SACW | 20 Dec. 2003
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Dec 19 20:36:35 CST 2003
South Asia Citizens Wire | 20 December, 2003
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Karachi-to-Delhi Friendship March proposed - June-October 2004
[2] Pakistan Supreme Court allows free-will marriages
[3] Invitation to the Release of the Final Report
of the International Initiative for Justice in
Gujarat (New Delhi, 24 December)
[4] Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and `Vedic science' [Part 1] (Meera Nanda)
[5] India - Karnataka: A call to People by
Forum of Anti-Communal, Secular and Progressive
People
[6] India: Exuding hatred [in Karnataka] (Parvathi Menon)
--------------
[1]
South Asia Citizens Web | December 20, 2003
URL: www.sacw.net/peace/karachiDelhiMarch2004.html
o o o
Date: 15 December 2003
Press Release
Karachi-to-Delhi Friendship March
June-October 2004
Karachi: A four-month long Friendship March from
Karachi to Delhi has been proposed by
Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and
Democracy to mobilize public opinion for peace
and friendship between India and Pakistan. The
idea of Friendship March has been initiated by
Dr. Sandeep Pandey, National Convener, National
Alliance of People's Movement, India.
Dr. Pandey, renowned social activist from India,
holds a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from
the University of California, Berkeley and has
been working as a full time social activist for
the last 10 years. He has been actively involved
in anti-communalism movement in Ayodhya, and
nuclear disarmament, anti-globalization and
anti-corruption campaigns being run in India. Dr.
Pandey had initiated and led an 88-day peace
march from Pokhran to Saranath in 1999 to
campaign for nuclear disarmament. In 2002, Dr.
Pandey led a 26-day peace march from Chitrakoot
to Ayodhya for communal harmony.
The proposed 1700 kilometer long Friendship March
will begin on June 11, 2004 and will reach Lahore
on 4 September, 2004, the day of the 10th
anniversary of the formation of Pakistan-India
People's Forum. After crossing over the border at
Wagah, the Friendship March will end in New Delhi
at Rajghat on 2nd October 2004. A joint
convention of Pakistan and India chapters of the
Forum will be held at the conclusion of the march
in New Delhi.
The marchers will walk 15 to 20 km on an average
per day, stopping over at night in scheduled
villages, towns and cities enroute, interacting
with thousands of common people in both the
countries, seeking their endorsement for
accelerating the peace process.
Dr. Sandeep Pandey,
National Convener, National Alliance of People's Movement, India
Karamat Ali
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Karachi
[ See Related News Reports from the Pakistani Press in English and Urdu ]
URLs:
www.sacw.net/peace/KarachiDelmarchDawn16Dec03.gif
www.sacw.net/peace/karachiDelhimarchUrdureport.gif
_____
[2]
The Daily Times
December 20, 2003
Supreme Court allows free-will marriages
* Says wali's consent not necessary
* Admission by couple sufficient proof
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Muslim girls can marry without their
wali's (guardian's) consent and an admission by
the couple is sufficient proof of marriage,
according to Friday's decision by a full bench of
the Supreme Court (SC).
"The consent of the wali is not required and an
adult and sane Muslim female can enter into a
valid nikah of her own free will," states the
apex court's 26-page judgment. After reaching
puberty, a Muslim girl is competent to marry of
her own free will. As such, her father's custody
can be denied after the marriage, says the
judgement.
The SC decision upholds an earlier judgement of
the Federal Shariat Court that states free will
marriages are valid. The bench ruled that the
high courts and all subordinate courts were bound
to follow the judgment of the Federal Shariat
Court under Article 203GG of the Constitution.
The Federal Shariat Court has consistently taken
the view that an adult and sane Muslim girl can
contract her own marriage and the consent of her
wali or other guardian is not required for the
marriage to be valid.
The bench also disposed of two appeals concerning
free-will marriages, a criminal appeal filed by
Hafiz Abdul Waheed Ropri against Asma Jehangir
and a civil appeal filed by Muhammad Iqbal
against his alleged wife Shabina Zafar.
In the first, Hafiz Abdul Waheed's daughter Saima
Waheed married Arshed Ahmed of her free will on
February 26, 1996. Her father challenged the
validity of the marriage in the High Court. One
bench of the High Court declared the marriage
valid, but another bench gave a contrary decision.
Ms Jehangir, who protected Saima and gave her a
place to live, represented Saima in the case
concerning her free-will marriage. Mr Waheed
filed a habeas corpus petition against Ms
Jehangir in the Supreme Court.
The Apex Court disposed of the criminal appeal
against Ms Jehangir by declaring Saima's marriage
valid. Saima is now living with her spouse and
two children in Norway.
In the second appeal, the bench also set aside
the High Court's judgement in Muhammad Iqbal's
civil appeal. The High Court had ordered the
police to challan Muhammad Iqbal and his alleged
wife Shabina Zafar under the Hudood Ordinance on
a zina charge. A detailed judgement of the full
bench has settled the legal, moral and religious
question of marriages involving runaway girls
because the Federal Shariat Court's 1981 decision
will govern all such cases.
The Supreme Court full bench was comprised of
Justice Mian Muhammad Ajmal, Justice Sardar
Muhammad Raza Khan and Justice Karamat Nazir
Bhandari.
