-God religions. Each of the three single Gods is a jealous God. So none of the three identified

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and named Single Gods will accept one another other mutually even though they are of common descent and common origin, nor would they accept any other God also. So the faiths of the three faiths are constrained to fight all Gods other than their own single personal God. So the three Single God religions mutually clash because of the mutual clash between the three single jealous Gods. In contrast, Hinduism has millions of Gods and yet there is no clash among them. The Hindu gods, being not jealous gods, do not clash. Result, there is no clash among Hindus. The fact that emerges from the history of religions in the Abrahamic traditions is that, if God do not clash, the faithfuls will not. The Hindus may clash over anything else, but not over their millions of Gods. Thus significantly, the fundamentals of Hinduism, which shaped the minds of a sixth of the global population at all times ensured that there was no clash between Gods whose population was estimated at 330 million – which was more than the population of Hindus themselves when India became free! Once the Gods in the Indian school of religions did not clash, that ensured that their worshippers had nothing to clash over them and in their names. This is precisely where the three Abrahamic Monotheistic faiths which had just three Gods to satisfy, failed to demonstrate their potential for avoiding clashes and in contrast repeatedly demonstrated their propensity to promote clashes. The potentiality of a faith to avoid clash between its God and the Gods of other faiths is the core of the its conflict avoidance and conflict resolution. This potential implicit in the Hindu approach to Divinity. This potential of Hindu faith for conflict-avoidance is hidden in the strange spectacle of millions of Hindu Gods co-existing and because of that a billion Hindus not having fight over which of the Gods is the true God. In contrast, just three Gods of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths constantly in battle for amongst one another for superiority, making, in the process, their respective adherents clash ceaseless for the last more than thousand years; and the tussle continues even today. How does this miracle occur in Hinduism which unifies and conceptualises millions of Gods into Brahman as the ultimate reality, which the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths have completely failed to do with their belief in their respective One Single God. That is because the One Single God in the three Abrahamic faiths is not a concept like Brahman but a person. Once the One Single God is a person, not a concept, all differences that arise between humans begins arise between One Single God and another Single God. This calls for a deeper analysis.

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4.2.5 Why Hinduism from the non-Monotheistic School? But before that a short question, which may otherwise lurk in the mind of any serious reader of this paper, has to be addressed. When there are so many ancient traditions in the non-monotheistic school including the vibrant Buddhism, why the choice of Hinduism from the non-monotheistic order for comparison with Abrahamic-Monotheism. The choice of Hinduism for contrasting their respective theological position and practices, is justified for many reasons. First, Hinduism is the oldest religious tradition known to humanity81 and is the mother of all religions82 particularly the philosophic tradition of all the Indian faiths including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, and is, not just a religion, but, in a sense, a commonwealth of religious. Second, besides the multitudes of variants within, Hinduism also represents, in diverse respects, Buddhism83 and together they account for a fifth of population of believers in the world.84 The non-Monotheistic faiths, cultures and civilisations [broadly Hindu and Buddhist] influenced by them accounts for 39.4% of the global population.85 In a larger sense, Mahayana Buddhism which is the most prevalent, is the combination of Hinduism and Buddhism, thus bringing the two faiths together to form one broad concept as a contrast to AbrahamicMonotheism. Hinduism stripped for export is Buddhism.86 So in more than one sense Hinduism represents all ancient traditions and by consensus all Indian and South East Asian tradition. Third, Hinduism is the only nonMonotheistic faith that has survived the onslaught of all aggressive and invading forces including the two monotheistic faiths, Islam and Christianity. It not just survived, but kept alive and practised, and continues to practice, almost without variation, its tradition and culture of thousands of years, save that, because of centuries of disturbed existence, it did not have the freedom to evolve in the way it would have otherwise evolved. Next, India has disproved the early 20th Century philosopher-Sociologist Max Weber’s prediction that the Hindus were doomed to remain underdeveloped in the modern world, because they believed in Karma and rebirth. Max Weber found the spirit of Hindu concepts of Samsara (the cycles of rebirth) and Karma (the belief that actions in this life determine one’s fortune and status in the next) amongst others is not capable of giving birth to economic and technological revolutions from within itself or even of facilitating the first germination of capitalism in its Minds.87

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Weber even meant was ancient Indian model could not even successfully adopt the modern economic model.88 Subsequent studies showed that Weber’s assessment was not correct. The influence of culture on economic development in South Asia has drawn scholarly interest since Max Weber argued that the rise of Protestantism abetted the origination of capitalism. Weber claimed that the spirituality and otherworldliness of Hinduism, along with its associated caste system, were not compatible with this new economic constellation. This sharp dichotomy posited by Weber and others has not been borne out by India’s complex post-independence experience. Castes act as interest associations in India’s democracy. India’s labour force has become increasingly skilled and differentiated. From the Green Revolution onward, India’s farmers have consistently raised yields to meet food needs. Large firms governed within joint families have succeeded in the domestic and global realms. South Asian culture and social patterning are best perceived as a multifarious resource out of which the subcontinent’s future will be constructed rather than as universally stultifying features.89

It is now an acknowledged fact that the Hindu civilisation is on the rise. The US National Intelligence Council [ of the Central Intelligence Agency] in its ‘once-every-five-year look at the future of the globe’ [2005] predicted that “by the year 2020, China and India will be vying with the United States for global economic supremacy”.90 There are several prognosis to this effect. That India and Indian civilisation are on the rise is now a globally accepted perception. The Hindu religion, culture and civilisation, unlike other ancient traditions and cultures had shown a durability for survival which seems to have been denied by destiny to other ancient civilisations like the Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian civilisations, save the Confucian and Shinto traditions. More the Hindu-Buddhist faiths and civilisations influenced by them, have also demonstrated the capacity to flourish in a competitive atmosphere generated global capitalism, not withstanding the prophesies of Western thinkers like Max Weber.

4.2.6 Why the choice of Islam and Christianity from Monotheism? The next question is why only Islam and Christianity, and not Judaism also, from the Monotheistic school? Islam and Christianity from the Monotheistic School are obvious candidates for comparison and contrast with each other and with Hinduism from the non-Monotheistic School. First, these two

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Monotheistic faiths and the cultures and civilisations and the social and political order influenced by them are the main players in the perceived global civilisational conflicts of today. Second, these two religions interfaced Hinduism in India, with a high degree of hostility. While the peoples influenced by Islam and the culture and civilisations derived from it control huge energy reserves of the world and also constitute nearly 20% of the global population, the peoples influenced by Christianity as a faith and the culture, civilisations and social and political order derived from geo-Christian experiences and world view control huge economic and technological and also military power and constitute 33% of the global population. More, the nations and peoples influenced by two Monotheistic cousins had had a certain degree of geopolitical understanding in the Cold war days and this understanding even led to the Western powers encouraging militant Islamism to fight the USSR, the main ideological enemy of the West, even though the partnership collapsed once the Cold war was over. Now these erstwhile partners of Cold war politics, Islam and the West – read constructively Christianity – are seen to be in violent conflicts between themselves. Thus, despite the fact that these two Monotheistic faiths had originated in the same geography, shared the same history and known each of other for 15 centuries, they could not agree with or tolerate each other because despite their Gods and ancestors being common for both. As can be seen in the discussions later on their relative theological positions, their Sacred Texts would not allow them to relate in peace with each other. Hence these two Monotheistic cousins are chosen leaving out the Judaic faith even though it is Judaism which the mother of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic School.

4.2.7 Hinduism ignored and neglected in the West-centric discourse Before the respective theological positions of Islam and Christianity are considered, it is appropriate to discuss the Hindu faith and the culture and civilisation inspired by it first. It is appropriate because the global discourse on civilisations and the perceived clash among them are a monologue of the West. The perspective of non-Western thoughts and particularly nonAbrahamic-Monotheism, is totally absent in the debate. Considering that the discourse is about clash of civilisations, the absence of the Indian school of religions, particularly Hinduism, which offers an alternative paradigm for conflict avoidance, is understandable. Thus, Hinduism figures the least in the civilisational discourse at the global level. That the Indian civilisation or

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Hindus are not brought into the discourse despite the fact that Indian religions constitute about a sixth of the global population, is admitted by Samuel Huntington who says in the preface to his book ‘The Clash of Civilisations and Remaking of the Global Order. He says that, after he wrote the article “Clash of Civilisations?” in Foreign Affairs journal in Summer 1993, he travelled to different parts of the world and interacted with all major civilisations but he did not have the opportunity to meet with any Hindu scholar or school of Hindu thought. This is what he says in his preface on his study of and familiarity with different religions and civilisations after he published his views in 1993: Following the publication of the article I became involved in innumerable seminars and meetings often focussed on ‘the clash’ with academic, government, business, and other groups across the United States. In addition, I was fortunate to be able to participate in the discussions of the article and its thesis in many other countries, including Argentina, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Korea, Japan, Luxembourg, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan. These discussions exposed me to all major civilisations except Hinduism, and I benefited immensely from the insights and perspectives of the participants in these discussions.91

It is evident from Prof Huntington’s book that his central concern in the book was about the potentiality of the civilisations he had opportunity to become familiar with for clashes and conflicts. Significantly he did not interact with any one from the only civilisational stream, Indian school of faiths and the civilisations influenced by them, which did not have any record of civilisational and religious wars or clashes and which, as the discussions that follow shows, had even a highly noble system of rules for wars within and without. To that extent prof Huntington’s book on civilisations and his conclusions about how to avoid civilisational clashes are incomplete. This neglect of the Hindu view point in the global discourse justifies the discussion on Hinduism ahead of Christianity and Islam in this paper.

4.2.8 Hinduism includes all Gods and excludes none It is necessary to unveil the core of Hinduism to understand why is it doctrinally tolerant; why is it, in that sense on the other side of the table with the Monotheistic faiths; and why it cannot promote, nor tolerate, conflicts with other faiths or adherents of other faiths. The Hindu faith is, and more

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accurately, the Hindu faiths in plural as there multitudes of ways of worship within the Hindu pantheon, are, an evolution. It is difficult to define Hinduism and every attempt at a definition of Hinduism has proved to be unsatisfactory. It was not founded by any single person; in fact it is not a single faith. It is a commonwealth of faiths which includes ardent idol worshippers, also those accept idol worship but, at the same time, rise above it by a process of spiritual evolution like the followers of Advaita [Non-dualism] expounded by the great philosopher of India, Adi Sankara and also ardent dissenters against idol worship at all like the followers of Arya Samaj founded by Swami Dayanada Saraswati. It equally includes in its scope people who believe in Divine Incarnation [Avatars] to those who do not believe in Avatars at all. Unlike other religious texts, particularly the Monotheistic religious Texts, the Hindu religious Texts do not “distinguish ideas of God as true and false, adopting one particular idea as the standard for the human race.”92 and thus they explicitly recognised that there cannot be a universal rule for all people to follow. This aspect, which probably holds the key to the world of difference between the Hindu school of thought and the Monotheistic schools, needs a closer look. This unique aspect of Hinduism distinguishes it from the Monotheistic faiths and “recognises and accepts the obvious fact that mankind seeks its goal of God at various levels and in various directions, and feels sympathy with every stage of the search.”93 The Hindu rulemaking distinguished between the Sruthi [Vedas and Upanisads] which is a text of abstract ideas and concepts and the Smriti [time and context specific and variable, The Dharma Sastras] which is the text of rules for conduct of its adherents. The Sruthi deals with eternal truths pertaining to Dharma and Moksa, approximately morality and salvation. Although moral truths are eternal, their application is subject to temporal modification. The principle that though moral laws are eternal, their actual application is mutable is an important understanding of Hinduism.94 Again in the ancient Hindu approach, for example, the place-specific traditions – Desachara, that is, the rules applicable to specific peoples and places – and the family-specific traditions – Kulachara – were made inviolable by political or military conquerors and the victors were under mandate to preserve the customs and traditions of the people of the conquered territories.[See infra Chapter 7] Most of the violence in the Monotheistic traditions was because their theology disabled the faithfuls to refrain from imposing their rules on others particularly on the defeated peoples. Moreover even wars were required to be waged as part of their allegiance to the faith, and were waged only to take the faith and its

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rules to other societies and peoples and convert them to the new faith. The absence of this distinction between the Sruthi and Smriti in Monotheistic Islam has made its adherents to impose on themselves even the traditional rules of Islamic living, the Sharia, which is essentially an Arabic life style, and whose validity is definitely time-bound, as universal, unalterable and eternal theological prescriptions. The disturbances which the Hindu civilisation and Hindu peoples experienced for centuries from the Monotheistic faiths and the statecraft, culture and politics influenced by them undermined and virtually suspended further unfolding of its autogenous evolution based on the formula sanctioned and approved in the Hindu texts for reappraisal and rethinking of the texts and their contexts. Since the Hindus lost, and were without their political and cultural freedom, and were without even protection for their life for centuries, they could not discourse or debate and re-evolve their rules [Smriti] which they have been doing for thousands of years, to keep pace with time. But the moment the Hindus got a breather from Islamic aggression after the British entered, they began to think and debate about the reforms needed with high personalities like Maharishi Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda leading the debate and after India won freedom, they could re-frame their rules. It is the distinction between the unalterable but abstract Sruti and the variable Smriti, that made it possible for the Hindus, for example, to discard some aspects of Manu’s law, considered unsuitable to the modern times, without any reaction from the traditionalists within the faith.

4.2.9 That is Why Hinduism is doctrinally tolerant For those, particularly who are not Hindus and are not familiar with the diversity within the Hindu pantheon, how the different Hindu texts present the Hindu faith or Gods differently, the description of Hinduism in the Encyclopaedia of Britannica, a work from the perspective of West presents, may be an easier formulation to understand Hinduism. The Encyclopaedia says: In principle Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be and is doctrinally tolerant, leaving others – including both Hindus and non-Hindus – to whatever creed and worship practices suit them the best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of

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worship, strange Gods, and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers compliment each other for the well being of the world and the mankind. Few religious ideas are considered to be finally irreconcilable. The core of the religion does not even depend on the existence or non-existence of the God or whether there is one God or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is then both a civilisation and a conglomerate of religions with neither a beginning, nor a founder, nor, a central authority, hierarchy, or organisation.95

The essence of Hinduism cannot be presented in clearer and understandable to those who are not adherents of the faith. The fact that this was often quoted by the Supreme Court of India to hold that Hinduism, as a faith, is consistent with Secularism, demonstrates how appropriate the description of Hinduism is in the Encyclopaedia. Separation of religion and state is called for only when a religion does not accept another religion or does not accept those who do not believe in religion or Gods. Hinduism accepts other religions as well as those who refuse to believe in God and offers them their due space. So, when Samuel Huntington says, “Only in Hindu civilisation were religion and politics also so distinctly separated”96 he is applying the Geo-Christian, Western notion of state and religion to India. The Hindu civilisation separated politics from religion in the sense of worship models, but not from ethical principles enshrined in the idea of Dharma which was a common value model for all humans. The duty of a King as enshrined in Raja Dharma or statecraft in India, which was integral to the great idea of Dharma, was to foster all religions and ensure that all religious were protected. The state in India could do that because Hinduism celebrated the worship of all Gods and as none of the worship models in India proclaimed any God as the only God and other Gods as false Gods. This uniqueness in Hindu civilisation cannot be understood unless one understands the concept and meaning of Dharma, an un-legislated moral norm, which has sustained the Hindu civilisation and the Hindus for thousands of years. Defining Dharma is difficult. Here is an explanation for what is Dharma: Dharma is right action. In the Rig Veda, ‘rta’ is the right order of the universe. It stands for both satya or the truth of the things as well as dharma or the law of evolution. Dharma formed from the root ‘dhr’, to hold,

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means that which holds things and maintains it in being. Every form of life, every group of men has its dharma, which is the law of its being. Dharma or virtue is conformity with the truth of the things; Adharma or vice is opposition to it. Moral evil is disharmony with the truth which encompasses and controls the world.97

The contents of the book, ‘Hindu Way of Life’ where this description of Dharma appears, was originally delivered in the form of lectures, Upton Lectures, by the author, Dr S. Radhakrishnan, in 1926 at Manchester College in Oxford. The author, then a professor of philosophy, later came to be known as the philosopher-statesman of India and also became the President of India. Because of the vast canvas, as vast as the complex universe comprehended by the term Dharma, the Hindu attitude to religion is interesting. While fixed intellectual beliefs mark off one religion from another, Hinduism sets itself no such limits. Intellect is subordinated to intuition, dogma to experience, outer expression to inward realisation.98

So, “Religious experience is of a self-certifying character... It carries its own credentials.”99 So no external agency is needed in Hindu belief system to validate or certify one’s religious experience. It is because of this profound nature that Hinduism recognises and celebrates all belief systems as valid. So it separates particular religious beliefs from State but not the sacred idea of Dharma, which recognises all models of worship as sacred, from the state. It is the idea of Dharma as the ethical foundation that makes what seems an abstract concept of faith explained in the Encyclopaedia [supra] functional in concrete form.

4.2.10 There is no ‘Them versus Us’ in Hindu texts How did the Hindu faith develop that kind of flexibility to accommodate even non-believers within its ranks and how it could develop comfort, and even respect for other faiths and the adherents of other faiths, without any feeling of ‘theirs versus ours’ approach? This is because the Rishis in the Hindu tradition, that is the Hindu spiritual philosophers, laid the rules for all religions and ways of worship and not just for any specific way of worship, on the principle that all ways of worship lead to the same God. Generally the worshippers in the Indian School of religions followed these rules for

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their mutual compatibility. The genius and the experience of the Hindus over millennia had devised rules of conduct for mutual accommodation of different faiths and their faithful adherents. In fact the THEM vs US approach to the followers of others faith was theologically and as will be illustrated later, practically absent within the Hindu faiths. Some principles of Hindu way of life common to all believers within the Hindu commonwealth of faiths, one of the oldest values which profoundly influenced the conduct of the Hindus and the Hindu civilisation is: ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, namely, ‘the creation, not just world, is a family’100 That means there is mutuality and interdependence within the creation like in a family.101 The Rig Veda102 of the Hindus which is the oldest literature of the world says ‘Ano bhadraha kritavo yantu vishvataha’, which means ‘Let noble thoughts come from everywhere’.103 This sums up the essence of Hinduism. The oldest and the most revered Text validates all thoughts from wherever and from whomever such thoughts emanate. This testifies how Hinduism enabled itself to remain doctrinally tolerant.

1.2.11 Hinduism views all animate beings alike Also, the Hindu Texts never limited their vision and prayers to only humans. They made the adherents to pray for the entire creation. Here is an ancient prayer of the Hindus: ‘Sarve Bhavantu sukhinaha, Sarve Santu Niramayah; Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu, Ma Kaschitddukkhabhagbhavet” meaning, ‘Let all be happy, and all be free from deseases; let all see auspicious things, and let nobody suffer from grief’.104 Again, the Rig Veda proclaimed “Svastir manushebhyaha Oordhvam Jugatu beshajam Sam no astu dvipathe Sam chathusthpate Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti”, meaning, “Let all human beings be blessed with prosperity, Let all flora and fauna which are life line of all creatures, grow abundantly, Let there be harmony with all two-legged creations, Let there be harmony with all four-legged creations, Let there be peace; peace, peace. (OM Shanti, Shanti, Shanti).” 105 So, the Hindu concept of well-being was not limited to seeking happiness for the adherents of the Hindu school of faiths, nor even limited to human beings, but extended to the entire creation, including the vegetations, the ‘two-legged’ and the ‘four-legged’ living beings. The unique aspect of the Hindu vision is that it endeavoured to integrate the entire creation including the humans and nature taken together into one single family. This was not just an ancient belief given up in modern times as impractical or difficult to observe. The brotherhood concept of any Monotheistic Abrahamic faith is confined to its constituent faithfuls and the

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others, not part of the that constituency, were, and perhaps are being, regarded as Heathens/Pagans or Kafirs. Swami Vivekananda who represented the Hindu faith before the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago on September 11, 1993 – and exactly 108 years later to the date, Islamic Terror hit the US in the year 2001 – told the religious leaders assembled in Chicago, in his first address: I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you brethren a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest childhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: ‘As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’ Sectarianism, bigotry, and it’s horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful Earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time has come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.106

Almost the whole of his speech is extracted as a tribute to its profoundness and besides it is more valid today, a century and more after which Vivekananda delivered his address. While every Monotheistic faith insisted and commanded its adherents to follow only that faith and reject all others as false ones, and worship only its God as the true God and reject all other Gods as false, in the year 1893, Vivekananda articulated before the congregation dominated by Monotheistic religious leaders, the basic principle of the Hindu faith and fundamental conviction of the Hindus as a whole, that all faiths and Gods are

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true and declared that the Hindu faith accepts all faiths including one’s own and the faith of others as true.

4.2.12 Hindus actualised Hinduism’s potential to avoid conflicts It was not that the Hindu faith merely professed these high values. It also practised these values at a time when wars and conflicts over which God was the true God was massacring millions and millions of people in the West and in the Middle East. Vivekananda pointed to the World religious leaders assembled in Chicago as to how the Hindu civilisation protected and preserved for posterity the Zoroastrian faith and culture which was extinguished in the place of its origin, Persia and now Iran and also the Parsi race itself; and how it protected the Jews who were hounded by Christian churches and kings all over Christendom. Seven decades after the Hindu Monk spoke to the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago, in booklet titled ‘Indian Jews In Israel’ brought out by the Consulate of Israel in India in late 1960s, ‘The Editor’ of the booklet said while describing how on the formation of Israel, While most of the others came to Israel driven by persecution, discrimination, murder and other attempts at total genocide, the Jews of India came because of their desire to participate in the building of the Third Jewish Common wealth. ... Throughout their long sojourn in India, nowhere and at no time were they subjected to intolerance, discrimination and persecution.107

The Jewish experience in different parts of India, as a total contrast to the barbaric treatment they received in all countries other than in India, bears testimony to the actualised potential of the Hindu faith and civilisation to accommodate and protect people with totally different faith, particularly a Monotheistic faith, like Judaism, that dismissed other faiths as false faiths. A brief history of the Jews who had settled in India is very instructive, particularly about how they were honourably treated by the Hindus. While the Hindu kings protected the Jewish settlers the invading Dutch colonisers attempted to snuff them out. In addition to Jewish members of various diplomatic corps, there are five native Jewish communities in India: 1. The Cochin Jews arrived in India 2,500 years ago and settled down in Cochin, Kerala as traders. 2. The Bene Israel arrived in the state of Maharashtra 2,100 years ago.

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3. The Baghdadi Jews arrived in the city Mumbai from Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and Arab countries about 250 years ago. 4. The Bnei Menashe are Mizo and Kuki tribesmen in Manipur and Mizoram who claim descent from the tribe of Menasseh. 5. The Bene Ephraim (also called Telugu Jews) are a small group who speak Telugu; Of the total Jewish population in India, about half live in Mizoram and a quarter live in the city of Mumbai. Unlike many parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without anti-Semitism from Indians (though they have been victims of anti-Semitism from the Portuguese and the Christian Goa Inquisition during their colonial rule). The majority Hindu community have been very tolerant towards most other religions in India. Jews have held important positions under Indian princes in the past and even after independence from British Rule, they have risen to very high positions in government, military and industry. Anti-Semitism in India has manifested itself through the rhetoric of Islamist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba, who have declared Jews and Hindus to be enemies of Islam.108 This is the brief story of Cochin [Kerala] Jews: Jews came to Kerala and settled as early as 700 BC for trade. An old, but not particularly reliable, tradition says that Jews of Cochin came in mass to Cranganore (an ancient port, near Cochin) after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. A chieftain by the name of Joseph Rabban, according to local tradition, was granted a principality over the Jews of Cochin by the Chera Emperor of Kerala, Bhaskara Ravivarman II. His descendants had, in effect, their own principality (called Anjuvannam in Indian sources) for many centuries until a chieftain-ship dispute broke out between two brothers (one of them named Joseph Azar) in the 15th century.... Unfortunately for the Jews of Cochin, the Portuguese occupied Cochin in this same period and indulged in persecution of the Jews until the Dutch displaced them in 1660. The Dutch Protestants were tolerant, and the Jews prospered. In 1795 Cochin was occupied by and came under the control of the British Empire. In the 19th century, Cochin Jews lived in the towns of Cochin, Ernakulam, Aluva and North Paravur.109 “Persecuted by the Moors and later the Portuguese, many Indian Jews settled in Cochin under the protection of Cheraman Parumal known to the Portuguese as the “King of the Jews”, where they prospered. Today however only a handful of Jews remain in Cochin, where the Pardesi Synagogue in Jew Street stands testimony to better times enjoyed by the community.110

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The story of the Parsi community which came from Iran in the 8th century or thereabouts is also similar to the Jewish community in India: In the seventh century, Arab armies invaded Persia. Some Zoroastrians were converted to Islam and some preferred to migrate to India, which they did from the early eighth century. They too came to western India where they already had trading contacts, and established large settlements to the north of Mumbai, such as the one at Sanjan. Their descendants founded a community later known as Parsi, reflecting the land of their origin and their language. Some settled in rural areas but close to centres of trade; others were more active in the trading circuits of the time.111

The Parsi legend about their entry into India goes something like this: A little over a thousand years ago, a bedraggled and tired group of persecuted people from Iran landed at Sanjan. Sanjan, a tiny principality, (about 100 km north of present day Mumbai,) was ruled by Jadi Rana. The beleaguered king, not too keen on allowing foreign refugees to settle in his tiny kingdom, sent a bowl full of milk to the foreigners, signifying that the land was full and could support no more. Understanding Jadi Rana’s ploy, the leader of the refugees added a pinch of sugar to the bowl which did not overflow. Jadi Rana understood this astute gesture of sweetening the milk and the message behind it, and graciously allowed the Parsis to stay. Since then, legend has it, that they have added sweetness to local life without being a burden.112

The Wikipedia says: In the 17th century, Henry Lord, a chaplain with the British East India Company, noted that the Parsis came to India seeking ‘liberty of conscience’ but simultaneously arrived as ‘merchantmen bound for the shores of India, in course of trade and merchandise.’113 “The Parsis were, by and large, oblivious of the great hardships and persecution that their co-religionists in Iran were facing in daily life. Although Zoroastrians continued to trickle in from Iran during this period, referred to as “Iranis” (to distinguish them from the Parsis), little was known of the plight of those co-religionists remaining behind in Iran. The latter were, in fact, enduring untold hardships due to religious persecution under the dictatorship of the shahs and the religious tyranny unleashed by the fanatics.114

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So, what Swami Vivekananda proclaimed in Chicago was not an empty verse on universal brotherhood or acceptance of other faiths recited in the Hindu texts, but the high principles of their Texts observed by the Hindus in practice. It testifies to the actualised potential of the Hindu civilisation that treated all faiths, by faith, as equal to any faith within the Hindu civilisation.

4.2.13 Hinduism accepted even intolerant Islam and Christianity The potential and propensity of a faith to co-exist with other faiths is fundamentally dependent on the attitude of the faith, not of its adherents, towards other faiths. If a faith, as a faith and in terms of its sacred texts, internalises recognition and respect for other faiths, it means it has the potential to establish harmonious relation with other faiths. If, on the contrary, a faith, like the each individual Abrahamic faith, as commanded by its Texts sees itself as the only true faith and other faiths as false and so are the Gods of others, then that faith not only will not have the potentiality to avoid or resolve conflicts with other faiths, its potential and propensity will be to promote conflicts. In this background, it will be instructive to survey how the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic religions have related to Hinduism and how has Hinduism related to them. On the relationship of Hinduism with Islam, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says: The religious situation created by the presence of its [Islam’s] numerous adherents always had explosive possibilities: the Muslims do not respect the bovine life and regard Hindu cult practices as idolatry… Up to the present day this situation has raised acute and even devastating issues.... Hindus inclined to worship the holy, whatever its manifestations, may revere Muslim saints or take part in Muslim festivities, often to such an extent that the character of these celebrations has been altered…. Those who, like Gandhi, could not understand the intolerance of orthodox Islam sympathised with the moderation and eclecticism of these [mystic] groups.115

And on the relationship of Hinduism with Christianity, the Encyclopaedia says: For the eclectic and un-dogmatic Hindu, who believes that religion is a matter of personal realisation, every religion is true and a path to truth. If the adherents of Christianity follow it, the Hindu attitude toward it, not withstanding what he believes to be the militant and essentially intolerant disposition of the followers of Christianity – which is regretted by Hindus

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– continues to be one of respect and understanding, of tolerance and even sympathy. The Hindu is ready to accept the ethical teachings of the Gospels, particularly the sermon on the mount (whose influence on Gandhi is well known) but rejects the theological superstructure. ...... Educated Hindus, though assimilating some Christian ideas, often regard the missionary propaganda as an attack on their national genius and time honoured traditions and take offence at what they regard as the disrespectful utterances of Christian missionary literature.116

The Encyclopaedia goes on to say: They [Hindus] are averse to the organisation, the reliance on authorities, and the exclusiveness of Islam and Christianity, considering these obstacles to harmonious cooperation.117

The contrast is self-evident even before the theological core of the Abraham faiths is yet to be explored. Hinduism, which is not only uninhibited by its beliefs to accept other faiths as equally true, but is actually compelled by its core philosophy to see other faiths as true faiths, accepts both Islam and Christianity as true faiths, and as true as Hinduism. But the two AbrahamicMonotheistic religions, compelled by their texts, are clearly and explicitly intolerant of all other faiths and Gods other than their own faith and God. The theological position of the Christian and Islamic faiths is explored in the discussions that follow.

