Savarkar's and Golwalkar's Descriptions/Views regarding the map-problem. Part-II

In this article I will try to present Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's (VDS for short)  and Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar's (MSG for short) views about the map-problem. Please note that for seculars both VDS and MSG are same. However, more often than not even the non-seculars treat VDS and MSG as same. There are commonalities between them, as  well as differences between them. I will try to present my perspective on them.

Caveat:

I digress a bit here. There are wrirings on the web, for example Ajit Vadakayil etc., who allege that VDS was Chitapavan jew who strived to sabotage India's freedom struggle. Similar allegations are made by others about MSG and his relation to Nazism etc.

1. Often even those who criticize VDS, hold GDS (Ganesh, elder brother of VDS) in high esteem, as a true patriot (which he was). Now if VDS was a Chitpawan, GDS too was. Thus being Chitpawan (whatever that means) can not be the issue. We must go by what one/they did.

2. There is a lot of hullabaloo about VDS apologizing to the British crown. Presently, I entertain the following. We must recall that most wars (especially by Abrahamics) usually end up as victory of deception (by Abrahamics) over honor (of non-Abrahamics). So it is important not to fall into the "honor trap".  May be as Chitpawan Jew VDS knew how Abrahamics subverted Hindus by making use of such "high morals" of Hindus. And he didn't want to fall into that trap. Why be honest with someone who is dishonest and out to deceive you? I think VDS followed this principle. Elder brother Ganesh never apologized, and he bravely suffered many inhuman tortures. However, that need not make us look at VDS as "inferior". May be the two brothers held different views on how to fight.

3. The most serious allegation is that VDS gave away secrets of "freedom fighters" to the British. While this is damn serious, I am not aware of any concrete evidence which establishes this. I am open to correction.

So I would say that we can suspend making judgement about the persona of VDS till further evidence, however his theories and propositions are for us to see and evaluate independent of what he was.

4. There may be, and are, many valid arguments against MSG (likewise Subhas Bose etc too), but not having non-laudatory views about Nazism is not one of them. It is like, there are many valid arguments against BRAmbedkar, but his being against Islam is not one of them. Coming back, British were much more evil. They used brave Indian soldiers as cannon fodder and yet paid no homage to them. Hindus must realize that both the world wars were significantly won by their soldiers.

5. MSG was supposedly soft regarding Mahomet and Islam. That, for me, is a more valid point against him. I write about this issue later in this article, when I mention racial aspects.

With this caveat, let me begin,

In the first half of the twentieth century, (especially during first world war) monarchies and kingdoms fell apart and in their place there was rise of nation-states. And the question of what constitutes a nation in the nation-state became important. That the state must provide security, criminal justice, etc were a given, but what more, or what less should the state provide also entered the discourse.

Two sets of answers emerged. For nation, ideas of Racial nation and Propositional nation were presented; while for State ideas of Dictatorial and Democratic states came about. 

Notice that we are ignoring the economic aspect here. Except that we wish to emphasize that democracies are inherently socialistic in their economic models. It less often leads to welfare, rather it more often leads to cronyism.

Racial nation model is that a nation is a group of closely related people by blood (therefore language, culture etc). Propositional nation model proposes some ideas of justice and then how to go about ensuring justice. The Marxist model presented a call for International unity against injustice. Injustice was defined to be class-exploitation by haves of have-nots.

This too is a long story and well beyond the scope of this article. For us, it suffices to say that, India did not fit in into any of these categories. It was not a monolithic race (I do not know what modern genetic studies say, I am not an expert), nor had people formulated any single proposition that could be used as unifying theme. At the same time, deep down all Indians (read Hindus) felt that they were one, and they were inspired by Vivekananda's speeches which forcefully brought out aspects which provided at least some glimpses of the timeless unity that we have had.

In this backdrop, VDS attempted his formulation for India. I think that VDS was not only quite intelligent, he also had (to begin with) a lot of compassion for the Indian muslims, who he saw as brothers of Hindus who had converted for some reason or ther other, and in most likelihood under duress. He built his theory of Hindutva, and in it we can see his compassion for "racial Indian people". Thus his hindutva can be seen as racially compassionate proposition. Most probably he was also aware of the pitfalls of internationalisms, so he put forth his perspective which focussed on a territorially bounded region.

