Stumbled on this speech titled “The dilemma of the Liberal Hindu” by Mr. Gurucharan Das from 2005. The speech in its essence reaffirms a lot of what Offstumped has been saying about Dharma being the moral compass.
This blogger has great respect for Mr. Das’ individual accomplishments and positive role as a public intellectual post-retirement. Having been indirectly associated with Mr. Das in right of center initiatives in the past one can safely say that Mr. Das is not a leftist.
All of the above makes this speech by Mr. Das very puzzling.
Why sir do you have to exercise your mind to this degree in being politically correct while defending your defense of spirituality ?
It also raises 3 sets of troubling questions.
Question set #1 – If men of Mr. Das’ intellectual calibre have to resort this degree of political correctness to make a simple point on faith and spirituality what of lesser mortals ?
Question set #2 – If Mr.? Das is not voting for the BJP who exactly is he voting for ?
He surely cant be voting for the Communal Socialist Congress which is anything but Right of Center (atleast the Right of Center values Mr. Das eschews in other fora) or the CPI-Mafioso (which is hardly a player in New Delhi).?
So is he sitting out of the electoral process with a holier than thou attitude ?
How much longer will public intellectuals like Mr. Das sit out of the political process by not engaging with the BJP because of their political correctness while allowing the Communal Socialism of the Congress to gain currency ?
While the JNU leftist types atleast have a choice in mainstream political platforms in the Congress and the CPI-Mafioso, right of center public intellectuals like Mr. Das have essentially shut themselves out of the political process and pushed themselves to the fringes of the public debate on account of their political correctness.
The Congress and the CPI-Mafioso dont care for their “right of center” values while the BJP is untouchable to them.Their individual brand equity notwithstanding this political correctness has rendered them practically inconsequential in exercising any kind of “right of center” influence in public policy.
Question set #3: If 4000 years on Mahabharata is taboo in Indraprastha as Mr. Das’ notes in his speech what kind of values are schools are in New Delhi imparting ?
Filed under: Uncategorized
The only way BJP can be strong politically is to shore up numbers in AP and kerala. Spending money just like congress did in telangana is the key. When talking of spending money, it has to be big money.
Enrolling people,sending them vouchers,mail literature and material to target audience,home to home canvassing will help. This has not bee done in andhra until now. Use eetv as a much as they can will help.
I just dont like the tone of his article/speech. What the hell man, i dont think there are many hindus who think like him, most of us are proud to be hindus (that does not imply that every religious hindu will vote for BJP). Next, i dont think VHP/RSS has done anything to demean sanathana Dharma. Hell with these people who are ashamed to be publicly proud Dharmics. Again he is a black sheep bengali after all.
“I am a Hindu, but …”,
I am an Indian first and then a Hindu,BHARAT MATA is my foremost deity and then I worship all gods.
Mr. Das, Hindus worship the elements of nature and Land does fall in it.
I AM NOT A LIBERAL HINDU ( READ INDIAN), If such commentators call my brand of religion / nationalism as EXTREMIST/COMMUNAL then so be it.
absolutely jiggs bhai! spot on!
DHANYAVAAD KEDAR BHAU!!!
Gurcharan Das has to lick the feet of White Maino and satisfy the CIA controlled Bengali-Christian filth media anyway. HE WOULD SURELY VOTE FOR “AMRA BENGALI” AND ITS POLITICAL MAFIOSI ARM CPI(M) don’t confuse CPI(M) with Communism in traditional sense (though comunism is no less diabolical), CPI9M) is just a cover for Bengali fascist criminal Amra Bengali
By the way AS CORRECTLY SAID BY MURALI, these Black sheep Bengalis fascists swines and Christians are really the Shit eating CIA controlled Maino’s media whores who ironically did not earn their filthy money in gutter Amra Bengali ruled bengal, SO
Nefarious Diabolical TV (NDTV)= Pranoy (oh PRONOY) ROY, BUR-KHAA DATTA
Christian Nefarious Network-Idiotic Bastard Network = Sogorikoo Ghosh (Ghost)
Sahara of Dawood Fame = ROY, ROY ROY ROY & SONS
AND IT IS THESE BENGALI WITCHCRAFT PRACTITIONERS WHO ARE THE GREATEST SUPPORTERS OF BANGLADESHIS AND TERRORISTS
Gurcharan Das’ generation grew up in the midst of left-inspired movements. It is quite remarkable that unlike many others he shows the intellectual courage – not shown by even some of our older leaders – to admit that his earlier worldview is inadequate in understanding a diverse society like India’s.
His opposition to the BJP probably springs from this remnant left-liberalism. However, the only way he can implement some of his ideas is to work in a BJP-led government, like Arun Shourie did.
This requires a great deal more courage and realism that he currently shows. A politician’s job is tougher than a Sunday columnist’s.