V- Christianity 5.1 Christianity: Its Propensity for ‘Intolerance’ – Within and Outside This is what the Encyclopaedia says about the relationship of Christianity with other religions and why its attitude is one of intolerance towards other faiths. Christianity, from its beginning, tended toward an intolerance that was rooted in its religious self-consciousness. Christianity understands itself as revelation of the divine truth that became man in Jesus Christ himself. ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by

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me.’ [John 14:6] To be a Christian is to ‘follow the truth’ [III John]; the Christian proclamation is “the way of truth” [II Pet 2:2]. He who does not acknowledge the truth is an enemy “of the cross of Christ” [Phil 3:18]; he “exchanged the truth about God for a lie” [Rom 1:25] and made himself advocate and confederate of the “adversary, the devil”, who “prowls around like a roaring lion” [I Pet 5:8]. Thus one cannot make a deal with the devil and his party — and in this lies the basis for intolerance of Christianity. “Christianity consistently practised an intolerant attitude in its approach to Judaism and paganism as well as heresy in its own ranks. By practising its intolerance vis-à-vis the Roman Emperor cult, it thereby forced the Roman state, for its part, into intolerance. Rome however was not adapted to the treatment of a religion that negated its religious foundations, and this inadequacy later influenced the breakdown of paganism.118

Some comment is needed at this point. The history of Roman Paganism is in a sense relevant for Hinduism and India. There is great similarity between Roman pagan religion and Hinduism save in one respect namely that while the Roman pagan religion was the religion of the Roman Empire, the Hinduism was never the official religion of any Hindu Kingdom. No Hindu or Buddhist or Sikh king ever proclaimed a state religion in India. Not even Ashoka, the Great, who converted to Buddhism under the influence of a great Buddhist monk. Ashoka never proclaimed Buddhism, his personal faith, as the religion of his state. On the contrary, his rule fostered all religions. In Magadh Empire there was complete religious harmony and its citizens and all ethnic groups in the kingdom enjoyed complete freedom and equality. The famous edicts of Ashoka emphasize the 119 importance of tolerance in public policy by the government. Particularly, his Rock Edict-XIII suggests formulae for maintaining religious harmony among different religions and sect among them, (i) It says that roots/essence of all religions (moola) should be promoted among the people; (ii) it counsels practice of restraint (vachaguti) in criticizing other religions; (iii) it beseeches the religious leaders to maintain a process of dialogue (samavaya) among themselves; and finally (iv) it commends that people should be knowledgeable (bahushruta) about other religions. Save this difference and consequently the absence of state protection for it, Hinduism suffers from the same inadequacy as did the Roman pagan religion, namely it is not adapted to the treatment of religions like Islam and Christianity, that negated its religious foundations,. Put differently, Hinduism which accepts all religions does not know how to adapt or modify itself to Islam and Christianity that negated Hinduism’s foundation of acceptance of all religions!

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In addition, the principles of Hindu faith will not allow its adherents to refuse to accept Christianity or Islam whatever their disposition towards Hindus, and even if they considered Hindus to be Heathen or Kafir. So the Hindu faith itself is, in this sense, superior to the idea of secularism which started off as just a formula to separate the state and the church within Christendom. So, if a religion, like Christianity which negates Hinduism, is treated at par with and even provided greater privilege than Hinduism under the secular Constitution, then one can understand the uneven and hostile playing field that the secular constitutional arrangement has created for Hinduism. The Encyclopaedia says more about Christianity and its intolerance toward other faiths and the consequence of such intolerance. Early Christianity aimed at the elimination of paganism – and the destruction of its institutions, temples, tradition and the order of life based upon it. After Christianity’s victory over Greco-Roman religions, it left only the ruins of paganism still remaining. Christian missions in later centuries constantly aimed at the destruction of indigenous religions, including their cultic places, and traditions (as in missions to the Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and Slavs). This objective was not realised in mission areas in which Christian political powers did not succeed in conquests – e.g., China and Japan; but in Indian Goa, for example, the temples and customs of all indigenous religions were eliminated by the Portuguese conquerors.120 The attitude of intolerance was further reinforced when Islam confronted Christianity from 7th century on. Islam understood itself as the conclusion and fulfilment of the Old and New Testament revelation: from the Christian view, Islam was understood eschatologically – i.e., as the religion of ‘false prophets’ or as the religion of the Anti-Christ. The aggression of Christianity against Islam was carried out under this fundamental attitude of intolerance. Intolerance of indigenous religions was also manifested in Roman Catholic Missions in the New World: these missions transferred the methods of struggle against Islam to the treatment of the American Indians and destroyed the Indian cults and cultic places. Against Protestants, the Counter-Reformation displayed the same kind of intolerance and was largely equated with the struggle against Turks.121

This intolerance, which Christian theology and practices institutionalised, began to influence even the secular and political life of Christendom. Says the Encyclopaedia:

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The legacy of Christian intolerance and the methods it developed (e.g., inquisition, or brainwashing) operates in the intolerance of the ideology and techniques of modern political revolutions.”122

Since the Christian theological text compelled the Christian devout not to tolerate other faiths, the Christian Church had to carry out the mandate of the text and oppose any development among them or in the faith that would lead to tolerance even within. The Roman Catholic Church in the past has consistently opposed the development of religious toleration. Its claim to absolute power in a state is still practised in the 20th century in some Catholic countries, such as Spain and Columbia in relationships to Protestant minorities.123

Therefore Christianity demonstrates high level of actualised potential and propensities for conflicts. Even the Protestant revolution within the Christian Church seems to have made no difference to this inherent element of intolerance in Christianity towards other faiths. Actually that seems to have accelerated the kinetic drive of the intolerance as the views of the exponent of Protestantism Martin Luther, not very popularly known as yet, indicate.

5.2 Protestant Christianity no less, but more, intolerant Martin Luther wrote books that explicitly demonstrated his intolerance for Jews, Christians who did not agree with him and also people of other faiths. Luther’s books containing intolerant writings included ‘On the Jews and their lies,’ ‘Against the Sabbatarians’, ‘Against the Antinoman,’ and ‘Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants. Surprisingly, the intolerant and provocative writings of Martin Luther is generally not a matter of public knowledge. So, a brief reference to the pioneer of Protestant movement, whose influence is considerable in Protestant Christianity, is necessary. In the last of Luther’s books Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants Luther called for the stabbing and slaying of peasant rebels which triggered the death of an estimated 100,000 human beings.124 These rebels were not only Christians but were mostly slaughtered after their surrender to the German princes. Nor did Luther apologize for his treatise even after world criticism. In his response to his critics in ‘An Open Letter on the Harsh Book’, Luther reiterated his venom:

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Therefore, as I wrote then so I write now; Let no one have mercy on the obstinate, hardened, blinded peasants who refuse to listen to reason; but let everyone, as he is able, strike, hew, stab, and slay, as though among mad dogs, put to flight, and led astray by these peasants, so that peace and safety may be maintained.

In all these harsh treatises, Luther provided an abundance of Biblical passages to justify his attack on his enemies. And, or course (sarcastically speaking), his actions were always through Christian ‘love’ of his enemies, as he audaciously wrote: The merciless punishment of the wicked is not being carried out just to punish the wicked and make them atone for the evil desires that are in their blood, but to protect the righteous and to maintain peace and safety. And beyond all doubt, these are precious works of mercy, love, and kindness….125

In fact several works on the Nazi hatred for the Jews and the holocaust trace the intolerance and violence against the Jews to the Lutheran diatribe against the Jews.126

5.3 Eschatological beliefs – actualised propensity for intolerance There is yet another and the most practical reason for the theological intolerance for other faiths in Christianity and that is the Christian belief in eschatology. The compulsive effect of the Christian eschatological concept of end times is among the most unusual of historical occurrences.127 The Encyclopaedia of Britannica says that Christian belief in the expectation of the end time, in the form of imminent return of Christ, is directly related to the unique global expansion of Christianity. How the belief in end times kinetically activated the Christian missions and the entire course of Christian history is an interesting case study in the history of Christendom. Says the Encyclopaedia The Christian expectation of the end time never consisted simply of a passive yearning for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Being grasped by the faith in its immediately impending arrival was expressed instead in an incredible activation and acceleration of efforts to prepare the world for the return of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom. This state of being grasped transformed itself into the pressing duty to ‘prepare the way for

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the Lord’ (Matt. 3.3) and to remove all the resistance to the establishment of his Kingdom on Earth.128

It is not that eschatological beliefs only worked to shape the Christendom within. It also shaped the world view of the West. Christian expansionism and colonisation were mutually complimentary and supportive. This is what the Wikipedia has to say on the role of the Church and Christianity in the colonisation process, that was started by the Portuguese and followed in a massive by the Spanish. Religious zeal played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. While the Pope himself was a political power to be heeded (as evidenced by his authority to decree whole continents open to colonization by particular kings), the Church also sent missionaries to convert to the Catholic faith the “savages” of other continents. Thus, the 1481 Papal Bull Aeterni regis granted all lands south of the Canary Islands to Portugal, while in May 1493 the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI decreed in the Bull Inter caetera that all lands west of a meridian only 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands should belong to Spain while new lands discovered east of that line would belong to Portugal. These arrangements were later precised with the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. The Dominicans and Jesuits, notably Francis Xavier in Asia, were particularly active in this endeavour. Many buildings erected by the Jesuits still stand, such as the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and the Santisima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay, an example of a Jesuit Reduction. Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations provoked a fierce debate at home in 1550-51, dubbed the Valladolid Controversy, over whether Indians possessed souls and if so, whether they were entitled to the basic rights of mankind. Bartolomé de Las Casas, author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, championed the cause of the natives, and was opposed by Sepúlveda, who claimed Amerindians were “natural slaves”.The School of Salamanca, which gathered theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria (1480-1546) or Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), argued in favour of the existence of natural law, which thus gave some rights to indigenous people. However, while the School of Salamanca limited Charles V’s imperial powers over colonized people, they also legitimized the conquest, defining the conditions of “Just War”. For example, these theologians admitted the existence of the right for indigenous people to reject religious conversion, which was a novelty for Western philosophical thought. However, Suárez also conceived many particular cases — a casuistry — in which conquest was legitimized. Hence, war was justified if

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the indigenous people refused free transit and commerce to the Europeans; if they forced converts to return to idolatry; if there come to be a sufficient number of Christians in the newly discovered land that they wish to receive from the Pope a Christian government; if the indigenous people lacked just laws, magistrates, agricultural techniques, etc. In any case, title taken according to this principle must be exercised with Christian charity, warned Suárez, and for the advantage of the Indians. Henceforth, the School of Salamanca legitimized the conquest while at the same time limiting the absolute power of the sovereign, which was celebrated in other parts of Europe under the notion of the divine right of kings. In the 1970s, the Jesuits would become a main proponent of the Liberation theology which openly supported anti-imperialist movements. It was officially condemned in 1984 and in 1986 by then cardinal Ratzinger (current Pope) as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under charges of Marxist tendencies, while Leonardo Boff was suspended.129

A significant example how eschatological beliefs influenced the whole course of Christian and world history is exemplified the decision of Christopher Columbus into undertaking a travel westerly to reach India: This eschatological pressure stands behind both the earlier and later expansion of Christianity. Columbus, in undertaking to cross the ocean in a westerly direction in the 15th century, for example, believed that Satan has taken refuge in India, thus, successfully disrupting the extension of the Gospel and delaying the return of Christ. According to his eschatological calculations, the time for the return of Christ was nearly at hand: thus, India had to be reached by the shortest way possible so that last bulwark of Satan might be removed through Christian missions. The same eschatological expectation drove the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier to India and Japan in the 16th century. Protestant world missions, commencing a century later, also were influenced by the eschatological expectation of end time.... The eschatological aspect of Christian missions has continued through the 20th century especially among Pentecostals and Adventists. The missionary institutions of these churches come from traditions of the Christian free churches, which maintains a strong inclination towards an imminent expectation.130

It is evident that the influence of Christianity and particularly the belief in eschatology or end times shaped the view of the Christian West about the Rest of the world and set in motion a whole lot of violent process in the world.

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5.4 Anabaptists’ violence due to eschatological beliefs This eschatological pressure worked its way and influenced the Western though and actions throughout its history. It was to prepare the world for the return of Christ and to establish the Kingdom of God, that different Christian denominations worked their way and colonised and destroyed the different peoples, their faiths and culture. How the concept of end times had tormented the Christian history may be demonstrated by what the Anabaptists, who were Protestants, believing that the return of Christ was imminent did in 1534. They seized power in the city of Münster in Westphalia, burned all books other than Bible, enforced communal ownership of property and polygamy! The reason for imposing common ownership of women and property was to destroy all possessive desire and right of possession which they believed were delaying the return of Christ! The Lutherans laid siege on Anabaptists and destroyed them. Incidentally, it may be of interest to know that many studies point to Anabaptists as the pioneers of the thought and model much later developed communist socialist philosophy. The abstract summary of an article ‘Communist Prefiguration: the Munster Anabaptists’ by Daniel J. O’Neil focuses “on a sixteenth-century religious movement that bears a striking resemblance to nineteenth-twentieth century communism. Before securing power the movement presented itself as a peaceful, humanistic denomination that advocated egalitarianism, congregationalism, and self-help. It rejected the institutionalization of both church and state. Securing power the Anabaptists established a totalitarian regime that exceeded its adversaries in regimentation and coercion. They totally restructured the economic system with “communism” and the traditional family system with polygamy”.131 The article also “demonstrates similarity between Anabaptism and contemporary communism in the original recruitment pattern, the leadership configuration, the basic ideological development, the employment of coercion, the control of history, the reform measures, and the ultimate ramifications.”132 The Westphalia revolt of the Anabaptists was a manifestation of the deeper tensions within Christendom about how to prepare for and handle the concept of end times. Since Christianity had a global mission to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth, it meant in effect that other religions must yield, or be made to yield their space on the earth to Christianity as the only faith on earth. In addition, Christians must be pure enough to receive Christ back when God’s Kingdom is established. Because of these two factors sequencing from the eschatological beliefs, the intolerance that inhered in the Christian belief system heightened and intensified.

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5.5 Rome’s refusal to develop tolerance within and outside It is evident from the discussions on Christian theology and history that Christianity has high potential to promote conflicts. The discussions also show that conflict-promoting potential is a product of the theological approach of Christianity to regard other faiths as false faiths. There have been very little effort by the premier Christian institution, the Roman Catholic Church, to develop tolerance. Says the Encyclopaedia: The Roman Catholic Church has in the past consistently opposed the development of toleration. In its claim to absolute power in a state is still practised in some of the Catholic countries such as Spain and Columbia. Since Pope John XXIII and the second Vatican Council (1962-65), however, a more tolerant attitude of the Roman Catholic Church has been demanded that is appropriate to the ecumenical situation of the Christendom in the later part of the 20th century and to the personal character of the Christian faith.133

But the idea of ecumenism should not be confused with developing a spirit of tolerance for or towards non-Christian faiths. It is essentially to create a spirit of toleration within Christianity. Ecumenism is essentially and primarily an intra-Christian an agenda to network and unite the different Christian denominations – which sprouted largely because of the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be body of Jesus Christ himself – to evangelise more efficiently and unitedly; it is to develop toleration within Christianity and not to develop harmony and good relation with other faiths or non-Christians: The growing unity emanating from Protestant Christianity expressed itself in a number of ways, all interrelated and each contributing to the others. Eventually it came to be known as the Ecumenical Movement.134

The History of Christianity traces the Ecumenical Movement which commenced with the formation of the London Missionary School in 1795. This movement which was and is essentially a global effort to unite the Christians is actually a movement for Evangelisation; it was “known as the Evangelical Alliance’ and it made ‘important contributions to the movement towards Christian unity.”135 “A land mark in the history of the Ecumenical Movement” was the “World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910”; this “influenced profoundly some of the most important developments in the next forty or more years”. “The Edinburgh gathering was also in part

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responsible for the two organisations, the World Conference on Faith and Order and the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work, the two bodies, which after 1914, merged to form the World Council of Churches.”136 The most notable part of the narration of the Edinburgh conference and the Ecumenical Movement is “By deliberate choice, the Edinburgh conference confined its attention to missions to non-Christians.” Note the emphasis, on ‘deliberate choice’ and ‘non-Christians’. Again the History of Christianity137 traces the progress of the Ecumenical Movement between the World Wars I and II and says “The Ecumenical Movement made great strides.”138 The narrative goes on to say how the movement “was correctly called ecumenical, for it cherished the dream of spreading throughout all mankind and was making headway towards that goal.” Asking the question, “what was being accomplished because of the faith, through Ecumenical Movement, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Churches or Christians who were not in any of these bodies?, the answer provided is: “Christianity was expanding geographically and was becoming rooted in more peoples than ever before.”139 So the Ecumenical Movement is again an effort to unify the Christian efforts for evangelisation which is the prime cause of the conflict with the non-Christian faiths; so ecumenism was not a movement to relate to other faiths with goodwill. The basic thrust for the evangelisation process that leads to conversion of non-Christian peoples is the fundamental belief in Christianity that it is the only true religion. So the Ecumenical Movement is still to address this vital question, namely, how could Christianity develop good and harmonious relation with other religions so long as Christian theological foundations proclaim them to be false faiths.” This will call for a large scale introspection within Christianity and among Christian leaders. It is a challenge as well as a huge opportunity for the Christian institutions and the leadership as the world faces the real possibility of clash among faiths and civilisations powered by religion, among whom the most influential player, with its global level organisation and its link to the Western powers, is Christianity. The discussions on Christianity from different perspectives merely confirms that the theology and the theological practices of the faith have immense potential for conflicts and also immense propensities for conflict resolution.

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VI- Islam 6.1 Islam and its propensity for intolerance within and outside Islam, which shares the same forefathers and history with Judaism and Christianity, the other two elder cousins in the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, was basically founded on the belief systems of both, but declaring itself as the final and also the completed product of the long sequence of Monotheistic evolution including Christianity, that began with Judaism. Islam considers itself as the final plenary revelation in the history of present humanity and believes that there will be no other revelation after it until the end of human history and the coming of the eschatological events eloquently described in the final chapters of the Quran which is verbatim the Word of God in Islam. That is why the Prophet of Islam is called ‘the Seal of Prophets’ (‘khatam al-anbiya’). Islam sees itself as the final link in the long chain of prophecy that goes back to Adam, who was not only the father of humankind (abu’l-basher) but also the first prophet. There is in fact but a single religion, that of the Divine Unity (al-tawhid) which constituted the heart of all messages from heaven and which Islam has come to assert in its final form.140

The authority goes on to say: Quran, in fact, refers to Abraham, who lived long before the historic manifestation of Islam, as a Muslim as well as Hanif: that is belonging to the primordial monotheism that survived among a few, despite the fall of the majority of men and women of the Arab society, preceding the rise of Islam, into a crass form of idolatry and Polytheism that Muslims identify with the age of ignorance (al-jahiliyyah). Islam is not only a return to the religion of Abraham but even of Adam, restoring the primordial monotheism without identifying it with a single people, as is seen in the case of Judaism, or a single event of human history, as one observes in the prevalent purely historical view of the incarnation in Christianity.”141

He concludes: As every veritable omega is also the return of alpha, Islam as the terminal religion of humanity is also a return to the primordial religion.142

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Though this theological exposition looks extremely abstract, accommodative and assimilative, in substance, this accommodative abstractness turned exclusive and concrete through the belief in the textual in-errancy of versus of the Quran and the Hadith. These two texts were final in their view on how the Muslims should handle themselves as a global society and, in that capacity, handle the world. The result was to give a global and exclusive identity to Islam and its adherents and this, as the expansion of Islam demonstrably proved in its history, had infinite potential and propensity for conflicts. Apart from the exclusiveness of Islam borne out of the rules of life contained in Hadith, the potential for conflict inheres in the very declaration of Islam that it is the final product of the Monotheistic evolution and the earlier versions of Monotheism are in effect repealed. Islam first accepts all the prophets religions preceding it and at once invalidates them by saying that the final product having arrived, which is really the original and primordial, the earlier editions of monotheism are no more valid. Thus, Islam, which is a monotheistic faith, validates the other two Abrahamicmonotheistic faiths, Judaism and Christianity, but immediately and instantly invalidates them by repealing them, saying that Islam is the final version of the evolution of Monotheism. According to Islam that, being primordial, it had always been there and will always be and it is not the invention of any but the discovery of the Prophet. What Islam says is as simple as this: ‘Judaism or Christianity were valid for the past, but not as to future. As to the future it is only Islam and none else’. This is where, despite the close history and common origin Islam shares with the other two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity, and despite Islam accepting them and validating them as to the past, it had had history of endless conflicts with its elder cousins in the Abraham family beginning from the days of the Prophet himself, which continues to the present day. The reason for the conflict is obvious – no religion can be happy at being accepted as valid as to the past and accept to be invalidated as to future, unless it accepts self-immolation; and therefore, Judaism and Christianity could not, and thus did not, take pleasure in the approval given by Islam as to their past and surrender their right to exist in future. So, the conflict between Islam and other two among the Abrahamic-monotheistic faiths and among the three of them inter se, was inherent in the claim of Islam to being primordial. The conflict continues to inhere in their belief system that, in effect, were never Monotheism in the theistic sense but actually became Mono-Godism, with Islam insisting on Allah, a God

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worshipped by the Arabs and Judaism and Christianity insisting on Yahweh, the God of Israel, with the Christians enlarging the divinity into the Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, with each one of them asserting that the other Gods than they believe in are all false Gods. This is despite the fact that all three of them together and individually despise all other religions and consider them all unacceptable and even as unworthy of existence.

6.2 Divine Unity theology in Islam, holds the propensity for clash with others Closely looked, the seemingly noble idea of Divine Unity expounded by Islam turned out to be the fundamental reason why Islam had to clash and clashed with other religions. All symbolises the Divine Unity in Islam. But Allah was the supreme local divinity, but not the sole divinity, in Arabic tradition. Allah is the name for God in Islam (meaning uncertain; perhaps the God). Allah was known as the supreme, but not the sole, deity in Arabia before Muhammed’s mission, but it was the Prophet’s task to proclaim him as one Unique God. The Quran accordingly stresses God’s unity and makes polytheism the supreme unforgivable sin.143

So Allah was an originally an Arabic God and Islam declared Him as Primordial Divine Unity. This is what seeded the potential and propensity in Islamic theology for conflicts with all non-Islamic faiths, including Judaism and Christianity. Had Islam declared itself as the final product of all spiritual evolution and allowed the others to accept its version or leave it, there would have been no issue, and no conflict. But the Islamic faithfuls were commanded by the Prophet, the messenger of God, to carry the message of Divine Unity to all, but in the name of Allah. This meant that the concept of Divine Unity and the finality of Islam were not merely for those who volunteer to believe in it. It was equally and more a message to be carried to all who must be made to believe in it. This is where the conflict with other faiths arose. It is not just carrying the message of Divine Unity to non-Muslims. It had more implications, and demonstrated intense complications in approaching and relating to other faiths, particularly idolatry faiths – which are any way declared as the adversaries of Islam as for Judaism and Christianity.

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6.3 Exclusive Islamic Divine Unity Versus inclusive Hindu Divine Unity But despite being conceptualised by Islam in abstract terms as primordial divinity, the Islamic primordial divinity, as a concept and also in practice, becomes a concrete God but without physical form and therefore, would not accept the identical Primordial divinity any other tradition; for example, in the Hindu tradition. The Hindu Advaita Vedanta tradition postulates the abstract concept of ‘Brahman’ as the primordial Divinity.144 Advaita meaning non-dual and is a near Monism, holds that there is in the last analysis only one reality, the Brahman, the Divine power.145 But, in the Advaita Hindu philosophy ‘Brahman’ is not Divinity in the sense of God as Islam would perceive it. In Hindu Advaita, Brahman (neuter gender) is the abstract, impersonal Absolute. The Absolute is said to be ‘nirguna’ (beyond quality), pure, eternal. When characterised with qualities, the ‘qualified Brahman’ (saguna Brahman) becomes the immanent cause of the Universe.146 The union of the self (Atman) with Brahman, the Absolute, is the ultimate goal.147 This state of self-realisation, which is an individual goal and cannot be a collective effort, is explained as ‘Brahma Sthiti’.148 Thus, the Brahman, which is the un-manifested ultimate reality is the Divine Unity, but this divine unity is a matter for individual realisation within and not a matter of collective belief system nor is Divine Unity God as in Islam. Despite the Advaita Hindu view being only abstract and does not prescribe a God, Islamic view of Divine Unity will not countenance or tolerate this primordial Divinity and Divine Unity in the Hindu tradition, simply because, even though in substance it is, in form it is not Islamic, which, in essence, means it is not Arabic. So Islam in reality will not tolerate that which is not Arabic. With the result, with all its claims that Islam is only a return to the original and primordial Divinity, in substance, the Divinity it commends is Arab/Islamic in character which, on the mandate given by the messenger, cannot accept the primordial Divinity in another tradition like the Hindu tradition. This is because, the Divine Unity which Islam believes and compels others to follow is unity under an Arabic God. It is like in Judaism and Christianity, Mono-Godism, which is belief in one named God, not monotheism in the sense of Mono-Theism, which must mean belief in one Divinity as a concept. In substance, even though Islam does not believe in Idol worship, and although gives the impression that the Primordial Divinity it postulates is

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an abstract concept, in practice, because of the command that the message of Islam has to be taken to all, the primordial divinity in Islam is almost a worship of a defined God without physical form but otherwise distinct and different from other Gods. Again this Divine Unity is not just the worship of Divine Unity, but the the principle for forging unity of the humans on the norms of living and behaviour which was shaped on Arabic cultural underpinning. So the faith in the primordial God of Islam is in effect, the principle for uniting the humans under an Arabic God and on Arabic cultural norms, which is integral to and inseparable from Islamic belief in the Arabic primordial Divinity. In contrast the concept of Divine Unity that the Advaita philosophy articulates is not a method of worship commended for an individual; nor it is for the collective practice for a community. It is the ultimate one and the only one reality which has to be realised within and not without, by each individual. It is the ultimate state of Divine consciousness for an individual to experience and realise. In this sense Advaita may approximate to Monism; but it is certainly not the equivalent of Monotheism of the Abrahamic variety, which is just Mono-Godism. The critical difference between what Islam commands for individual and collective belief and worship and collective effort at enforcement of that belief and worship and what Advaita expounds and commends for individuals to experience and realise is this: Islam believes in Allah as the the primordial Divine Unity and collectivises the whole Islamic community to worship Him [Allah] as the only God and rejects all other Gods. But the Advaita philosophy rejects no God and in fact accepts the worship of all Gods or any God worshipped collectively or individually, as preparation for self-realisation, and says that the Unity of Divinity is a state of divine consciousness to experience and realise and not a matter for individual or collective belief or conversion. Again, unlike Islam, the Advaita philosophy, centred on the experience of each individual, and not an individual or collective worship model, was not required to build or therefore did not advocate the building of, the superstructure of a global Advaita community, Advaita laws and Advaita State with an army of believers and other temporal paraphernalia to ensure compliance with Advaita, and to supervise and implement the Advaita philosophy. This was because Advaita philosophy is just a matter of experience of the Divine consciousness. That is why the Divine Unity in Advaita is founded on acceptance of all faiths and worships and at the same time raising above all worship and commending inner experience of

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the Divine Consciousness. But Islam does not postulate an inner experience of Divine Consciousness but a explicit belief in an Arabic version of God as the unifying model and thus the potential for conflict is inherent in Islam which is totally avoided in Hindu Advaita. Therefore, Islam is a matter of personal and collective belief from the beginning to the end while Advaita postulates belief in any God as only a beginning, with realising and experiencing the Divine Consciousness as the terminal end where all beliefs and worship converge only to cease. So, while Islamic Monotheism is based on collective belief in one named God, the Hindu Advaita is founded on individual experience of the Divine in its abstract sense.