As part of building further background, let us consider SriRamakrisha-Vivekananda and Ramdas-Shivaji pairs. SRK was abstract and storehouse of spiritual energy and Vivekananda was concrete and a pragmatic appliance which could manifest the energy drawn from his guru. A similar model can be used to understand Ramdas and Shivaji. In my opnion, VDS wanted to start a movement which will be even more concrete (sociopolitically and socioeconomically) version of the relatively abstract ideas that were proposed by Vivekananda. In this sense, we can also view Vivekananda-VDS as Ramdas-Shivaji pair. (Please note that these analogies are approximate).

However, VDS was not merely intelligent and compassionate, he was also a very pragmatic man. Thus VDS at once set out to tackle real on the ground problems. Casteism, untouchability, inter-caste marriages etc. were questions that he wrote boldly about.  Similarly he forthrightly wrote about whether Hindus should get English education, whether they should join armed forces, whether they should acquire and use modern technology, etc. He promoted whatever he thought would strengthen political strength and unity, and he opposed whatever he thought would enervate political unity and strength. He was one of the first who thought that ghar-wapasi could be and should be attempted, and was also the first to realize that ghar-wapasi was not enough and might not succeed either. One may disagree with the solutions he provided, but one can not deny that VDS DID attempt solving problems (in a political way) which most were unwilling to attempt.
 

Coming to MSG, on most racial compassion and territorial inspiration issues, MSG was similar to VDS. MSG was focused on answering the question: what kind of nation India is? While VDS focused on winning political freedom from foreign rule. Thus MSG and VDS differed regarding what actions were to be undertaken. As persons, MSG was supposedly very spiritual, and VDS was an atheist.  MSG favored "spiritual" Hindutva over VDS's "political" Hindutva. This also led to disagreements and divergent actions.

Thus, while VDS started Hindu-Mahasabha, a political party; MSG's RSS turned out to be closer to Ramkrishna Mission of Vivekananda. While MSG thought (Correct me if I am wrong) Islam could be accommodated within "spiritual" Hindutva, VDS quickly (and rightly) realized that Islam (and therefore, in general muslims) were adversaries of Hindus. While VDS dabbled in ghar-wapasi and quickly nearly abandoned it, RSS is still almost obsessed with it. 

Later, therefore, VDS became quite bitter about RSS. He thought of it as a wasteful enterprise which was destined to fail. Now I don't fully agree with VDS, but I sympathize with VDS more than I do with MSG. One could conjecture that MSG thought much longer term, etc., but these are endless debates. Our dharma, sanAtana dharma is surely not about sacrificing long-term for the short-term or vice versa. Rather, it is about striking the right balance. It could even be that different individuals can strike different balances. VDS was vindicated when RSS realized that it had to enter active politics, even if by proxy, through Bharatiya Jan Sangh (now BJP).

I guess that RSS is closer to being racialist. I do not consider race realism as wrong per se. However, we must not ignore the following: people who are highly religious will sacrifice race for religion, and vice versa. Indians (if they are a race) are highly religious (you can see Indian muslims, christians being more religious muslims and christians than many other races). So Indian non-Hindus are easily excitable on religious grounds, even against their own racial brothers (Hindus).

Further, I think we need not consider MSG and VDS as contradictory, we can use their understandings as complementary. For example, if we ignore Gandhi's suicidal rather Hindu genocidal non-violence, his "solution" (in terms of Swadeshi/Khadi) was an economic-solution for the war against British imperialism. 

Just as an aside, imagine what would have happened if we had combined VDS-political-pragmatism and Gandhi-economics in terms of Khadi-guns and Khadi-grenades against the British.

Now, I am in a position to present VDS and MSG views on the map-problem. I understand that this will ruffle a lot of feathers. So I must mention as I mentioned in my previous article, while it is caricatural  but intended to bring out essential and differentiating features. Also, that I am no scholar (nor do I intend to become one) and open to correction. 

 VDS description/view:
 

Past: It was a glorious period, and was also mostly highly advanced in terms of knowledge of the material world. They had most ingredients of "modern science" too.

