Does Mythology reinforce Caste Prejudices?

Recently in Tamil Nadu a caste leader made a hate-speech triggering violence and inter-caste hatred. In the speech he made a reference to the mythological origins of his community and claimed that they were born of sacrificial fire and that they were the children of Shiva and Parvathi. That was an interesting claim and the demagogic orator supplied the Puranic evidence for his claim. The Purana does exist – a latter Purana belonging to the medieval times and it has origins in the southern city of Madurai. The Hindu hating pseudo-progressives at once went for the jugular. They started claiming and criticizing Hinduism as reinforcing caste pride and prejudice and caste hatred through its mythologies.

However what the rabble-rouser as well as the pseudo-progressive Hindu bashers missed was that every community in India has such a mythological account enshrined either in a mythology or folk memory which forges a special relation with the Divinities. 

The 'Valangai Malai' – a very famous and popular ritual folk song among an important community in Tamil Nadu claim them to be the children of Goddess Kali. Joe de Cruz the eminent Tamil writer points out to the abiding belief in his community that Deivayanai the celestial consort of Muruga belongs to their community. Chenchu tribes of the Andhra Pradesh claim that Narasimha was their son-in-law.  The 122nd name of the Goddess in Sri Lalitha Sahasranama is Shambhavi. This name also means She is the Mother of Sambhavas – those dear to Shiva. Shambhavaas also is the name of a Dalit community in South India. Similarly many Dalit communities see Shiva as belonging to them. The famous Dalit thinker and leader M.C.Rajah, (who was a close friend and associate of Lala Lajpat Rai, Dr.Ambedkar and Veer Savarkar) had pointed out there is a tradition among the Dalits that Adi Sankara learnt his final Advaitic lesson from the Divine who came as a Dalit in Kasi and He was their community forefather. Saiva Siddhanta considers Siva as the ultimate cleaner of the worst impurities – the inner one and thus forging an identity with the occupation of cleaning the impurities – which was considered then in many societies as defiled. 

All these mythological origins, relations and status attributed to different communities are not idle stories of community pride. Far from that they served a purpose. The different occupational, social and regional communities used these mythologies to form organic relations within themselves, with other communities and also with the natural resources. For example many tribal communities have a special relation to the Vishnu at Sri Rangam. In a 16th century classic famous Vaishnavite Tamil poet Pillai Perumal Iyyengar celebrates the fierce independence of the tribal community by organically foisting it with the special relation they have with Vishnu. Many medicinal plant species are preserved by specific communities because of their centrality in the mythologies of that community. During the 20th century these community centric-mythologies have been used by social reformers and revolutionaries to promote social emancipation. For example, the dramatization of Siva coming as a tribal to bless Arjuna with the knowledge of divine weapons and the romantic marriage of Valli the tribal girl by Skanda have been popular weapons in the hands of social emancipators like Ayyan Kali in Kerala and SanKaradhas Swamigal in Tamil Nadu to promote social harmony and fight against the evils of untouchability and caste discrimination. For many nomadic communities marginalized in the dominant historical processes because of many factors like alien invasions, migrations, colonial impoverishment etc. these mythologies have provided them with self-respect and have guarded them against exploitation. For example the folk tradition of Guru Ravidas being the spiritual mentor of Rajput queen Mirabhai has been central to the social harmony and Dalit liberation narratives in North India. What is true of social communities is also true of gender minorities. Transgender in India identify themselves with both Arjuna as well as Sri Krishna – based on folk versions of Mahabharatha.  

The recent isolated incident of a casteist rabble-rouser using a mythological version to boost the caste ego is definitely condemnable. However it would be foolish on our part to jettison this rich socio-spiritual literary resource our civilization has evolved because of the flaw of a single person. On the other hand we should remember for every one such demagogue there are many social emancipators who have used Indic-mythology in a positive way to enthuse confidence in the minds of the down-trodden people of India. In fact, the Indic mythology which for an outsider or a western-educated mind looks like an untamed forest is actually a well-developed socio-psychological and spiritual science. To contrast let us see the way the Abrahamic and Indic minds work with their mythologies. The West has churned out race theories by historicizing Biblical mythology which in turn had led to bloodbaths of Nazi holocaust and Rwandan genocide to mention a few. Indic mind on the other hand has been constantly mythologizing the history thus removing all bitterness and forming positive healthy relations with other communities. Now those forces which try to read racial narratives in our epics or caste superiority in our mythologies are simply reversing this age-old process. Ultimate aim of our myth maker-seers and forefathers is of course to transcend all these relative labels using the symbols evolved through these very mythologies and embrace that great identity, which Adi Sankara requests Goddess on behalf of us all to bestow upon, 