6.4 Exclusive, aggressive Islam’s relationship with other faiths Thus, despite the fact that Islam is founded on Divine Unity, it is not Divinity that is common to all faiths, but it is Allah who is special to Islam, but Islam would like Allah to be the universal God, that is God for all. Like in the two other Monotheistic faiths which consider Yahweh or the Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as the only God, Islam also considers its God, Allah, to be the only true God. Thus the theological insistence on Allah being the one and the only God itself is, like in the case of the other two, promotes conflicts between Islam and the Rest. And in addition, there is, in Islam, further potential and propensity for conflict with other faiths. Another powerful element that promotes conflict with non-Islamic peoples is the social content of Islam, which insists on collectivisation of the Islamic society at the global level with Islamic identity, transcending even the idea of nationstate. This collectivisation is not founded on just faith in Allah as the only God, but compulsorily based on a common lifestyle. The global Islam is based on the custom or code of behaviour (sunna) which is enshrined in the Hadith which is the body of traditions in Islam, namely the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed and other prominent early Muslims as a whole constituting the Sunna and being regarded as a source of law second to that the Quran.149 This is what makes Islam entirely Arabic in its character. A Muslim is not considered to be so, that is, not Islamised in the total sense of the term unless he lives his life according to the complete code of conduct of Islam contained in the Quran and Hadith. That is why, as VS Naipaul says[infra], the conversion of a person to Islam does not make him a Muslim forthwith. A convert evolves as a Muslim by a continuous process and the process of conversion is not complete or completed unless he finally repudiates all that

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is his own, not just his original God and forefathers, but also his culture, language, dress and appearance, and becomes part of the Arab story, that is become like an Arab himself. This socio-religious content of Islam is the source of conflict and violence within Islam also, as local cultures and Islam too conflict and split Islam itself from within. Again because of the exclusive nature of Islam and its God, despite proclaiming Allah as the Divine Unity, the relation of Islam with other religions has been intolerant and conflict prone. On the relation of Islam within the Islamic society and with other religions, the Encyclopaedia of Britannica says: The rise of Islam and an organised Muslim community raised the problem of relation with other communities and religious groups. The older monotheistic communities, the Jews and the Christians, who possessed a revealed literature were given the status of ‘the people of the Book’ (ahl alkitab) and their religions and cultural autonomy was recognised. But the pagans were given only two alternatives: either to accept Islam or to die. “From …… experience, the orthodox concluded (1) that the rebels within a Muslim state must be brought back to submission through jihad, a conclusion that appears to be corroborated by the Qur’an. And, (2) that a non-repentant apostate should be put to death. Whereas the orthodox law still holds both these views, the modernist Muslims accept only the first, rejecting the second one on the ground of the Quranic declaration ‘there is no compulsion in faith’. “The invitation issued by the Qur’an on the basis of monotheism – ‘O people of the Book! Let us come together on a principle that is common between us – that we shall not worship any one besides God and shall not associate any one with him…’ – was inapplicable to Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.150

It is clear from the theological exposition of Islam and the relation of Islam with other religions as captured in the Encyclopaedia, while Islamic theology is marginally and for protocol purposes, considerate to the other two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, it is totally intolerant of religions and peoples other than the Book based ones, and people of the Book. Islamic theology and Prophet Mohammed’s own life being founded on negation of, if not hate for, idol worship, Islam would never tolerate idol worship and the idol worshippers were subjected to the greatest cruelty in Islam. Thus like Christianity, the Islamic theology has the potential and propensity to promote intolerance and hate, while on the contrary the modern world requires

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different religions to tolerate others, and the their followers to live in harmony with other religionists. Like Christianity, Islam is clearly denied of the theological potential and propensity to promote conflict avoidance and conflict resolution.

6.5 Islam in East violently denied validity to non-Semitic faiths When Islam spanned out of Arab territories into the East, how did it see or treat the religions of the places it conquered. It saw them either as Polytheistic idolatry models fit only to be extinguished at worst and at best, in the way it saw the other two Abrahamic cousins, Judaism and Christianity, but did not any way treat them like that. The best case scenario is stated in the words of Islamic authority thus: “As Islam encountered non-Semitic religions later on in Persia, India and elsewhere, the same principle of universality of revelation was applied. The result was that many of the philosophies and schools of thought of the ancient world became fairly easily integrated into the Islamic intellectual perspective, so long as they conformed to or affirmed the principle of unity. In this case they were usually considered as remnants of the teachings of the old prophets, constituting part of the vast family which brought the message of God’s Oneness to every people and race, as the Quran asserts.”151 While this states the noble theological approach of Islamic scholars to the religions of the East, this is not what is testified to by conduct of the warriors who carried Islam to the East. If this were the approach of Islam to say Hinduism, the American historian Will Durant would not have found that the ‘Islamic conquest of India is the bloodiest in history’ and the French historian Alain Danielou would not have written that, “from the time when Muslims started arriving around AD 632, the history of India becomes a long monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, destructions” and continued It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out the entire races. Mohammed Gazni was an early example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 of the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to ground and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred to all Hindus” and continued further, “His successors were as ruthless as Gazni: in 1030 the holy city of Benares was raced to the ground, its marvellous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked.” and concluded, “Indeed, the Muslim policy vis-a-vis India seems to have been a continuous systematic destruction of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined.152

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But assuming a small minority of Islamists did approach the Eastern religions, notably Hinduism and Zorastrianism, Islam applied to them the same the principle which it had applied to its elder cousins in Abrahamic-Monotheism, Judaism and Christianity, namely that they are valid as to the past, but not as to their future, and thus denied validity to them in future. That means the future rested with Islam and Islam alone. It was not a case of Islam integrating the Eastern religions and traditions, but eliminating them. The most demonstrable case are of Afghan Buddhism and Persian Zorastrianism, remnants of neither of which is found in the Islam of Afghanistan or of Persia that is Iran today. They were entirely vanquished and destroyed with not trace of them anywhere, with only Hindu India protecting and keeping a small population of Parsis alive and prosperous. And whatever relics of Bamian Buddhism remained that was destroyed by the Taliban, demonstrably showing in present times and on TV screens what could have happened centuries ago when Islam invaded those areas. So the claim that Islam integrates the ancient traditions is to see a potential for conflict resolution to Islam which, even if it did exist, did not materialise. What materialised was the other and the most dangerous potential of Islam, namely its claim to be the final, terminal religion and that other religions which may have been valid in the past, but they are not valid as to the future and therefore, their followers have necessarily to be turned into Muslims. This conflict-prone potential and propensity of Islam alone manifested in history particularly against the Eastern traditions. The basic tenet of Islam that that is the final and terminal religion and all other faiths are either false or invalid for future is the very source of conflict. This basic tenet is not subject to compromise as Islamists and their pride have been built on this foundation. Islamist relation, if it has to be harmonious, with other religions can only be based on the latter accepting that their time has ended and they are no more valid as to the future.

6.6 Islam, an Arabic faith; makes imperial demands on non-Arabic Islamists It is in view of the Arab-centric Mono-Godism and theology and practice which cannot be severed from Islam, in the prologue to his book ‘Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples’ in which he records his experiences of Islam as a religion in non-Arab Muslim countries, Sir Vidia Naipaul, the Nobel Laureate, brilliantly captures the Arabic character of Islam and how it can set the non-Arabic societies on fire. The Author says:

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Islam is in its origins an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s world view alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his sacred land is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes whether he likes it or not, part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of the converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can be easily set on the boil.153

This is because Islam recognises only one human identity as compatible with Islam and that is the identity of a Muslim which is basically Arabic in character. Till a Muslim is fully made part of the Arab history he is not a Muslim in the full sense of the term. So is a society or nation which is not fully integrated in to the culture, habits, dress and in other respects in to the Arabic model – that is, it is fully made, as Naipaul says, ‘part of the Arab story – that cannot be an Islamic society or country unless’.

6.7 Islam does not recognise the concept of nation-state The consequence is a conflict between Islam and the idea of nation state in the modern world. This conflict is as much as Intra-Islamic, like between Iran and the rest of the Arabic world, as it is between Islam or Islamic states and non-Islamic peoples or states. Islamic theology and practices, thus, cannot and do not recognise the idea of nation-state at all. In fact till the whole world becomes Islamic, Islam postulates conflict between Islamic nations [Dar-ul-Islam] and non-Islamic nations [Dar-ul-Harb]. That Islam, which is basically Arabic nationalistic cultural construct, transcends all nationality, particularly nationality in a non-Muslim country, abound in the writings of numerous Muslim radicals in modern times – as for instance the influential Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb, a key intellectual forerunner for modern-day Muslims terrorists.154 “There is only one place on earth”, Qutb argued, “which can be called the home of Islam(Dar-ul-Islam) and that is the place where the Islamic state is established and the Shari’ah is the authority and God’s limits are observed, and where all Muslims administer the affairs of the state with mutual consultation. The rest of the world is the home of hostility (Dar-ul-Harb). A Muslim can have only two possible relations with Dar-ul-Harb: pace with a contractual agreement, or war. A

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country with which there is a peace treaty will not be considered to be the home of Islam.”155 So, a Muslim, Qutb argued, cannot be in full sense a citizen of a non-Muslim state, and that even his status as a citizen of a Muslim state is secondary to his status as a Muslim.156 A Muslim has no nationality except his belief, says Qutb.157 Spencer says, “Qutb’s ideas have wide currency among Muslims around the world”158 and adds that European Islamic moderates like Tariq Ramadan – who incidentally is the grandson of Hasan-ul-Bana who founded Egypt’s extremist group, Muslim Brotherhood – speaks in a ‘studiedly ambiguous language’.159 Ramadan, says Spencer, asserts that “there exists a general Islamic ruling which forbids a Muslim to fight or kill a fellow Muslim and this ruling must be observed at all times. Therefore, a Muslim citizen of a Western country in order to avoid placing himself in such a situation, should also plead for conscientious objection.”160 Spencer also points out how Ramadan who is called a moderate, writes glowingly of his grandfather alBana who established the extremist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and describes his teachings as ‘simple and luminous’. Spencer quotes al-Bana, whom Ramadan praises, as saying, “In [Muslim] tradition there is a clear indication of the obligation to fight the People of the Book [that is, Jews and Christians] and of the fact, that God doubles the reward for those who fight them. Jihad is not against polytheists alone, but against all those who do not embrace Islam.”161 So even a ‘moderate’ Ramadan ends up owning violent ideas. Thus the Islamic faith in Divine Unity through primordial Divinity was fundamentally an exclusive faith which could have been meaningful to the Arabs, but Islam asserted its faith as a universal and also programmed to make it a universal faith. This not only conflicts with other faiths it also conflicts with the concept of nation state. This is how because of the exclusive nature of Islamic Divinity and universalising programme of the Islamist faith, it has the potential and propensity for clashes with other faiths. That Islam has the undeniable potential and propensity for conflict with (a) within itself as to which is the purer version of Islam (b) with other religions which it regards as false (c) with the very idea of nation state which may be Islamic or nonIslamic and with modern institutions of democracy and individualism. This potential and propensity have manifested in different geo-political and religious movements which Islam has generated in the last two centuries.

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6.8 Wahhabi, Tabligi and Deobandi Islams – Software for Islamic Terror The global Islam of today, which inspires and drives the global Islamist terror, is sourced in and sustained by the Wahhabi theology of Pure Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia in the late eighteenth century. The spirit of Wahhabi Islam was nourished by the Islamic seminary at Deoband in India in the nineteenth century which, in turn, inspired one of the most effective retailing methodology of pure Islam, the Tabligi Jamat in the twentieth century. The evolution may be simplified thus: Wahabism supplied the original syllabus, Deoband provided the seminary training and Tabligi specialised in retailing the product. This three-part Islamic thrust which unfolded and evolved basically on the Islamic theological intolerance of non-Islamists and also of the emerging modernity, drew inspiration from the basic tents of Islam as articulated by Wahabism. A fuller understanding of the origin and evolution of this Islamic trinity is necessary to get at the root of the conflict between Islam and non-Islamists and also between Islam and Western modernity. As the discussion so far indicates, the potential and propensity for intolerance and conflict that generally inhere in the three AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths also inhere in Islam, more completely in what is popularly known as radical Islam. This potential and the propensity remain dormant inside or manifest explicitly, depending on the character of the Islamic forces in the lead in any society, at any given time in history. Islam is by conception and programme a global faith that intends to build a global Islamic community, order and even a global Islamic State. The current stand off between Islam and the West is widely seen as the divide between Islam in its pure form, which is the ideal of Individual Muslims and their collective, and de-Islamising – read Satanic – modernity. In fact, the foundation of Samuel Huntington’s theory of civilisational clashes is premised on the conflict between the modernity of the West and the Cultures and civilisations of the Rest, and Huntington predicted violent clashes along the faultlines of Islam. The hostility of Islam to Western modernity is sourced in the theological foundations of the three Islamic trinity of Wahabi Islam, Deoband Seminary and Tabligi retail.

6.9 Wahhabism dates back to 14th century– intolerant and violent In his book God’s Terrorists’ – the Wahabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad Charles Allen, a renowned historian of the British Raj in India, captures the history of Wahabism, which, Allen says, is known to day

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as the guiding ideology behind Islamist modern terrorism. Allen says in the Preface to his book, Since 9/11 a lot has been said and written about global jihad, the international movement which seeks to bring about Islamic revival by forcing the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds into violent confrontation. Understandably the focus has been on modern and on how and why rather than whence. This book is not about the present.162

This is a profound opening. It implies that unless there is an underlying theological and historic potential and propensity, the present terror is a nonsequitur. The author goes on to say, It is a history of the ideology underpinning the modern jihad and, in particular, a first full account of one important strand in that founding ideology of Wahabism. This initially took shape in Arabia at the end of the eighteenth century, and was then brought to the Indian sub-continent early in the nineteenth century. It took on the Sikhs, the British and mainstream Muslim society. Time and again it was suppressed, only to reform and revive, eventually to find a new life in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the late twentieth century. This history offers not solutions, but it does illustrate the patterns of behaviour, successes and failures from which lessons might be drawn.163

Wahabism, which became a new vision of Islam, was the brainchild of Muhammed ibn Abd AL-WAHHAB, who was born in early years of 1700 in Arabian Peninsular hinterland. Actually the roots of Wahabism go back a lot further to the late thirteenth century.164 A short history of the developments in Islamic theology before the Wahhabi advent in Islam is necessary. Islam is founded on the fundamental belief that it is only only a complete religion it is also a completed religion. This is what Allah says in the Quran: “To day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My blessing upon you, and have approved Islam for your religion.”165 Muslim behavioural code is derived from four sources – the Quran; the ‘Sunna’, the practice of the Prophet; ‘Ijma’, the consensus of the community or jurists or divines – through there are differences on this; and ‘Qiyas’, reasoning by analogy.166 ‘Ijma’ was made possible by the process of ‘Ijtihad’ which is the right to interpret by using one’s reason, to deduce logically.167 Thus, after the demise of the Prophet four Islamic schools had evolved over a period to interpret

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and pronounce on all matters of Sharia, the divinely ordained rules of human behaviour.168 But in Sunni Islam the gate of Ijtihad was closed in the fourth/ tenth century and many authorities have been seeking to open it since the end of the last century.169 The ban on Ijtihad innovation came to be known community consensus [Taqlid] on the issue. In the wake of Mongol invasion of Islamic heartland, Ibn Taymiyya, a follower of the Hanbali school jurisprudence which is the strictest of the four Islamic schools of jurisprudence, found the inclusive Sufi Islamic tradition developed in Persia as an anathema and offence to God. He set out to “break the shackles of Taqlid”, declared himself as Mujtahid, one who makes interpretations by reasoning and began to redefine the laws of Islam.170 He interpreted the Quran literally and passed strictures against innovation.171 Allen traces the history of modern Islamic Jihad in its current form to Ibn Taymiyya who reinterpreted the concept. ‘ At first Jihad was an obligation on the Muslims to strive for their faith until the entire world had converted or submitted to Islamic authority. This uncompromising view inevitably led set Islam on a collision course with Byzantine Christendom. But as Islam was transformed into a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic world religion, in which learning and diversity of interpretation was celebrated, so the literalist view of Jihad gave way to more pragmatic reading. Included in the Hadith is a famous pronouncement by the Prophet Muhammed on his return from the battle of Bard which marked the end of his military campaign against the polytheists: “We are finished with the lesser jihad [Jihad Kabeer]; now we are starting the greater jihad[Jihad Akbar”. This division of jihad now came to be interpreted in Islam as meaning that the outer and less important physical struggle for Islam was over and had given way to more important inner, moral struggle.172 Citing two verses in the Quran [Chapter 2 verse 193; Chapter 8 verse 39] Ibn Taykiyya declared the Prophet’s division of jihad to be inauthentic as it contradicted the words of God, and defined jihad in strictly literal terms: as unrelenting struggle against all who stood in the way of Islam’s destiny.173 He declared jihad as the finest act that man [read Muslim] could perform. Ibn Taymiyya also classified the enemies of Islam into four categories of infidels such as: the Christians with whom peace is possible; those Muslims who had reverted to infidel habits with whom no peace is possible and must be fought to get them return to Islam; those who declared themselves to be Muslims but not carrying out Islam’s rituals properly and were therefore, to be killed mercilessly; lastly those who rejected Islam

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while still claiming to belong to it, and thus deserve mercy under no circumstances.174 Charles Allen says that Ibn Taymiyya was rejected in his own times; was even imprisoned several times and branded heretic. His theology never found acceptance in Sunni Islam but was never forgotten and continued to attract adherents, says Allen.175 And the most famous of them was Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who in beginning of eighteenth century founded what is now known as the Wahhabi brand of Islam. Thus, the most virulent form of Islam, which was rejected in the 14th century, reincarnated in the 18th century courtesy Al-Wahhab. According to Charles Allen, Al-Wahhab was schooled under Muhammed Hayat of Sind and his father, both followers of Ibn Taymiyya, in Medina, who encouraged the students to ‘view the militant jihad as a religious duty’. At the same time as Al-Wahhab, in his late twenties, was doing his studies in Media, Shah Waliullah from Delhi in India was also in Media studying Hadith under the venerable Kurd Sheikh Abu Tahir Muhammed ibn Ibrahim al-Kurani al-Madani who was the teacher of Muhammed Hayat, who was teaching Al-Wahhab.176 Thus both young men, Al-Wahhab and Shah Waliullah went home to become two great Sunni revivalists of their time, each to implement the radical teachings learned in Medina in his own way.177 While, in Delhi, Waliullah called for “a return to the first principles of Islam.”178 AlWahhab went beyond and “was able to construct and apply almost unchallenged a brand holier-than-thou, confrontational and heartless Islam, the like of which had not been seen since the days of Mahmud Ghazni, the butcher, who led twelve loot-and-destroy raids through the northern India in the eleventh century, justifying his actions in the name of Islam.”179 Al-Wahhab’s book, “ad Dawa lil Tawhid” translated as ‘Call to Unity’ contained his new theology, the teaching in, and the followers of, which became known after its founder, as Wahhabi.180 This book was originally little more than a series of notes, but afterwards worked up by his successors into four thick volumes.181 The tenets of Wahhabi Islam reduced Islam into absolute monotheism; rejected all innovation; declared that there to be but one interpretation of the Quran and Hadith – Al-Wahhabs’, by virtue of his competence to exercise independent reasoning. It also taught that the rise of Islam had been accomplished only by jihad against idolaters and polytheists; that it followed that there was only one course of action open to those who regard themselves as Muslims.182 “The only way”, wrote AlWahhab, “is by love to those who practice Tawhid of Allah, by devotion to them, rendering them every kind of help, as well as by hate and hostilities to

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infidels and polytheists.”183 While Al-Wahhab faced all kinds of hostilities at his place, and there was even an attempt to kill him.184 He gained notoriety through violent acts which included leading a mob to tear down the tomb of a Companion of the Prophet.185 All his struggles seemed to have finally paid off when in about 1744 a remarkable partnership was forged between AlWahhab and Muhammed ibn Saud, who was a leader of the sub-branch of the powerful Aneiza tribe and was reputed as a warrior, by which Saud and Al-Wahhab mutually recognised each other, Saud as the the secular leader [Emir] and Al-Wahhab as the religious head, the Imam [Sheikh-ul-Islam].186 Thanks to Saudi Arabia accepting the theology of Al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyya, whose views were rejected centuries ago, occupies a place of honour second only to that of Al-Wahhab.187 But, in general, the Wahhabi movement was hated as schismatic188 and the term ‘Wahhabi’ as an insult, an epithet to describe a schematic and a byword for religious intolerance.189

6.10 Deobandi Islam – a Wahhaabi extension. equally intolerant While the Wahhabi movement founded by Al-Wahhab was hated, a movement to return to the pristine principles of Islam, which Syed Waliullah through his son Shah Adul Aziz and the latter’s disciple, Syed Ahmed is honoured as a great revivalist. In public mind Shah Waliullah was known for his efforts to restore Muslim rule in Hindustan190 as India was known then, culminating in his famous appeal to the Afghan ruler Ahmed Shah Abdalli to invade India, to destroy Hindu Marathas in battle and bring back the golden days of the Mughal Emperor Aurangazeb. But Ahmed Shah was defeated and the Maratha’s gained dominant power in northern India.191 Shah Waliullah’s four sons, with the madrassah-i-Rahimiya, the most influential seminary, kept alive the dream of Hindustan under Sharia.192 Wahhabi Islam was hounded down by the British Raj as it was propagating Jihad against the Raj as much as against others. This is what the Charles Allen’s insidecover introduction to God’s Terrorists, captures briefly the history of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and India to date: The Wahhabi creed was exported to India, to be transformed into an underground cult dedicated to the imposition of its vision of Islam on Asia through Jihad. This holy war was waged chiefly on India’s North-West Frontier with Afghanistan, as the Wahhabi mullahs – known to British authorities as Hindustani Fanatics – worked tirelessly to bring the Pathan tribes of the area out in armed revolt. Both in Arabia and India the Wahhabis

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were brought to the verge of extinction many times over, only to regroup and revive. In India following the failure of the bloody 1857 uprising, the Wahhabis focussed their efforts on theological colleges known as Madrassahs. In Arabia, a dynamic Bedouin chieftain named Ibn Saud, harnessed the religious zeal and fighting spirit of a number of desert tribes to carve out the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Then in the early 1980s a combination of political events took place in Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan that allowed these two strands of Wahhabism to converge and cross-infect on the Afghanistan-Pakistan fault line. Two very different organisations emerged out of this coming together, one tight-knit and localised, and the other loose-knit with global aspirations, the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda.193

The different radical Islamic movements that originated in India had, as their source, the Wahhabi theological inspiration, despite the fact that Wahhabi Islam was the target of the Raj. The post 1857 developments and restructuring of India further divided the Muslim community in India.194 A significant minority took the view that Muslims should embrace the Western template and work for the advancement of their religion and community within the power structure of the British Raj until such time they are ready to stand alone.195 The person who led this minority was the Moghul aristocrat, Syad Ahmed Khan, the founder of the Aligarh movement later and of the university of that name, was one of radicals who was educated in the tradition of Shah Waliullah. Two groups of mullahs educated in the tradition of Shah Waliullah in Madsarrah-I-Rahimiya emerged and also attacked their fellowIslamist Syad Ahmed Khan.196 The two groups began over activities, led by one Sayyid Nazir Hussein, the man who led the Wahhabi ‘Delhi-ites in 1857. Hussein with two alumni fellow members of the Madrassah-i-Rahimiya founded, in about the year 1870, a politico-religious organisation JamaatAhl-i-Hadith, the Party of the People of Hadith, which made no secret of its ambition to ‘convert India into an abode of Islam through jihad’.197 Ahli-iHadith preachers, branded as Wahhabis, were banned from mosques; in1885 the Party leadership published a book denying any link with Wahhabism and requesting the government to cease employing that term to themselves which the government complied with.198 However the Islamic community in India knew no such qualms and to this day, Ahli-i-Hadith continues to be described – with good reason – as Wahhabi in its origin and teachings. Its anti-polytheist, anti-innovation, anti-Shia, and anti-Christian message continues to attract a hard core of fundamentalist Sunnis.”199

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The second group of the Delhi alumni, consisting of Muhammed Qasim and Rashid Ahmed, adopted less confrontational approach and founded, in the year 1866, their own Madrassah at Deoband, some seventy miles from Delhi. It started with one teacher and one student.200 Its influence has spread far beyond its origin – by 1967 there were 9000 colleges affiliated to Deoband.201 Standard works on religion would describe Deobandi Islam as a reform movement in India. Islam of the 19th Century and would say that it taught the need to return to the correct belief and practice as found in the classical texts and became renowned for the study of Hadith etc.202 But only a deeper study as Charles Allen has done would bring out the Wahhabi connection of the Deobandi school. Muhammed Qasim who was the main force behind the Deobandi movement, namely to preserve Islam in the face of British oppression.203 Initially the Deoband Madrassah was known as the Arab Madrassah. It was organised factoring the British model. The syllabus was based on Shah Waliullah – read Wahhabi – lines.204 The school promoted uncompromising puritanical and exclusive fundamentalism no less restrictive than Wahhabism. Like Wahhabism did, “it denounced the worship of saints, the adorning of tombs, and such activities as music and dancing; it waged ceaseless war against the Shias, Hindus and Christian Missionaries.” More importantly, it retained militant jihad as the central pillar of faith, but focussed this jihad on the promotion of Islamic revival and identity’.205 It also rejected Ijtihad.206 Its theological links with Wahhabism appears hidden. Rashid Ahmed one of the co-founders of the Deoband Madrassah with Qasim, stated in a fatwa that Al-Wahhab, “held excellent beliefs, but his creed was Hanbali. Although he was of harsh temperament, he and his followers are good people.”207 In the year 1879 it assumed an additional name of Dar-ul-uloom.208 It was the Deoband movement that yielded the politico-religious party Jamiat-iUlema-i-Hind[JUH] founded in the year 1920.209 Later Sayyid Abulala Mawdudi, who later emerged as a powerful leader JUH and parted with JUH, to form another outfit of the same type. JUH also established links with Wahhabi Arabia and with Ibn Saud and the Wahhabi set up there.210

6.11 Tablighi: an offshoot of Deoband, also a cover for terror From out of JUH, and opposing the alliance of JUH with the Congress Party were born two politico-religious parties. One was the Tablighi Jamiat [Preaching Party]. The Tablighis followed the teachings of Shah Waliullah but sought to apply them in largely apolitical terms.211 And the other was led

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by Mawdudi. In 1939 Mawdudi moved to Lahore and two years later founded the Jamait-i-Islami, the party of Islamists, in direct opposition to the proCongress JUH.212 The Tablighi Jamiat work is of far reaching effect and it is an informal set up. This is what seeks to achieve and has extensively succeeded in achieving, what VS Naipaul observed in his work Beyond Belief [supra] as a continuous conversion, in which a convert has to be turned away again and again from everything that was his own till he becomes part of the Arabic Story and away from his own. The Tablighi work is to eliminate from the converts all remnants of the pre-conversion culture, traditions, language and habits. Tabligh – formally a movement ‘to spread the Word’, is in fact a movement to secure converts and exorcise all syncratistic practices.213 The author says that in several institution the graduate having completed his studies, must spend certain time – often up to two years – in tabligh work before he gets his degree. “Refutation” of the other, “false” religions is of course an element of Tabligh.214 Amir Mir, amongst the foremost investigative journalist of Pakistan and also the former editor of ‘Weekly Independent’, in his book “The Face of the Jihadis – Inside Pakistan’s Network of Terror” and in Chapter 11 titled ‘Tablighi Jamaat: Nurturing jehadis?’ captures how Tablighi work has fostered or given cover for terror. Mir says that the Tablighi Jamaat [TJ], that ‘claims to have never indulged in any militant or political activities as a matter of principle’, has been infiltrated by jehadi elements belonging to several banned militant and sectarian groups that are using the organisation as a cover to further their extremist agenda.’215 But standard references to Tabligh Jamiat will of course project it as a normal religious activity. The Penguin Dictionary of Religions [supra] would describe Tablighi Jamaat as ‘a group founded with the intention of inspiring Muslims through preaching’; ‘by increasing individual piety’; ‘understanding the significance of Tauhid (unity of God)’; proper observance of Salat (prayer); ‘acquiring religious knowledge’; ‘giving due respect to Muslims’; ‘sparing time for joining a tabligh group’; remaining sincere and selfappraising’; ‘lead an Islamic lifestyle’; ‘to commit a specific time to be itinerant preachers’ and so on.216 But what is the reality? Says Mir, ‘the TJ’s Pakistan branch has now for quite some time been found to be involved in making clandestine efforts to aid jehadi elements and to promote their agenda. Since Pakistani law treats TJ as a humanitarian group and not as a religio-political group, there is no ban on government servants, members of the armed forces, and the scientific community concerned with nuclear and

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missile development from joining the party.’ Mir goes on to list how the TJ cover as a humanitarian outfit works for militant activities: At least three former heads of the Inter Services Intelligence were and are still closely involved with TJ work; TJ’s annual convention attracts the second largest religious congregation in the Islamic world after Haj; TJ is reputed as the richest religious organisation in Pakistan; it recruits hundreds of students in other countries and brings them to its seminaries for training at its own expense; according to intelligence source all militant outfits enjoy close links with TJ; the recruiting teams of the terror outfits go abroad under the guise of TJ preachers to avoid detection; US intelligence has found that Osama Bin Laden has also the Pakistani militant outfits going under the garb of TJ preachers communicate instructions to his network of non-Arab organisation in different countries; sleeper agents arrested in US were found to have TJ links.217 Mir also points to an investigative report carried by Pakistan’s News International on Feb 13, 1995, brought to light the nexus between TJ and terror outfits and their clandestine role in supporting Islamic extremist movements in different countries. The report quoted one of the unidentified officials of a terrorist organisation as saying: “Ours is basically a Sunni organisation close to the Deobandi School of thought. Our people are mostly impressed by the TJ. Most of our workers come from TJ. We regularly go to its annual meeting at Raiwind. Ours is a truly international network of genuine jehadis.”218 The February 1998 issue of the Karachi based monthly Newsline quoted TJ workers as saying that many members of the Chechen cabinet, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Chechenya, were associated with TJ and had participated in its proselytisation activities.219 Mir also says, ‘TJ activities are closely monitored by the American intelligence, which believes that TJ was the fount of all the Pakistan based jehadi organisations.220 But TJ is not an Indian or Pakistani outfit just. ‘Though originating from India, this popular movement has spread through out the Islamic world, gaining adherents from many different nationalities; the group has expanded its vision to non-Muslim countries as well; it spread to Europe and America with migration; in France it is known as Foi et pratique, having been introduced by Algerian Muslims; and in Germany it is Teblig movement organised by Turkish migrant workers’.221

6.12 Wahhabi, Deobandi and Tablighi – Actualise Potential for Conflict Thus the Wahhabi Islam, nurtured by the Deobandi seminary, is being retailed by Tablighi Jamiat – the end product of this sequence is the modern Islamic

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extremism and terror. These initiatives link the Islamist terror to Islam, by providing the theological justification for the terror, the jihad, against the infidels and for defending and protecting Islam against other religions and also modernity. This sequential link is sourced in Islamic theology the debate about which has been evidently ongoing in the Islamic societies from early times. Once the Ijtihad process has been ruled out, the only Islamic principle left is the pure Islamic strand commencing from Ibn Taymiyya as articulated by Wahhabis, Deobandis and Tablighis with an amazing contiguity as to be rejected as fringe group. It is obvious that it is those who oppose this strand who seem to be marginalised in the Islamic theological debate. It may be that most majority of the Muslims must not be agreeing with this strand, but, in the Islamic theological debate the view of the majority Muslims hardly counts as they are just followers and not opinion makers. The opinion makers are only the theologians and that is where the non-Wahhabi, non-Deobandi and non-Tablighi strands seems to be almost absent. With the result, Islam is almost wholly represented by this theological strand, which makes Islam undoubtedly intolerant and violent – hence the terror that goes on in the name of Islam is, perhaps, rightly called as Islamic terror.