I just don t understand the problems with these leftist writers, here’s another one by POHTIK GHOSH in Economic Times today:
Secularism and the rites of man
An effective opposition and viable alternative to the BJP can emerge only when the Indian secular project is posed in terms of post-national human self-determination against the exclusivist ideology of Hindutva, says Pothik Ghosh
IN HER The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, Hannah Arendt pointed to a troubling crisis in the liberal conception of human rights. The problem was that “the whole question of human rights…was…inextricably blended with the question of national emancipation; only the emancipated sovereignty of the people, of one’s own people, seemed to able to insure them.” In Arendt’s view, the crisis caused by this conflation of the human with the national became most acutely evident during World War II. The large-scale displacement of individuals beyond the geo-political frontiers of their original nation-states had rendered them politically invisible as human beings because their stateless condition had deprived them of their elementary human rights.
Implicit in Arendt’s diagnosis of the problem is the need for a wider, more inclusive political and juridical conception of the human being. The search for such a universal definition of man must now become the lynchpin of secular politics in India. For, as long as secularism continues to be articulated in terms of the Indian nation and its nationalist narrative, an effective opposition and affirmative alternative to the sangh parivar’s ideology of “cultural nationalism” (Hindutva) cannot be imagined. All politics premised on the idea of the nation-state is, thanks to its structural orientation, condemned to lend itself to a narrow and exclusivist articulation, irrespective of the historical specificity of its content. The inability on the part of advocates of secularism, including the Left, to comprehend that has left them with no choice but to reactively pit the idea of a ‘secular’ Indian nation against the BJP’s credo of Hindutva.
It is a no-brainer that secularism cannot succeed unless the anti-BJP formations jettison patronage-based electoral enlistment of minorities for a broad-based strategy to mobilise people to effect socio-economic development. Yet, that, by itself, would be a task half done. As important, if not more, would be the invention of an overarching ideological idiom that would articulate disparate local issues of modern governance as a singular question of democratic politics. This idiom must pose development as a paradigm of post-, even non-national, human self-determination as opposed to the preponderant political-economic model of national development. That would give individuals real agency by liberating them from all manner of paternalistic domination, coercive inclusion and/or physical extinction. Such politics could well be conducted within the geo-political context of the nationstate even as it seeks to free the discourse of human rights and entitlements from the vicissitudes of national citizenship.
Given that the BJP has, over the past one-and-a-half decades, re-invented its strategy to successfully refract issues of modern governance through the prism of majoritarian cultural nationalism, the need for an inclusive ideological and structural alternative to that of the exclusivist nationstate has become even more pressing.
Advani’s call to the BJP national executive to forge a more aggregative National Democratic Alliance, even as party chief Rajnath Singh urged it to return to its core agenda of Hindutva is precisely an expression of such insidious politics. As far as the BJP is concerned, Singh and Advani have struck mutually complementary, not contradictory, postures. This apparent contradiction of positions is entirely consonant with its NDA experiment, which embodies a calibrated shift in the party’s strategy in its post-Babri phase: focus on a variety of often dissimilar local issues of governance if only to weave them into a single tapestry on the larger fabric of “cultural nationalism”. Its recent Karnataka victory, and more so Narendra Modi’s re-election in Gujarat earlier, has yet again underscored the effectiveness of this strategy.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC development is meant to create a modern human being, whose allegiance in public life is no longer to traditional identities of caste, religion, language and so on. But there are, in reality, broadly two kinds of political practice that can yield this normatively modern human being. The first seeks to produce a universally acceptable modern order by facilitating engagement between the existing mainstream and various premodern cultural minorities, even as it mobilises those groups to transform the modern mainstream into a more participatory and inclusive socio-political space. The second, in sharp contrast, is all about enforcing a pre-existing, majoritarian mainstream on minorities through legislation, and institutional and extra-institutional fiat. The political-economy of national development is predicated on precisely this kind of pre-defined modernity and a priori mainstream.
The BJP subscribes to the latter. It can certainly become, as many have predicted, a party of the liberal right that upholds the creed of the post-traditional individual. But what is omitted in this seemingly optimistic portrait of the party is the massive political cost it would extract — it is currently doing exactly that — to obtain to this Edenic state. It is, after all, not without reason that votaries of Hindutva can, without the least bit of irony, present their vision of majoritarian nationalism as real secularism as opposed to the “pseudo-secularism” of their ideological adversaries. That the BJP has changed tack to represent the socio-cultural specificities of minorities, especially Muslims, as a threat to the modern Indian nation, and not to Hindus alone, bears that out.
