Major tech issue on main blog…

While doing some house-keeping this afternoon, I have managed to delete some key settings over at the main blog site http://satyameva-jayate.org/

Pl. expect some downtime…and delay in resolving the situation.

Will be posting updates here. Thanks for your support and patience.

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

Shantanu

Blog moved permanently

This blog has moved permanently to http://satyameva-jayate.org/ 

Please update your bookmarks and links.

Thank you for visiting.

Shantanu @  http://satyameva-jayate.org/

Major changes in the offing…

Dear Friends,

Over the next 4 days (right through the weekend), I will be moving my blog and contents to a hosted-server. What this means is I will have more control over the appearance and features on my blog.  I am doing this for a number of reasons – some minor and some more important. I will be sharing all this information with you over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, expect some glitches in service (and possibly broken links) over the next 2-3 days (I am hoping to keep disruption to a minimum).

If this site is not redirecting properly, you can always visit http://hindudharma.wordpress.com/ which should keep working.

For broken links, such as this: http://satyameva-jayate.org/2005/11/25/caste-varna-and-jatis/

pl. replace satyameva-jayate.org with hindudharma.wordpress.com  (like below)

http://hindudharma.wordpress.com/2005/11/25/caste-varna-and-jatis/

All these are temporary issues. I hope to get them resolved by the weekend.

Please do email me any strange things that you notice or any other problems with the site. Alternatively, please leave a comment.

Thank you for your patience during this period.

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.

Shantanu

“Does Europe have a Civilising mission in India?” – excerpts

Some thought-provoking excerpts from: Does Europe have a Civilising mission in India? by Jakob De Roover*, published on 16 June 2008 – Issue : 786.

*** Excerpts Begin *** 

Recently, the European Parliament hosted a meeting on “caste discrimination in South Asia”. At the meeting, participants stated that “India is being ruled by castes not by laws” and that they demanded justice, because there “is one incredible India and one untouchable India.” The EU was urged to come out with a policy statement on the subject. One MEP, referring to the caste system, said that “this barbarism has to end.” This is not the first time. However, before the EU decides to publish policy statements on caste discrimination in India, we would do well to reflect on some simple facts.

First, the dominant conception of the caste system has emerged from the accounts by Christian missionaries, travelers and colonial administrators. Rather than being neutral, these accounts were shaped by a Christian framework. …Especially the Protestants rebuked the “evil priests” of Hinduism for imposing the laws of caste in the name of religion. They told the Indians that conversion to Protestantism was a conversion to equality. Thus, Indian souls were to be saved from damnation and caste discrimination.

Second, this Christian account of “the Hindu religion” and its “caste system” informed colonial policies in British India…

Building on the theological framework, scholars now wrote “scientific” treatises on Hindu superstition and caste discrimination.

The Christian mission found its secular counterpart in the idea of the civilising mission, which told the West that it had to rescue the natives from the clutches of superstition and caste.

Third, the colonial educational project had a deep impact on the Indian intelligentsia. Hindu reform and anti-caste movements came into being, which reproduced the Protestant accounts of Hinduism and caste as true descriptions of India.

…Political parties and caste associations were created to safeguard the interests of the “lower castes.” The elites of these groups united in associations and received financial and moral support from the missionaries and other progressive colonials.

Fourth, the “Dalit” movement of today is the product of these colonial movements. The notion of “Dalits” makes sense only within the colonial account of India, which had postulated the existence of one single group of “outcastes” or “untouchables” that was supposedly exploited by the upper castes. In reality, it concerns a variety of caste groups, with no criteria to unite them besides the claim that they are all “downtrodden.” Indeed, many of these groups are poor and discriminated against by other caste groups.

…In the name of the downtrodden, these elites establish NGOs and then travel from conference to conference and country to country in order to reveal the plight of the “Dalits” to eager western audiences and secure funding from donor agencies.

Fifth, when present-day Europeans rebuke Indian society for the “barbarism” of caste discrimination, they are reproducing the old stanzas of the civilising mission. Such a stance of superiority perhaps worked in the context of colonialism. But today, at a time when Indians buy some of the European industrial giants and Europe is in need of more collaboration with India, it is ill-advised to continue this type of civilisational propaganda.

In fact, such propaganda derives its plausibility from a series of assumptions that no one would be willing to defend explicitly. It attributes all socioeconomic wrongs of the Indian society to its structure and civilisation. The implication is that there is only one way to get rid of socio-economic wrongs here: one has to eradicate both the social structure and the Hindu civilisation. It is as though one would blame the racism, bingedrinking, pedophilia, poverty, homelessness and domestic violence in the contemporary West on its age-old civilisation.