VII- Rules of War in Religions Now the discussions move to yet another critical area, the discipline of war, to assess the potential and propensity of the three faiths, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, to promote or avoid wars and also the ethics involved in their warfare. Nothing is more explicitly indicative of the civility and nobility of an ancient civilisation than the war ethics which it had followed or the lack of it. Particularly at a time in the history of all civilisations when wars were mere expressions of barbaric qualities in human endeavours, if a civilisation had high ethical standards for wars and had by consensus enforced them, then it had to be something very different from the civilisations elsewhere. There are two aspects to this discussion. What is the traditional theological and philosophical position on wars and war ethics in the Hindu civilisation as compared to the relative position of the Abrahamic civilisation, particularly Islamic and Christian position? Second, how was the actual conduct of the Hindu civilisation as compared to the Abrahamic on the battle fields?

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7.1 War as ‘unrelieved barbarism’ in Western history This is how a leading work on the nature of laws of war commenced the discussion on the rules of war in history. “There is evidence that some ancient civilisations prohibited certain methods of warfare: agreements on the treatment of the prisoners of war were concluded in Europe around 1400BC. The Manu Laws of India prohibited, around 500BC, the use of poisoned weapons and other inhumane methods. [citing ‘A Swedish Working Group Study, Conventional Weapons, their Deployment and Effects from Humanitarian Aspects, Recommendations for the Modernisation of International Law, Stockholm 1973, 11’] But elsewhere barbaric practices often accompanied a victory in war. The maxim “vae victis” implied that the vanquished nation could expect little mercy.222 The Encyclopaedia of Britannica, obviously ignoring that noble rules of war existed in history outside Europe, thus described the state of the rules of war in ancient times. “In early history, war appears to have been a matter of almost unrelieved barbarity. Practically no restraints were observed in methods of war; there was little discrimination between combatant and non-combatant; and torture, slavery, death, and confiscation of property awaited conquered forces and population.”223 So the war was never confined to combatants and anything, property, temple or other assets and anybody, women and children, belonging to the enemy were the targets. The Encyclopaedia goes further: Yet the identifiable features of the present law can be traced back to the ancient times in different parts of the world. As a rule however the mitigating features of law represented only an ideal and so the law was actually applied only during wars between kindred peoples or like civilisations. Such were the conditions that persisted through ancient times into Middle Ages, until, prompted by religion and ideas of chivalry on the one hand and by the increase of rationalist and humanist sentiment on the other, a substantial body of law had come into being by the late middle ages. Such laws governed certain aspects of war, at least among fellow religionists. Most noteworthy of these early laws was the insistence that prisoners, if they were Christians captured by Christians, could no longer be enslaved.224

So even the mitigating features which emerged and which were confined to mere agreed restraint against enslavement of the prisoners of war. And this too was restricted to only Christian prisoners of war captured by Christian victors. It was more a clannish restraint founded on religious identity. So it was at best an intra-Christian, with the result, barbaric rules continued to apply to nonChristians.

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7.2 An introduction to Hindu concept of war and victory The concept of war and victory in ancient Hindu civilisation, it may be stated with conviction, is in total contrast to what the Western civilisation bears testimony to. The ancient Hindu position on wars was based on an entirely different philosophy and outlook. The ancient Hindu texts had classified conquests into three types: Namely, ‘Dharma Vijaya’ [ethical victory]; ‘Lobha Vijaya’ [lustful victory]; and ‘Asura Vijaya’ [barbaric victory]. Dharma Vijaya, that is victory obtained by ethical rules, was the ideal which the Hindu Kings were expected to follow and they usually did.225 The basis of Dharma Vijaya, ethical victory is Dharmayuddha, that is, ethical warfare. Unless the warfare is ethical, the victory cannot be ethical. The essence of Dharmayuddh, which leads to Dharma Vijaya is that “in the Convention of Dharmayuddha, the adversary is never taken unaware”.226 The contours of what constitutes Dharmayuddha as set out in the authority are illustratively: Î Î Î Î Î Î Î

Î Î Î Î

if the adversary had no shield, he was never attacked; the fight took place between two persons who had the same weapons; if one was a horseman, he would never think of attacking a charioteer; when an adversary was injured, he ceased to be an enemy and he was attended to as an injured; it was considered to to be disgrace for a warrior to stoop down or abandon the morals of his profession; for a warrior death is considered to be preferable to ignominious victory; the belief was that victory built upon fraud, treachery, betrayal or cheating would entail, at some time, total destruction of the family and the dynasty; the captives – men, women, and girls – would be unmolested; after one year these prisoners were permitted to their homes; even slaves in the war and plunder of wealth were expected to be returned to the rightful owners after a lapse of one year; the victorious kings were never permitted to plunder the wealth of the defeated people, destroy their properties, and occupy their territories

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and so on.227 At the outset, these illustrative norms are adequate to capture the quality and character of wars in ancient India. On the basis of the concept of Dharmayuddha as understood in ancient Hindu texts, Balshastry Hardas refers to Prof. V.R. Ramachandra Dhiksitar’s question about Ashoka’s repentance, in his work ‘War in Ancient India’ to this effect: What is that repentance except that he waged in Kalinga an unrighteous war involving the slaughter of innocent; and that he took a vow from that day to resort to only to righteous war.”228 Thus, on the test of what is Dharmayuddha even Ashoka’s Kalinga war is not regarded as such and his victory, despite his claims that it was Dharma Vijaya, was not regarded as such. The great Indian treatise on Statecraft [Arthasastra] written by Kautilya – who is also known as Chanakya, and wrongly bracketed with Machiavelli – explained the qualitative difference between the three victories. It explained the difference thus: First, Dharmavijayin, the ethical victor, is the one who is satisfied with mere submission or obeisance of the defeated king; Second, Lobhavijayin, the lustful victor, is the one who is satisfied with gain in land and money from the defeated king; Third, Asuravijayin, the barbaric victor, is the one who is not satisfied with land and money of the defeated king only, but robs the defeated king of his son, wife and life. This being barbaric was abhorred and detested in ancient India. Nitivyakyamrta, an ancient Indian exposition of rules of justice, defines the three categories of conquests almost in the same words. This shows that, in the first two kinds of conquests the conquered States retained their own institutions, organisations and governments undisturbed by conquests. Ashoka speaks of his conquest being Dharmavijaya. Likewise and Pravarasena II and Samudragupta’s conquests are all noted as dharmavijaya.229 In ancient Hindu civilisation, on the accepted principles of war morality and war ethics that was only considered legitimate, a king could not wage a war against another simply because he had a large army. A King could wage war with another king only if the other king misbehaved with his people or for similar justifiable reason. He could not wage war merely to conquer. Kings aspiring to be called Samrat or Chakravartin or Emperor performed the Rajasuya and Ashwamedha Yagnas in ancient times.230 Ashwamedha yagna is the sacrifice of horse. At the start of the Yagna the horse is worshipped and then allowed to roam all over the country for one year, protected by an army and when it returns safely after roaming, Yagna is completed and the King who performs the yagna becomes the Emperor [Samrat]. If any one stops the horse on the roam then, and then only, war

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ensures. A general by name Udayachandra, of Nandivarma Pallavamalla about ninth century AD defeated Prithvivygraha, King Nisadha who had accompanied the horse in his horse sacrifice. 231 The Pallava King Sivaskandavarman [of Kanchipuram in Southern India, 70 km from Chennai] who performed Agnistoma, Vajapeya and Ashwamedha Yagnas.232 The historic data of kings who performed Ashwamedha Yagna and other sacrifices are given in History of Dharma Shastra.233

7.3 Incorrect Western notion that Hindus were never a nation-state Before detailing the theory and practice of Hindu warfare, it is necessary to dispel the impression that the Hindus had no concept of nation or state and therefore, they did not engage in warfare of the kind which the other civilisations engaged in. This is required for the limited purpose of establishing that the Hindu civilisation not only contemplated far ahead of the Christian and Islamic civilisations, but also in practice and in place, a pan Hindu and pan-Indian state. Because unless the fact of the Hindu civilisational concept of state is established wars within the Hindu civilisation would be regarded and even dismissed as merely a inter-Hindu tribal clashes. The idea of a super state federating or affiliating under it large number of smaller states was known to Hindu civilisation; but it was qualitatively different from the present concept of nation-state that evolved in the last two-three centuries in Europe. In ancient India, the idea of suzerainty extending over many kingdoms was known in times even Rg Veda234 and had been fully developed before the composition of the ancient texts of Aitareya Brahmana and Satapatha Brahmana. The first one mentions the names of twelve emperors of ancient India and the latter thirteen. Another ancient text, Amarakosa states that a king before whom all feudatories humble themselves is called a chakravartin [Emperor]. The word ‘Chakravartin’ is derived by Kshirasvamin, the one who wields lordship over a circle of kings or who makes the circle ( i.e., kingdom) abide by his orders’. The word Chakravartin, though not as old as ‘Sarvabhauma’, is as old as Upanisads. Yet another ancient Hindu text, Maitri Upanishad mentions a list of fifteen Chakravartins! Kautilya defines the land of the chakravartin as the territory on the earth spreading towards the north from the sea to the Himalayas which is thousand yojanas [a yojana is equal to 1.6 kms] when measured as a crow flies. The same idea occurs in another text of equal antiquity Kavyamimamsa written by Rajasekhara. Shanti Parva in Mahabharata speaks of a ruler who brings

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the whole earth under one umbrella. This ideal of chakravartin was set before them by all ambitious and energetic Indian rulers from ancient times. The result was that constant wars took place. A galaxy of historical emperors — Chandragupta, Ashoka, Pusyamitra, Bhavanaga, Pravarasena vakataka, Samudragupta, Harsha — emulated such mythical heroes and emperors as Mandhata and Bharata and practically realised this ideal.235 Thus wars were unavoidable in ancient times. But these wars were not tribal warfare like in most other civilisations. They were based on principles broadly recognised as dharma in the Indian civilisation. Also the wars were not between tribal chieftains but between established kingdoms based on high principles of moral and ethical principles and rule of law.236 The geography of the Indian civilisation was also defined in the ancient Hindu texts. Matsya Purana first gives the dimensions of Bharatavarsha from South to North [ Kanyakumari to the origin of the river Ganga] as one thousand yojanas equivalent to 1600 Kms [when measured upwards across the boundaries] and that on all its borders Mlecchas and that Yavanas and Kiratas [approximately meaning aboriginal people] dwell to its East and West and that the King who conquers the whole of Bharatavarsh is Samrat.237 The same description is found in Brahmanda Purana almost in the same words in chapter 16. The date of Brahmanda Purana is estimated to be earlier to 700-1000 AD.238 Sukaranitisara (I.183-87), another ancient Indian text, grades kingdoms starting from ‘Samanta’ which has an income of 1-3 lakhs of karsas collected without oppressing the people, at the lowest level to ‘Rajan’, to ‘Maharaja’, to ‘Swarat’, to ‘Virat’, to ‘Sarvabhauma’ who wields suzerainty over the whole of the earth, meaning Bharatvarsh, that is the ancient geography of India and has income of 11-50 crores equally qualitatively good revenue not collected by oppression.239 So the general view prevalent among West-centric historians that the Hindu civilisation never organised itself into an empire is not a correct presentation of the Hindu civilisational or political history. So there is every reason why the Indian models of statecraft and war rules should be regarded as worthy of being cited or benchmarked and compared to the war rules of others, in the Western world.

7.4 Noble rules of war impeded empire building in India But – unlike in the Greek-Roman history or in the Abrahamic tradition or in the Hellenistic-Abrahamic mix – sovereignty in ancient India had a different meaning, and that could be the basis of the Western historians’ misreading

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of ancient India. Sovereignty in ancient Hindu tradition did not invariably or necessarily result in acquiring control over vassal kings in all their affairs. Generally the supreme ruler did not hanker after territory as much as having his superior prowess acknowledged. In this sense the ancient Indian State, at the pan-Indian level – that is what was then known as Bharatavarsha – was a loose, but clearly acknowledged cultural and political identity, rather than a nation-state in the modern sense of the term. In this sense, the position of the comparatively looser Holy Roman Empire even though in intimate religious association with Roman Catholic Church dispensation may be drawn as a parallel without, of course, the binding authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Henry Kissinger traced the development of the political Europe from the medieval times and says that even with the over all supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the umbrella, the Holy Roman Empire could not achieve central control as a result of which the different states could turn independent over a period.240 So the Chakravartin in ancient India was not a central authority, but an acknowledged superior king, an Emperor. The descriptions of Digvijaya in Mahabharata show that there was no aggrandisement by acquiring fresh territory but all that was desired was to make several kings submit and pay tribute or offer presents. Arjuna says in Sabhaparva that he would bring tributes from all kings and the conquered kings are generally represented as submitting and making presents to the conqueror.241 The Allahabad Pillar inscriptions say, identically to what Arjuna says in Mahabharata that the kings and tribal chieftains fully gratified Samudragupta’s commands by paying tribute and obeying commands.242 A.L Basham faults the noble war model as one of the reasons for not empire building. He noted: The intense militarism of ancient India did not lead to the building of a permanent empire over the whole subcontinent. In this respect the early history of India contrasts strikingly with that of China, where from the 3rd century B.C., a single empire was to rule and the division was the exception. In India Maurya succeeded in creating a unified empire for a century, and in the heyday of the Guptas much of North India was under one hand, but with these exceptions numerous factors prevented the unification of the recognised cultural unit of Bharatvarsha, which so many monarchs desired....... But one of the main factors which prevented the unification of India was the martial tradition itself.243

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The important aspect of Basham’s study is that Bharatvarsha was a cultural unit, capable of being welded into one single nation-state and that so many monarchs of India desired to bring the whole of Bhratavarsha under one political control; but that did not happen because of their martial tradition which restrained them from acquiring control over the defeated kingdoms. Basham also indicates that another reason why empire building in India did not materialise after the Maurya effort, was that “For the post-Mauryan king the idea of empire was something very different from that to which the West is accustomed.”244 Basham goes on to explain the noble martial, that is war, traditions of India. Basham’s theory that the empire building in India was impeded by the noble model of warfare is a significant statement that constitutes a complete answer to critiques who bench mark the nation-state building models of the West. He says, According to Arthasastra there are three types of conquest: righteous conquest, conquest for greed, and demonic conquest. [In Sanskrit: dharmavijaya, lobhavijaya and asuravijaya] The first was a conquest in which the defeated king was forced to render homage and tribute, after which he or a member of his family was reinstated as a vassal. The second was a victory in which an enormous booty was demanded and large portion of enemy territory was annexed. The third involved political annihilation of the kingdom and its incorporation in that of the victor. The two latter types are generally disapproved by all sources except the Arthasastra. Thus, the Mahabharata declares: ‘A king should not attempt to gain unrighteously, for who reveres the king who wins un-righteous victory? Unrighteous conquest is impermanent, And does not lead to heaven.245

But, basing on the now discredited Aryan invasion and, therefore, baselessly, Basham says, “The idea of “righteous conquest” or “conquest according to the Sacred Law” may have developed among the Aryans soon after their occupation of North India, as an expression of their solidarity against the dark-skinned natives.”246 This is to give credit to the so-called Aryan invaders for the noble war models of India. (But, now the Aryan invasion theory is totally discredited.) But he contradicts his view in the next sentence. “It is” that is, the concept of righteous war, “evident though not explicitly stated in the Vedic literature.”247 Had the Aryans developed righteous war as a measure of conciliation how could it not find place in the Vedic literature which was pre-Aryan-Dravidian interface? So Basham’s hypothesis without

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evidence that righteous warfare was the Aryan conciliation with the Dravidians seems to be clearly unwarranted. Yet Basham’s view that the concept of righteous, which was prevalent in no other civilisation, was an impediment to empire building over the entire India [‘Bharatvarsh’] is a significant contribution to how the Indian civilisation evolved as one of the greatest civilisations of the World without being obsessed with empire building through wars. Basham also explains how this adversely impacted on the empire building, but those who ignored the righteous law, emerged empire builders, thus: “The Kings of Magadha, from Bimbisara onwards, ignored” the concept of righteous war “and annexed territory without compunction: but the doctrine that war should be waged for glory and homage rather than sordid aims such as wealth and power grew in importance with the fall of the Mauryas, and was accepted by the quasi-feudal medieval order. “Demonic conquest” still took place from time to time, notably under the Guptas, but “righteous conquest” was the ideal which the Hindu kings were expected to follow, and it is evident that they usually did”.248

7.5 Kautilya’s advocacy of acquisitive war declared as unethical Basham’s view on Arthasastra as a treatise that encourages empire building seems to be correct. He says, The whole work is written for a king who aspires to become an emperor on the Mauryan model, and such a king is not advised to embark on war lightly. There are many ways of gaining power, intrigue and assassination among them, and these should always be resorted to in preference to war, which should only be looked on as a last resort. If the king suffers defeat he must submit in the hope that he will be allowed to retain his throne as a vassal and ultimately again achieve independence and conquer his former overlord. The Arthasastra says nothing about fair play in battle, and evidently looks on conquest of the demonic variety as the most profitable and advisable. Though in one passage, not in keeping with the main tenor of the work, it suggests allowing the conquered king to remain as a vassal, it ends on a note of humanitarian imperialism. The victor must do everything in his power to conciliate the conquered people; if their economy has suffered badly from the war, taxes must be remitted; ministers of the defeated king must be won round, and law and order restored as quickly as possible; when in the conquered country the king should wear the local dress and follow the local customs. Evidently, from the point of view of Arthasastra, the main motive of war is gain and build up of a great empire.249

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Basham’s proposition that Arthasastra advocated conquest which was the ‘lobhavijaya’ or conquest for greed is correct as that is what sanctions conquest and annexation. But, the most significant point to note is that Arthasastra never accepted barbaric warfare [Asura Vijaya] which was the accepted war model of all other civilisations.250 But even the rules of Arthasastra which sought a compromise between Dharma Vijaya and Asura Vijaya, were rejected within a couple of centuries of the emergence of Kautilya’s treatise by the mainline Hindu scholars charging that the Arthasastra prescriptions were ‘wicked’. The more Orthodox texts, according to Basham, take a different view, different from Arthasastra. According to them, “the major motive of war is glory, not gain; further ‘homage and not annexation was the rightful fruit of victory’.251 As Basham had mentioned, Kautilya’s Arthasastra which justified the means by the ends never became legitimate and in fact was de-legitimised in the first half of 7th century itself. A striking aspect of the Hindu civilisation is that, thanks to critique’s like Kadambari Bana, Kautilya’s commendations on Rajdharma and war, justifying means through ends, did not make great impact on the Indian psyche and slowly it ceased to be a popular and acceptable work. Kautilya seems to be the follower of the dictum of Brhaspati who held that there was a difference between the code for the ordinary and that for the King. A strong state being absolutely necessary for the administration country, Kautilya commends ‘all kinds of sinister methods’ for ‘liquidating the enemy’ such as ‘intrigues, unscrupulous use of poison, desperadoes and prostitutes, magic and charms.’ His motto seems to have been that the ends justified the means. This earned for him the hatred of scholars like Bana’.252 The authority says: “In the Kadambari Bana (first half of the 7th century) we have a striking reference to Kautilya’s work as cruel work because it most contains advice that is ‘very wicked.” This shows how Kautilya’s work had already become unpopular in North India (before the first half of the 7th century) on account of its vigorous advocacy that end justified the means. This explains to some extent the paucity of manuscripts of the Arthasastra in the whole of India, particularly in North India, from where only a fragment of the manuscript of the work has been recovered. There is probably a reference to the Kautilya by the author of the Matsya-Purana on the issue of wrong war models. If this be accepted Arthasastra would have to be pushed back at least some centuries before 250-300 A.D. the probable date of Matsya, Purana.253

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But, in retrospect, it would appear that empire building in India, which would have brought political unity on the lines of what the West believes to day to be nation-state, consistent with the cultural entity of Bharatvarsha, would have been possible in India if only India had not rejected the Kautilya’s prescriptions of war for greed and annexation. Other civilisations not only followed the lower [second] and the lowest [third] grades of war, namely conquest for greed and barbaric conquests for annexation of the enemy kingdom and they emerged and were celebrated as empire builders and nation builders, while the Hindus who followed ethical warfare and therefore did not build empires like the Europeans did, are faulted for not building empires.

7.6 The ethical Hindu Wars – total contrast of the wars in the West The wars in ancient Hindu tradition were thus based on high principles. And this high ethical underpinning to wars was integrated to the concept of a geographical, cultural and political India founded on the principle of ‘Dharma’ which existed and functioned in India from ancient times. “Dharma: The essentially untranslatable Sanskrit word for one of the central principles of Indian religion, covering the ideas of cosmic, natural and social order.”254 The rules of war were an integral part of Rajdharma [statecraft] which was in turn integral to the overarching concept of Dharma. Dharma constituted the normative social, religious and political order in Hindu civilisation, and it was founded on the principle of duty, individual and collective. The discussion here is however limited to the rules of Dharma in wars. The origin of ethical rules of war is in The Rig Veda, most ancient Hindu text and perhaps the most ancient in the world. “The Rig Veda sets down the rules of war at 6-75:15, and says that a warrior will go to hell if he breaks any of them. Î Î Î Î

do not poison the tip of your arrow do not attack the sick or old do not attack a child or a woman do not attack from behind.”255

The Mahabharata, one of the most ancient Hindu epic, lists certain rules of war agreed between the combating sides – such as one should fight only with some one similarly equipped, one should not kill a soldier who is already in combat with another, or who has turned his back from fight or is without

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armour. Similar position is commended by authorities like Apasthamba, Gautama, Yajnavalkya, Manu, Sankha, Bhaudayana, Brhat-Parasara, Sukra, Ramayana, Mahabharata (in Shantiparva, Dronaparva, Karnaparva), Sauptika and so on. Some of these will bear comparison with the conventions of Geneva and The Hague conferences.256 The forbidden actions in war are: not killing any one who has lost his horse, charioteer, or weapons, turns away from battle, sits down, climbs a tree in flight etc. — citing Gautama, an ancient Hindu law giver.257 More, one should not fight with treacherous weapons, or with barbed or poisoned weapons, weapons with points of blazing fire; not fight one who runs away and climbs a tree, or folds his hands, or is sleeping, or is naked or disarmed, or is seriously wounded, or whose weapons are broken, or is merely an onlooker or is not taking part in the battle, or is in fear or has turned to flee; not kill or fight one who is taking water or meals, or taking off his shoes, nor kill a woman or female elephant, nor a charioteer, nor should one who is not a king kill a king – citing Manu, the famous Hindu law giver. 258 Bhaudayana [a law giver] and Shantiparva [a Chapter] in Mahabharata forbid use of poisoned or barbed arrows. Shanti Parva stipulates that the wounded soldier should be treated with medicine and should be allowed to go when he is healed. These rules, though ideal and not probably followed in every case, are more humane as compared to modern warfare.259 In ancient times non-combatants are not molested to which Megasthenes bears testimony when he says ‘tillers of soil even when the battle is raging in the neighbourhood are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested’. The rule of war in Gadayuddha [maze fight] was that no blow was to be struck below the naval, a rule which Bhima violated when he struck Duryodhana with his maze in his thigh. At the end of Mahabharata war, Duryodhana recounts all bad deeds of Krishna and the Pandavas to which Krishna responds with the numerous breaches of war morality such as slaying of Abhimanyu by many engaging him at the same time, contrary to the rule that battle has to be one to one between equals.260 But these were breaches of the ethics on both sides, the ethics being acknowledged to be legitimate. The rules of Hindu warfare observed in the battle field summarised from the different texts referred against each in War In Ancient India by VR Ramachandra Dhikshitar261 are: 1.

Warrior in armour should not fight with a warrior who is not clad in mail – [Mahabharata. shantiparva 95.7]

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2. One should fight with only one enemy; and should stop fighting when the opponent becomes disabled. [Ibid] 3. If the enemy is clad in mail, his opponent should put on armour. [Chap IV. 91; Ibid. 96.3] 4. A cavalry soldier should not attack a chariot warrior. But a chariot warrior could attack a chariot warrior. Similarly a horse warrior could resist another horse warrior. The general rule is that warriors should fight with only their equals. [Ibid.8-9] 5. Poisoned or barbed arrows should not be used. [Ibid 10] 6. A weak or wounded man should not be killed. [ Ibid 11] 7. He whose weapon is broken or whose bow-string is cut or who has lost his car should not be hit. [Ibid 12] 8. A warrior who requests to be excused saying, ‘I am thine’, or joins his hands in supplication, or throws off his weapon, must not be killed. But he can be captured as a prisoner of war. [Ibid 96.3] 9. A king should fight with only another king and should not fight with warriors of inferior status. [Ibid 96.7] 10. If a Brahmin enters the field to bring about peace between contesting parties, both should stop fighting. And no injury should be inflicted upon such a Brahman. [Ibid 8] 11. Aged men, women, children, the retreating, or one who holds a straw in his lips as a sign of conditional surrender should not be killed. [Ibid 98.70-72] 12. The panic-stricken and scattered foe should not be pursued hotly .[Ibid 74. Boudhayana Dharma Sutra 1.10.8] 13. No one should kill the sleepy or the thirsty, of the fatigued, one whose armour has slipped, a peaceful citizen walking along the road, one engaged in eating or drinking, the mad and the insane, one who went out of the camp to buy provisions, a camp follower, menials and the guards at the gates. [Ibid 100.27-9; Manu VII.92] 14. In case of insufficient supply of numbers in a particular division or divisions in the army, substitutes may be used. An elephant may be opposed by five horses or fifteen men and four horses; one horseman may be opposed by three footmen; and three horsemen by one elephant rider. [Agni Purana 242.38] 15. It is forbidden to kill a Brahman by caste or by profession, or who declares himself to be a Brahman, or cow or an out-caste. [Gautama X] 16. He should not be killed who gets upon an eminence or tree, who is

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eunuch or a war musician [Manu VII. 90.93]. Silappadhikaram, a Tamil classic, refers to warriors escaping from the battle field in disguise. Most of them were allowed to run away, though some of them were captured and sent off to far off lands. When these captives were presented before the Pandya and Chola kings they spoke disparagingly of Senguttuvan, the Cheran King, as having transgressed the limits of fair fighting. [Chilappathikaram XXVI] It is further prohibited to fight those who do not offer to fight, who hide themselves in fear or who go to the field as spectators. [Ramayana Yuddha kanda 80.39] Mahabharata affords ample proof that spectators were admitted into the battle field during the scene of action and they were not injured or harmed. Fruits, flower gardens, temples and other places of worship were left unmolested. [Agni Purana 236.22] Megansthanes who was in India in 4th century BC says: Whereas among other nations it is usual in the contests of war to ravage the soil and thus reduce it to an cultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandsmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when the battle is raging in the neighbourhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides they neither ravage an enemy’s land with fire nor cut down its trees. Nor would an enemy coming upon a husbands-man at work on land do him any harm, for men of this class being regarded as public benefactors, are protected from all injury. [Arthasastra XIII.4] Prisoners of war were generally accorded generous treatment. Sometimes the captive agreed to become the slave of the captor for a period of one year after which he became a free man. [Mahabharata. shantiparva 96.4-5] If maidens were among the prisoners of war they were courteously treated and were induced to marry persons of the captors’ choice. If they declined the offer, they were sent back to their homes under proper escort. [Shantiparva 96.5] In the recent Vijayanagar Empire history, Krishnvadevaraya returned the wife of the defeated Gajapati ruler Sewell. [A Forgotten Empire p.320] Usually the defeated king was reinstated on the throne. But if the

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enemy king had met with his death in battle, his son or nearest relatives was installed on the throne on terms of subordinate alliance. [Arthasastra VII ch 16; Manu VII. 202 ff ] The subjects of the vanquished monarch were allowed to retain their own laws and customs. [Ibid XIII.ch5] The conqueror in most cases was satisfied with the acknowledgement of his overlord ship and did not trouble himself as long as his sovereignty was not challenged. [Vishnupurana III 30-31; Jayaswal: A History of India AD 150 to AD350] A wounded opponent should either be sent to his own home or if taken into victor’s quarters he should have his wounds attended to skilled surgeons. After he got well cured he should be set at liberty [Shantiparva 95.17-18]. Women were appointed to nurse the wounded. In the camp were found surgeons with surgical instruments, machines, remedial oils, and bandage cloth in their hands. After defeating the enemy the victor should show mercy to them and sympathise with them by comforting them, taking hold of their hands affectionately and even shed tears before so as to secure their devotion. [Shantiparva 102.34-39] This was true of the soldiers of his own army or of the enemy. [Ibid 95.17-18] It was a custom to make war during the day and cease fighting during the night. This was also the practice in the Mahabharata war and a practice in all righteous wars. According to Clausewitz [Vol. 1 p231] when the army retired for rest, all feelings of animosity were to be suspended and both the contending parties were to behave like allies.