_____
[3]
Invitation to the Release of the Final Report of
the International Initiative for Justice in
Gujarat (IIJG)
THREATENED EXISTENCE - A Feminist Analysis Of The Genocide In Gujarat
Wednesday, 24 December, 2003. 3.30 pm. Indian
Women's Press Corps, 5 Windsor Place, Near Hotel
Meridien, New Delhi.
The IIJG came into being to develop a feminist
critique of justice and democratic governance in
the context of the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat
last year. The final report of the Initiative,
Threatened Existence will be released in New
Delhi by an eminent panel comprising :
Leila Seth, first woman judge of the Delhi High
Court, and the first woman Chief Justice of a
state High Court (Himachal Pradesh) – who will
speak on the urgent need for the equal and just
application of the rule of law on all citizens of
the country.
Shabana Azmi, well known actor and former MP, who
will speak on increased communalism in our times.
Urvashi Butalia, feminist activist and publisher,
who will focus on the specific impact of
increased communalism on women.
The gathering will also be addressed by two
panellists of the IIJG, Farah Naqvi and Uma
Chakravarti.
Threatened Existence is a comprehensive document
based on hundreds of testimonies, eyewitness
accounts and other relevant information. It makes
the following major points:
- Twenty two months after the massacres of
February/March 2002, the violence continues 'in
different and frightening forms with long-term
consequences on the lives of all members of the
Muslim community particularly women'
- Sexual violence is central to the Hindutva
project in Gujarat, and the use of rape and
sexual assault, occurred with the knowledge of
highly placed State actors.
- The ongoing persecution of the Muslim community
constitutes Crimes against Humanity under
International Law.
PLEASE DO JOIN US FOR THE RELEASE EVENT.
For as the report states in the conclusion, "This
report can operate as a reflection on the
inadequacy of existing processes - both legal and
otherwise - to provide justice and redress to
victims
we need to understand the genocidal
nature of the Hindutva project so as to emphasize
the critical responsibility of intervention that
lies with both, civil society and the State."
The panelists of the IIJG were feminist jurists,
activists, lawyers, writers and academics from
all over the world: Anissa Helie
(Algeria/France), Gabriela Mischkowski (Germany),
Nira Yuval-Davis (UK), Rhonda Copelon (USA),
Sunila Abeysekara (Sri Lanka), Farah Naqvi
(India), Meera Velayudan (India), Uma Chakravarti
(India) and Vahida Nainar (India).
The International Initiative for Justice in
Gujarat and was set up by: Citizen's Initiative
(Ahmedabad), People's Union for Civil Liberties
(PUCL)-Shanti Abhiyan (Baroda), Communalism
Combat, Aawaaz-e-Niswaan, Forum Against
Oppression of Women (FAOW) and Stree Sangam
(Bombay), Saheli, Jagori, Sama, and Nirantar
(Delhi), and Organised Lesbian Alliance for
Visibility and Action (OLAVA, Pune).
Aman Ekta Manch
_____
[4]
Frontline, Volume 20 - Issue 26, December 20, 2003 - January 02, 2004
ESSAY
Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and `Vedic science' [Part 1]
MEERA NANDA
The mixing up of the mythos of the Vedas with the
logos of science must be of great concern not
just to the scientific community, but also to the
religious people, for it is a distortion of both
science and spirituality.
The Vedas as books of science
IN 1996, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of the
United Kingdom (U.K.) produced a slick looking
book, with many well-produced pictures of
colourfully dressed men and women performing
Hindu ceremonies, accompanied with warm, fuzzy
and completely sanitised description of the
faith. The book, Explaining Hindu Dharma: A Guide
for Teachers, offers "teaching suggestions for
introducing Hindu ideas and topics in the
classroom" at the middle to high school level in
the British schools system. The authors and
editors are all card-carrying members of the VHP.
The book is now in its second edition and, going
by the glowing reviews on the back-cover, it
seems to have established itself as a much-used
educational resource in the British school system.
What "teaching suggestions" does this Guide
offer? It advises British teachers to introduce
Hindu dharma as "just another name" for "eternal
laws of nature" first discovered by Vedic seers,
and subsequently confirmed by modern physics and
biological sciences. After giving a false but
incredibly smug account of mathematics, physics,
astronomy, medicine and evolutionary theory
contained in the Vedic texts, the Guide instructs
the teachers to present the Vedic scriptures as
"not just old religious books, but as books which
contain many true scientific facts... these
ancient scriptures of the Hindus can be treated
as scientific texts" (emphasis added). All that
modern science teaches us about the workings of
nature can be found in the Vedas, and all that
the Vedas teach about the nature of matter, god,
and human beings is affirmed by modern science.
There is no conflict, there are no
contradictions. Modern science and the Vedas are
simply "different names for the same truth".
This is the image of Hinduism that the VHP and
other Hindutva propagandists want to project
around the world. The British case is not an
isolated example. Similar initiatives to portray
Vedic-Aryan India as the "cradle" of world
civilisation and science have been launched in
Canada and the United States as well. Many of
these initiatives are beneficiaries of the
generous and politically correct policies of
multicultural education in these countries. Under
the worthy cause of presenting the "community's"
own views about its culture, many Western
governments are inadvertently funding Hindutva's
propaganda.
KAMAL NARANG
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Human
Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi
at the inauguration of the Indian Science
Congress in New Delhi in 2001. The obsession for
finding all kinds of science in all kinds of
obscure Hindu doctrines has been dictating the
official education policy of the BJP ever since
it came to power nearly half a decade ago.