Oh! Goddess Parvati, you are my mother and Mahadeva Siva, is my father. All devotees of Siva are my brethren. All Universe is my own country.

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : June 2013

Democracy to Mirror Neurons: Vedantic basis for Social Equality and Universal Ethics

One of the defining characters of the Indologists with western roots is treating Vedic culture as chiefly

ritualistic. They ascribe anything ethical to non-Vedic Indic religions like Buddhism and Jainism. A classical instance of this mindset is manifested in the reasoning that the ethical treatise Thirukural should have Jain origin because it speaks about abstaining from meat, abhors consumption of alcohol and emphasizes in general a moralistic life. Many of the history textbooks also inculcate these prejudices in the minds of the children. For example the sixth standard social science book published by Tamil Nadu textbook society talks about the teachings of Buddha and that of Mahavira. The textbook rightly eulogizes the emphasis these two great Indian religions placed on Ahimsa and ethical living. But they are deafeningly silent about the teachings of Vedas and Upanishads.

In fact Upanishads were the first books in human history to provide a rational and holistic basis for the most important ethical tenet of universal humanism – the so-called golden rule: doing unto others what we want others to do unto us. Instead of simply attributing the reason why you should love your neighbor as yourself to the command of a fictional God, Upanishads provide a clear reason why you should do that. Asking people not to covet because of the commandment of God and fear of punishment in afterlife was easy.  That is what most religious systems do. But instead of the fear of eternal hell and a punishing God, Vedanta of the Upanishads declared that all existence as being permeated by Divinity and hence the individual greed to covet and consume is a meaningless exercise. Upanishads also provide the psycho-spiritual basis for loving all existence. Isavasya Upanishad for instance, speaks of how the wise who experience all beings in the Self and the Self in all beings, can not hate anyone, precisely because of that realization ergo to obtain the realization one should cease hurting others as the others are one's own self.

At his lecture 'The spirit and influence of Vedanta' delivered at the 'Twentieth Century Club' in Boston on March 28, 1896, Swami Vivekananda expalined the ethical implications of the Upanishadic conception of the Self as all:
'Behind everything the same divinity is existing and out of this comes the basis of morality. Do not injure another. Love everyone as your own self, because the whole universe is one. In injuring another, I am injuring myself; in loving another, I am loving myself.'   
 

In the same lecture Swami further elaborated:
There are moments when every man feels that he is one with the universe, and he rushes forth to express it, whether he knows it or not. This expression of oneness is what we call love and sympathy, and it is the basis of all our ethics and morality. This is summed up in the Vedantic philosophy by the celebrated aphorism, Tat Tvam Asi (Thou art That).
 

This ethical and social impact of the Brahman being the essence of every human being and all humanity as part of the same Brahman did not escape the notice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, who found in it the spiritual basis for social democracy.  He calls the concept of Brahman as 'Brahmaism'. (He had borrowed the term from the work 'The Great Epic of India: Character and Origin of the Mahabharata' by Edward Washburn Hopkins.) Rejecting the criticism of Christian theologians that the Mahavakya 'Aham Brahmasmi' being arrogant and impudent, Dr.Ambedkar puts forth a staunch defence of the Mahavakya:
Democracy demands that each individual shall have every opportunity for realizing his/her worth. It also requires that each individual shall know that he is as good as everybody else. Those who sneer at Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahma) as an impudent utterance forget the other part of the Mahavakya namely Tat tvam asi (Thou art also Brahma). If Aham Brahmasmi has stood alone without the conjunct of Tatvamasi it may have been possible to sneer at it. But with the conjunct of Tat tvam asi the charge of selfish arrogance cannot stand against Brahmaism.
 