7.7 Conquered king to rule; conquered people’s traditions inviolable What about the treatment of the conquered kings, and his country and the peoples in ancient Hindu warfare? Dharma Vijaya or ethical conquest, consists in persuading other kings pay obeisance, or even if it were a war, the conquered is accepted back with honour. In ancient Hindu texts, the second kind of conquests, the lobhavijaya [the lustful victory] in which the conquered king is robbed of his wealth and territory, is not spoken of highly and the last one, Asuravijaya [barbaric victory] where the conquered kings is robbed of his wife, son and family was completely unacceptable. That is why the Indian tradition including the Puranas are full of stories of battle against Asuras who aspired for or achieved Asuravijaya. The Hindu

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civilisation could make this distinction between different categories of victory or conquests based the ethics of warfare which it had commended, since wars were fought on the basis of strict norms, the result of the wars, the conquests, were not different. So even as the wars were ethical the conquests could only be ethical and unless the wars were ethical, the victories would not be. Though Kautilya recommends all sorts of tricks and treachery for securing victory in wars, the Mahabharata holds up a high ideal. In Bhishma parva of Mahabharata, it is said that ‘conquerors do not secure victory so much by their army and prowess as by truthfulness, freedom from cruelty and observance of dharma and energetic actions. Shantiparva states that it is better to die rather than obtain victory by wicked actions. Even Kautilya – who is wrongly regarded as the Indian equivalent of Machiavelli – says that the conqueror should not covet the territory, wealth, son, and wife of the slain in the battle; that he should reinstall the son of the deceased king on the throne of his father; that the emperor who kills or imprisons the kings that submit, and covets their lands, wealth, sons, or wives provokes the circle of States and makes them rise against himself. Yagnavalkya stipulates that it is the duty of the conqueror to protect the conquered country in the same way as his own country and the conqueror is to respect the customs of the conquered country, its laws and the uses of the families in the country. Visnudharmasutra enjoins upon the conqueror not to uproot the usages of the conquered country, to establish in its capital some kinsman (of the slain king) and not to destroy the royal family unless it be of low birth. Manu is identical in his views. Shanti Parva in Mahabharata and Katyayana commend that even when the vanquished king is at fault, the conqueror should not ruin the country for the fault of the vanquished since he did not start his wrong doings with the consent of this subjects. [Rajnitipaksha draws from this conclusion that the ministers with whose consent the war was started may be harassed by the conqueror]. Sukranitisara requires the conqueror to support the well-behaved son and the queen of the vanquished king or to give a fourth of the conquered kingdom to him and only 1/32 part of it to one who is not endowed with good qualities and the conqueror may appropriate the whole treasury of the conquered. [251]. This is what Agni Purana says on the duties of the victorious king: The victorious king should honour the defeated king and treat him as his own son. He should not fight with him again. The wives of the defeated king would not belong anyone else (but to the defeated king). The wives of the defeated king should be protected by the conquering king. The victorious king should honour the customs and manner of the conquered country.263

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The advice to re-install the vanquished kings was generally followed by ancient conquerors and emperors. Rudradaman (150AD) was known as the establisher of kings who had lost their territories. Samudragupta was famed for having re-established several royal families that had lost their kingdoms.264 Likewise the historic treatment of war widows and women of the hostile kingdom were generally in conformity with the traditions captured in the ancient literature. Chatrapathi Shivaji who had to fight unconventional, guerilla warfare against the Islamic rule which was annihilating Hinduism, maintained highest standards in treatment of the women of the defeated kingdoms, and also in respecting the religious sentiments of the people. Like wise Prithviraj Chauhan treated Mohammed Ghori in the same way the Hindu traditions commanded him to treat defeated kings. So the war ethics of the Hindu civilisation demonstrated the highest human values which are not attained in the modern world even today. In a world where winning war by any means particularly for a God or religion was considered not only justifiable but also mandatory, the Hindu civilisation maintained highest standards in wars and generally never deviated from its war ethics. Even modern global war conventions fall short of the standards which the Hindu civilisation had set for itself and practised, even when it faced Islamic and later colonial forces.

7.8 War ethics of Hindu India, unparalleled says AL Basham Even well-known critiques of India have acknowledged this unique dimension of the Indian civilisation. In the introduction to his work The Wonder that India Was, AL Basham says – after severely indicting India, which was admittedly ‘a cultural unit’, for the ‘internecine wars’, ‘cunning and unscrupulous’ state craft of its rulers, ‘flood, famine, and plague’ that killed ‘millions of people’, ‘inequality of birth’ with ‘religious sanction’ where the lot of the humble was generally hard — “Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the world were the relations of man and man and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number and no other ancient law book are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient law giver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales of to tell of cities put to the sword or the massacre of non-combatants. The ghastly sadism of kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive, is completely without parallel in ancient India. There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with

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conditions in other ancient cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” 265

7.9 Noble Hindu war ethics in practice till 16/17th century This rule of war is enshrined in the principle of Raj dharma or statecraft and integral to the higher principle of dharma which is the un-legislated normative principle of life governing all in this ancient land. Such normative state craft abiding by the principle of dharma is inconceivable in the alien culture. So wars, victory and defeat in the alien model and the host model here are two different paradigms. This model made wars rare and therefore, the Kings normally did not have a regular army except for defence and law and order purposes. It is only those who develop the ambition to emerge as the Chakravartin, the Emperor, who assembled regular army. So, any alien appraisal of the Indian statecraft and wars cannot understand the normative standards by which the people in this country were governed. Those who came to conquer India had no war model based on ethics. That was why Mohammed Ghori who was defeated several times was not killed by the victor, Prithviraj Chauhan. The host civilisation applied its normative standards even in war to the aliens who had no normative standards even in religion. For them victory was the target, how it was achieved never mattered. It is not just in the matter of war. Again, as late as Western colonial conquest of India, these war principles were found to be in practice and the Portuguese historians have noted that these noble principles of war were adhered to by the Hindu Kings in Kerala and elsewhere. In the book History of Kerala by Padmanabha Menon, on the war models adopted in the distant Malabar in Southern Peninsular India, the author writes: And when they are in battle, and one army is distant from the other two ranges of cross-bow, the King says to the Brahman, “Go to the camp of the enemy, and tell the King to let 100 of his Naeri [soldier] come and I will go with a 100 of mine’ and thus both go the middle of the space and begin to fight in this manner. Altho’[sic] they fight for 3 days, they always give two direct blows at the head and one at the legs. And when 4 or 6 on either side are killed, the Brahmans immediately go to the armies on both sides and say, Nur Mauezar hanno’. The King answers ‘Matile’, that is ‘Do you wish for any more?’ The Brahman says, ‘No’ and the adverse party does the same. And in this manner they fight one hundred against one hundred. ...

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Castenheda observes, ‘when these Kings are at war with each other, they often personally go into the field, and even join personally in the fight upon occasion’. Sheik Zeen-ud-deen observes, ‘In their wars, they have seldom had recourse to treachery; but fixing upon a certain day with their enemies to decide their quarrel by arms, they regard any treacherous departure from this engagement both as base and unworthy.266

Menon continues, “Whiteway in work in the Rise of the Portuguese Power in India gives us the following account of the weapons of the Nayars [soldiers] and their methods of warfare. “In arms and methods of warfare the Hindu of the extreme south, where Mohammedans had not yet penetrated, is behind his contemporary in Europe. Chiefly, perhaps, because they had then met no serious enemy, and had only fought with their own caste-fellows and co-religionists, war had become with a game governed by a series of elaborate rules, and to break one of these rules involved dishonour which was worse than death”267 Whiteway adds: There was neither night fighting nor ambuscades. All fighting was in the day time when the sun had well risen; the opposing camps were either pitched near each other, and both sides slept securely. At the sun rise, the soldiers of both armies mingled at the tank, put on their armour, at their rice, chewed their betel, gossiped, and chatted together. At the beat of the drum, either side drew apart and formed its ranks. It was creditable to be the first to beat the drum, and no attack was allowed until the other side had beaten theirs268

Whiteway goes on to say: The fighting was always in the open plain and they advance – all stooping – very slow, now gaining ground, now losing, so that sometimes a whole day is spent in advance and retreats. When the drum beat both sides rose to their feet and fought no more for the day. The drum could only be beaten when both sides were halted, and it was a point of honour not to beat it unless some advantage could be claimed. All the strategy was directed to capturing and defending the camp and scribes were in attendance to write down the different turns of the battle. At times when the ranks on one side broke, the slaughter was very great, but after the drum sounded two sides mingled together, and there was no bad blood even when a man killed his own brother. In certain cases, when a relative died or a vassal rebelled, the leader of the side that desired a suspension

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of hostilities, after the ranks were formed, advanced, stuck his javelin in the ground, leant his sword and shield against it and stood apart: the leader on the other side imitated him and truce ensued.269

Obviously, the noble war models developed and consistently adopted by the Hindus were not mythological. They inhered in the core of the Hindu civilisation and that was seen compulsively manifesting in the wars against even peoples whose war methods were barbaric and even when such noble war practices were found to be suicidal. When the Aryan invasion-migration theory trotted out by the colonial theorists held fort, many writers including AL Basham[supra] had credited the noble war rules prevalent in India to the Brahmins – read the Aryans. The implication was that since the Aryans, that is the Brahmins, who were believed to be from outside, were not originally Indians, India or Hinduism had no role in, nor credited for, evolving such noble war rules. The entire basis of the Aryan Invasion theory being questioned today.[259] So the earlier commentators of Hindu war ethics could be excused for not disputing or for assuming that the noble war rules were developed by the Brahmins. Even though it may be strictly out of place here, two questions about the Aryans/Brahmins as the source of noble war rules in India arises. First, how is it that the ‘noble’ Aryans who came from outside India, nowhere left traces of their nobility in war rules, in their original places or along the way? Second, how did the ‘barbaric’ Dravidians accept the noble laws of war? So ignoring the assumption that the Brahmins were the originators of the noble war rules – when in fact it was Manu, not a Brahmin, who was amongst the first to expound the noble war rules – the genius of entire Hindu civilisation should be credited with having expounded the noble rules of war. So the commentaries of the earlier authors should be read with the caveat that they went by the assumptions of the time in which they were making their comment.

7.10 Hindus war ethics compromised by hostile invaders The Hindu civilisation which had evolved such noble war models was confronted by Islamic and Christian/colonial war lords with rules of war that had no morals or ethics, excepting victory, and in most cases victory for their religion or country, as the only target. The result was unprecedented defeats and finally the noble Hindu war rules yielded place to methods that were inevitable for survival.

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Whiteway in his work on the Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, after explaining how the wars were fought in Kerala on noble principles, says that confronted by the Portuguese war model, the noble war model was given up by the indigenous Kings. Whiteway says: This artificial system broke down very quickly under the stress of fighting against the Portuguese.... Thus it had always been the custom of Zamori to sound a trumpet that it took four men to lift to warn his enemy of an intended attack. In 1536 he nearly surprised the Portuguese by abandoning the custom suddenly.271

Whiteway then goes on to to say: None of the battles described by Portuguese historians – and they are numerous and told in great detail – sound much more than magnified street brawls. The interest in this description of the methods of fighting in Southern India, transmitted to us by the Portuguese writers, is enhanced by the evidence that it affords that these methods were introduced from Northern India by Brahamans, to mitigate the ferocity of the races whom they converted to the Hindu religion. The earliest form in which they are found is the six rules agreed to by both sides in the great war of Bharata, celebrated in Mahabharata, which embody some of the most artificial of the customs. It may be as some have said, that these six rules were introduced into the poem by Brahmanical writers, at a later period, to give them an historical sanction in the eyes of the subsequent generations; but the same could hardly be said of their inclusion in the laws of Manu where also they were found. But whether this view be correct, that is, whether they actually governed the fight on the plain of Kurukshetra or not is of little importance; the great fact is that these passages in the Portuguese writers give, that the Brahman carried with him in his civilising advance over India such influence that he could impose his humanising rules over savage races over which he establish his yoke; rules, too, which, although they have left their traces to the present day in the chivalrous tone of some Hindu races, notably Rajputs, laid those adopting them open to the attacks of outsiders, who could reap every advantage from the artificial system that bound their adversaries.272

It needs no further discussion. If in the history of Hindus and of their culture and civilisation, such high ideals and noble war laws and principles could inhere, it is essentially because the Hindu religion – which is a commonwealth of diverse religions propitiating millions of Gods while believing that the

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Ultimate Reality is only One without a second – basic philosophical underpinning to develop such noble war methods. This is the contrast. And in a world that was to be later dominated by the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and the religion, culture and politics, they set out to universalise, the noble war models of Hindus became a disadvantage. It was this that forced great Hindu kings like Chatrapathi Shivaji, who built the Maratha Empire, to adopt guerilla warfare, which was not in tune with the noble war models of the Hindu civilisation as evident from the discussion above. They had to change their strategy and adopt Kutayudhha [deceptive war] which is the very opposite of Dharmayuddha in the fight for survival.

7.11 The Quranic war, as an illustration of Abrahamic war ethics It is necessary at this point to compare the theological and practical position of the Abrahamic [Islamic and Christian] civilisations on the war ethics and religious rules regarding other faiths and peoples. The choice of these two strands of Abrahamic-Monotheistic civilisations as a contrast to the Hindu civilisation is a natural corollary because the Hindu civilisation confronted, struggled, fought and interfaced the Islamic and the trade-mixed colonial version of the Christian civilisation. The general impression that the Hindu civilisation lost was based on a superficial analysis of history. The history of the world anywhere is the story of the victor. In Africa, it is said, ‘in the struggle between the hunter and the lion, the hunter has written the history’.273 But this is equally true of the history of all colonised states. Will Durant in his The Story of Civilisations, describes the Muslim invasion of India as “probably the bloodiest story in history.”274 Why did Islam invade India? It does not need a seer to answer this question. The reason for invasion was religious, not political, although religion provided the trigger and vigour for the political leadership to organise armies founded on faith. It is religion which transformed the game of war from professional principles to conscript principles; the religious armies led by the Islamic and Christian faithfuls were not professional, but were founded on conscript principles. So the entire concept of warfare had changed with the introduction of religious beliefs to drive the moves and conquest by armies. It is Islam and Christianity which brought into wars the powerful element of acquiring lands and peoples for God, that too, jealous Gods which explicitly would not and did not tolerate other Gods. A mere comparison of the war ethics of the aggressive Abrahamic civilisations and the benevolent Hindu civilisation is adequate to bring out

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how and why the Hindu civilisation lost out, particularly, to the Islamic forces. It was largely because of the nobler war ethics followed by the Hindu civilisation consistent with its own philosophy of war and this proved to be a great disadvantage in handling the brutal and barbaric war methods employed by the Islamic invaders in India. The Quranic concepts clearly mandated war as one of the methods of spreading the Islamic religion and for the purpose the people of the defeated Kingdoms could be compelled to accept Islam by different means. In contrast the nobler Hindu war ethics clearly forbid the victor from imposing his faith or language or culture on the people of the vanquished Kingdom. Further the higher Hindu ethics command the victor to preserve the culture and faith of the people of the vanquished kingdom. A comparison of the Islamic Quranic concept of war with the Hindu Puranic concept of war expounded earlier will bring out the paradigm difference between the two. The Quranic warfare matches with the Hindu view of Asuravijaya, namely the barbaric warfare. The first of the five pillars of Islam is the profession of the faith: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet” upon which depends the membership of the community.”275 In this lies, the intolerant element in Islam like in Christianity. Added to this intolerant ingredient is the structure of Islam as an organised Umma, the community which is not just Islamic, but essentially Arabic in concept and form. Is not just the personal commitment to religion that makes on a Muslim, but his surrender to be part of the Ummah, the community of Islamic people. The history of emergence of the Muslim Umma is important. This is how a modern, Muslim, in fact a military mind – a Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Mallik, understands the history of Muslim Umma in Islam: The Muslim migration to Medina brought in its wake events and decisions of far-reaching significance and consequence for them. While in Mecca they had neither proclaimed an Umma nor were they granted the permission to take recourse to war. In Medina a divine revelation proclaimed them as ‘Ummah’ and granted to them permission to take up arms against the oppressors. The permission was soon converted into divine command making war a religious obligation for the faithful. The mission assigned to the New State emphasised its moderation, balance, practicality and universality. “Thus we have made of you an Ummah justly balanced” declared the Book (Quran) “that ye might be witness over the nations, and the Apostle a witness over yourselves”. In a subsequent revelation, the Holy Quran ruled “Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoying what is

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right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah” These proclamations laid the foundations of the new political, social, economic and military philosophies of the New State and formed the basis of its policy.276

In the preface to the same book – to which a foreword has been written by General Zia ul Haq who led Pakistan for a whole decade and thoroughly Islamised the remaining un-Islamised remnants of Pakistan – Allah Baksh Brohi has written: It is true that in modern society the maintenance of international order and peace in the international community of mankind proceeds on the premises of sovereign equality of ‘nation-states’ whose number at present is 151. And this number is reached by taking notice of the territorial aspect of the structure of a modern nation-state. The idea of Ummah of Mohammad, the Prophet of Islam is incapable of being realised within the framework of territorial states much less made an enduring basis of viewing the world as having polarised between the world of Islam and the world of war. Islam in my understanding does not subscribe to the concept of territorial state and it would be recalled that Iqbal in his lectures on “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” went as far as to suggest that, Muslim states to begin with, be treated as territorial states and that only as an interim measure since these are later on to be incorporated into a commonwealth of Muslim states. Each one of these states has first to acquire strength and stability before it is able to prepare the ground on which the unified state of Islam can be found on the historical scene.277

Two things are evident in this approach. One, the Muslim Umma is the real entity, the nation-state is not. Therefore, even the individual Muslim state is only a passing phase. One can imagine the legitimacy of the state and its laws in Islamic world in this approach. Second, the world will be polarised into two: the world Islam and the world of War, that is, the world with which Islam will be at war. This book and preface were written in 1986. This is not an exceptional or extreme view. More well-known authorities understand this aspect of Islam precisely the same way. Quran described the Muslim community as ‘the best community produced for mankind’ whose function is to ‘enjoin the good’ and ‘forbid the evil.’ “Co-operation and “good advice” within the community are emphasised, and a person who deliberately tries to harm the interests of the community is to be given exemplary punishment. Opponents within the community are to be fought with armed force if persuasion does not work and deliberate

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trouble makers within the community are to be given exemplary punishment. So, Islam commends war within Islam also. Because of the mission for the community to enjoin the good and to forbid the evil ‘so that there is no mischief or corruption’ on earth, ‘the doctrine of jihad, in view of the constitution of the community as the power base, is the logical outcome’.278 ‘For the early community it was a religious concept. The object of jihad is not the conversion of individuals to Islam, but rather the gaining of control over the collective affairs of societies to run them in accordance with the principles of Islam.’279 This is diametrically the opposite of the position adumbrated in the Hindu texts on wars which mandates the faith and tradition of the vanquished in the war should not be interfered with by the victor who should actually help to preserve it. What the Hindu civilisation prohibits is what the very intent and object of jihad seek to achieve! The Encyclopaedia adds: ‘Individual conversions may occur as a by-product of this process when power structure passes into the hands of the Muslim community. In strict Muslim doctrine conversions “by force” are forbidden, because after the revelation of the Quran “the good and the evil have become distinct” so that one may follow whichever one may prefer (Quran) and it is also strictly prohibited to wage wars for the sake of acquiring worldly glory, power and rule. With the establishment of Muslim empire, however, the doctrine of jihad was modified by the leaders of the community. Their main concern had become the consolidation of the empire and its administration and thus they interpreted in a defensive rather than in an expansive sense.’280

7.12 Quranic War Model as practised in India The developments within Islam had had their deep impact on non-Islamic world as Islam, like its other cousins in the Abrahamic world, not only laid down rules for its adherents, but also for the adherents of other faiths, as to how they would be handled by the Islamists. The main problem of the Abrahamic faiths is their world view which actually limits the world to their view. This actually means that each of the Abrahamic thoughts conflicts with the other in regard to their world view, and they also conflict with the views of other faiths and cultures of the world. In this perspective, how the aggressive Islamic war commands against those whose faith was not acceptable to Islam, affected the Hindu civilisation which had high and noble war rules may be demonstrated by reference to an assorted collection of historic events, with authorities from where such facts were collected, as under281:

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Amir Timur or Tamerlane (1336 - 1405) Turkmen Mongol conqueror wrote: My principal object in coming to Hindustan… has been to accomplish two things. The first was to war with the infidels, the enemies of the Mohammadan religion; and by this religious warfare to acquire some claim to reward in the life to come. The other was… that the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the infidels: plunder in war is as lawful as their mothers’ milk to Musalmans who war for their faith.282

While studying the legacy of Muslim rule in India, it has to be constantly borne in mind that the objectives of all Muslim invaders and rulers were the same as those mentioned above. Timur or Tamerlane himself defines them candidly and bluntly while others do so through their chroniclers. To start with he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of kashmir. He ordered his soldiers “to kill all the men, to make prisoners of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property”. Next, he “directed towers to be built on the mountain of the skulls of those obstinate unbelievers”. Soon after, he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by Rajputs. They surrendered after some fight, and were pardoned. But Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the “unbelievers”. His Tuzk-i-Timuri records: In a short space of time all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and

the fort to the ground.283 By now Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared for battle against the Tughlaq army after crossing the Yamuna, his Amirs advised him ‘that on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty’. Therefore, ‘no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword’. Tuzk-i-Timuri continues:

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I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.284

Negationism and the Muslim Conquests “Muslims invaders did record with glee their genocide on Hindus, because they felt all along that they were doing their duty; that killing, plundering, enslaving and razing temples was the work of God, Mohammed. Indeed, whether it was Mahmud of Ghazni (997-1030), who was no barbarian, although a Turk, and patronised art and literature, would recite a verse of the Koran every night after having razed temples and killed his quota of unbelievers; or Firuz Shah Tughlak (1351-1388) who personally confirms that the destruction of Pagan temples was done out of piety and writes: “on the day of a Hindu festival, I went there myself, ordered the executions of all the leaders and practitioners of his abomination; I destroyed their idols temples and built mosques in their places.”285

Hindu Kush Mountains – ‘Slaughter of the Hindus’ Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists have also suffered a terrible holocaust, probably without parallel in human history. Take the Hindu Kush for instance, probably one of the biggest genocides of Hindus. There is practically no serious research ever done about it and no mention in history books. Yet the name Hindu Kush appears many times in the writings of Muslim chroniclers in 1333 AD. Ibn Battutah, the medieval berber traveller, said the name meant ‘Hindu Killer,’ a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers. Unlike the Jewish holocaust, the exact toll of the Hindu genocide suggested by the name Hindu Kush is not available. ‘However,’ writes Hindu Kush specialist Srinandan Vyas, ‘the number is easily likely to be in millions.’ Afghanistan was a full part of the Hindu cradle up till the year 1000, and in political unity with India until Nadir Shah separated it in the 18th century. The mountain range in Eastern Afghanistan where the native Hindus were slaughtered, is still called the Hindu Kush (Persian: “Hindu Slaughter”). To the Hindus, this mountain range was known as Paariyaatra Parvat. But when the last Hindu king of Kabul was killed, Muslims ruled this land and then called these mountains the Hindu Kush — “Slaughter of the Hindus”.

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It is significant that one of the very few place-names on earth that reminds us not of the victory of the winners but rather of the slaughter of the losers, concerns a genocide of Hindus by the Muslims. A few known historical figures can be used to justify this estimate. The Encyclopaedia Britannica recalls that in December 1398 AD, Taimurlane ordered the execution of at least 50,000 captives before the battle for Delhi; likewise, the number of captives butchered by Taimurlane’s army was about 100,000. The Britannica again mentions that Mughal emperor Akbar ordered the massacre of about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus on February 24, 1568 AD, after the battle for Chitod, a number confirmed by Abul Fazl, Akbar’s court historian. Afghan historian Khondamir notes that during one of the many repeated invasions on the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, which used to be part of the Hindu Shahiya kingdoms ‘1,500,000 residents perished.’ ‘Thus, ‘it is evident that the mountain range was named as Hindu Kush as a reminder to the future Hindu generations of the slaughter and slavery of Hindus during the Moslem conquests.’ 286 American Historian Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson (1862-1937) wrote: At Muhamud’s blockade the defenders ‘fell to the earth like sparrows before the hawk.’ Immense stores of treasure and jewels, money and silver ingots, were laden upon camels, and a pavilion of silver and a canopy of Byzantine linen reared upon pillars of silver and gold were among the prizes of the Holy War. The booty was displayed in the court of the palace at Ghazni, ‘jewels and unbored pearls and rubies, shinning like sparks or iced wine, emeralds as it were sprigs of young myrtle, diamonds as big as pomegrantes.’ The Eastern chronicles tell of seventy million silver dirhams, and hundreds of thousands of pounds weight of silver cups and vessels; and, with every allowance for exaggeration, the spoils must been colossal. All the world flocked to Ghazni to gaze upon the incredible wealth of India. Such rewards were incentives enough to carry on the pious work. Year after year Mahmud swept over the plains of Hindustan, capturing cities and castles, throwing down temples and idols, and earning his titles of ‘Victor’ and ‘Idol-breaker,’ Ghazi and But-shikan.287 Zeal for Islam was the dominant role of the tenth-century Turks, as of most new converts. The great missionary creed of Mohammed, which to the Arabs and Persians had become a familiar matter of routine, was a source of fiery inspiration to the untutored men of the steppes. To spread the faith by conquest doubled their natural zest for battle and endowed them with the devoted valour of martyrs.

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Mahamud was a staunch Moslem, and he vowed that every year he would wage a Holy War against the infidels of Hindustan. The sack of Somnath had made Mahmud of Ghazni a champion of the faith in the eyes of every Moslem for nearly nine centuries, and the feat, signal enough in itself, has been embellished with fantastic legends. Mahmud died in 1030 A. D. and his tomb and two lofty minarets, stand to show Ghazni’s life. On one of the minarets one may still read the resonant titles of the Idol-breaker, and on the marble tombstone an inscription entreats “God’s mercy for the great Amir Mahmud.” Soon India was to witness something very like a repetition of his swift irresistible raids. For more than a century there was peace, at least little war. Probably the Hindu troops and Hindu officials had to some extent Indianized them, and the last descendants of Mahmud made their home at Lahore without difficulty... Mu’izz-ad-din, commonly known as Mohammad Ghori, led a series of campaigns in India which recalled the days of the Idol breaker nearly two centuries before. For thirty years Mahmud had ravaged Hindustan from Indus to the Ganges; and for thirty years Mohammed Ghori harried the same country in the same way...full of religious zeal, and eager to send the “groveling crowfaced Hindus to the fire of hell.288

This is adequate to show the contrast in war models and how, being noble proved to be a suicidal course for civilisations like the Hindu civilisation. This was precisely the experience of Amerindians when the Spanish exploration destroyed them and their culture in medieval time. How virtually a total homicide took place in the Americas is brought out in several works.289

VIII- Monotheism Conflict-Prone? 8.1 Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths promote conflicts says study The discussion so far firmly points to the theological and actualised potential and propensity of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths to intolerance, violence and conflicts. It may be useful at this stage to refer to the On-line survey surfing the internet which was carried out [on November 5, 2003] on the propensity of the Monotheistic faiths as compared to the Eastern faiths and the results whereof has been carried in Website290 Interesting as they are,

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the results of the Survey seem to be consistent with the view emerging from the discussions above, and also, as the cited Survey says, seem “to approve the views of the experts about Monotheistic faiths.” The incidents of violence by religion reported in the Survey which meant just browsing the internet, and three search engines, Altavista, Google and Teoma, in the context of six religions, namely Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Atheism, Sikhism, and Confucianism, are tabulated here:

(A) Incidence of Violence by Religions Search TermBuddhism Islam JudaismHinduismAtheismConfucianismS i k h i s m Search Buddhism Christianity Islam Judaism Hinduism Atheism Confu- Sikhism cianism ALTAVISTA Terror

1

1

176

2

2

0

0

0

Terrorism

2

17

2,112

0

0

6

0

2

Violence

29

125

413

13

6

4

0

0

War

24

277

470

10

6

10

3

0

0

2

3

0

0

2

0

0

Murder Genocide

0

8

2

8

0

2

0

0

Sub Total

56

430

3,176

33

14

24

3

2

Islam Judaism Hinduism Atheism

Confucianism

Sikhism

Search

Buddhism

Christianity

GOOGLE Terror

1

1

616

1

3

1

0

0

Terrorism

2

32

5,620

3

3

9

0

4

Violence

78

288

979

27

11

10

0

0

War

99

624

1,160

16

12

38

6

1

0

5

9

2

0

8

0

0

Murder Genocide

0

20

7

30

0

2

0

0

Sub Total

180

970

8,391

79

29

68

6

5

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TEOMA Terror

2

1

249

1

1

0

0

0

Terrorism

0

28

3,350

10

1

8

0

3

Violence

37

162

679

24

10

10

0

0

War

44

420

798

77

9

19

3

0

Murder

0

5

7

3

0

6

0

0

Genocide

0

28

3

28

0

0

0

0

Sub Total

83

644

5,086

143

21

43

3

3

Total Events

319

2,044

16,653

255

55

135

12

10

Adherentsmillions

360

2,000

1,300

14

900

850

225

23

Events/million 0.890

1.020

12.810 18.210

0.061

0.158

0.053

0.430

(B) Religions Ranked By Propensity toward Violence Religion

EventsAdherents

MillionsEvents

Judaism

255

14

18.200

16,653

1,300

12.800

2,044

2,000

1.020

319

360

0.890

Islam Christianity Buddhism

Million

Sikhism

10

23

0.430

Atheism

135

850

0.160

Hinduism

55

900

0.061

Confucianism

12

225

0.053

Events reported for Judaism are over 340 times as frequent as for Confucianism. Atheism is below the middle of the pack, and this provides evidence that Atheists as a group are less violent than are monotheists. The Survey adds: “The Buddhists are not violent but they can be violated. Buddhists are also peace activists and often get in harm’s way. Atheism would have scored much higher in Stalin’s time. Nevertheless, the history of organized terror has largely been the history of monotheism. It is certainly significant that reports of violence involving Jews were some 340 times those for Confucianism. The religious group that first and formally practised terror as it is practised today is Judaism, nearly two millennia ago.”