But what concerns us in this article is not the
long-distance Hindutva (or "Yankee Hindutva", as
some call it), dangerous though it is. This essay
is more about the left wing-counterpart of Yankee
Hindutva: a set of postmodernist ideas, mostly
(but not entirely) exported from the West, which
unintentionally ends up supporting Hindutva's
propaganda regarding Vedic science. Over the last
couple of decades, a set of very fashionable,
supposedly "radical" critiques of modern science
have dominated the Western universities. These
critical theories of science go under the label
of "postmodernism" or "social constructivism".
These theories see modern science as an
essentially Western, masculine and imperialistic
way of acquiring knowledge. Intellectuals of
Indian origin, many of them living and working in
the West, have played a lead role in development
of postmodernist critiques of modern science as a
source of colonial "violence" against non-Western
ways of knowing.
In this two-part essay, I will examine how this
postmodernist left has provided philosophical
arguments for Hindutva's claim that Vedas are
"just another name" for modern science. As we
will see, postmodernist attacks on objective and
universal knowledge have played straight into
Hindu nationalist slogan of all perspectives
being equally true - within their own context and
at their own level. The result is the loud - but
false - claims of finding a tradition of
empirical science in the spiritual teachings of
the Vedas and Vedanta. Such scientisation of the
Vedas does nothing to actually promote an
empirical and rational tradition in India, while
it does an incalculable harm to the spiritual
message of Hinduism's sacred books. The mixing up
of the mythos of the Vedas with the logos of
science must be of great concern not just to the
scientific community, but also to the religious
people, for it is a distortion of both science
and spirituality.
In order to understand how postmodern critiques
of science converge with Hindutva's celebration
of Vedas-as-science, let us follow the logic
behind VHP's Guide for Teachers.
This Guide claims that the ancient Hindu
scriptures contain "many true scientific facts"
and therefore "can be treated as scientific
texts". Let us see what these "true scientific
facts" are. The prime exhibit is the "scientific
affirmation" of the theory of guna (Sanskrit for
qualities or attributes). Following the essential
Vedantic idea that matter and spirit are not
separate and distinct entities, but rather the
spiritual principle constitutes the very fabric
of the material world, the theory of gunas
teaches that matter exhibits spiritual/moral
qualities. There are three such qualities or
gunas which are shared by all matter, living or
non-living: the quality or guna of purity and
calmness seeking higher knowledge (sattvic), the
quality or guna of impurity, darkness, ignorance
and inactivity (tamsic) and the quality or guna
of activity, curiosity, worldly gain (rajasic).
Modern atomic physics, the VHP's Guide claims,
has confirmed the presence of these qualities in
nature. The evidence? Physics shows that there
are three atomic particles bearing positive,
negative and neutral charges, which correspond to
the three gunas! From this "scientific proof" of
the existence of essentially spiritual/moral
gunas in atoms, the Guide goes on to triumphantly
deduce the "scientific" confirmation of the
truths of all those Vedic sciences which use the
concept of gunas (for example, Ayurveda). Having
"demonstrated" the scientific credentials of
Hinduism, the Guide boldly advises British school
teachers to instruct their students that there is
"no conflict" between the eternal laws of dharma
and the laws discovered by modern science.
PARTH SANYAL
In Kolkata, astrologers demonstrating against the
West Bengal government's decision not to
introduce astrology as a subject in the State's
universities. A file picture.
One of the most ludicrous mantras of Hindutva
propaganda is that there is "no conflict" between
modern science and Hinduism. In reality,
everything we know about the workings of nature
through the methods of modern science radically
disconfirms the presence of any morally
significant gunas, or shakti, or any other form
of consciousness in nature, as taught by the
Vedic cosmology which treats nature as a
manifestation of divine consciousness. Far from
there being "no conflict" between science and
Hinduism, a scientific understanding of nature
completely and radically negates the "eternal
laws" of Hindu dharma which teach an identity
between spirit and matter. That is precisely why
the Hindutva apologists are so keen to tame
modern science by reducing it to "simply another
name for the One Truth" - the "one truth" of
Absolute Consciousness contained in Hinduism's
own classical texts.
If Hindu propagandists can go this far in U.K.,
imagine their power in India, where they control
the Central government and its agencies for
media, education and research. This obsession for
finding all kinds of science in all kinds of
obscure Hindu doctrines has been dictating the
official educational policy of the Bharatiya
Janata Party ever since it came to power nearly
half a decade ago.
Indeed the BJP government can teach a thing or
two to the creation scientists in the U.S.
Creationists, old and new, are trying to smuggle
in Christian dogma into secular schools in the
U.S. by redefining science in a way that allows
God to be brought in as a cause of natural
phenomena. This "theistic science" is meant to
serve as the thin-edge of the wedge that will pry
open the secular establishment. Unlike the
creationists who have to contend with the courts
and the legislatures in the U.S., the Indian
government itself wields the wedge of Vedic
science intended to dismantle the (admittedly
half-hearted) secularist education policies. By
teaching Vedic Hinduism as "science", the Indian
state and elites can portray India as "secular"
and "modern", a model of sobriety and
responsibility in contrast with those
obscurantist Islamic fundamentalists across the
border who insist on keeping science out of their
madrassas. How useful is this appellation of
"science", for it dresses up so much religious
indoctrination as "secular education".