Hindus lost because, inter alia, they neglected political pragmatism, and pursued impractical idealism,  VDS initially thought that racial solidarity and cultural pride would overcome malignant natures of Islam and Chriastianity, but later realized otherwise, and understood them as adversaries.

Present: Major corrections are needed. Political pragmatism is foremost among them. Cultural pride must be accompanied by concrete practical actions.


Desired Future: A culturally vibrant India which has regained its glorious past, along with modern science, technology, development,  equality, and most important of all, political pragmatism.

and

 

MSG description/view:


Past: It was a glorious period, and was also mostly highly advanced in terms of knowledge of the material world. They had most ingredients of "modern science" too.

Hindus lost because, inter alia, they swerved from their spiritual ideals and therefore lost moral courage.

Islamic/Christian invaders were bad and they strove to destroy Hindu Civilization. But that was because they were Arabs and Europeans, and materialistic. Hinduism has spiritual wherewithal to absorb the essence of Islam and Chriastianity which are good. When that happens, Indian muslims, and Indian christians will be assimilated in the pan-Hindutva vision.

Present: Major corrections are needed, but the corrections are in spiritual and cultural plane. If we replenish spiritual pursuit then the resultant cultural rejuvenation will resuscicate our spiritual nation.

Desired Future: We will regain most of the Past along with modern science, technology, development, and equality. And it will be long lasting for it will be based on and accompanied by a spiritual awakening.

More intelligent people must consider combining: Political pragmatism and love for Hindus of VDS, de-globalization (inspired, say by, Gandhi, but without necessarily rejecting modern technology) as part of economic war against globalism, extending Ambedkar's understanding of Islam to all Abrahamisms (including Judaism), MSG's love for "spiritual" unity of Hindu-Civilization.

In order to save ourselves as Hindus of Akhand Bharat. We need not sacrifice Akhand-Bharat for International-Hinduism, nor do we need to sacrifice Hinduism for Indian-subcontinental-unity. I will write on this some other time, but I prefer a Hindu Civilizational Territory over Extended Akhand Bharat.

Different Descriptions/Views regarding the Map-Problem Part-I

In one of my previous articles I wrote about the map problem and the three maps, and how it is important that we locate ourselves in the maps. In this article, I rewrite, for convenience, map-A (pre 1000AD) as Past, map-B as Present, and map-C as Desired Future. But keep the map problem in mind.

I now present what I think are the descriptions by various groups. In addition, I also present their view (as I understand them) of how the present came about from the past. It is crucial to understanding their views. By no means do I consider these descriptions to be comprehensive, nuanced, scholarly, etc. Yet, I do claim that notwithstanding their caricatural nature, they do convey, what we might call as, their salient and distinguishing features. I am open to refinement, and please feel free to contribute.

It is evident that all the following descriptions suffer from the lacunae mentioned in the map problem. That is, our perception and description suffers from the perspective, and language constructs that we use. And that this perspective and language constructs are insufficient to provide the larger background in which we can see all the maps and locate our position(s). However, it will entertain you and I hope also inform you about the essential aspects of the various views in use at present.

Secular Description/View:

Past: It was mostly a long period of horrible exploitations in an upper casteist patriarchy seeped in ignorance. Some arty entertainment stuff was there but creativity too was minimal.

Islamic and British rules helped break that exploitative patriarchy. More over, culture and art-forms were enriched and embellished by the Moghuls. Further, it was the Oxbridge educated brigade which brought us the dawn of scientific temper etc. Akbar's reign was likely the best period. British Period was bad but because of economic political exploitation of muslims.

Present:  But for the fascists like Savarkar and RSS, we would have gotten much closer to the perfection of Akabar's rule. Alas, we have only partially corrected the godawful ills of the patriarchal past. We still have a very long way to go. But with Secularism and Socialism, we are in the right direction.

Desired Future: Eventually we will also become scientifically and technologically advanced and prosperous like Europe and USA; but it will be without family/social problems rampant in west, and along with Indian/Moghalai cuisine and music.

Chistian/Islamic Description/View:

Past: It was all darkness. Cannibalism, Dark-Idol worship, Feeding Children to Crocodiles abounded.