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Finding the need to make the figures meaningfully comparable the survey normalised to the multiples of atheism violence as shown below:

(C) Religious Violence Ranking Normalized to Atheism Religion

Multiples of Atheism

Judaism

113.800

Islam

80.000

Christianity

6.380

Buddhism

5.560

Sikhism

2.690

Atheism

1.000

Hinduism

0.381

Confucianism

0.331

The Survey says that Christianity seems to get off lightly here is an artefact of our times. It continues, “There is plenty in Christian history to be concerned about, the Crusades, the many European wars, the Inquisition, Witch Hunters, and in our most recent time, Bosnia, North Ireland and Zionism – behind the scenes.” “Christians” the study says, Christians seem to have a short memory: their history is specially bloody and depraved”. In order to make the comparison between Monotheism more self-evident and for the purpose, normalizing the rank order to Atheism = 1, the survey shows monotheism to be some 35 or so multiples more violent than atheism as the table below demonstrates.

(D) Monotheism Compared With Eastern Religions Belief System

Events

Adherents-Millions

Events /Million

Monotheism

18,952

3,314

5.700

Eastern Religions

396

1,508

0.260

Atheism

135

850

0.160

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Monotheisms, as a group of religions, reported 5.7 events per million adherents while the four Eastern religions/philosophies averaged about 0.26 reported events per million. The Survey also relatively ranks the different religions and atheism for violence as shown hereunder: Belief System

Events / Million

Monotheism

35.600

Eastern Religions

1.600

Atheism

1.000

It says, “Monotheisms are some 22 fold more violent than the Eastern Religions and about 36 times more violent than atheism. Eighteen times as many web sites pair violent words with Judaism as with Christianity.” “This ranking’, the Survey says, “is a most disturbing result for the monotheists. Each monotheism is more interested in dominating the others than in doing something about the violence their extremist members initiate under one religious guise or another. Yet most monotheism adherents deeply believe, theirs is a peaceful religion. Monotheism simply does not assure a peaceful society. Like democratization of totalitarian societies, reforms in the monotheisms can only come from within. These are two sides of the same coin and change will not come quickly.” “Basically” adds the Survey, “monotheists cannot agree on whose God is God and that issue is worth fighting over. Monotheism, in practice, is all about power in this world, not salvation in the next.” and says: “These results can hardly be all accidental. They reflect bad guys in the extremist wings. In this respect, monotheism is a lot like politics and business – a few extremists give the rest a bad name. A tiny fraction high-jack the reins of power and cause havoc far beyond their numbers.” That the Survey is an intra-Monotheistic one is evident raises from the introspective question it poses to Monotheists: “Why the disconnect? Could it be that Monotheism itself is an expression of the Authoritarian Personality? Could it be that most of us are in denial, ignorant of the facts, or both? If we could answer these questions, we would have an improved understanding of violence, terror and war and view of possible ways forward. The other conclusions of the Survey are:

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“Our findings are consistent with the expert views that the three monotheisms are multiples more violent than atheism or the Eastern religions or philosophies”; In effect, “My god is better than your God” is the byline of monotheists”; “This feature leaves a troubling issue for humanity: If monotheism does give rise to violence, would peace result if only one monotheism were left to impose its will after an Armageddon style conflagration? We think not. Look at their histories. Each of the major monotheisms has splintered into sects.”; “Monotheisms not only fight each other, they fight among themselves.”

In the same way a brief Google web search of the relative character of the two Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam, and Hinduism [carried out on August 12, 2007 between 7.00 and 8.00 pm IST] yielded the following interesting results: Combination of words used in search

Results

“Christian Intolerance”

17,400

“Islamic Intolerance”

17,900

“Hindu Intolerance” “Buddhist Intolerance”

461 34

Combination of words used in search

Results

“Christian Fundamentalism”

307,000

“Islamic Fundamentalism”

915,000

“Hindu Fundamentalism”

35,700

“Buddhist Fundamentalism” Combination of words used in search “Christian Terrorism” “Islamic Terrorism”

565 Results 24,700 868,000

“Hindu Terrorism”

892

“Buddhist Terrorism”

291

Combination of words used in search

Results

“Christian Terror”

13,600

“Muslim Terror”

70,600

“Hindu Terror” “Buddhist Terror”

1,660 45

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Combination of words used in search “Radical Islam” “Radical Muslims”

Results 1,650,000 340,000

“Radical Christianity”

61,800

“Radical Christians”

45,300

“Radical Hinduism”

465

“Radical Hindus”

644

“Radical Buddhism”

398

“Radical Buddhist”

715

Statistics speaks for itself. There is just no comparison between the two Monotheistic faiths on the one hand and Hinduism and Buddhism on the other as to their respective potential for intolerance and violence that lead to conflicts. Obviously the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths have incomparable theological and actualised potential and propensity, as compared to Hinduism and Buddhism, for intolerance and consequently the tendency to conflict.

8.2 Monotheistic faiths ‘violent’, ‘incompatible with Globalisation’ The immediate issue for consideration is whether in the context of globalisation and interdependence otherwise than globalisation in diverse forms, how far the basic tenets of Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and their practices are compatible with the emerging global order. In the context of this very question, an article written by Jean Pierre Lehmann, Professor at IMD in Switzerland who was also the advisor to the World Trade Organisation, in the On-line ‘Globalist Paper’ titled “the Dangers of Monotheism in the Age of Globalisation” is extremely relevant. The intro to the article raises precisely this very question in a more focussed way. “Is there a link between monotheistic religions and intolerance and hostility? As Jean Pierre Lehmann argues, monotheistic religions have caused much turmoil throughout history – and continue to do so today. What is needed is a new global ethical and spiritual model, and, in his opinion, the best candidate to fill that spot is India.” Why? Lehmann’s propositions in his paper provide the answer. To summarise, Lehmann’s article,291 using his own words: Î

First, Christianity is as violent as Islam: Even though the West is shocked at Islamic societies’ intolerance today, “Christianity was even worse in its own heyday, not only because

Religious Faiths and Modern Civilisations

Î

Î Î

Î

549

“heathens” were exterminated in all sorts of diverse forms, but also those whose Christianity (for example, the Albigensians in the 12th and 13th centuries) was deemed to be “heterodox.” Also, the Spanish conquistadores in Latin America, in collusion with the Church authorities, burned a good number of infidel American Indians”; “over the course of the last couple of centuries or so, as the political clout and influence of the Christian churches has waned, the execution, torture and imprisonment of infidels and heretics has greatly decreased.” and “the idea that Christian civilization (a fairly loose term) renounced religious persecution simply because the power of the churches declined is, of course, belied by the Holocaust. Despite being carried out by secular authorities, the Holocaust took place in Christian countries — and with the silent connivance of the established Christian churches.” Second, both Islam and Christianity show more liabilities than positive assets: “Although both Christianity and Islam each have their strong points, without doubt, on balance their historical record would show more liabilities, more warfare, more intolerance, more persecution, than truly positive assets. The number of people killed in the name of these two religions must be far greater than the numbers killed for any other cause.” Third, Monotheism hijacked by fundamentalism: “In the case of the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all been hijacked by their respective fundamentalists.” Fifth, in the current world, including in the liberal US, religion plays dominant role. “Furthermore, in this first decade of the 21st century, religion plays a far more prominent role than it used to; even in “the United States, militant Christianity is clearly in ascendancy, indeed it has one of its own in the White House. According to a recent Pew survey, 15, 14 and 20% of the U.S. population said they would have reasons not to vote for a presidential candidate who was Catholic, Jewish or Evangelical Christian. However, when that candidate was an atheist, the percentage, at 41%, was substantially higher. This is extremely worrying and does not portend well for the future. While it would seem that religious Americans are more tolerant as concerns their respective religions, they remain brazenly intolerant of atheists.” Sixth progress of human civilisation requires eradication of all forms of established religion: “The progress of civilization requires the gradual eradication of all forms of established religion; Not by force, but, by the evidence of history, the rationality of man and the persuasion of humanist secularism. In Western Europe, where the vast majority of the population is no longer Christian in

550

Î

Î

Î

Î

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anything but name, sadly humanism has not taken hold.” Seventh, but, morals are needed to handle modern problems and people desire religion. “An addiction to money, or psychoanalysis or drugs — or a combination of the three — tends to prevail. Whatever has the upper hand, it is definitely not humanism. So it would seem people have a natural desire for religion or something that can be substituted for it — if not god, then mammon.” Eighth, recognising this reality, religion, not of the monotheistic type, but, of the polytheist variety is needed. “In recognizing this reality, therefore, it would seem that perhaps rather than eradicating religion per se, we should instead eradicate monotheistic religion in favour of polytheistic religion; “If you have only one god, and you believe that god is all powerful and omniscient, and you come across someone who does not agree, then you may feel it is your duty to kill him; “If, on the other hand, you believe there are hundreds, indeed thousands of gods, and that none can be totally almighty or omniscient, then you are likely to be far more tolerant; “The great pre-Christian civilizations of Greece and Rome had no religious wars and had a far healthier view of their frolicking gods and goddesses than the intolerant monotheistic Christianity that later came to dominate Europe.” Ninth, the rise India which has managed multiculturalism to such a brilliant extent is the most encouraging development. “Perhaps the most encouraging development in this early 21st century is the emergence of India as an increasingly global force, economically, politically and culturally”; “There are many anomalies, problems and injustices in Indian society — and some of these, such as the caste system, have been perpetrated by religion. But India is a microcosmic reflection of how globalization can work, especially in its generally remarkable ability to have managed multiculturalism to such a brilliant extent”; “India’s one billion plus population is the most heterogeneous in the world. There are far more ethnic, linguistic and religious groups than in, say, the European Union. Yet, a far greater degree of unity has been achieved among India’s disparate ethnicities than among the tribes of Western Europe”; “Perhaps the greatest achievement of India is to have maintained a very robust democracy in an extremely multi-ethnic environment. Contrast that with Egypt, for example, which used to have a highly multi-ethnic makeup, but which has now been mostly dissipated”; Tenth, India is a prolific birth place of ideas, philosophy and religion and the Indian Diaspora are thought leaders in many fields.

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551

“But in a global environment desperate for ideas, philosophy and religion, India is the most prolific birthplace of all three — because of the great synergy of democracy and diversity, and the much greater degree of selfconfidence that Indians now feel. Indians and members of the enormous Indian Diaspora — over which the sun never sets — are the thought leaders in economics, business, philosophy, political science, religion and literature.” Eleventh, the planet in need of a sense of moral order needs India, which has innate qualities and has no other contender; unless 21st century is inspired by India’s polytheism, the world is headed for a disaster. “The planet needs quite desperately a sense of moral order, spirituality and an ethical compass. The Indian religious and philosophical traditions can provide a great deal of all three; “It was in a recent conversation with an Indian religious guru that I was also pleased to discover I could adhere to his religious tenets, while maintaining my secular convictions. No imam or priest would allow me that; “The planet also needs an alternative geopolitical force to the American Christian fundamentalist brand of hegemonic thinking that the Bush Administration has generated — and that is not likely to evaporate even after his departure from office; ‘Europe is an inward-looking and, in many ways, spent force. China is a dictatorship. The Islamic world is going through an awkward moment — to put it mildly; “Hence the importance of the role India must play in this respect — both because of its innate qualities and because there is no other serious contender. The 21st century better become the century inspired by the virtues of Indian polytheism — or else we are headed for disaster.”292

So Lehmann’s conclusions are clear. Monotheism is a disaster; but people need religion, as they prefer them; but only polytheism will fill that need; the best example of polytheism and multi-culturalism is India, which is today on the rise; the rise of India is therefore the most important development of the 21st century; India has all the qualities needed to inspire the world. Yet Lehmann is no fan of India. He is aware of what he believes to be the faults of India. He says: “Of course India is not Utopia. No place is — and no human is perfect. Against the remarkably inspirational preaching of nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi, India has opted to become a nuclear power. Nehru’s alleged egalitarianism notwithstanding, India has the dubious distinction of having the world’s greatest number of illiterates, especially among women. So, yes, there are failings galore and there are also, alas, Hindu fundamentalists.”

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IX- Modern Western Civilisation and Conflict Promotion and Resolution 9.1 Modern Western Civilisation as a Cause of Conflicts Amongst other things, the most critical part of Samuel Huntington’s prognosis of emerging conflicts and clashes among civilisations was his view that ‘The West’s universalist pretensions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilisations, most seriously with Islam and China’.293 Some intellectuals disagreed with this view of Prof Huntington. The basis for their disagreement was their conviction that a universal civilisation was emerging, which was the very thought that Prof Huntington was warning the West as having the potential for clash with the Rest of the world. Apart from liberal democracy and the End of History arguments, the idea that is advanced to counter the prognosis of Prof Huntington is that, “the spread of Western consumption pattern and popular culture around the world is creating a universal civilisation.”294 Dismissing this argument as ‘neither profound nor relevant, Prof Huntington, says that history bears testimony to the fact that ‘cultural fads come and go’ without altering the underlying culture of the recipient civilisation’; that the non-Westerners “may bite into’ Magna Mac, meaning McDonalds’ products, has not implications for their accepting the Magna Carta, meaning Democracy.295 Prof Huntington goes on to say: It has no implications for their attitudes toward the West. Somewhere in the Middle East, a half a dozen young men could well be dressed in jeans, drinking coke, listening to trap, and between their bow to Mecca, putting together a bomb to blow up an American airliner. .... Only naive arrogance can lead Westerners to assume that non-Westerners will become ‘Westernised’ by acquiring Western goods. What indeed does it tell the world about the West, when Westerners identify their civilisation with fizzy liquids, faded pants, and fatty foods?296

That, as Huntington had said, nothing prevents the jeans-clad, Coke drinking Muslims, being terrorists was demonstrably proved in the case of Mohammed Atta who piloted and turned the US airliner into missile on to the WTC towers was as much westernised as any western youth one could think of. In the week before the attack, Atta was seen drinking juice and/or alcohol (there are conflicting reports from the bar manager on whether Atta was

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drunk or had drunk only cranberry juice) and playing video games in a Hollywood, Florida sports bar ‘Shuckum’s’. His companion, al-Shehhi, and a third unidentified man reportedly drank heavily at the bar. In fact the owner of the bar almost called the police on them for arguing over the bar tab.297 He adds: A slightly more sophisticated version of the universal popular culture argument focusses on not consumer goods generally but the media, on Hollywood rather than Coca-Cola American control of the global movie, television, and video industries even exceeds the dominance of the aircraft industry. Eighty-eight of the hundred films most attended throughout the world in 1993 were American.... This situation reflects two phenomena. The first is the universality of human interest in love, sex, violence, mystery, heroism, and wealth, and the ability of profit-motivated companies, primarily American, to exploit those interests to their own advantage. Little or no evidence exists, to support the assumption that the emergence of pervasive global communications is producing significant convergence in attitudes and beliefs. ‘Entertainment’ as Michael Vlahos has said, ‘does not equate to cultural conversion’. Second, people interpret communications in terms of their pre-existing values and perspectives. ‘The same visual images transmitted into the living rooms across the globe’, Kishore Madhubani observes, ‘trigger opposing perception. Western living rooms applaud when cruise missiles strike Baghdad. Most living outside the West will deliver swift retribution to non-White Iraqis or Somalis, but not white Serbians, a dangerous signal by any standard. 298

Then, Prof Huntington touches the most practical and realistic issue. He says: “Global communications are one of the most important contemporary manifestations of Western power. This Western hegemony, however, encourages populist politicians in non-Western societies to denounce Western cultural imperialism and to rally their publics to preserve the survival and integrity of their indigenous culture. The extent of which the global communications are dominated by the West is, thus, major source of resentment and hostility of non-Western peoples against the West.”

9.2 Burka vs Bikini Symbolises Islam vs the West? The next important point which Prof Huntington points to is the perceived moral decline of the West, like increase in anti-social behaviour, such as crime, drug use, and violence generally; family decay, including increased rates of divorce, illegitimacy, teen-age pregnancy, single parent families. All of these give rise to the assertions of moral superiority by Muslims and

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Asians.299 In Summer 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine which led to a debate in the West, Prof. Huntington had asserted “faith and family, blood and belief are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for. And that is why the clash of civilisations is replacing the Cold-war as the central phenomenon of global politics”. It is the moral decay of the West that is playing an important part in the opposition of the Rest to the Western view of life and culture. The moral decay in the West as Islam sees it may be illustrated with reference to the Burka, or the veil, that covers the Muslim women head to toe. That is sacred to the Muslim, but, abhorrent to the West. A blogger on the Internet, Henry Makow, published an article on September 18, 2002 which is an extremely insightful observation of one of the key elements of the civilisational clash between the West and Islam. The conflict between Islam and the West which the article starkly brings out qualitatively expresses what is in substance expressed in the article may as well be the substance of a very important element of the clash between the West and the Rest. Removing the most inelegant parts of the article, ran along these lines. On my wall, I have a picture of a Muslim woman shrouded in a burka. Beside it is a picture of an American beauty contestant, wearing nothing but a bikini. One woman is totally hidden from the public; the other is totally exposed. These two extremes say a great deal about the clash of socalled civilizations. The role of woman is at the heart of any culture. Apart from stealing Arab oil, the impending war in the Middle East is about stripping Arabs of their religion and culture, exchanging the burka for a bikini. The Muslim woman’s focus is her home, the ‘nest’ where her children are born and reared. She is the ‘home’ maker, the tap-root that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training her children, providing refuge and support to her husband. In contrast, the bikinied American beauty queen struts practically naked in front of millions on TV. A feminist, she belongs to herself. In practice, paradoxically, she is public property. She belongs to no one and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is auctioning herself all of the time. In America, the cultural measure of a woman’s value is her sex appeal. (As this asset depreciates quickly, she is neurotically obsessed with appearance and plagued by weight problems.) As an adolescent, her role model is Britney Spears, a singer whose act approximates a striptease. Feminism is another cruel New World Order hoax that has debauched American women and despoiled Western civilization. It has ruined millions

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of lives and represents a lethal threat to Islam. I am not advocating the burka but rather some of the values that it represents, specifically a woman’s consecration to her future husband and family, and the modesty and dignity this entails. The burka and the bikini represent two extremes. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.300

The Burka vs Bikini is the most symbolic of the cultural clash between Islam and the West. As Islam sees the popular culture in the West and in the US, particularly in its understanding of women and womanhood, as Satanic. Middle-Eastern fundamentalist critics of United States, especially critics and politicians from Iran, sometimes refer to the US as ‘The Great Satan’. Likewise the State of Israel is sometimes referred to as the ‘Little Satan’.301 The Great Satan is a term used by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini in his speech on November 5, 1979 to describe the United States that he accused of sponsoring corruption throughout the world and imperialism. Since then, “Great Satan” has been a common epithet for the United States of America in Iranian foreign policy statements. Ayatollah Khomeini also used occasionally the terms Iblis to refer to the United States.302 A comparison of how Islamic countries look at the veil over a woman’s face and how a Western nation sees it will indicate the extent of the civilisational gap between the two. In more secular Muslim nations, such as Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt, many women are choosing to wear the Hijab, Burqa, Niqab, etc. as an act of defiance against the secularization of society, but also because of the widespread growth of the Islamic revival in those areas. Similarly, increasing numbers of men are abandoning the Western dress of jeans and t-shirts, that dominated places like Egypt 20 to 30 years ago, in favour of more traditional Islamic clothing such as the Galabiyya. In Iran many women, especially younger ones, have taken to wearing transparent Hijabs instead of Chadors to protest but keep within the law of the state. The colours of this clothing varies. It is mostly black, but in many African countries women wear cloths of many different colours depending on their tribe, area, or family. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, a lot of Muslim women wear bright orange and red garments which look similar to the Hindu Sari. In Turkey and Indonesia, the majority of women do not wear any kind of veil, except when they attend Friday Salat, while in many of the western Nations, where the majority of Muslims are from immigrant backgrounds, the majority of women choose to wear the veil as a way of keeping in touch with their heritage. 303

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In Afghanistan which, today, is not under the Taliban, but under a government that the US has helped to install, this is what happened to a woman judge who was found not wearing a the Islamic veil. “The Afghan Supreme Court has dismissed a female judge for not wearing an Islamic veil during a meeting with US President George W Bush and his wife last month. Marzeya Basil was among a group of 14 female government officials who attended computer and management course in Washington at the invitation of the US government. Basil was sacked days after her return to Kabul for not wearing her scarf during the meeting. It has been said that the decision for her removal was made by top authorities of the Supreme Court. Deputy Chief Justice and vice-president urged Afghan women to observe the dress code at home and abroad.”304 In contrast a Muslim woman who was wearing her traditional veil is prosecuted in Italy. “Ora Monia Mzoughi, the wife of Mourad Trabelsi, the ex-imam of the Mosque from di Cremona, condemned by International terrorism (the cell he belonged to, had planned terrorist attacks in Cremona and in Milan), has arrived to the trial for appearing with the integral Islamic veil in public. This is the first case of this type in Italy. The Chief Procurator Adriano Padula will accuse her of violating the article 5 of the Law 152 from 1975, because in a public place and without justified cause she was wearing a veil that makes it difficult her recognition by police. 305 And Belgium bans the wearing of the veil and fines a woman for wearing it. Five towns in Belgium have banned women wearing the veil. The burka and a smaller type of face mask, the niqab, has been banned by municipal injunction in the cities and towns of Ghent, Antwerp, Sint-Truiden, Lebbeke and Maaseik. One woman has refused to comply: Her case has prompted politicians in the country’s Dutch-speaking north to talk about changing federal law, after she became the first person in Belgium to be fined for wearing the all-enveloping veil and robe.306 According to the Guardian UK, The Netherlands may become the first European country to ban Muslim face veils after its government pledged yesterday to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the niqab, or veil, and the burka, or full-length cloak covering the head. The right-leaning coalition said last night that it would look for a way to outlaw the wearing of all Muslim face veils. The grounds for a ban were laid last December when parliament voted in favour of a proposal to criminalise face coverings, as part of a security measure proposed by a far-right politician, Geert Wilders.307

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9.3 Clash among pre-modern, modern and post-modern societies? But there is another clash of civilisations – not triggered by religious factors – but by techno – economic factors dividing the humans as pre-modern, modern and post-modern civilisational entities. Alvin & Heidi Toffler in their book War and Anti-war say that “massive changes in society cannot occur without conflict”. They add, “When waves crash in on one another, powerful cross currents are unleashed. When waves of history collide, whole civilisations clash.”308 The biggest shift of power now beginning on the planet is not between different religious or ethnic groups, the deepest economic and strategic change of all is the coming division of the World into three distinct, different, and potentially clashing civilisations.309 The World will be cut-up not into two but sharply divided three – contrasting and competing civilisations, pre-modern, modern and post-modern – “the first still symbolised by the bow; the second one by the assembly line; and the third by the computer”. Why the idea of civilisation here? No other term is sufficiently all embracing to include such varied matters as technology, family life, religion, culture, politics, business, hierarchy, leadership, values, sexual morality, and epistemology. Swift and radical changes are occurring in every in every one of these dimensions of society”. This is how the Tofflers see the arrival of the Third Wave and the nations that ride on the Third wave. “Third wave nations sell information and innovation, management, culture and pop culture, advanced technology, software education, training, medical care, and financial and other services to the world. One of those services might well also turn out to be military protection based on its command superior third wave forces.... De-massified production – short runs of highly customized products – is the cutting edge of manufacture. Services proliferate. Intangible assets like information become the key resource. Uneducated or unskilled workers are made jobless.... Labor unions in the mass-manufacturing sector shrink.... The family system, too, becomes demassified: the nuclear family, once the modern standard, becomes a minority form, while single-parent households, remarried couples, childless families, and live-alones proliferate.”310 Tofflers refer to Riccardo Petrella, Director of Science and Technology Forecasting for European Community, who says: By the middle of the next century, such nation-states as Germany, Italy, the United States, or Japan will no longer be the most relevant socio-economic entities and the ultimate political configuration. Instead, areas like Orange country, California; Osaka, Japan; the Lyon region of France; or Germany’s Ruhrgebiete will acquire predominant socio-economic status…. The real

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decision-making powers of the future …. will be transnational companies in alliance with city-regional governments. These units, he says, could form a high-tech archipelago …… amid a sea of impoverished humanity.”311 Both Huntington and Tofflers agree that civilisational clashes will emerge. The difference among them is only this: according to Prof Huntington, the clashes will be along the faultlines of civilisations defined by religion and culture; according to Tofflers also, it will be civilisational clashes, but along the faultlines of technology dividing the civilisations into pre-modern, modern and post-modern civilisations. But, qualitatively, both agree it will be the West vs the Rest, as the West will largely ride the post modern wave according to Tofflers, and the Rest will be largely on the pre-Modern and modern mode. But it must be said that Tofflers perspective is entirely technoeconomic, and ignores all other dimensions of human society; in contrast Prof Huntington factors in the techno-economic factors as part of the Western civilisation, but does not limit it to them, and also does not ignore the other and the more critical dimensions of human life, including the most powerful force, religion.

X- An Epilogue: The Key to Conflict Resolution Introspection and Repentance by Abrahamic Monotheistic faiths and Participation of Indian School of Religions in the Dialogue 10.1 Islamic terror: the context to discuss larger causes of conflicts It needs no seer to enlighten the world that it is a state of chaotic and selfdestructive conflict, of multi-dimensions, with, and within, itself. The Islamic terror that now obsesses the West and many in the Rest is only the externally cognizable manifestation of the conflict; it does not cause or exhaust it as a phenomenon. It would be unwise, for the West or for any one in the Rest, to brand Islamic terror as the whole of the conflict that the world faces, to help to lead to a belief that if that is quelled that would be the end of history and the final victory of the West once again. Actually, a wiser world will see the outbreak of Islamic terror not as the conflict or its cause, but, as the context for looking back and for assessing and appraising itself of the more

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fundamental causes of the emerging conflict of which the Islamic terror is undoubtedly a significant and most visible element. From this perspective, the Islamic terror is an occasion for an expedition into the more fundamental and historic causes of the conflicts of the world that are actualising, with perhaps more incubating to actualise, into more conflicts. The discontent that has the propensity to trigger conflicts the world, has accumulated and aggregated, thanks to the exclusive religious theologies and materialistic ideologies which have dominated and oppressed different peoples of the world, exterminating, in the process, over a billion people in the last two thousand years according to some estimates.312 The rising civilisational consciousness, which is bringing the gory past back to their memories, potentially constitutes the perennial source of the perceived civilisational conflicts. The rising civilisational consciousness is urging peoples, who were uprooted by global religious and colonial aggression and post-World War ideological polarisation, to go back to their roots. Nothing else, for instance, can explain the re-manifestation of the Paganism as one of the fastest growing spiritual movements all over West, that is, Christendom where Christianity had physically liquidated all Pagan belief systems several centuries ago.313 What else would have compelled the people of Bolivia with 98% Christian population, to crown the new Bolivian resident-elect Evo Morales as supreme chief of Andean Indians in an elaborate ceremony at an ancient Indian temple a day before his inauguration as Bolivia’s first indigenous president – a ceremony in which thousands of people had gathered at the archaeological remains of the Tiawanacu civilization that flourished around 5,000 B.C. near the shores of Lake Titicaca to witness the ritual.314 Otherwise, there is no reason why ‘Confucius whose values were the soul of Chinese society for over 2000 years and who was brutally renounced by the Moist China, is being rehabilitated in China as an ancient sage, a contemporary business and a tourist attraction’ and why ‘Confucianism is being promoted as a possible solution to China’s 21st century dilemmas.’315 So the civilisational consciousness which is rising in the world today, seems to trace peoples identity to their roots which lay deep under their present extraneous identity which, they think, is the imposition of the aggressive global religions or colonial thrust or the ideological oppression of the immediate or distant past. It is this rising civilisational consciousness that potentially risks different societies to conflicts within between religious, political and ideological hangover of the past and the civilisational urges of the people to go back to their roots. And, more importantly, it has also the potential for

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global level conflict between global forces that are keen to sustain the hangover of the past through modernisation and the local forces tending back to the roots. So, the larger issues of civilisational consciousness involved in the current stand off cannot be reduced to the conflict between Islam and West as the present discourse tends to reduce it to. It is this larger issue of search for roots which will increasingly tend to clash with the Abrahamic-Monotheistic past as well as the present and future efforts of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths to bring the world under one divinity. This will also clash with the continuing endeavours of the West to bring the world under the West-defined universal culture through diverse ideas and institutions. These endeavours of the West commenced with colonialism and Christianity and is continuing with the West-centric models of globalisation of trade, commerce, entertainment and, generally, lifestyle based on individualism, leading to breaking up of families and communities and even eroding cultural and national consciousness of affected people. These are the issues that are incubating and are at the heart of the emerging conflicts. Even the sympathy and empathy which the Islamic terrorists command among Islamic faithfuls is largely due to modernity of the overriding character which the West is endeavouring to universalise and impose upon the Rest of the world through individualism, genderism and democracy and generally a life founded on rights – children’s rights, women’s rights, elders rights – breaking down families, communities, cultures and even nations. In contrast to the atomised ways of the West, the Rest of the world had functioned and continues to function substantially on a traditional mix of rights and duties supervised by the community and the society, where the individual is no sovereign as in the western system and is an integral part of family and community. So there are larger issues than Islamic terror which has the potential to spark conflicts and that needs to be addressed by the world. In fact even to address the Islamic terror which is the most immediate danger, these issues need to be addressed by enlightened discourse and debate that would lead to appropriate architecture of thinking for conflict resolution. Therefore, the composite text of different phenomena that had promoted the conflicts and continues to promote them, is not to be reduced to, and buried in, the painful context of the present conflict, which is the Islamic terror and the need to fight it. It is necessary to fight such evil, which targets innocent and helpless people, at all costs. Unfortunately, for thousands of years, driven by the exigencies of the acquisitive powers, the world has been living from context to context, underplaying the larger issues, which it

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cannot afford to do any more. As the world deals with the context of the Islamic terror, it is not wise to be detained and obsessed by it as a phenomenon to be handled only by counter violence in the very interest of containing and defeating it. A military defeat of Islamic terror might offer reprieve for a while, but that would not bring about a solution, particularly if the Islamic terror is a manifestation of conflict-prone elements of Islam itself as a religion. In that case, the formula for solution must address those elements of Islam which make Islam, as a religion, conflict with other religions. This will inevitably need a critical appraisal of the theological foundations of Islam which makes it conflict-prone within and with others outside. But once the theological appraisal of Islam, which is one of the three Abrahamic cousins, begins, it cannot be limited to only to the theology of Islam, and all Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity which shares almost the same theological content as Islam, will have to submit to, and will have to be subjected, to similar critical evaluation. The same will be the pressure on all other faiths, including the Indian school of religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. It means that there has to be a general discourse and debate on the theologies of different religions and on the need for the theological reorientation, modulation and adaptation needed for different religions to live in peace among themselves a multi-religious world. So this paper suggests that the wiser course, in the interest of conflictresolution, is to use the contextual pressure to raise the larger issue to which attention has been invited in this paper, namely, a discourse and debate on the potentials and propensities of different faiths and civilisations to promote and avoid and resolve conflicts. This will only lead to the introspection about where the world had gone wrong in the past and is still going wrong and what has been every one’s share in giving the wrong drift and direction to the world. To lead to this introspection a discourse is particularly relevant and necessary, first within the Abrahamic-Monotheistic World, which is the prime theatre of conflict. This discourse and debate are needed within Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and, the Western civilisation, a product of Hellenistic-Monotheism with its universalism drawn from the Monotheistic faith, which directed the world in the last several centuries and in a way continues to do so. This discourse also should be extended to debates between them and different ancient civilisations like Indian School of religions and civilisation. Such discourses and debates will be starting point for leading to introspection and self-evaluation among the different faiths. The present context is the only opportunity that can force the discourse, debate and

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introspection. Issues that arouse high sentiments like the compatibility of a religion with other religions cannot be discussed by the volition of different religions, particularly the religions which carry the onus to explain their compatibility with others. Unless there is pressure on different religion forcing them to participate in the discourse and debate, such explosive issues can never be discussed. The present context of Islamic terror and the battle against it creates pressure and the atmosphere needed for such a discourse and debate. So the present context of the clash credited to the Islamic terror has thrown up larger issues of mutual compatibility of religions and their potential and propensities for avoiding and promoting clashes with other faiths.