Under the kindly patronage of the state,
Hindutva's wedge strategy is working wonders.
Astrology is flourishing as an academic subject
in public and private colleges and universities,
and is being put to use in predicting future
earthquakes and other natural disasters. Such
"sciences" as Vastu Shastra and Vedic mathematics
are attracting governmental grants for research
and education. While the Ministry of Defence is
sponsoring research and development of weapons
and devices with magical powers mentioned in the
ancient epics, the Health Ministry is investing
in research, development and sale of cow urine,
sold as a cure for all ailments from the Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) to tuberculosis
(TB). Faith-healing and priest-craft are other
"sciences" receiving public and private funding.
In the rest of the culture, miracles and
superstitions of all kinds have the blessings of
influential public figures, including elected
Members of Parliament.
THERE are two kinds of claims that feed the
notion that the "Vedas are books of science". The
first kind declared the entire Vedic corpus as
converging with modern science, while the second
concentrates on defending such esoteric practices
as astrology, vastu, Ayurveda, transcendental
meditation and so on as scientific within the
Vedic paradigm. The first stream seeks to
establish likeness, connections and convergences
between radically opposed ideas (guna theory and
atomic particles, for example). This stream does
not relativise science: it simply grabs whatever
theory of physics or biology may be popular with
Western scientists at any given time, and claims
that Hindu ideas are "like that", or "mean the
same" and "therefore" are perfectly modern and
rational. The second stream is far more radical,
as it defends this "method" of drawing likenesses
and correspondences between unlike entities as
perfectly rational and "scientific" within the
non-dualistic Vedic worldview. The second stream,
in other words, relativises scientific method to
dominant religious worldviews: it holds that the
Hindu style of thinking by analogies and
correspondences "directly revealed to the mind's
eye" is as scientific within the "holistic"
worldview of Vedic Hinduism, as the analytical
and experimental methodology of modern science is
to the "reductionist" worldview of Semitic
religions. The relativist defence of eclecticism
as a legitimate scientific method not only
provides a cover for the first stream, it also
provides a generic defence of such emerging
"alternative sciences" as "Vedic physics" and
"Vedic creationism", as well as defending such
pseudo-sciences as Vedic astrology, palmistry, TM
(transcendental meditation) and new-age Ayurveda
(Deepak Chopra style).
In what follows, I will examine how postmodernist
and social constructivist critiques of science
have lent support to both streams of
Vedas-as-science literature.
But first, I must clarify what I mean by postmodernism.
Postmodernism is a mood, a disposition. The chief
characteristic of the postmodernist disposition
is that it is opposed to the Enlightenment, which
is taken to be the core of modernism. Of course,
there is no simple characterisation of the
Enlightenment any more than there is of
postmodernism. A rough and ready portrayal might
go like this: Enlightenment is a general attitude
fostered in the 17th and 18th centuries on the
heels of the Scientific Revolution; it aims to
replace superstition and authority of traditions
and established religions with critical reason
represented, above all, by the growth of modern
science. The Enlightenment project was based upon
a hope that improvement in secular scientific
knowledge will lead to an improvement of the
human condition, not just materially but also
ethically and culturally. While the Enlightenment
spirit flourished primarily in Europe and North
America, intellectual movements in India, China,
Japan, Latin America, Egypt and other parts of
West Asia were also influenced by it. However,
the combined weight of colonialism and cultural
nationalism thwarted the Enlightenment spirit in
non-Western societies.
Postmodernists are disillusioned with this
triumphalist view of science dispelling ignorance
and making the world a better place. Their
despair leads them to question the possibility of
progress toward some universal truth that
everyone, everywhere must accept. Against the
Enlightenment's faith in such universal
"meta-narratives" advancing to truth,
postmodernists prefer local traditions which are
not entirely led by rational and instrumental
criteria but make room for the sacred, the
non-instrumental and even the irrational. Social
constructivist theories of science nicely
complement postmodernists' angst against science.
There are many schools of social constructivism,
including the "strong programme" of the Edinburgh
(Scotland) school, and the "actor network"
programme associated with a school in Paris,
France. The many convoluted and abstruse
arguments of these programmes do not concern us
here. Basically, these programmes assert that
modern science, which we take to be moving closer
to objective truth about nature, is actually just
one culture-bound way to look at nature: no
better or worse than all other sciences of other
cultures. Not just the agenda, but the content of
all knowledge is socially constructed: the
supposed "facts" of modern science are "Western"
constructions, reflecting dominant interests and
cultural biases of Western societies.
Following this logic, Indian critics of science,
especially those led by the neo-Gandhians such as
Ashis Nandy and Vandana Shiva, have argued for
developing local science which is grounded in the
civilisational ethos of India. Other well-known
public intellectuals, including such stalwarts as
Rajni Kothari, Veena Das, Claude Alvares and Shiv
Vishwanathan, have thrown their considerable
weight behind this civilisational view of
knowledge. This perspective also has numerous
sympathisers among "patriotic science" and the
environmentalist and feminist movements. A
defence of local knowledges against
rationalisation and secularisation also underlies
the fashionable theories of post-colonialism and
subaltern studies, which have found a worldwide
following through the writings of Partha
Chatterjee, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Dipesh
Chakrabarty and others. All these intellectuals
and movements mentioned here have their roots in
movements for social justice, environmental
protection and women's rights - all traditional
left-wing causes.