Islam/Christianity brought a small pencil of light but the natives have been adament. We need to push the light down their throats to civilize them.

Present: Indian independence has grossly undermined our operations, but we need to push harder and further, and by all means.

Desired Future: We dream of a Ajaan enjoying/ Sunday-mass indulgent India. We might retain the tribal, pagan art-forms for preservation sake.


 

Now let us consider views of a few individuals:

Nehru's Description/View:

Past: Highly exploitative period where a few luxuriated, and for the rest it was an abomination. By and large, nothing much to write home about. A long period where lot of riff raff with loads of superstitions and childishness lived.

Islam and X-ianity were God's gift for the region and for the Hindus.

Present: We must quickly get over our quirky obsession with hindu culture etc. and get on with more important things in life.

Desired Future: With some perseverance the rest would also become Hindu just by birth, Moghul by culture and English by education, just as I am (Nehru was).
 

Ambedkar's Description/View:

Past: Horrible and Exploitative Brahminism and Patriarchy existed and flourished. Buddha was the great savior of the afflicted.

Islam was, and is fatally dangerous, but British rule (X-ian rule) salvaged the masses from Brahminical tyranny.

Present: We need to restore social justice through judicious use of affirmative action. Also have constitutional safeguards against revival of Brahminism and Patriarchy. Thus We must remain patriots and shun foreign religions, but rid ourselves of Brahminism by annihilation of caste and remedying superstitions. We have started on this path, and we must persevere.

Desired Future: American prosperity, European grandeur, Indian culture with Buddhist philosophy.

 

Gandhi's Description/View:

Past: India was about simple living high thinking and an austere/simple/minimalist life. And that is the essence of India.

Islam and Christianity, while being inherently good, could harm us only because hindus drifted away from spiritual path.

Present: We must regain situation in Past by upholding that only "spiritual" goals are important. Islam and Christianity can do no harm to us so long as we maintain "moral high ground". We must make self-sufficient villages where all of us can become austere/simple.

Desired Future: After conceding territory after territory, millions and millions of lives, we will achieve moral victory; and rest of the world will understand us.

Congress's Description/View:

Congress, as usual, does not have a consistent view. They use a combination of Secular, Nehruvian, Gandhian views with occasional allegiance to Ambedkar's view. However, since the sole purpose of Congressmen (and all Congress clones) is to cling on to power by hook or crook; they are either unconcerned or even enthusiatically vouch for policies that will result in Christian-Islamic future. But, isn't that what Nehru wanted anyway?


 

BJP-SanghParivar's Description/View:

Past: It was a glorious period, and was also mostly highly advanced in terms of knowledge of the material world. They had most ingredients of "modern science" too.

Islam and Chriastianity are good; but the Islamic/Christian invaders were bad and they strove to destroy Hindu Civilization. But Indian muslims, and Indian christians are good and not fooled by the invaders' rhetoric.

Present: Some small corrections are needed, but corrections recommended by Seculars are hugely wrong because their nature is pseudo. If we push true secularism and true socialism we will get back to the right track.

Desired Future: We will regain most of the Past along with modern science, technology, "development", and "equality".

 

Even a cursory glance reveals how the Secular and the Christian/Islamic views are quite similar. They want most of the Past to be removed, and a "new age" to dawn. We must also notice that while Christian/Islamic views are the invaders' view, Secular view can also be seen as Macaulay inspired view. In that sense, whoever speaks of secularism remains in the firm grip of invaders.

However, it is not difficult to notice that BJP/Sangh-Parivar view is hamstrung too. While they emotionally believe that Past was great (or at least claim so); their actions are towards bringing "true secularism" and "true socialism" for "development". Also notice that while they(BJP) may not consider Islam-Christianity as positively good, they do consider them as minor-issues if not non-problems which can easily be tackled and almost magically solved, as soon as true-secularism is applied. Thus, they too are not free from the grip of invaders' perspective.

In a way, I have done a little injustice to RSS here by clubbing their view with BJP's view. Unfortunately RSS itself has been somewhat ambivalent about their Hindutva perspective. Let me approach this matter somewhat obliquely now.