Baba Saheb Ambedkar also demonstrates how the Advaitic Brahman-based spirituality forms the best basis and bed-rock of a democratic way of life. He contrasts it positivekt against a belief-based Abrahamic concept of religion:
 

To support Democracy because we are all children of God is a very weak foundation for Democracy to rest on. That is why Democracy is so shaky wherever it was made to rest on such a foundation. But to recognize and realize that you and I are parts of the same cosmic principle leaves room for no other theory of associated life except democracy. It does not merely preach Democracy. It makes democracy an obligation of one and all. Western students of Democracy have spread the belief that Democracy has stemmed either from Christianity or from Plato and that there is no other source of inspiration for democracy. If they had known that India too had developed the doctrine of Brahmaism which furnishes a better foundation for Democracy they would not have been so dogmatic. India too must be admitted to have a contribution towards a theoretical foundation for Democracy.
 

If Dr.Ambedkar found in Tat Tvam Asi the spiritual basis for democracy, brain researchers have discovered that there is a neuronal basis to ethics, which again echoes at the neuro-biological level the fundamental oneness of Self and all existence as proclaimed by the Upanishads. In 1995 brain-researcher Iaccomo Rizzolati of the University of Parma discovered what are today popularly known as 'mirror neurons' or 'empathy neurons'. Neuro-biologist Dr.V.S.Ramachandran explains:
 

Researchers at UCLA found that cells in the human anterior cingulate, which normally fire when you poke the patient with a needle ("pain neurons"), will also fire when the patient watches another patient being poked. The mirror neurons, it would seem, dissolve the barrier between self and others. I call them "empathy neurons" or "Dalai Lama neurons". … Dissolving the "self vs. other" barrier is the basis of many ethical systems, especially eastern philosophical and mystical traditions.
 

One of the most eminent brain researchers of the world today, Dr.Ramachandran further explains:
The question of whether "you" would continue in multiple parallel brain vats raises issues that come perilously close to the theological notion of souls, but I see no simple way out of the conundrum. Perhaps we need to remain open to the Upanishadic doctrine that the ordinary rules of numerosity and arithmetic, of  "one vs. many", or indeed of two-valued, binary yes/no logic, simply doesn't apply to minds — the very notion of a separate "you " or "I" is an illusion, like the passage of time itself. We are all merely many reflections in a hall of mirrors of a single cosmic reality (Brahman or "paramatman").
 

In other words, 'Tat Tvam Asi' the formula arrived at by the seers of the Upanishads at least three thousand years ago still continues to inspire social reformers, still gets validated by cutting edge research in science and still gets ignored by those who construct the discourse of history and polity in India. In this 150th year of Swami Vivekananda's birth, it is our duty to make sure that Vedantic basis for universal human values is projected and given the due importance it deserves in every aspect of Indian life– not merely in words but also through our deeds.

Aravindan Neelakandan
YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : May 2013

Strengthen India: Do Not Weaken Her

History is a harsh teacher.  It teaches lessons after it has conducted the tests. And those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat the most tragic lessons they were taught by it. Sri Lanka is an example. Bangladesh is another example.  

In Sri Lanka the colonial racial constructs of Aryan and Dravidian merged with linguistic categories of Sinhalese and Tamil respectively and then Buddhist and Saivaite religiously have led to sustained mutual hatred. Sinhalese Buddhist state has destroyed the Tamil secessionist movement LTTE in a bitter war that climaxed in 2009. Now the western media has started revealing that a lot of gruesome human rights violations have taken place against the Tamils which seem to suggest a cruel genocide or ethnic subjugation.  These sensational media leaks in the West have created political seismic tremors in both Chennai and New Delhi. In the era of digital social networks a student agitation is spreading like a wildfire, three years after the tragic events in Sri Lanka. A noticeable trend in these student agitations is that there is a strong current of anti-Indian sentiment and pro-Tamil separatist voices regularly injected into the movement by forces which are hardcore Marxist and Maoist. 