Social constructivist and postmodernist attacks
on science have proven to be a blessing for all
religious zealots, in all major faiths, as they
no longer feel compelled to revise their
metaphysics in the light of progress in our
understanding of nature in relevant fields. But
Hinduism displays a special resonance with the
relativistic and holistic thought that finds
favour among postmodernists. In the rest of this
two-part paper, I will examine the general
overlap between Hindu apologetics and
postmodernist view of hybridity (part I) and
alternative sciences (part II).
Postmodern "hybridity" and Hindu eclecticism
THE contemporary Hindu propagandists are
inheritors of the 19th century neo-Hindu
nationalists who started the tradition of
dressing up the spirit-centered metaphysics of
orthodox Hinduism in modern scientific clothes.
The neo-Hindu intellectuals, in turn, were
(consciously or unconsciously) displaying the
well-known penchant of generations of Sanskrit
pundits for drawing resemblances and
correspondences between religious rituals, forces
of nature and human destiny.
Postmodernist theories of knowledge have
rehabilitated this "method" of drawing
equivalences between different and contradictory
worldviews and allowing them to "hybridise"
across traditions. The postmodernist consensus is
that since truth about the real world as-it-is
cannot be known, all knowledge systems are
equivalent to each other in being social
constructions. Because they are all equally
arbitrary, and none any more objective than
other, they can be mixed and matched in order to
serve the needs of human beings to live well in
their own cultural universes. From the postmodern
perspective, the VHP justification of the guna
theory in terms of atomic physics is not anything
to worry about: it is merely an example of
"hybridity" between two different culturally
constructed ways of seeing, a fusion between East
and West, tradition and modernity. Indeed, by
postmodernist standards, it is not this hybridity
that we should worry about, but rather we should
oppose the "positivist" and "modernist" hubris
that demands that non-Western cultures should
give up, or alter, elements of their inherited
cosmologies in the light of the growth of
knowledge in natural sciences. Let us see how
this view of hybridity meshes in with the
Hindutva construction of Vedic science.
It is a well-known fact that Hinduism uses its
eclectic mantra - "Truth is one, the wise call it
by different names" - as an instrument for
self-aggrandisement. Abrahamic religions go about
converting the Other through persuasion and
through the use of physical force. Hinduism, in
contrast, absorbs the alien Other by proclaiming
its doctrines to be only "different names for the
One Truth" contained in Hinduism's own Perennial
Wisdom. The teachings of the outsider, the
dissenter or the innovator are simply declared to
be merely nominally different, a minor and
inferior variation of the Absolute and Universal
Truth known to Vedic Hindus from time immemorial.
Christianity and Islam at least acknowledge the
radical otherness and difference of other faiths,
even as they attempt to convert them, even at the
cost of great violence and mayhem. Hinduism
refuses to grant other faiths their
distinctiveness and difference, even as it
proclaims its great "tolerance". Hinduism's
"tolerance" is a mere disguise for its
narcissistic obsession with its own greatness.
Whereas classical Hinduism limited this
passive-aggressive form of conquest to matters of
religious doctrine, neo-Hindu intellectuals have
extended this mode of conquest to secular
knowledge of modern science as well. The
tradition of claiming modern science as "just
another name" for the spiritual truths of the
Vedas started with the Bengal Renaissance. The
contemporary Hindutva follows in the footsteps of
this tradition.
The Vedic science movement began in 1893 when
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) addressed the World
Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In that
famous address, he sought to present Hinduism not
just as a fulfilment of all other religions, but
also as a fulfilment of all of science.
Vivekananda claimed that only the spiritual
monism of Advaita Vedanta could fulfil the
ultimate goal of natural science, which he saw as
the search for the ultimate source of the energy
that creates and sustains the world.
Vivekananda was followed by another Bengali
nationalist-turned-spiritualist, Sri Aurobindo
(1872-1950). Aurobindo proposed a divine theory
of evolution that treats evolution as the
adventures of the World-Spirit finding its own
fulfilment through progressively higher levels of
consciousness, from matter to man to the
yet-to-come harmonious "supermind" of a
socialistic collective. Newer theories of Vedic
creationism, which propose to replace Darwinian
evolution with "devolution" from the original
one-ness with Brahman, are now being proposed
with utmost seriousness by the Hare Krishnas who,
for all their scandals and idiosyncrasies, remain
faithful to the spirit of Vaishnava Hinduism.
Vivekananda and Aurobindo lit the spark that has
continued to fire the nationalist imagination,
right to the present time. The Neo-Hindu
literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries,
especially the writings of Dayanand Saraswati, S.
Radhakrishnan and the many followers of
Vivekananda, is replete with celebration of
Hinduism as a "scientific" religion. Even
secularists like Jawaharlal Nehru remained
captive of this idea that the original teachings
of Vedic Hinduism were consonant with modern
science, but only corrupted later by the gradual
deposits of superstition. Countless gurus and
swamis began to teach that the Vedas are simply
"another name for science" and that all of
science only affirms what the Vedas have taught.
This scientistic version of Hinduism has found
its way to the West through the numerous ashrams
and yoga retreats set up, most prominently, by
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his many clones.