In the past, much greater minds have addressed these issues. To name a few among many, Ramdas/Shivaji; Vivekananda etc. very clearly perceived these issues, and also wrote and spoke about them. I would request someone to summarize what Samarth Ramdas thought and wrote on these issues. About both Ramdas and Vivekananda we can say that they inspired the masses, and also gave seminal ideas, and possibly provided some elaboration. However, lot of further details remained to be worked out, especially in order to make them applicable in the political domain.

We must note that none among Gandhi, Nehru, Bose, Ambedkar etc. attempted this line (Ramdas/Vivekananda). A nuanced analyses of their approaches is beyond the scope of this article.

On the other hand, both  Savarkar and Golwalkar (among others), in a way, pursued their line (Ramdas/Vivekananda) and attempted to work out the details. In  my next article on this matter, I will try to address their work in a similar manner. Somewhat of a caricature, but an attempt to bring out the essential and distinguishing features.

Anatomy of an Inferior Writer: How Desktop publishing birthed strange new phenomenon in India, the Bhagats.

This satirical article is a paraphrasing of this. Even proper names are to be viewed as place holders and I welcome you to imagine your favorite targets in their place.

 

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The rise of desktop publishing and cyber marketing has led to a strange new phenomenon in India. It is the strong and distinctive presence of a celebrity-species often referred to as 'Bhagats'. The term used to refer to shallow and voyeurish writers who tend to be aggressive peddlers of all things of cheap quality.

Intellectually they often lend their support to low grade intellectuals like themselves, for that is the way to being invited to various LitFests. (It is a different matter that when self certified low grade individuals and so-so authors like Salman Rushdie mock their caliber, these authors are equal to merely give furtive and sheepish smiles.) And they are extremely protective of freedom of low-grade speech. They dislike old Hindu kings for they strongly believe that those kings conspired to shortchange their subjects in the past. They often swap their ignorance of history online.

These true bhagats would have been an interesting anthropological phenomenon, had they not been causing cacophony all the time on twitter, blogs, and even main stream TV channels. A few years ago, Salman Rushdie rightly categorized them as "they also have to live". Just a few days ago, a true bhagat attacked soft spoken women on twitter who were feeling nice, if not proud, by the well meaning 'selfie with daughter' campaign. 

So who are these bhagats? What drives them? And what can we - and more importantly, they - do to calm themselves down? For this, it is important to understand them.

One, these true bhagats are not just LitFest membership seekers. They are not all The-Halka members. Some of them managed to graduate from IIT/M, they call themselves "authors" instead. Their stated aim, if you are to believe them, is national entertainment, and winning back for India its lost humorous story.

In reality, they are neither engineers, nor managers, and least of all, authors. Typically, and at the cost of stereotyping, true bhagats have the following four traits in common. First, they are almost all incoherent. Second, they have weak communication skills, particularly in English. This in turn leads to a bit of an inferiority complex, of not being cool or sophisticated enough to write even within a mile of Shobha De in a fast declining, literary world.

Third, they often believe that they are great at talking to members of opposite sex. As a result they are unlikely to know how to behave with them or understand the "shoo away" signal from them. For example, the men 'bhagats',  think all women desire them, but are shy of approach them. So they try to inspire shamelessness in them during conversation in lifts/elevators. In simple words, if i may say so, their minds are filled with imagination that they are in an elevator even while their bodies are obviously elsewhere. But being logically and perceptually challenged, they have no way of getting it.

Fourth, there is an over-riding sense of shame about being an incompetent author, about having worse pulp writing skills, and even their own readers. Deep down they know that pulp writing authors like themselves are among India's most mentally negligible. They also know that they are third rate writers with third rate plots, with few achievements in style, narrative or even vulgarity.

To hide this shame, they over-compensate in terms of chest-beating their potential readers (who in the heart of their hearts they hate for reading their low grade writings). Also to them, Media anchors and in particular men-hating snobbish and conceited women represent the highest aspirational figures. Sagarika Ugly-Indian-Male Ghose, they pleasantly discover to be incontrovertibly from intellectually modest means-background and represents the best that writers like them can aspire to be.

Success of such men-hating snobs gives true bhagats a genuine reason to rejoice and feel that they have a place at the top. Hence, defending them as those being  "confident women" is vital. Therefore, you have seen true bhagats defending misandric inanities on various issues, and find they are vigorously attacking anyone questioning such. Objectivity is lost when the person they are trying to protect and worship is seen as an idealization of their own kind.