The divisive brain behind the agitations is visible in some of the demands like asking for a separate external ministry for Tamil Nadu state and the demand that there should be no Asian countries in the International enquiry commission the agitators are demanding.  But these agitators conveniently forget the fact that the Maoist China has been supporting ruthlessly the Sri Lankan regime. China has a geo-strategic political interest in Sri Lanka as a potential military naval base for China in its plan of 'String of Pearls' in Indian Ocean. Pakistan too uses Sri Lanka as an effective base for its Jihad operations in South India. Myopic vision of most of the successive Indian governments and the fascist anti-democratic nature of LTTE which cut it from the changing international reality added to the problem. LTTE also destroyed all the alternative Tamil organizations the result of which was when LTTE was ultimately annihilated there was no effective organization to talk for Tamils in Sri Lanka. The pro-Tamil factions which fan the fires of LTTE support conveniently overlook this fact. Meanwhile even as British media is projecting itself as the media savior of the Tamil rights, British government is selling arms and ammunition to Sri Lankan regime for more than two million British pounds according to the data gleaned from the database of UK Arms Export Licenses. Even as European Union (EU) condemns Sri Lankan regime, it does not stop the following EU nations from arming the Sri Lankan regime: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland. It is in this context we have to view the demand of the agitating students of Loyola College that there should be no Asian countries in the International tribunal to study the war crimes and atrocities committed in Sri Lanka against the Tamils. Clearly the aim is to give a great deal of control of judiciary in the South Asian region to the European states even as the European States are as guilty as Marxist China, Islamic Iran and Ukraine in arming Sri Lanka. 

Even as these dramas with international string pullers unfold in South India, in Bangladesh there has been a sustained campaign against the minority Hindus. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan it witnessed what can be considered the most efficiently executed genocide in the history of South Asia. Hamoodur Rahman Report commissioned by the then president of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, regarding the conduct of Pakistani army in 1971 war, recorded that there was an order in writing to kill Hindus. The report revealed General Niazi asked his subordinates how many Hindus they had killed each day. Bangladesh liberated in 1971 by the blood of Indian Jawans soon descended into a spiral of communalism and Islamic supremacism. There has been a consistent campaign to ethnic cleanse the land of Hindus and Buddhist tribes. In 2001, the Hindu population in Bangladesh was 16.83 million. The natural growth would mean that this population would become 18.2 million in 2011. However the Hindu population in Bangladesh according to the latest statistics is 12.3 million. 5.9 million Hindus have simply disappeared or the Hindu population has simply been selectively restricted – through a combination of livelihood conditions, job opportunities, religious persecution and directed violence.  In Pakistan the ethnic cleansing is even more direct and fast. Soon after partition, Hindus constituted over 15 per cent of Pakistan's population but now make up less than two per cent. The Asian Human Rights Commission reported 20-25 kidnappings and forced conversions of Hindu girls in Sind every month. Still Hindu influx into India from Pakistan is highly restricted by secular Indian government.

While a visibly confused India is today indulging in acts of appeasement to Sri Lanka to ward off the growing Chinese and Pakistani tilting of this strategic island nation, Sri Lankan regime is using this weakness of India to its hilt. Meanwhile Euro-centric forces in India are trying to revive the dead racial theory based division of Indian society – calling for liberation of Tamil Nadu from India. Each time India has displayed weakness and confusion Hindus in every surrounding theocratic nation state in Indian region have suffered.  Each time India has shown strength and decisiveness in its approach as during 1971 or 1998 Hindus in neighboring nation-states have lived in relative peace and also in honor. This is as true in Sri Lanka as it is true in Bangladesh. Those forces which want to weaken India, or question India's nation integrity by using the Tamil Eelam issue have to understand their basic fallacy: A weakened India will land our posterity in damned pitiable conditions which is what the western arms merchants and human rights meddlers seek. 