ALL these numerous celebrations of "Vedas as
science" follow a similar intellectual strategy
of finding analogies and equivalences. All invoke
extremely speculative theories from modern
cosmology, quantum mechanics, vitalistic theories
of biology and parapsychology, and other fringe
sciences. They read back these sciences into
Sanskrit texts chosen at will, and their meaning
decided by the whim of the interpreter, and claim
that the entities and processes mentioned in
Sanskrit texts are "like", "the same thing as",
or "another word for" the ideas expressed in
modern cosmology, quantum physics or biology.
Thus there is a bit of a Brahman here and a bit
of quantum mechanics there, the two treated as
interchangeable; there are references to
"energy", a scientific term with a definite
mathematical formulation in physics, which gets
to mean "consciousness"; references to Newton's
laws of action and reaction are made to stand for
the laws of karma and reincarnation; completely
discredited "evidence" from parapsychology and
"secret life of plants" are upheld as proofs of
the presence of different degrees of soul in all
matter; "evolution" is taught as the
self-manifestation of Brahman and so on. The
terms are scientific, but the content is
religious. There is no regard for consistency
either of scientific concepts, or of religious
ideas. Both wholes are broken apart, random
connections and correspondences are established
and with great smugness, the two modes of knowing
are declared to be equivalent, and even
inter-changeable. The only driving force, the
only idea that gives this whole mish-mash any
coherence, is the great anxiety to preserve and
protect Hinduism from a rational critique and
demystification. Vedic science is motivated by
cultural chauvinism, pure and simple.
What does all this have to do with postmodernism,
one may legitimately ask. Neo-Hinduism, after
all, has a history dating back at least two
centuries, and the analogical logic on which
claims of Vedic science are based goes back to
times immemorial.
Neo-Hinduism did not start with postmodernism,
obviously. And neither does Hindutva share the
postmodernist urgency to "overcome" and "go
beyond" the modernist fascination with progress
and development. Far from it. Neo-Hinduism and
Hindutva are reactionary modernist movements,
intent on harnessing a mindless and even
dangerous technological modernisation for the
advancement of a traditionalist, deeply
anti-secular and illiberal social agenda.
Nevertheless, they share a postmodernist
philosophy of science that celebrates the kind of
contradictory mish-mash of science, spirituality,
mysticism and pure superstition that that passes
as "Vedic science".
For those modernists who share the
Enlightenment's hope for overcoming ignorance and
superstition, the value of modern science lies in
its objectivity and universality. Modernists see
modern science as having developed a critical
tradition that insists upon subjecting our
hypotheses about nature to the strictest, most
demanding empirical tests and rigorously
rejecting those hypotheses whose predictions fail
to be verified. For the modernist, the success of
science in explaining the workings of nature mean
that sciences in other cultures have a rational
obligation to revise their standards of what kind
of evidence is admissible as science, what kind
of logic is reasonable, and how to distinguish
justified knowledge from mere beliefs. For the
modernists, furthermore, modern science has
provided a way to explain the workings of nature
without any need to bring in supernatural and
untestable causes such as a creator God, or an
immanent Spirit.
For a postmodernist, however, this modernist
faith in science is only a sign of Eurocentrism
and cultural imperialism. For a postmodernist,
other cultures are under no rational obligation
to revise their cosmologies, or adopt new
procedures for ascertaining facts to bring them
in accord with modern science. Far from producing
a uniquely objective and universally valid
account of nature, the "facts" of modern science
are only one among many other ways of
constructing other "facts" about nature, which
are equally valid for other cultures.
Nature-in-itself cannot be known without imposing
classifications and meaning on it which are
derived from cultural metaphors and models. All
ways of seeing nature are at par because all are
equally culture-bound. Modern science has no
special claims to truth and to our convictions,
for it is as much of a cultural construct of the
West as other sciences are of their own cultures.
This view of science is derived from a variety of
American and European philosophies of science,
associated mostly with such well-known
philosophers as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, W.O
Quine, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault.
This view of science has been gaining popularity
among Indian scholars of science since the
infamous "scientific temper" debates in early
1980s when Ashis Nandy, Vandana Shiva and their
sympathisers came out in defence of local
knowledges and traditions, including astrology,
goddess worship as cure for small-pox, taboos
against menstruation and (later on) even sati.
Over the next two decades, it became a general
practice in Indian scholarly writing to treat
modern science as just one way to adjudicate
belief, no different from any other tradition of
sorting out truth from mere group belief.
Rationalism became a dirty word and Enlightenment
became a stand-in for "epistemic violence" of
colonialism.
According to those who subscribe to this
relativist philosophy, the cross-cultural
encounter between modern science and traditional
sciences is not a confrontation between more and
less objective knowledge, respectively. Rather it
is a confrontation between two different cultural
ways of seeing the world, neither of which can
claim to represent reality-in-itself. Indeed,
many radical feminists and post-colonial critics
go even further: they see modern science as
having lost its way and turned into a power of
oppression and exploitation. They want
non-Western people not just to resist science but
to reform it by confronting it with their
holistic traditional sciences.
What happens when traditional cultures do need to
adopt at least some elements of modern knowledge?
In such cases, postmodernists recommend exactly
the kind of "hybridity" as we have seen in the
case of Vedic sciences in which, for example,
sub-atomic particles are interpreted as referring
to gunas, or where quantum energy is interpreted
to be the "same as" shakti, or where karma is
interpreted to be a determinant of biology in a
"similar manner" as the genetic code and so on.