Hence, an inferiority amplified by inferiority complex overcompensated as superiority complex ridden Indian writer who is frustrated, ashamed of his writing skills and has poor ability in communication is vulnerable to transforming into a true bhagat. And that’s why confident persons, notwithstanding their "English skills" who mock bhagat-adored "confident women" hit a raw nerve on all counts and get the worst of the true bhagat treatment.

Since main stream media allows verbal as well as textual diarrhea, their anger expresses itself as thinly disguised personal rant. Note that MSM always invites these true bhagats to rant on their shows. In fact the MSM had to tell this one specifically, as even they seemed to have had run out of their hyper-aggressive ranters.

Of course, at the end of the day, any ranters are welcome and MSM doesn’t mind them. Especially, as MSM never distances itself from this unrestrained, in-elevator-expressing testosterone carriers. Yet, what seems like rant starts to look schizophrenic mega delusion pretty soon and cements the  off-the-onion image of the writer. Ultimately, the Indian MSM will get sated and go back to its default ranters – The-Halkas. There’s a reason The-Halkas adorn all LitFests whereas the 'bhagat' has just about managed to attend a few.

Meanwhile what can we do? The best strategy is to not take true bhagats too seriously. Of course, it is difficult to ignore personal abuse. But try to understand their motivations. They are not writers; they are simply Frustrated And Complex-ridden Textual-Verbal-diarrhea patients (FACTVPs, pronounced fact-wups, not to be confused with the past participle of the cuss word you may want to use on them). Of course FACT-VP doesn’t have the same ring to it as bhagat, but it is a more accurate descriptor.

To FACT-VPs themselves i would only like to say this. Read more, talk less, and practice writing even lesser. Get some female editors and ask their advice on writing as well as how (and why) not to grope in elevators. When confident, try to ask someone to read a precis you wrote and accept her feedback like a man. Who knows, you may get a few paragraphs worthy soon. Once you do, trust me, you will have better things to do than just rant.

Good luck, so long as you don't shower your ill-luck, of unsolicited rant on the unsuspecting.

sanAtana bhArata : Draft of a Book Under Preparation

I got the pdf version of a book. It seems like a draft version. May be it can be improved and/or completed.

I will try to work on it. I also invite your comments and suggestions regarding the same.

The book can be viewed/downloaded from here. Please feel free to circulate.

The Map Problem:

In my previous article I mentioned regarding a dearth of writing from certain perspectives. If someone asked me what my perspective was, I would be tempted to reply "Hindu Civilizational Perspective", and yet it remains fuzzy. What is HCP? Is there one and unique HCP? Such issues prop up. It is also true that it is arduous to define HCP.

Recently I came across a quote, attributed to one Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar. Please read the quote before proceeding. I twitted:

The Judge erred in the final sentence. It should be: "It is a way of life, and Much More." : Dakshinamurthy.


I wonder why such  errors happen, that is, why do Hindu intellectuals traverse a valuable path and then suddenly falter or dither. I want to share my current understanding of the situation.

Here I place before you two pictures, each purporting to be a map. For convenience you can assume one to be map-A and the other to be map-B. Now, notice that there are various roads shown in both maps.

map-A

map-B

Now I ask you a simple question, which road will take you to your destination? Can you answer it? Don't jump to a conclusion, please think slowly, carefully, and coolly. Further, if I told you that you need to take some particular road (say, some specified route), will you accept my answer? Again, please don't jump to a conclusion. Please read the preceding paragraph, and this paragraph, and think a while. These are not difficult questions, but take some time to think.

I am assuming you have indeed taken some time.

Now, as one tries to answer the said questions, one realizes that one needs additional information. For example:

1. Where am I? Where will my location (call it point S) appear on map-A and/or map-B?

2. Where do I want to go? Where will my destination (call it point D) appear on map-A and/or map-B?

If it turns out that both my starting point and my destination point are on the same map (whether A or B), the task becomes much easier. However, the moment it turns out that my starting point and my destination points are on different maps (one on map-A, and the other on map-B), we run into further complexities.