Yes… those who committed atrocities against Tamil Hindus in Sri Lanka, Bangla Hindus in Bangladesh, Hindus of Sind in Pakistan , they all have to be brought to justice. It is true a weakened, confused polity which does not have the political spine to recognize the organic bonds India has to its cultural and spiritual Diaspora in the South Asian region has been responsible for this mess. The solution is then not to weaken India – the cultural base of all communities –Tamil or Bangla or Tibetian. We have to strengthen the feeling of Indian first and Indian last. The heartbeat of the age old Indian nation has to reverberate in each of us.  Swami Vivekananda diagnosed this long ago when he said, “Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in view, viz how to make us weaker and weaker, till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of everyone who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength.”

Yes… that is what India needs today – a strong India with a strong leadership and a strong vision. That alone can stop human tragedies like 1971 and 2009 happening again in this region.

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : April 2013 

 

To call a Spade...

The recent hanging of a terrorist, involved in the parliament attack case, raised a lot of hue and cry in the “Secular” media. Their contention is that death penalty is a crime by the state, and one crime cannot be a punishment for another crime. There is a big lobby which calls for the abolishment of death penalty. And this sordid episode comes barely a fortnight after the calls for death penalty for the rapists by the very same media. In these secular pundit's dictionary, rape is a more heinous crime than the terrorist acts which claims innocent lives in dozens.  The convoluted logic may tire us if we think that these masqueraders are actually votaries   of truth. But there is more to it than what we get by a mere gloss over the events. These charlatans know that they will be strangled if they raise their voice against the menace called Islamic Fundamentalism. This religious fanaticism which is raising its hood, with a covert ambition of a pan Islamic brotherhood a.k.a nation, has a sly way of feigning innocence when they are less in number and exposing their fangs once they grow in numbers. All these years our media and 'secular 'politicians were tricked by this act of feigning and now when it is showing its true colors they are terrified to call it a spade. We see that people are mobilized on the streets in thousands to protest against corruption. There will be thousands to hold candles for the mirage called “peace” between us and our neighboring country.   But when it comes to terrorism seldom do we see any strong and sane voices being raised against it.  Religious fanaticism which surpasses all other crimes in terms of toll was never given a look into by our media or our activists. This cowardliness or dhimmitude is what the fanatics are striving for. The biggest obstacle to the dream of actualizing universal brotherhood is this cowardliness. The antidote to this malady is manliness which will come by following the grand vision called universal brotherhood, championed by Swami Vivekananda. He elaborates about the mind which is caught by this catch 22 situation thus: 

“……We have all been hearing from childhood of such things as love, peace, charity, equality, and universal brotherhood; but they have become to us mere words without meaning, words which we repeat like parrots, and it has become quite natural for us to do so. We cannot help it. Great souls, who first felt these great ideas in their hearts, manufactured these words ; and at that time many understood their meaning. Later on, ignorant people have taken up those words to play with them and made religion a mere play upon words, and not a thing to be carried into practice. It becomes "my father's religion", "our nation's religion", our country's religion", and so forth…..”

(Complete Works – P.376)

….Each religion brings out its own doctrines and insists upon them as being the only true ones. And not only does it do that, but it thinks that he who does not believe in them must go to some horrible place. Some will even draw the sword to compel others to believe as they do. This is not through wickedness, but through a particular disease of the human brain called fanaticism. They are very sincere, these fanatics, the most sincere of human beings; but they are quite as irresponsible as other lunatics in the world. This disease of fanaticism is one of the most dangerous of all diseases. All the wickedness of human nature is roused by it.  Anger is stirred up, nerves are strung high, and human beings become like tigers….” 

(Complete Works – P.377)

To wriggle  humanity out of this tangle he further says :

“…….We can make it run smoothly, we can lessen the friction, we can grease the wheels, as it were. How? By recognising the natural necessity of variation. Just as we have recognised unity by our very nature, so truth may be expressed in a hundred thousand ways, and that each of these ways is true as far as it goes. We must learn that the same thing can be viewed from a hundred different standpoints, and yet be the same thing Through high philosophy or low, through the most exalted mythology or the grossest, through the most refined ritualism or arrant fetishism, every sect, every soul, every nation, every religion, consciously or unconsciously, is struggling upward, towards God; every vision of truth that man has, is a vision of Him and of none else. This is the only recognition of universality that we can get. …..”