On the postmodern account, there is nothing
irrational or unscientific about this "method" of
drawing equivalences and correspondences between
entirely unlike entities and ideas, even when
there may be serious contradictions between the
two. On this account, all science is based upon
metaphors and analogies that reinforce dominant
cultures and social power, and all "facts" of
nature are really interpretations of nature
through the lens of dominant culture. It is
perfectly rational, on this account, for Hindu
nationalists to want to reinterpret the "facts"
of modern science by drawing analogies with the
dominant cultural models supplied by Hinduism.
Because no system of knowledge can claim to know
reality as it really is, because our best
confirmed science is ultimately a cultural
construct, all cultures are free to pick and
choose and mix various "facts", as long as they
do not disrupt their own time-honoured worldviews.
This view of reinterpretation of "Western"
science to fit into the tradition-sanctioned,
local knowledges of "the people" has been
advocated by theories of "critical
traditionalism" propounded by Ashis Nandy and
Bhiku Parekh in India and by the numerous
admirers of Homi Bhabha's obscure writings on
"hybridity" abroad. In the West, this view has
found great favour among feminists, notably
Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway, and among
anthropologists of science including Bruno
Latour, David Hess and their followers.
To conclude, one finds a convergence between the
fashionable left's position with the religious
right's position on the science question. The
extreme scepticism of postmodern intellectuals
toward modern science has landed them in a
position where they cannot, if they are to remain
true to their beliefs, criticise Hindutva's
eclectic take-over of modern science for the
glory of the Vedic tradition.
Meera Nanda is the author of Prophets Facing
Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and
Hindu Nationalism (Rutgers University Press,
2003). An Indian edition of the book will be
published by Permanent Black in early 2004.
____
[5]
> From: "bababudangiri souharda vedike"
> <souhardagiri2002 at rediffmail.com>
> Subject: a call from bababudangirir souharda vedike
>
> BABABUDANGIRI SOUHARDA VEDIKE
>
>FORUM OF ANTI-COMMUNAL, SECULAR AND PROGRESSIVE
PEOPLE
>
> A call to People
>
> The hills of Bababudangiri in Chikmagalur District
> stand as a
> time-honoured symbol for communal tolerance and
> syncretic tradition in
> Karnataka. People of different faiths, from
> different parts of India,
> have been worshipping in the caves for centuries
> with mutual respect and
> tolerance. However, for the last few years the
> Sangh Parivar is creating tension in the area by
> threatening to capture the cave shrine from the
> 'clutches' of Muslims and convert it into a full
> fledged Hindu place of worship. This is nothing but
> a well-planned attempt to reject people's secular
> practices and impose in its place, its own Hindutva
> (read,Brahmanical) brand of hegemony. Their
> leaders like Togadia and Ananth Kumar have openly
> declared that they would convert Bababudangiri into
> another Ayodhya and Karnataka into another Gujarat.
> It is evident that the Sangh Parivar wants to use
> Bababudangiri as a platform to create communal
> divide.
>
> The progressive and secular forces have been
> resisting this blatant
> usurpation of a people's culture and religious
> practice by the Sangh
> Parivar for its political agenda. Our demand to ban
> their activities stems from the following key
> points:
>
> (*) The traditional practice of worshipping Baba or
> Datta is done by the
> Mujavar, appointed by the Shaw Quadri and whatever
> practices that existed prior to 1975 should
> continue. This has been clearly specified in the
> Court orders issued so far. Even the Parliamentary
> Act of 1991 clearly states that the rituals in
> religious places as practised before 1947 should be
> maintained.
>
> (*) The devotees of Baba-Datta are all low
> caste/class Hindus and Muslims. The nature of
> religious faith that is practised there is neither
> strictly Hindu or Islamic, but something that is
> above and beyond both and any narrow religious
> sectarianism. This "third tradition" is a living
> example of secularism in actual practice. Thus they
> are always, already liberated from being easily
> compartmentalised. And the Sangh Parivar's idea of
> 'liberating' the cave shrine is absurd, gravely
> mischievous and fraught with dangerous political
> consequences. Bababudangiri is only a tiny segment
> in their onward march for many more such
> 'liberations'.
>
> (*) Hence our demand to ban these newly invented
> religious practices and
> oppose the communal agenda of the Sangh parivar. We
> are not against Datta Jayanti per se, but against
> practicing this on bababudandiri hills. It should
> also be noted that Datta Jayanthi as it is practiced
> by some people everywhere is quite different from
> Datta Pooja as it is practiced on the hills. The
> two Dattas are poles apart: one is the puranical and
> Brahmincal Dattatreya; the other belongs to the
> Natha and Avadhutha tradition of 'Dattha Pantha'
> which is basically a low caste/class Hindu religious
> practice. If the datta devotees want to worship as
> per pre-1975 practice, they are always welcome to do
> so.
>
> The Sangh Parivar is trying to 'invent' new
> practices, which are not sanctioned by tradition.
> It wants a Hindu Archak to be appointed, Datta
> idol installed and a Highbrow religious practice
> of performing Homa and Yagna to be practiced.
> This is against tradition, against people's belief
> system, against all Court Judgements and above all
> against the principles of democracy and
> fundamental tenets of the Constitution of India.
>
> We expected the State to honour Court Judgements
> and its own Cabinet decision and put an end to
> this communal canard. We expected that at least
> the Shobha Yatra and the fiery speeches in
> Chikmagalur, which has nothing to do with the
> Shrine on the hills would be banned this time.