10.2 Efforts to homogenise under one God or culture – real source of violence The present crisis thrown up by the conflicts is also the context for examining and introspecting, particularly in the face of such perfunctory slogans as ‘the global village’ misleading the world to impractical notions of an Utopian future, another important issue. And that is whether the direction of more and more unification and homogenisation in which the world has been going in the last several centuries – driven by colonial and religious force in the past and by politics and commerce recently and even now – has not also significantly contributed to the present conflicts. The world has too long been obsessed with ambition for global thrust like the Greek and the Roman ambition for global dominance through military means, like the agenda of the Monotheistic-Abrahamic religions for exclusive rule over the world, like the drive of the colonial powers for political and commercial, and under that garb, religious and civilisation al dominance of the world, like the Coldwar competition between capitalism and communism for every inch of space in the world, and like the monopoly power which global capitalism and its protagonists saw and attempted to wield after the fall of communism in the post-Coldwar era. All these were, in substance and truth, efforts at temporal unity and control of the world and even religions and ideologies were only a garb to achieve such control. Every global thrust in the past has been violent. More so the religious and ideological global thrust. Both Islam and Christianity have a global agenda to get the world for rule by their respective Gods. And for that purpose, their respective religion commands other religions, including mutually their respective ones, to be eliminated. When Daniel Pipes [supra] says that the Islamic terrorists would

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want to impose Sharia on the US he states the obvious – namely what Islam commands its adherents to do. But the fact remains that Christianity too commands its adherents to eliminate the non-Christian faiths all over the world. The only difference is that each of them wants to do it in its own way. It is evident from the present violence in and from Islam, sections of Islam are still not for giving up the explicitly violent medieval course which Christianity has of late seem to have given up, following a softer course, namely missions as the vehicle, to eliminate other faiths. There is no difference between the two in their goals or approach to other faiths, and that is uncompromisingly to eliminate them, even though the means to achieve their respective goal might differ. The softer means adopted by Christianity today is not because of any change in the theology of Christianity but because of the changes including democratisation and secularisation in Christendom. Otherwise in their competing urge to bring the whole world under their respective God and homogenise it in the image of their respective religions, there is no difference between Christianity and Islam. Deepening this analysis and assuming, as Daniel Pipes fears in the case of the US, that the Islamic terrorists want the world cleansed of all other religions and their faithfuls and want only Islamic faith and sharia rule to prevail, one thing is clear: it is not the personal wish of the terrorists which they could keep or give up. It is the mandate to them by the faith they believe in. If the mandate given by the Islamic faith is conflict-prone as is repeatedly stressed by the West, then the identical mandate which Christianity gives to its faithful to cleanse the world of non-Christian faiths and of their faithfuls must also seen equally conflict-prone. But this is not an issue which either George Bush or Christendom will want to discuss. There seems to be no objection from even the Christo-secular West to the global agenda of the respective Abrahamic faiths which is actually the theological trigger for their battle inter se, and which is also the potential cause for their conflict with other faiths. What the Christo-secular West does not see is that the difference between the Islamic terrorism and the Christian conversion efforts is only about the means that the two Abrahamic faiths can employ to achieve their goal – for the Christians to Christianise the world; or Muslims to Islamise the world. While the Christianity has taken the route of Christian missions, which are largely supported by the Christendom and is legitimate, the terrorists have taken the route of war which is constructively and indirectly supported by the Islamic peoples and even some Islamic states. War as a means to advance the faith is permitted in both the faiths and they have

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actually used wars in their history to promote the faiths. Till recently in history, both faiths, Christianity and Islam, employed violence against each other and against other faiths, only to advance their respective faiths which they were commanded to do by their holy texts. So what is dismissed as medievalism is very much integral to both Abrahamic faiths, and as an element of the theology of both, valid even today, even though the manner of their actualising the theological mandate differs now. Christianity may have given up open violence as a means to homogenise the world under Christianity; but its the agenda to homogenise the world under the Cross, which is an invitation to violence, is still on. So, the thought that worked through medievalism is still the driving force of the global Christian agenda, but only the method has changed from violence to missions, as if Christian missions are not capable of, and are not, provoking violence and conflicts. The secular West supports the Christian missions, particularly for extending and expanding Christianity outside Christendom. But such internal changes as have taken place in Christendom and therefore, in Christianity too, having not taken place in Islam, the Islamic terrorists have no compunction in employing medieval methods to further their objective of Islamising the world. Consequently the Islamic nations and the global Islamic community can never object to the thoughts and ways of the terrorists, as what the terrorists do is not only seen to be approved but also seen to be mandated, in the Islamic theology. If the global agenda to homogenise the world under one faith is not objectionable, the route adopted can only be a matter of debate. The issue that has the potential for conflict is not the acceptability of the means adopted by the two aggressive religions, but their intent, which is to eliminate other faiths. Thus, as long as the theological mandate of the Abrahamic faiths to convert the world to their faith, with each claiming validity as the universal faith, is considered permissible or legitimate, it cannot be denied they have inherent potential and propensity to conflict, between themselves and with other faiths as part of their permissible and legitimate programme. In part thus, it is clash between two universal faiths, Islam and Christianity. Even if it is agreed that the war on terror is clash between Western civilisation, sans Christianity, and Islam, it still a clash between two universalisms, with the West seeing and selling modern liberal ideas and institutions as integral to universal civilisation which the other universal ideology, Islam, is bound to resist as it is doing now and also feel threatened by what it sees as degenerative elements in the Western civilisation. Already the theological

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position of Islam and Christianity proclaiming the respective faiths as the only true faiths and all other faiths as false ones, is potent enough to invite conflict. When the non-Abrahamic world was largely submissive, this potential for conflict did not have turn kinetic. But, today, non-Abrahamic nations, like China and India, once considered by western thinkers like Max Weber [supra], as irredeemable and non-developable because of their faith in Hindu-Buddhist philosophy, are becoming global economic powers and are even poised to claim the status of global powers. Therefore, it is juvenile to expect them to be submissive now as they might have been in the past. They will not take the universalist pretensions of either Christianity or of the Western civilisation or of Islam lying down. So, unlike in the past few centuries when the non-Abrahamic civilisations were weak and unable to resist the incursions of Islam, Christianity and colonialism, now there is no way that the universalism of Christianity or Islam or for that matter the universal culture of the West could well be accepted without inviting serious civilisational clashes with these rising nations and civilisations. If history teaches anything it is this: every effort to unify the world has been an effort to make the world uniform, whether under one god, faith or one way of life, and that has resulted in conflicts and massacres of peoples and civilisations. The issue for consideration is: has the time come to moderate, and even to reverse, the thrust of global faiths, cultures, lifestyle and politics and accord primacy to local life, local communities, and families as they exist now? It means that the thoughts and motives that had been driving conquests, religious and political, in the last several centuries need to be revisited, reconsidered and moderated. An important reason for justifying all the wrongs of the past was that only this way and in no other way the world would have become inter-connected. Therefore, it is also worth debating whether the world could have moved in some other direction in the past and connected itself without conquest and bloodshed which became inevitable in compelling and physically linking the world? Here a model of global interface and connect based on needs may be worth exploring to avoid intense interface that turns into intrusion, which leads to conflicts and clashes. Any outlandish idea that is an alternative paradigm to the present thrust of unification and homogenisation of the world though faiths, politics and common life style, each of which has explosive consequences, is worth examining in the interest of peace and harmony in the world. The search should be for an alternative way of unifying the world without dominating the world and making the world uniform. Here the approach of the ancient

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Hindu civilisation which shared and exchanged its values and thoughts with other civilisations and gladly accepted out of volition their thoughts and values and never conquered or dominated East and central Asia may also be a model to look at.

10.3 Identifying Islam Versus discoursing and debating Monotheism Any conflict resolution model needs most fundamentally to understand the character of the conflict. Assuming that the War on Terror is the manifestation, or the first manifestation, of the conflict, then understanding what is the fundamental force driving the present conflict in which – unbelievably – individuals, not armies or governments, target greatest global power, the US and its allies, is very critical to scan it for conflict resolution. What motivates and supports individuals and emboldens them into acts of mass-killing which the victims of terror see as heinous crimes against humanity and the perpetrators of terror see as their proud religious duty? One cannot find an answer for this intriguing question except by studying the very text which motivates them and their history which testifies to the motivating power of that text. Modern, secular Americans — whose forefathers, driven by Geo-Christian religious fervour, eliminated the whole races of native Americans and who are mostly in dark about what their forefathers did to the natives – seem to have no adequate understanding of what kind of destruction that religious mandate could do, except by their recent experiences. Yet it is they, with their inadequate understanding of what aggressive religions could do to disturb a multi-religious society, who lead the opinion-making for the world on the present conflict and generate ideas on how to resolve it. The Americans seem to lack the much needed historical experience in this respect, unlike, for instance, Europeans and Asians. Since they have no had worthwhile personal experience of what religious intolerance and hate could do to those who the intolerant faith disapproves, at least in the immediate days after the 9/11 attack, the American thinkers and leaders could not figure out the real character the force behind the terror. So, in their panic reaction, the Americans used the normal models known to traditional and modern statecraft to respond. They used threats against Pakistan and brought it to their side, used force against Afghanistan that had given asylum to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and later launched a full scale war against Iraq which, it is now almost proven, had nothing to do with the terrorists that the US was targeting and thus the US knows, but

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would not admit, that it had messed up their war on terror. But none of these individually, or all or more of, such actions would produce the result that the whole world direly needs, namely, conflict resolution. The world is in search of platform for solutions, but the West and the US are offering platform for combating terror to contain it. Conflict resolution, not containing conflict, is the only durable cure to the problem of conflict. The war against terrorism is not conflict resolution; it is an effort to contain terror. This is not to say that the War against Terrorism is not needed. It is necessary, but not adequate. Now, after the shock effect of 9/11 and the panic responses, the American strategic thinkers and leaders are perhaps beginning to understand what motivates and drives the terrorists to die to mass-kill. Now they seem to be realising the deficiencies in their understanding and strategies to counter the terror. They seem to begin to understand that institutionalised Western mind, which is used to dealing with institutions that regulate, supervise, control and punish individuals and also dealing with individuals through them, is inadequate to handle the terrorists. They are obviously realising that the Islamic terror could not be handled in the conventional model through institutions, as the ideology which drove them to do what they do clearly made them sovereign faithfuls, not subject to temporal control by any institution. The Americans seem to be understanding more. The terrorists seem to be subject to no institutional discipline. Neither do they owe loyalty as subjects or citizens of any state. Nor are they bound by any constitution or rule of law other than laws that were made some 1400 years ago by the founding fathers of their community of faith. So, the terrorists are not like the KGB agents or the Kamikaze warriors bound by the disciplines of their institutions, who also targeted the US and whom the US could handle by conventional war models. A terrorist receives his command directly from God and not through any hierarchy or institution. The American system and diplomacy is used to handling complex political and even ideological issues provided they could negotiate with a hierarchy or an institution. For instance, they could make a deal with their adversary, China, through the Chinese state. But in the case of Islamic terror, they had no clue as to the kind of fiery mix of faith and faith-induced duty to die in the cause of the faith that is behind the terror. In fact, when the US helped to create and employed this very phenomenon in Afghanistan – the Taliban – to battle its Coldwar enemy, the Soviet Russia, it could not imagine for want of deeper knowledge about the character of the Frankenstein whose birth it had midwifed, that it could turn

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its enemy. Had the US strategists any understanding of the theological drive of their former colleagues from the Taliban, then they would not have allowed the desperadoes in the way they did. It only meant that they did not have any clue as to the power of the Islamic theology in moulding the mind and life of an Islamic terrorist. The phenomenon which the West sees as terror today is, thus, uninstitutuionalised, autogenous and anarchic. But the realisation of the US and the West about the unique character of the religiousdrive behind the terror and how it manipulates and motivates the terrorists has come a little too late. Yet, constrained by their own professions as a democratic polity they do not know how to name the real enemy. They have identified now. So, the US and also the West are struggling to name who its ‘real enemy’ is, after, they believe, they have identified him. They first spoke about violent elements in otherwise peaceful Islam. Then they began to talk of radical Islam, jhadi Islam, Islamo-fascism and stopped talking about Islam as a peaceful religion, except as a protocol at times. In his article dated Oct 11, 2005, which has been alluded to in this paper[supra], Daniel Pipes has all but said that it is Islam which is the real enemy. Pipes expresses joy at George Bush naming Islam by using different prefixes to Islam in his speech of October 6, 2005. Dealing with the impact of that speech and what it will do, Pipes says: first, it will transform the official American understanding of “who the real enemy is” – implying that from the use of the term ‘radical Islam’, the US establishment will understand who the real enemy is; second, if it convinces the society to “name the enemy” the change would be durable; third, by naming radical Islam, the ‘law enforcement and immigration can take “Islam” — yes, Pipes says, Islam, not just radical Islam – into account whom to let into the country and whom to investigate for terrorism offences; fourth, focussing on Muslims as the exclusive source of Islamists permits them finally to do their job adequately. In short, Pipes has clearly implied, Islam and Muslims as the target of the US, but not named them. If given his position in the intellectual establishment of US, what Pipes writes is any indication, that means that strategic thinking in the US might be dangerously moving towards open declaration of war against Islam itself. The consequences of such an eventuality could be unthinkable. It is truth that the Islamist terrorists function as independent anarchic groups and as independent modules within the abstract idea of a larger group. And it is true that their target is to create anarchy all around. Yet it is also true that the Islamic world has not disowned

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them; most empathise with them; many even admire them; several even feel inspired by them. It is this rainbow structure of the link between different segments of Islam and terror which restrains the strategic thinkers of US from naming Islam and Muslims openly. Another attack on the US or the West, which no one rules out and in fact many expect, might well un-restrain them and they may openly accuse Islam and the Muslim and this may lead to an open and declared war between the West, led by the US, and Islam. But even that will not lead to resolution of the conflict. On the contrary it is bound to escalate the conflict further. The identification of radical Islam, which may lead to declaration of Islam itself, as the real enemy of the West and the US and therefore, the whole world, only shows that the US still thinks only with Christo-secular perspective. Distorted by Christo-secular perspective, the US strategists are as yet no where near the core issue. And they are actually getting far removed from it. Only, if the US strategists give up their Christ-secular perspective and move to a more neutral position from where they can see the theological parity between Islam they detest and Christianity they accept, that will help lead them to a totally different conclusions about what causes conflict and what can be the conflict resolution. What the Christo-secular US strategists have missed out is the obvious, namely the theological comparability between the Islam, which they want to critically examine, and the Christianity, which they do not want to scrutinise. The logic of what they have missed out is simple sequence in Abrahamic religious history. Islam is the third child of Abrahamic-Monotheism, not the first. All that inspires a Muslim in Islam to die in the cause of Islam is drawn from theological sources common to Judaism and Christianity, not independent of them. Islam in fact accepts both the Judaism and Christianity as religions of the Book and only rejects polytheism. Islam, thus, has no general theological dispute with Judaism or Christianity. Its only area of conflict with its elder cousins in AbrahamicMonotheistic family is that it regards itself as the final, complete and in fact, completed, product which renders the first two incomplete and therefore, redundant. The West does not realise that, save this area of dispute between Islam and Christianity, what makes Islam conflict-prone also makes Judaism and Christianity equally conflict prone. When the West consoles itself that Christianity has moderated, it does not realise that that moderation has not taken place in Christian theology. It is only in the practices of the Christianity as related to Christian people in Christendom who are fast losing faith in the fundamental dogmas of the faith. Elsewhere, that is nearly half the world

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constituted non-Abrahamism, Christianity even today is as theologically incompatible with non-Christian faiths as Islam is with them. In theological terms, just Islam looks at other religions in the same way as Christianity looks at them, both of them deny validity to other religions and would like them to be snuffed out of existence. It is not just dislike of the other religions. But their existence makes the two AbrahamicMonotheistic cousins incomplete as a religion. Christianity has the global mission to Christianise; and so is Islam, it also has a global mission to Islamise. The reason for their respective compulsion to conquer the world is that only then the collective salvation of their faithfuls awaiting salvation for thousand years and more will fructify. So, for both, other religions are an obstacle to their goal of collective salvation. It is only about how to go about this task of snuffing out other faiths there may be difference between Islam and Christianity today. But both are bound to clash; because both have an imperial and universal ambition to make the world in their image. It is a clash of two imperial and competing universalisms – Christianity seeing itself as the universal faith and so does Islam. So, it is their respective theological goals, not their respective Monotheism, that has the potential for clash between them. But in so far as other non-Monotheistic religions of the world, whose followers are about half of the global population, the attitude of Islam and Christianity is identical. So, the theological danger which the US and the West see for themselves in Islam also inheres in Christianity for the non-Western and non-Christian societies. Because the danger they see in Islamic theology is nothing but the danger inherent in the theology of Abrahamic-Monotheism of which Christianity is the second child. In fact the theological intolerance of Christianity to non-Christian faiths is well documented. So when Daniel Pipes sees, without naming, Islam as the enemy, that would only mean that it is the enemy of the US or at best of Christianity. It need not be an enemy in isolation to non-Christian societies of the world. The non-Christian societies might see Christianity, in theological terms, as much a danger and a risk to themselves, as Daniel Pipes, from the Christo-US perspective, sees Islam to be to the US. Thus the real potential for conflict is in theology of AbrahamicMonotheism, of which as much as the theology of Islam and the theology of Christianity are identical derivatives. So, when the US sees and would like others also to see so that all can declare Islamic theology as the danger, it is committing a grave mistake of risking a clash between itself and its allies, and highly motivated Islamists all

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over. If therefore, the US sees Abrahamic-Monotheistic theology as a whole as the real danger to the plurality of the world, then the US thinking will undergo total transformation and it will lead to its introspection as a Christosecular nation about the theological potentials and propensities of Christianity for conflict. The US thinkers therefore, need to see the theological model Abrahamic-Monotheism as whole for its potential and propensity for conflicts. What applies to the US and its thinkers is also applicable to the thinkers and leaders of Christendom. Thus, if it wants the theological potential of Islam to be examined, the US and generally Christendom,, must call for the ideological dissection of all three Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, including Christianity. But the thinkers of the Christendom will do that only when they move away from the urge to name the enemy to figuring out the theology which drives the enemy. Once they are on this course, this will also make the US thinkers realise that the common theological bases of AbrahamicMonotheism has the potential and propensity for clash within AbrahamicMonotheism and also with religions outside Abrahamic-Monotheism. So the issue is not the enemy but the theology that drives the enemy. The sooner the US, as the principal mover in the present conflict, understands this issue the better it is for the world to move near a conflict resolution model. But the US itself is operating largely within the Abrahamic-Monotheistic paradigm, but, from the perspective of its derivative, liberal democracy and with Christo-secular outlook. So, it is unlikely that the US would be able to readily see the Monotheistic theology as a whole as the real cause of the conflict as, within the current paradigm, it has no benchmark other than the norms of secularism developed within Christendom. By the use of such secular bench mark, which merely seeks to sever the state from faith, the US can only fault Islam, and not go beyond that for an expedition into the theological complementarity of Christianity and Islam within the Abrahamic-Monotheistic family. The US, therefore, needs the wisdom of the Indian school of religions for benchmarking both Christianity and Islam. With the rise of India as a political and economic power there is a possibility that the wisdom of the Indian School of religions might attract the attention of the US and the West which take notice of nothing other than political and economic power. Also some thinkers in the US may be aware of the message of Swami Vivekananda on what religious bigotry had done and was capable of doing given in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago on Sept 11, 1893. That will give the clue to the West as to how to handle the emerging conflict which is a product of religious bigotry which is rooted in Abrahamic Monotheism as a whole, not just in Islam.

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10.4 Paradigm Shift needed in Abrahamic Monotheism But this understanding, namely that it is the Abrahamic-Monotheistic theology which has the actualised potential and is the source of religious and religiouslydriven conflict all over the world at different points in history and even now, seems difficult and even impossible within the confines of the present ruling paradigm of the West and of that part of the World in conflict. This is because the civilisation of the Christian US-West itself is founded on the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and civilisations with a hellenistic mix, and their derivative socio-political structures that keeps the US-West functional. Unless the debate transcends and expands beyond the AbrahamicMonotheistic confines conflict avoidance and involves non-AbrahamicMonotheistic schools of religions, conflict resolution will elude the West and also the World at large. In contrast to the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, the Eastern faiths like Hinduism and Buddhism and other ancient faiths had, when the present Abrahamic-Monotheistic world was steeped in ceaseless tribal wars, massacres and barbaric violence, contemplated on higher aspects of life and experienced peace and harmony. The Hindu-Buddhist thinkers had framed autogenously operating voluntary rules, that is still functional as Dharma in India and this regime of Dharma avoided all conflicts and even wars between war-efficient kings and emperors. The rules of Dharma that have been in force in India for thousands of years had disciplined the kings to resort to wars as almost war tournaments organised on play grounds outside the places populated by people so that the non-combatants were not harmed and normal society was not disturbed. In contrast, the very purpose of the wars and the conflicts today is to target and kill the non-combatants and innocents and to disturb the societies, to exert pressure on the enemy. Thus, the Eastern Hindu-Buddhist paradigm, where religion laid bar or restraint on wars, is a direct contrast to the Abrahamic-Monotheistic paradigm, the theologies of which commanded their adherents to wage religious wars. Even today the terrorists openly claim that, by engaging their acts of terror and dying for their faith, they only carry out the command of their faith, as spelt out in their Text, the Koran. It is difficult to believe their claim is not borne out by their Text as most of the Islamic people either sympathise or empathise and in any event they never disapprove or oppose the claim of the terrorists about what, they say, their faith actually tells them. While secular Christendom may fault Islam for providing the theological support for terror, it cannot assert that the theology of Christianity is qualitatively any different, particularly in its attitude to other faiths as discussed.

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So a paradigm shift to benchmark the Eastern philosophy, represented by the Indian school of religions, for the West and Islam and Christianity is needed for a discourse and debate on the current West-centric view of civilisations and the clashes between them. The bench marking of the theologies of Christianity and Islam with the philosophy of the Indian school of religions awaken the two powerful civilisations to a long-standing and functioning model that is compatible with all religions. This will enable them to modify and adapt their theological disposition to eliminate the potential and propensity for conflicts in their respective faiths. Without this shift of paradigm any conflict resolution within the scope of the geography, history and philosophy of the AbrahamicMonotheistic religions and cultures looks almost impossible.