Further assume that neither map, shows its scale or its compass. The language and naming is disparate too. So what do we do? How do we go about finding an answer for ourselves?

We at once realize that we need a larger map which can place both the maps into one with appropriate scaling and directions. Then, and only then, can we hope to answer for ourselves. Now imagine what happens when we want to depict our geographical-social-political-cultural-civilizational condition/situation rather than mere geographical location. Doesn't the problem get much more complex?

Now I present to you my bigger hypothesis. I believe that we suffer from an even more complicated problem. In our present case, we in fact have three maps. Say, map-A, map-B, and map-C. Let us assume that they correspond to our historical situation (pre-Buddhism/Jainism etc.), present situation (Secularism, Democracy, etc.), and our desired situation in the future, that is our destination.

I also say that most of the terminology in present use is somewhat accurate to describe only a part of the picture of our present situation, that is map-B (not even where we ARE on map-B). About maps A and C, we have much less accurate depictions, and even these are often clouded by either fancy or prejudices. The difficulty is compounded by the limitations and constraints of the usage of the present day terms.

While the situation is so complex, our leaders (thought-leaders, political-leaders, etc.) are self-assuredly telling us that they have unambiguous and guaranteed-to-work solution to our problem. [Recall that the problem is: Where are we, and where do we want to go?] Why are the leaders promoting dubious solutions with great confidence? Doesn't that baffle you? It does me! And yet, we must not be averse to supposing simple and straight explanations, viz., they, many if not all, could be so selfish and short-sighted that they just don't care.

In my opinion, unless we address this map problem sufficiently, we will remain confused.

A Problem; And a Proposal.

I have been reading on the web for quite some time. In Indian circumstances one is handicapped in a peculiar way. While there are numerous writers of various hues and cries who author from certain perspectives belonging to one type; there are few who do likewise from perspectives belonging to the otherwise type. Sometimes I wonder whether there are any who belong to the real otherwise type. That is, I notice that there are none who write from a perspective of the real otherwise type. And this gives a sinking feeling that most of them are writing the same thing. It would have been a very happy happenstance if the said 'same thing' was as per my preference. Unfortunately, it is not. Unfortunately I strongly dislike it, even if do not despise it. Recently I have been interacting with some friends with whom I shared this plight of mine, and surprisingly I found quite a few sympathizers. Rather, it turned out that many were co-sufferers if you get what I mean.

Earlier when I was contemplating on the problem shared above, I used to think that there were no such writers because there are not significant number of people who share a perspective similar to mine. The exchanges with friends, however, changed my thoughts. It looked as if there are quite a few who shared my predicament. Thus, I started to wonder why none was writing any other way. I asked my friends, with whom I shared my thoughts, too. But none of them, while offering various causes as factors, did really put his hand on the nub of the issue. Also, while almost all were willing to gossip about it for long hours, few, if not none, showed any interest in discussing the issues slightly more seriously, or do the writing stuff. After all, I too find talking and gossiping much easier than writing. The pleasant surprise is that modern technology helps us circumvent many of such problems. I have always wondered why audio-blogs have not become ubiquitous, especially that mobile phones have become so common. There is no gainsaying, however, that any fairly serious exchange requires preparation, patience, and often perseverance. In simpler terms, one needs to do it a few times to gain reasonable clarity, as back-and-forth exchanges would happen. I do feel, however, that it needs to be done. I do not know whether there are many like me who have experienced similarly. I hope there are. With such hope, I am beginning this endeavor. This is as much a sharing as it is an invitation for sharing.

I am sure you would be wondering how I could ask you to share your views and perspectives without delineating mine so you could compare and decide. If you have read a few posts from this blog, you would know the general drift, notwithstanding the inability to pinpoint the focus exactly. After all, only the writer has changed, I will continue to this blog in the same tradition as I have inherited so to speak. When I asked him what his experience was, he told an interesting thing. He said: "There are silent appreciators, as well as, silent (outright) rejectors. So a meaningful exchanges are few and far between." I hope to facilitate breaking of such silences. Also, I am not omniscient, so it is possible that there are some who do write in ways that I am looking for. If you come across such, please do recommend.

Thank You.