The times have changed. As Europeans, we need to reflect on our deep-rooted sense of superiority and how this informs our moralising discourse on human rights in other parts of the world. To appreciate the impression we give to Indians with our statements on caste discrimination, just imagine a possible world in which the Indian government regularly castigates the US for its racism against African-Americans and the disproportionate death penalties, and the EU for the treatment of South Asians in England, Turks in Germany, women in Romania, the Basque movement in Spain, gypsies in Italy …

just imagine Indian members of parliament consistently blaming the very structure of western societies as the cause of all these wrongs. Europe needs to wake up fast. The time of colonialism is over. If we do not change our attitudes, the irritation towards the EU will grow in countries like India and China. So will the unwillingness to collaborate. In the fast-changing world of the early 21st Century, Europe cannot afford this.

*** End of Excerpts ***

Related Posts:

The British ‘Caste System’ - excerpts 

Hinduism, “Caste System” and discrimination – Join the debate 

Caste, Varna and Jatis: The need for clarity in intellectual debate 

* Jakob De Roover is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation (FWO) at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium.

Call Centre Romeos and Hindu Fundamentalists

If you are wondering about the link between the two, it is AIDS !

Apparently, Call Centre “Romeos” are one of the leading reasons for increasing AIDS in India.

And Hindu fundamentalists are indirectly helping this by opposing circumcision…which supposedly helps fight AIDS.

Please read on*…

A new AIDS threat is rising in India’s numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts, a top AIDS expert has warned. [ link ]

…”You will see call center Romeos are a major high risk for HIV,” Solomon said.

However the AIDS expert, Dr Solomon did not present any figures and there is no data on how many call center employees are actually infected with HIV.

Dr Solomon then did a curious “detour” - and blamed “Hindu activists” for hampering India’s anti-AIDS fight.  She mentioned a ”recent government study to gauge the acceptance for circumcision…triggered a massive backlash by Hindu fundamentalists“

…and went on to say:

If you go out into the streets and say I will do this (circumcision) to reduce HIV, there will be a chaos…

Vaccines have failed. Microbicides have failed. This is one tool we have in hand but we can’t use it…

All this would have been fine except that Dr Solomon’s case rests on a shaky foundation.

For one, the effectivenss of male circumcision as an anti-AIDS measure is still very controversial…

and although Dr Solomon boldly proclaims ”Vaccines have failed. Microbicides have failed”, her profile suggests that she herself has not given up on vaccines and microbicides…

Might it have something to do with her various roles and assignments, I wonder?

Dr. Solomon is a member of the advisory board of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative-India…a permanent member on the Microbicides Committee of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)…

Dr. Solomon is the Indian Principal Investigator of several pioneering HIV research studies (including)…a Phase III study of 6% CS GEL, a candidate microbicide of CONRAD. 

.

To top off (no pun intended), here is an extract from a study that questions whether circumcision is an effective anti-AIDS measure:

From http://www.mgmbill.org/aids.htm:

The multi-country Mishra study concluded that circumcision may actually increase transmission of the AIDS virus,  however, which is what many earlier studies found. The Brewer Study published in March, 2007, also concluded that circumcision in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania increases the transmission of AIDS.

The United States has one of the highest rates of male circumcision and also one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the developed world, suggesting that circumcision is not helping. Conversely, Finland and Japan have some of the lowest rates of circumcision and also some of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS. In Australia, the AFAO has now concluded that male circumcision has no role in the Australian HIV epidemic.

As you can see, the jury is still out on circumcision and AIDS…In the meanwhile of course, you have another stick to beat the Hindutva-wadis with!

Curiously no mention of the Vatican’s stance on condoms in the article:

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass – potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.

…The WHO has condemned the Vatican’s views, saying: “These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million.”

or of how a traditional Islamic theological response may hinder control of AIDS

“Islam and Muslims exacerbate the spread of AIDS,” said Professor Amina Wadud of Virginia Commonwealth University, taking to task the behavior of Muslim men who misuse Islam.

“A traditional Islamic theological response can never cure AIDS.” She cited Muslim men who compelled sex upon their wives even though the men were HIV-positive as a result of extramarital affairs.

but I forgot, the focus is on Hindu fundamentalists!

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Related Posts:

 HIV-positive patients *real* number may be 1/3rd of estimate… 

AIDS’ first casualty in India: Truth 

AIDS’ first casualty in India: Part 2 

* P.S. Special thanks to Sh Krishen Kak for alerting me to this and for his links on the efficacy – or not – of circumcision as a method of controlling AIDS .

Bend over backwards…

in other words… “try very hard to please someone“. 

New Delhi, Jun 22 (PTI) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today instructed authorities to install signboards in Urdu at the Old Delhi railway station so that passengers from Pakistan can get the information in their own language.

Lalu, who visited Old Delhi Railway station late this evening, met passengers from trans-border Samjhauta Express…

The passengers…made use of the opportunity (and)…complained about their problems in reading signboards, which are in Hindi and English languages. [ link ] 

I wonder if there are any signs in Hindi in Lahore? or in Gurumukhi?

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P.S. I guess I should not really be surprised – this is the same government which last year had announced a “unilateral liberalisation” of visa policy to “our South Asian neighbours…without insisting on reciprocity.”