10.5 Introspection and repentance: key to such paradigm shift But this paradigm shift will not occur unless deep introspection occurs within the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths. The leaders and thinkers of these faiths must contemplate on the wrongs they have done, out of the intolerance of their theologies, to their own adherents and to other faiths and cultures in the past. The leaders of these faith and even the historians and intellectuals tend to dismiss and even disown the wrong doings as medievalism, thus, closing the gates for introspection But the recall of the past is the greatest and the only corrective for the future. A more active remembrance model will act as a corrective. Just as the Holocaust Museum stands as a reminder to what the Abrahamic-Monotheism did to one of its own cousins and makes the Abrahamic world, particularly religious and secular Christendom, introspect and repent, a museum should be built to display what Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths have done to their own adherents and to other faiths and their adherents all over the world out of their own theological beliefs. This would be the starting point for creating a sense of repentance. Time and again symbolic regrets are expressed by the Papacy by taking the blame on the Church, but that actually serves to save the Christian theology, particularly as to its potentials and propensities for conflicts, from being critically debated. The real cause of the violence in and by the Church was the theological assertion of Christianity as the only true faith and the Church as its sole representative. If a faith is the sole faith and it has a mission to establish that, then necessarily it needs a sole voice, sole head and even sole army. Otherwise claiming to be the sole faith, and not having a sole representative speaking voice, would have led to an Islamised version of Christianity. So all the paraphernalia of

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Christianity starting from a centralised church to Christian states to the large army of evangelicals, extensive funds and assets are the concomitant imperatives of the sole faith. So blaming the Church or the then church managers as the issue again tends to deflect from the core issue of the potency of the theology for conflict Many apologists of Christian theology tend to say that the faith is good but the problem is the Church. But, in truth, Christianity without church and its hierarchy is unthinkable and unworkable, unless it gives up its theological mission to snuff out the other faiths and conquer the world. Christian without the theological mission to snuff out other faiths is like a Hindu temple without deity. The very purpose of the church is to congregate to Christianise. So, any attempt to separate Christianity and the Church is to miss this point. So, the Church exists and its existence cannot be disregarded. The multiplicity of the churches today have relieved Christians of the intolerance of the church authorities. But the collective of the complex multitude of the Churches today has increased manifold the Christian thrust against non-Christians and it has accentuated by competition among them for taking the mission everywhere. But at the same the existence of Church in Christianity particularly in today’s conditions is a great advantage as it provides, if the leaders and thinkers of Christianity do favour introspection within, a platform to discuss and even modify the theology which, for instance, Islam cannot do in the absence of an Islamic Church. In contrast, the problem of Islam is that in addition to its conflict-prone theology which, in the mind of many and of even some in the faith itself, the modern world cannot live with, it does not have a forum like the Church to discuss their theology to have a re-look at its conflict-prone elements and re-edit itself. A more honest approach for Christianity would be to accept that their theology needs to be modified to accept all religions other than Christianity as true and not false religions. Unless this is done, there is no way the conflict-prone aspects of Christianity can be moderated or eliminated. And, if this is done, it will forthwith bring about a massive shift in the global vision of Christianity towards peaceful coexistence with other faiths and their faithfuls which most Christians themselves would overwhelmingly favour. But this acceptance of other faiths by Christianity can be expedited only if a debate on Christian theology outside Christianity is initiated and in the secular West. Considering its involvement as the lead force in the war against terrorism and for acquiring the moral high position which it needs to justify that lead position, the secular West has a direct responsibility to initiate this

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debate. The secular West must insist that the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths admit and acknowledge, and also repent for, the genocidal repression of ancient faiths and peoples by the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and cultures in different parts of the world. This may force a discourse that has the potential to lead to a general debate about what is it in AbrahamicMonotheism and its two branches, Islam and Christianity, which makes them potentially intolerant and violent against all other faiths and people of such other faiths and even against each other. The thinkers in both faiths must be persuaded to realise that it is not how Christianity or Islam views itself and its followers that is the test of its compatibility with the other faiths or with modern secular state; it is how it looks at those who are not Christians or Muslims that is the real test. If they look upon other religionists as Heathens or Kafirs, because their respective religions tells them to see them that way, then it a guaranteed invitation for clashes. This discussion will necessarily lead to contemplation and rethink about the theological foundations and belief system, that has nothing to do with individual spirituality, in the Abrahamic faiths which compel them to evangelise, inspire them to proselytise and enable them to mass-mobilise. Anyway, unless there is explicit discussions about the historical and continuing consequences of the dualistic theological premises of the two Abrahamic faiths, there is no possibility of repentance for the consequent violence against and destruction of other faiths and cultures in Asia, Africa and Americas. Without such introspection and repentance there is no scope for a paradigm shift which is the only and the surest way to build a conflict-avoidance and conflict-resolution model. But, in practical terms, such introspection and repentance is possible only if the theological justification for the violence and destruction in the past is reviewed and theology is toned down or read down so that sensible elements of neither Islam nor Christianity claim to be the only true faith. And such toning down or reading down is possible only when the sensible elements in both faiths exert for such introspection and repentance This catch 22 situation has been created by the very nature of the two faiths integral to whose faith system is the belief in textual in-errancy, meaning that the sacred texts can never be wrong. And it is the sacred texts which assert that the respective faith is the true faith. And there is no other text available for benchmarking. To break this chicken-and-egg situation, internal evolution has historically found to be not been adequate. So external pressure on both faiths will be needed. But the best candidate for applying external pressure is Christianity. This pressure can be built up in Christiandom first,

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particularly by the Christo-secular elements, because democratic framework exists in the West for opinion-making. Thus, while the belief system proclaiming “my-faith-is-the-only-true-faith-and-other-faiths-are-false” calls for a massive dialogue on its validity within both Christianity and Islam, it is Christendom which is in a position to initiate this dialogue as it has the beneficial atmosphere of democracy to carry on the debate and also the instrumentality of the Church for discussions and debate. The Western secular establishments including the liberal States, intellectuals and public may exert pressure from outside on the theological establishments to start a dialogue within on the issue. The secular West must also promote a debate on whether in the modern world any faith could position itself as the only true faith and brand all other faiths false, and thus claim the right to convert their adherents and eliminate them and for that purpose maintain an army of millions of evangelicals and fund and support them through even secular states. If the Christo-secular powers could force such a dialogue within Christianity and to start a debate to force a reading down of the Christian theology de-legitimising other faiths and also its claim of universalism of the Christian faith, their moral claim to fight terror, which is founded on similar theological basis, will increase many fold. Also, this process will have to start in Christianity independent of whether the Islamic world will under go similar process or not. This cannot be done by any understanding of mutuality or reciprocity. This has to be undertaken voluntarily by the Christendom first and followed by Christian institutions regardless of whether Islam reciprocates it or not. This process will take longer time in Islam because the process of Ijtihad which was intended for such dialogue within has been long back, as early as 4th century, delegitimised in Islam, particularly in Sunni Islam which accounts for over 80% of the global Islamic population. To revive the process of Ijtihad, which has the potential to enable modification of Islamic theology, Islam may have to come under greater stress from within and outside. The ultimate modification needed in the theologies of Christianity and Islam is simply this: Both the religions must accept their status as like any other religion, as good or as bad, and accept all religions as true and valid like them, and not claim to be the only true religions. This is the direction in which the two AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths must move, first through discussions and debate followed by deep introspection and repentance, if conflict resolution has to take shape in any meaningful way. If a properly constituted dialogue takes place, over a period, adequately strong opinion could be built up within both faiths, with less

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difficulty in Christianity and with more efforts in Islam, in favour of modulating and modifying their theological foundations vis-a-vis other faiths.

10.6 Christendom needs dialogue within and with Indian school of faiths So, while a heavy responsibility is cast on the leaders of both the AbrahamicMonotheistic faiths and their constituents to commence a dialogue within for modification of its theologian approach to other religions, it is again, in the interest of Christendom, to start this dialogue first within. For, this dialogue within will gradually enable the Christian establishment and the states and the institutions in Christendom to commence dialogues with the Eastern faiths like Hinduism and Buddhism, and with the peoples and states which are influenced by the two faiths. This is because it is Christendom which is seeking to build a global alliance to fight Islamic terror and it will need the support and co-operation of the two large blocs of Hindu and Buddhist groups, who, excluding China, account for about a fifth of the global population. As the religious character of the present stand-off becomes more and more manifest, as it is bound to particularly given the trends in the US-West as evident from what powerful opinion makers like Daniel Pipes and powerful leaders like George Bush and Tony Blair say, the theological content of Islam and consequently the theological content of Christianity are bound to be openly and explicitly discussed. If Islam comes in for debate, as it is already being indirectly discussed, forthwith Christianity too will be drawn into the debate. This discourse will take place not only in Christendom but also in Asia, and particularly India and China. So, it will be beneficial for Christendom to commence dialogue with the Eastern faiths and peoples. Again, this may also prevent the large Islamic population of Asia from going the Arabic way through Wahaabism which is populating the Islamic world extensively, acting as the reservoir of intolerant ideas, generating intolerant jihadis and driving the global Islamic theological movement and also terror against the West and the US. The US on the contrary is seen as the friend of the Wahaabis because of its close geo-politician relation with the Saudi ruling family which is a product of Wahaabism. If Christendom does not start this dialogue, there is every possibility that the Islamic nations, which are already under pressure from the US-West might start dialogue with the Hindu-Buddhist societies which are geographically, culturally and historically proximate to them and reach a tactical understanding for coexistence with the rising India and China, as a counter to what the US is

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seen to be doing to the Islamic world by dividing it. This will weaken the support for the War on Terror by the West. Eventhough the chances for such a strategic shift in the global Islamic position looks difficult given the absence of leadership within the Islamic powers even a tentative move will have its own impact on geo-politics and it cannot also be ruled out. Also such strategic moves will defer, even perhaps close the gates for introspection and repentance which is the ultimate conflict resolution model.

10.7 The Indian faiths and civilisation need to play global role The Hindu-Buddhist faiths and civilisations which were denied their due place at the global level, in the last few centuries, should now assert their global role and position themselves as the hope for global peace as the Abrahamic-Monotheistic world is utter turmoil and chaos. This is not only necessary but also possible and relevant given the rise of India and China, besides the general rise of Asia as global economic and geo-political powers. The Hindu-Buddhist civilisations/nations must also understand that their theological position, which made them incapable of religious violence towards other faiths, was a burden and a disadvantage in a world where such violence was considered to be legitimate in the past and the power to be violence was even celebrated. They must also realise that that disadvantage is now becoming their USP and an advantage, in view of the clash emerging between the two conflict-prone Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam and their respective theology itself becoming challengeable as conflict-prone. They need to prepare themselves psychologically for this global role. Their rising position in the global arena will enable them to promote a dialogue among faiths and civilisation. It is not only in their interest, it is also in the greater interest of global peace and harmony, that they prepare themselves for this critical role at the global level. The Hindu-Buddhist faiths must assert their potential and propensity to avoid and resolve conflicts as the global asset for the other civilisations to introspect and internalise. For playing their due role, they need greater coordination between themselves, and with other ancient faiths all over the world. But they have a huge hurdle to cross – the establishment West. They will have to pole vault the religious and political Western establishment to communicate to different segments of the Western society, which has particularly in the later part of the last century developed a high level of openness. That apart, the unprecedented wireless and other communication

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facilities made possible by new technologies however provide opportunities which did not exist a decade ago to the neglected faiths and civilisations to retail their thoughts and suggestions directly to the people without looking for wholesale distributors. They can now directly address the individual opinion makers and others in Christendom about how the philosophical position of the two faiths towards other faiths, which is one of acceptance of the other faiths, completely avoids conflicts between faiths, and how the diametrically opposite theological disposition in the Christian and Islamic theologies is fertilising clashes among faiths and civilisations. They must also address the message to the irreligious and secular West which is in need of a spiritual philosophy compatible with secularism to handle the liberal political institutions. The conditions of the present are ideal for the HinduBuddhist faiths and civilisations to communicate their message of peace and harmony. For the Western thinkers and the Western society who are desperately in need of a conflict-resolving software, any thought or suggestion from anywhere that opens the possibility of conflict resolution would not be unwelcome. The Hindu-Buddhist schools of religions must articulate how the Indian school of faiths, in general, are compatible, not only with other faiths, but with the principles of secular state. If the Hindu-Buddhist intellectual stream does not flow into the West, the situation that is developing in Christendom is likely to weaken the secular intellectuals and institutions and even secular polity which is one of the concerns of the West. There are many who are worried about the rise of the religious right in the US as the people need a profounder anchor than liberal democracy and individualism. The potentiality of the Hindu-Buddhist thought as the alternative paradigm will strengthen the secular forces which otherwise may be considerably weakened. The role played by the HinduBuddhist faiths and peoples will expedite the opinion-making within Christendom about the theological incompatibility of Christianity with other faiths if Christianity continues to proclaim itself as the only true faith and how other faiths are false faiths. They must also connect to sections of Christianity which do not share the universalist claims of the mainline establishment of the two religions. They must also connect and relate to the ancient and pre-Christian faiths in Christendom which are reviving as neoPaganism, liberal democracy and individualism. If the Hindu -Buddhist faiths do not play their due role and make their contribution, they will be constructively allowing the conflict of civilisations at the global level to intensify and they cannot remain unaffected by it.

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The Hinduism and geo-Buddhism and the respective civilisations, backed by the political and economic power of India and China respectively, are both qualified to build global consensus that will enable all religions to accept all other religions as valid and legitimate and repeal the declaration of any religion by any other religion as false and evil. But the Hindu school of faiths is in a position to initiate it forthwith. This is because China, which is intrinsically a big Buddhist power and numerically larger than Hindus in number, itself is confused about its true character – and as to whether it is a communist society still, or a Confucian or Buddhist civilisation, even though the recent trends indicate the rise of ancient China. Yet the communist rule has weakened the religious foundations of the Chinese people, and it may take a while for geo-Buddhism to forthwith play its due role is unclear. Indian School of religions must forthwith connect to Shinto-Buddhism in Japan and Buddhist societies and civilisations in entire South East Asia including Sri Lanka. The Indian school of religions which includes all religions that originated in India including Buddhism is capable of playing its role at the global level for some very valid reasons. First, apart from the rising stature of India as a power, the Indian diaspora of nearly 20 millions spread across the world and particularly occupying important positions in Christendom, is vast and is also a respected immigrant population. They are seen as among the leaders of the knowledge economy. Apart from that the Indian ideas way, including Yoga and Ayurveda, and the Indian management thoughts like capitalism tempered by the doctrine of Karma are already making impact on some of the best minds in the world. It is now acknowledged that the Indian economy is among the fastest rising economy which is expected to place India on par with China and the US in the next couple of decades. The Indian soft power in the form of Indian cultural symbols are already branding Indians as an acceptable and benevolent people in the world. More, the Indian spiritual and yoga institutions and individuals like Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Swami Ramdev, Mata Amritananadamayi, Swaminarayan movement, Swami Nithyananda, Chinmaya Mission, Swami Dayananda Saraswati and many other highly respected persons and institutions have developed deep connections with the Indian diaspora as well as in the hundreds of host countries they function. No other faith or civilisation is endowed with such harmonising and integrating spiritually informed organisational architecture at the global level as Hinduism. Their entire power and influence could be accessed through appropriate networking mechanism

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for the role that the Indian school of religions and the Indian civilisation need to play at the global level.

10.8 A Final Word Nothing would have been more appropriate to conclude this paper than to restate the profound quotes from the British and American historians with which it opens. Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant, the two historians of the 20th century – whose sagely prognosis about the potential of the HinduIndian civilisation to rescue the world from disaster spells out a central theme of this paper – who were born and lived almost at about the same time, but in two different countries; became the greatest historians of their time; experienced for most part of their lives the Western power and the Soviet counter power that were at their peak, with no sign of any let up in their dominance and with no one else worthy of mention; and equally saw, most part of their time, the Indian civilisation concluded as a lost cause by many and leading lights that ancient civilisation lost in their admiration of either the West or the Soviet. Yet, surprisingly, unlike historians whose concern is essentially about the past, these two great minds looked beyond the reigning power of the West and the Soviet and, in the tradition of the Hindu rishis and Zen masters, the two historians saw deep into the future over looking the blinding effect of the times they lived. And more surprisingly both came to the same conclusion about the ancient Hindu India, that was yet to begin its endeavour to overcome its colonial hang over and discover itself and one of them even said that the 21st century belongs to India. The two of them prognosticated that Hindu/Indian civilisation would play the role of the saviour of the world. Will Durant said that “in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the un-acquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, a pacifying love for all living things.” Toynbee prognosticated that “ a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.” What the two historians meant is precisely what this paper commends, namely, that a paradigm shift is needed in and from the west-centric global order to the Hindu-Indian approach. Durant has said that India will teach

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the West tolerance, which means that the world will learn tolerance from India. And Toynbee has warned the world of self destruction of the human race if the West does not follow the Indian way. The message is clear. It is now for the World, the Christendom, secular West and the Islamic civilisations in particular, to introspect on what the two great minds had independently counselled the world and begin a dialouge with the best living model of faith and culture founded conflict-avoidance and conflict-resolution – the ancient Hindu faith and culture. Shortly stated, within the paradigm of the Abrahamic-Monotheistic faiths and their derviates, the Western and Islamic civilisations, a conflict resolution philosophy and mechanism is unlikely to emerge as both the forces, the physically powerful West and the emotionally surcharged Islam, claim universality for their respective views, religious and secular. It is thus, clash of the Geo-Christian and Western universalism with another universalism, the Islamic, which challenges the former. Both these forces originate from within the same Abhramic-Monotheistic school and therefore, it is battle between two universalist ideas for the only world each wants to conquer and rule exclusively. When either of them look to their past for any hope of conflict resolution, there does not seem to be any conflict resolution model in their history; in contrast, they have only conflict promoting faiths, thoughts, experiences and institutions. But their propensity for mutual conflict is today expanding into a potential for global conflict. If the world has to be saved, peace has to be restored within the Abrahamic Monotheistic family. It appears that time has come for the world look to East for a conflict resolution philosophy and mechanism. If this paper serves to make this point it has served its purpose. The world needs the direction towards peace and away from death and destruction. And there is no better way to end this epilogue than to quote from the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad, a highly respected ancient Hindu scripture variously dated between 600 BCE to 3000 BCE316 [original in Samskrit-Devnagari script but quoted here in Roman script]: “Asatoma Sadgamaya; Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya; Mrthyorma Amrtamgamaya”317

Meaning “Lead me from delusion to truth; from darkness to light; from death to immortality”

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References and Notes 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/quotes1_20.htm citing Concordant Discord by R.C. Zaehner; Oxford University Press, p.22-23. http://www.vedanta-newyork.org/articles/vedanta_influence_1.htm, citing and quoting Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant (1885-1981), New, York: Simon and Schuster, 1954 p.633. “Religion is the opium of the people” (translated from the German Die Religion .. ist das Opium des Volkes”) is one of the most frequently quoted (and sometimes misquoted as “opiate of the people” or “opiate of the masses”) statements of Karl Marx, from the introduction of his 1843 work Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right which was subsequently released one year later in Marx’s own journal DeutschFranzösischen Jahrbücher—a collaboration with Arnold Ruge — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiate_(EP) - 33k . For those with an interest in interrogating the foundations of universalism in western thought, a study of Christianity and its founder Saul of Tarsus (Paul) is a good place to start. Howard Grant Timms,University of Western OntarioAlain Badiou. Saint Paul: the Foundation of Universalism. Translated by Ray Brassier. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. (111 pages) http://www.uwo.ca/theory/skandalon/skandalon/pdf_files/ sk_rev_1_4h.htm, down loaded on August 13, 2007]. Liberal Democracy as a Global Phenomenon’ by Francis Fukuyama, Rand Corporation. PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp.659-664. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (W. W. Norton & Company Inc. Francis Fukuyama in End of History and the Last Man, Avon Books Inc. NY, pp. xii and xvii] “What we may be witnessing,”Fukuyama wrote, “is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Francis Fukuyama. ‘National Interest’ 16 (Summar 1989) published by Nixon Center.

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

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Washington DC. pp.3-18. Richard Berstein in New York Times, April 6, 2005 and The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism by George Weigel. Oxford University Press. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pope/communism/down loaded on August 6, 2007 . http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/institutional_analysis/popecia.html down loaded on August 8, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split downloaded on August 7, 2007. As pointed out by Samuel P. Huntington in his famous book The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order, p.38-39. Foreign Affairs Summer 1993. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order, p. 20. The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. by Francis Fukuyama. p.48. Ibid. p.48. Encyclopaedia Britannica 15Ed.; Macropaedia.Vol 4, p.657. Crisis of Global Capitalism (Open Society Endangered) by George Soros, p.88. Encyclopaedia Britannica. supra.15Ed, Vol. 12, p.381. Ibid, p.486. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, p.56. Ibid, p.57. Encyclopaedia of Britannica. Supra. 15 Ed, Vol. 4, p.504. Ibid, p.492. End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama, Avon Books, “By way of Introduction” at pages xi and xii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden” down loaded on August 16. The Clash of Civilisations. Supra. p.41. Ibid, p.66. Ibid, p.41. Ibid, p.41. Ibid, p.41.

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Dharma – the Global Ethic, supra, p.48. From the Rigveda quoted in the Address of the Prime Minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee to the 53rd UN General Assembly: http://www.indianembassy.org/special/cabinet/Primeminister/ pmspeech(UN).htm and http://www.un.int/india/ind202.htm. The Penguin Swami Vivekananda Reader Edited by Makarand Paranjape, p.40. Indian Jews in Israel, edited and published by Reuven Dafai, Consul, on behalf of the Consulate of Israel, 50 Pedder Road, Cumballa Hill, Bombay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_India – downloaded on Aug 15, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Jews. http://www.traveljini.com [email protected] reproduced in Rockwood Cultural Marketplace [http://www. rockwood marketplace. org/ go.pl?id=17439 downloaded on Aug 15, 2007. from Early India by Romila Thapar [Historian] quoted in http:// varnam.org/blog/archives/2004/06/parsi_history.php downloaded on Aug 15, 2007. http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/world-religions/zoroastrianism/parsicommunity.asp downloaded on Aug 15. 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsi down loaded on Aug 15, 2007. http://www.vohuman.org/Article/Who% 20are% 20the% 20 Parsis. htm Encyclopaedia Britannica Ed 15, Macropaedia, Vol. 8, p.907 Ibid, p.907. Ibid, p.907. Encyclopaedia, 15Ed., Macropaedia Vol. 4, pp.491-92. R.C. Majumdar, Age of Imperial Unity, Bombay. Encyclopaedia, 15Ed. Macropaedia, Vol. 4, supra, p.492 . Ibid, p.492. Ibid, p.492. Ibid. http://www.nobeliefs.com. Article by Jim Walker titled ‘On the Jews and their lies’ A percurser to Nazism http://www.nobeliefs.com/ down loaded on August 4, 2007. as for example (1) Goldhagen, Daniel Johah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners:

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Ibid, p.80. Srimad Bhagwat Gita II.72 – the Scripture of the Mankind, Translation by Swami Tapasyananda. Ramakrishna Math. p.71. The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, 2Ed., p.201. Encyclopaedia of Britannica 15Ed Macropaedia, Vol. 9, pp.925-6 Our Religions, supra, p.429. quotes taken from Rewriting Indian History by Francois Gautier. pp.3839. Beyond Belief by VS Naipaul. p.1. Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer, p.63. Ibid, p.63-64. Ibid, p.64. Ibid, p.64. Ibid, p.64. Ibid, p.65-66. Ibid, p.66. Ibid, p.67. God’s Terrorists – the Wahabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, Little Brown, p.xi. Ibid. Ibid, p.42. Indian Controversies, by Arun Shourie, (quoting Qur’an 5.4-5), p.263. Ibid, p.261. Ibid, p.262. Charles Allen, God’s Terrorists, Supra. p.44. Syed Hossein Nasr, Our Religions, supra p.467. Charles Allen, Gods Terrorists, Supra. p.44. Ibid, p.44. Ibid, p.45. Ibid, p.46. Ibid, p.47. Ibid, p.47. Ibid, p.49. Ibid, p.50.

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211. Ibid, p.270. 212. Ibid, p.270. 213. The World of Fatwas or the Sharia in Action, by Arun Shourie, New Delhi, p.542. 214. Ibid, p.542. 215. The True Face of the Jihadis – Inside Pakistan’s Network of Terror, Lotus Collection Roli Books, p.101. 216. The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, supra, p.509 217. The Face of the Jihadis, supra, Ibid, p.102. 218. Ibid, pp.102-3. 219. Ibid, p.104. 220. Ibid, p.104. 221. The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, supra, p.509. 222. The Law of War (2ed.) Ingrid Detter, Chapter 5 on ‘The Nature of the Laws of War’: ‘A. The Historical Background’ 223. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Ed, Macropaedia Vol.19, ‘Warfare, Laws of, p.538 224. Ibid, p.538-39 225. The Wonder That was India by AL Basham, Rupa & co. paper back 1981, p.125 226. Glimpses of The Vedic Nation by Balshastri Hardas, English Translation by S.S. Apte. Sri Kamakoti Publishing House. 227. Ibid, pp.602-03. 228. Ibid, p.604. 229. The History of Dharma Shastra (Ancient Indian and Medieval Religious and Civil Law) Government Oriental Series Class B No 6, by Dr Pandurang Vaman Kane, Bandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, 1973,Vol. III, 2Ed. p.69. 230. Ibid, p.70. 231. Ibid, Vol. II, Part II, p.1238. 232. Ibid, Vol. III, p.69 233. Ibid, Vol. III, pp.70-71. 234. Ibid, Vol. III, p.64. 235. Ibid, Vol. III, pp.65-67. 236. Ibid, Vol. III, p.67.

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History of Kerala by KP Padmanabha Menon Lurier Books, p.397. Ibid, pp.398-99. Ibid, p.399. Ibid, p.400. For example. Update on Aryan Invasion Debate by Kondraad Elst. BBC Religion & Ethics - Hinduism: Aryan Invasion Theory, http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history_4.shtml down loaded on August 14, 2007. History of Kerala. Supra. p.400. Ibid, pp.400-401. Address by Professor Kader Asmal, MP, Minister of Education, SA.“Keeping memory alive, shaping our future: The ten-year celebration of freedom” Centre for the Book, Cape Town 31 March 2004. [http:// www.info.gov.za/speeches/2004/04040109461001.htm. Down loaded on August 13, 2007. http://www.frontline.org.za/news/end_of_islam.htm downloaded Aug 12, 2007.

275. Encyclopaedia Britannica, supra. 15Ed, Macropaedia, Vol. 9, p.918. 276. The Quranic Concept of War by Brigadier S. K. Mallik. Himalayan Books New Delhi. Pp.11-12. 277. Ibid, p.xx. 278. Enclopaedia britannica supra, Macropaedia, Vol. 9, p. 914 marginal heading ‘The concept of a community of the faithful’ 279. Ibid, p.914. 280. Ibid, p.914. 281. from http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/009243.php down loaded on August 14, 2007. 282. K.S. Lal, Legacy of Muslim Rule in India, New Delhi. 283. Ibid. 284. Kashmir Islamic Atrocities in India. 285. Francois Gautier, Negationism and the Muslim Longush. 286. Francois Gautier, ‘Where is India’s holocaust Museum’ – rediff.com 287. A.V. William Jackson, Vol.III, p.17-28 and 52-54. 288. Ibid. 289. eg. American Indian. Holocaust and Survival. A Population History Since 1492. By Russle Thornton. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-

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Transcending Conflicts Indian and Eastern Way

on August 28, 2007. http://english.people.com.cn/200601/22/eng20060122_237365.html Downloaded on August 28, 2007. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfeature/pip/e2g9l. A Short History of Hinduism, by Klaus K. Klostermaier, pp.41-42, determining the vedic period [in which the Brihadaranyaka Upanisad originated] at between 3000 to 6000BCE. The Principal Upanisads, edited by S. Radhakrishnan, HarperCollins Publishers India Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, I.3.28, p.162.

Contributors Arvind Sharma is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.He has published extensively in the fields of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion and is currently engaged in promoting the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the world’s religions. Afsir Karim retired as Major General from the Indian army in 1989; he is a specialist on issues related to terrorism and Low Intensity Conflicts. He has published a number of books on the subject: Counter Terrorism: The Pakistan Factor (1991), Transnational Terrorism, Danger in the South (1993), Kashmir: The Troubled Frontiers (1994). He is currently the editor of ‘Aakrosh’: Asian Journal on Terrorism and Internal Conflicts. Ajit K. Doval joined the Indian Police Service in 1968. Later he worked as a career intelligence officer for over 33 years serving in the Northeast, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab. He held diplomatic assignments in Pakistan and the UK and retired as Director, Intelligence Bureau. He is a recipient of the Kirti Chakra, one of the highest military gallantry awards, the President’s Police Medal for distinguished service, and the Indian Police Medal for meritorious service. Since retirement, he has been the Secretary General of the Policy Perspective Foundation, a think tank studying national and global security issues. Claude Arpi was born in Angoulême (France). After graduating from Bordeaux University in 1974, he decided to settle in India. Since then, he has been an enthusiastic student of the history of Tibet, China and the subcontinent. He is the author of The Fate of Tibet (1999), Born in Sin: the Panchsheel Agreement (2004) and India and Her Neighbourhood (2005). He writes regularly on Tibet, China, India and Indo-French relations

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D. P. Chattopadhyaya, a former Union Cabinet Minister and Governor, Founder-Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research is currently the Project Director of the multidisciplinary 96 Vol. Project on History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization. Among his 35 publications are Interdisciplinary Studies in Science, Society, Value and Civilizational Dialogue, Philosophical Consciousness and Scientific Knowledge, and Self, Society and Science. Doudou Diène is presently the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. He is also Vice-President of the International Council of Social Sciences and Philosophy. Between 1985 and 1987, he held the posts of Deputy Assistant Director-General for External Relations, spokesperson for the Director-General, and Acting Director of the Bureau of Public Information. J. S. Rajput, Formerly Chairman, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), India and Ex-Director, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), India. He is a distinguised educationist. UNESCO honoured him Jan Amos Comenius medal for life-time achievement in educational research and innovation. Kireet Joshi was Chairman of the Auroville Foundation and the Indian Council of Philosophical Research and Vice-Chairman of the Maharishi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan. He has served as a member on a number of committees in the University Grants Commission, the National Council of Education Research and Training, and the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He worked with The Mother at Pondichery before being called to Delhi by Mrs Indira Gandhi to vitalize Indian education system. Justice K.T. Thomas obtained Law degree from Madras University, practised as advocate for seventeen years. Judicial career as District Judge then as High Court Judge and as Supreme Court Judge till 2002. Later he served as Chairman of the different committees on causes of national concerns. Recipient of Padma Bhushan award from the President of India. Lakhan Mehrotra retired as Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs (1992); he was Nehru Fellow (1993 -1995), International Director, Bhartiya Vidya

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Bhavan (1996), UN Secretary General’s Personal Representative in Cambodia (97-2000) and UN Envoy in Indonesia (2000-2003). He writes regularly and has been awarded U Thant’s Peace Prize, Cambodia’s Sahamaitreyi Award and President of Timore’s Gold Medal. He is currently President of the Foundation for Non-Violence and Peace. P.C. Alexander has held several senior positions such as Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, High Commissioner in London, Executive Director, UN International Trade Centre at Geneva, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and Governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. He has authored several books, the latest being Through the Corridors of Power (Publishers, Harper Collins). He is presently Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). M. Rama Jois, retired as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. He has authored several books including Services under the State, Legal and Constitutional History of India and Eternal Values in Manusmriti. He has been Honorary Professor in National Law School, Bangalore. He was awarded Naresh Chanda Sen Gupta Gold Medal by Asiatic Society in 1999. He has been the Vice-President of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore Kendra, since 1994 and President, Bharat Vikas Parishad since 1999. He was Governor of States of Jharkhand and Bihar. R. Vaidyanathan is Professor of Finance and Control and UTI Chair Professor, at IIM Bangalore. He is Member of the “Advisory Committee” on Secondary Markets of the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Member of the Advisory Committee on Money, Foreign Exchange and Government Securities Markets, of the RBI. He was the President of the Asia Pacific Risk and Insurance Association. He has published two books one on the Non-corporate India and the other on Pensions—Facing the future. Swaminathan Gurumurthy a corporate advisor and a well known columnist. He has ceaselessly campaigned against corruption at high places. He was rated among 50 most powerful persons in India in 1990 [Gentleman Magazine] as the 8th most powerful [Business Baron magazine 2004]; as the 17th most powerful [India Today magazine in 2005]. He has declined all positions offered to him by governments and private organisations. He is a thinker and writer and ceaseless campaigner for probity in public life.

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Vinod Saighal, Retired as Director General Military Training. He has held assignments with UN peacekeeping forces, as Military Attache in France and BENELUX. Currently he is Executive Director of Eco Monitors Society and has founded the Movement for Restoration of Good Government. He is the author of Third Millennium Equipoise, Restructuring South Asian Security, Restructuring Pakistan and Dealing with Global Terrorism. His most recent book is Global Security Paradoxes 2000-2020.