This simple yet grand vision is becoming more and more relevant in our Society where we are sinking to new lows every day.  The  choosy activists and the dormant masses are to be made aware of this humanitarian principle. 

V.V.Balasubramanian

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : March 2013

Swami Vivekananda 150: The caravan moves on

This month marks the dawn of the year long celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the advent of Swami Vivekananda.  Swami Vivekananda represents a new phase in the social history of Hindustan and a new awakening the consciousness of the planet.  As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close Swamiji found him amidst a whirlpool of changes spanning all humanity. While more than half of the human race was subjugated by colonialism and plagued by internal stagnation, a considerable minority of humanity – the West- was progressing fast in science and technology, culture and in building socio-political institutions.  New discoveries in science were shaking the basis of the old religious structures of the West. But the same old structures of the West found new pastures for their predatory pursuits in the subjugated humanities of the colonized worlds. Native spiritual traditions under social stagnation and colonialism became internal tyrannies, mere decadent forms bereft of their soul-strength. It was at this juncture that Swami Vivekananda appeared on the world scene. His message of universal brotherhood based on Vedantic humanism, showing the immense possibilities of synthesis of science and religion, democracy and tradition and different cultures from all the directions of the globe. Even as the leading socio-political philosophers of the West were hotly debating the supremacy of individual or that of the State, Swami Vivekananda harmonized both in a characteristically Vedantic way. In his social vision, the importance of freedom and the need for social equality have to organically moderate each other. He spoke of liberation of the downtrodden through Vedanta. This was a revolutionary way of ushering Vedanta into the socio-political realm.  

The old order panicked. The predatory belief systems marked this penniless youth their prime enemy. And they slandered him. In his authoritative two-volume biography on Swami Vivekananda Prof.K.N.Dhar explains how various factions came together to slander Swamiji:

…at the time when the orthodox agitation against Swami Vivekananda was going on, his old “friends”, the Christian missionaries, perhaps also Pratap Chandra Majumdar, and Dr.Barrows also joined in the fray. They had a common object, viz., to bring down the Swami in public estimation, so as to ruin his work, though their lines of attack differed…. There was something funny in Christian missionaries and Brahmo reformers who did not believe in caste attempting to belittle one for non-orthodoxy… (A Comprehensive Biography, Vol-2, p.940)

 All these happened soon after Swami Vivekananda started his active mission in India after his success in the World Parliament of Religions. More than a century later, today as a nation fondly looks forward to celebrate Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary. 

In a nation today bitterly divided by identity politics and ideological vested interests, the figure of Swami Vivekananda towers above all petty divisions, uniting India emotionally, cerebrally and spiritually for the world mission She has. And the forces of divisiveness panic at the prospect of an India united and strong, progressive and spiritual. So we find another malicious campaign against Swami Vivekananda unleashed by a section of English media. Indo-phobic, anti-Hindu mania of a section of English media, owned by Marxist media barons, penned by limousine liberals and funded mostly by Western academic institutions, have started a scathing attack on Swami Vivekananda, showing how still Swami Vivekananda remains the enemy numero uno of these anti-Indian forces. 

Yet Swami Vivekananda continues to inspire and guide the nation. His grand vision of unity propelled Tesla; fructified in Einstein and proceeds in E.C.George Sudarshan. His idea of Karma Yoga was imbibed by Gandhiji in his interpretation of Gita. His vision of Vedantic human equality and projection of Buddhist compassion manifested itself in the actions of Dr.Ambedkar. His holistic vision of humanity inspired and found fulfillment in the writings of Sri Aurobindo whose evolutionary vision of humanity in transition into Overmind has become a map for the future of humanity. His vision of national uniqueness and fullness of human organism found a comprehensive ideological expression in Deendayal Upadyaya's Integral humanism. And he will continue to inspire many a million to come – each contributing his or her own song to the beauty of human civilization and glory of Mother India. 

Yes. The grand Indic caravan of peace and benediction will move on through the vastness of time and royal routes of history, creating paths where none existed before and unfolding possibilities for the expression of the highest where none dreamt it as plausible, ignoring the howls of the lesser minds with the rich compassion they deserve. 

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : February 2013