> Instead, not only did the state directly
> participate in the illegal rituals, it also
> connived with Sangh parivar and took those who
> were demanding communal peace and rule of law into
> custody. The activists of the Vedike and other
> progressive people were jailed for two days in
> Chikmagalur on 7 and 8 December.
>
> In order to protest this soft communalism of the
> ruling Congress Government and the highly venomous
> communal campaign of the Sangh Parivar, and in
> order to spread the message of peace and harmony,
> we are holding a huge public rally and
> convention at Chikkamagaluru on December 28.
> This also happens to be the birth centenary of
> KUVEMPU, one of our greatest writers. We want to
> appeal to the people to shun communalism and carry
> forward the message of universal brother hood that
> was so dear to KUVEMPU. It will also be a cultural
> event that pledges to build "Karnataka for Communal
> Harmony".
>
> We appeal to all those who believe in communal
> harmony, peace and tolerance to join us in
> spreading the message of amity and oppose the Sangh
> Parivar's move to communalise Karnataka. As you are
> aware, this is an event that has very little
> sponsors. We need to raise money for everything from
> people. So do contribute liberally to the cause.
>
> Please send your to contribution to Mr. Sarja
> Shankar Haralimath,
> C/o K.L. Ashok, Dharani Shiva Nilaya, II Cross,
> Bapuji Nagar, Sshimoga. (Payable at Shimoga)
>
> For further details, please contact:
> K.L. Ashok: 94482-56216.
> Dr Vasu: 94481-55604.
> Dr Rajendra Chenni: 94481-48958.
>
> For and on behalf of Bababudangiri Communal Amity
> Forum
Bangalore Unit
____
[6]
Frontline
Volume 20 - Issue 26, December 20, 2003 - January 02, 2004
THE STATES
Exuding hatred
PARVATHI MENON
HATE speech that targets minority groups and
individuals who associate themselves with secular
movements dominates public addresses by leaders
of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP). Incitement to acts of violence, character
assassination, abuse, threats, filthy humour, and
the twisting of facts are par for the course. At
the public meeting that followed the Shobha Yatra
in Chikmagalur, vitriolic attacks against leaders
of the Souharda Vedike were made by all speakers.
VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders at a public meeting
during the Datta Jayanthi celebrations in
Chikmagalur.
"The so-called intellectuals have opposed the
Ayodhya movement, opposed our Kashmir policy, and
they do not have any nationalist sentiments,"
said K. Sunil Kumar, State convener of the
Bajrang Dal. "We do not say that Muslims should
not worship at the shrine. We do not wear caps
and ask to pray in their places of worship. Our
struggle is to allow Hindus to do puja in the
shrine."
C.T. Ravi, general secretary of the State unit of
the Yuva Morcha, said that the forbears of the
"intellectuals" who are opposing the Datta
Jayanthi were also opposed to the freedom
movement, and quoted Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash
Chandra Bose who reportedly said the same thing.
He expressed his sorrow that the Jnanpith Award
was given to an "a-Jnani" (the reference being to
Girish Karnad, the recipient of the Bharatiya
Jnanpith Award in 1999). "If they don't see sense
they should be sent to the mental asylum," he
said. He threatened the government and the
secular forces that they would have only
themselves to blame if they are worsted in a
`Kurukshetra'. "We will not be held responsible
for the consequences," he warned.
The ire of Pramod Mutalik, South India convener
for the Bajrang Dal, was directed against Girish
Karnad and Gowri Lankesh. " `Sharief' Karnad and
`Gori' Lankesh," he thundered, as he wagged a
finger at his supposed enemies, "go back to
Pakistan. No, but since Pakistan belongs to us,
you can go to Iran or Iraq" (`Gori' means a
Muslim tomb in Kannada). Calling Karnad and other
secularists "ardha-mardha (cross-breed) Muslims",
he threw several challenges at them. "Come and
face me if you can! Beware this won't work!" The
police should not have stopped Karnad from
protesting in Chikmagalur, he said. "People will
throw chappals at you (Karnad). They would have
stripped you and sent you back in the form of
Gomateshwara" (referring to the famous naked
statue of Gomateshwara near Halebid). He said
that the secularists were always telling Hindus
to have vasectomy operations to stop having
children while Muslims were allowed to breed
freely ("I am of course a bachelor," he added
piously.) "Progeny of Babar, don't try to raise
your heads. We will deal with whoever opposes
us," he warned. Finally Mutalik called for an
economic boycott of Muslims until the Ram temple
was constructed in Ayodhya, and their demands on
the Bababudangiri shrine were conceded. At a
press conference in Bangalore, D.H.
Shankaramurthy (BJP), Leader of the Opposition in
the Legislative Council, called for the
withdrawal of the Jnanpith Award conferred on
Girish Karnad, as "anti-nationalists" did not
deserve it. The Souharda Vedike, of which Karnad
is an active member, is supported by the Peoples
War, he alleged, which makes Karnad an
anti-nationalist and undeserving of the award.
"It is a free country and they are perfectly
entitled to say what they want," Karnad told
Frontline. "For my part, I would only say that we
must keep the pressure up. What is extraordinary
is the partisanship of the authorities as all
this has been done under the aegis of various
district administrations. This is exactly like
what happened in Ayodhya. All we are saying is
that the Supreme Court decisions must be applied.
This is still the crux of our position."
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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