The Congress would, in that context, do well to recognise that it has turned its legacy of being the party of Indian national liberation into a fetish. It is this, more than anything else, that has prevented it from advancing the cause of secularism. The Congress, which fancies itself as the principal keeper of secularism in India, should re-examine its legacy in a ‘late’ Gandhian light. The ideological architect of the Congress had, by the 1940s, become fully aware that national independence made sense only insofar as it set the agency of the human being free from all manner of structurally violent and majoritarian domination. That was clearly indicated by Gandhi when, in 1942, he said: “Non-violence has brought us nearer to Swaraj as never before. We dare not exchange it even for Swaraj. The question is notwhat we will do after Swaraj. It is whether under given conditions we can give up non-violence to win Swaraj.”
I would much rather read Jerry Rao, who has already been thru these questions. Das is getting there, but has some distance to go. But it is surprising that he still labours under the colonial illusions of the existence of religion in India.
Whats with these bengali leftists cum pseudo secularists? We have Sagarika Ghosh, Barkha Dutt, Pronnoy Roy to name a few and now the above 2 examples. They seem to be just pouring out of the woodwork lately?
Can Mr Pthik ghosh tell us as to what are the “sociao-cultural specificities of minorities”?
Read the name POTHIK GHOSH (REALLY PATHIK GHASH) it becomes clear. He is a bloody Bengali Witchcraft practitioner, so calling them Hindus is itself a falsity. BY THE WAY THESE PARSITES ARE ALL OVER EXCEPT THE GUTTER STATE OF BENGAL
AND OFFCOURSE THESE BANDARLOKS have a very chequered history. Not a single Paramveer Chakra, Mahaveer Chakra, Veer Chakra or a single casualty in 7 wars India fought. SUHARWADY was right in observing that a “Bengali is a coward who wud hide under the table at the site of kitchen knife” SO they make that up BY BARKING A LOT
If you read the article, Das frequently mentions Burke, a conservative who believed in evolution (slow changes) rather than a final snap. Mr. Das is in the process (and so are most Indians). Accept them for the courage to come out of their “liberal” backgrounds.
Secondly, it is the perception of many middle class individuals that the RSS-VHP is an unruly crowd of jingoists. Comments as above would surely add substance to it. Our approach should be to remedy this by spreading awareness about the organizations and its activities rather than posting angry responses(especially targeting Bengalis or for that matter any community). I feel it is absolutely possible to convey our thoughts/ideas without stooping to slander.
BTW, the Qs raised by Yossarin, his analysis (on various topics) are really amazing. We need more individuals like you!
ECONOMIC TIMES, CORRECT VERY CORRECT, A YELLOW DUSTBIN TRASH FROM TIMES GROUP, PIMPS CONTROLLED BY WORLD CHRISTIAN COUNCIL / SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCH. Intellibriefs and Media Watch had long ago exposed these traitors
I concur with Mandar,,,,,
My gandfather always use to say following line on how to win elections….
“To win,, it not only requires to defeat person with opposite leanings, but to win him and bring him on our side.”
Slandering and insulting people for their ideological leanings is wrong,,,, at the same time their should not be any hesitation in saying what you will is truth.
This really helped him win many elections over years.
Problem with BJP is also on similar lines,, BJP hesitates in saying truth (right of center ideas) and keep sulking back to populism and jingoism rather than clearly taking stand and justifying it.
I agree with both Mandar and gujjuman.
In fact, instead of posting garbage about one subgroup of Indians or another, why don’t RSS/VHP sympathizers who read this blog write well-researched articles conveying their viewpoint? Abusive language gives the impression of the author having an immature mind, and often obscures whatever truth there is in the statement.
BJP hesitates in saying truth (right of center ideas) and keep sulking back to populism and jingoism rather than clearly taking stand and justifying right of center ideas.**
Guys….
I feel embarassed to have posted Ghosh’s article here.
I agree with gujju, mandar, photonman, BUT
there a difference between someone who is a genuine lefty, and one who is just peddling leftist-ideology selectively in order for a political or tv anchor’s kursi.
The first should be beaten by ideology, the second need to be exposed for the frauds that they are, hopefully with the least amount of abuse =)
Now another Bengali controlled channel, Merkel controlled Sahara . Everyday this attacks Hinduism in the garb of exposing Blind faith where harmless rituals (in all states) except the really Wicca practicing Black magic following Bengal)in a most sensational way.
However same dare not attack the flogging during muharram, they do not find anything wrong in the killing of animals during Christmas feast, in the notion of Christ rebirth and Hell to all except baptized
It does not find anything wrong in the fiendish way in which the criminal westernized filthy rich criminals “WEARING TIES” indulge in crime and Modern Open Sex (and AIDS spread )with gay abandon, breaking of families MAYBE BECAUSE THESE WESTERNIZED CRIMINALS WEAR TIES WHICH IS A PREREQUISITE FOR “MODERNITY” FOR THESE ILL-EDUCATED SEMI NAKED SO CALLED JOURNALISTS AND THEIR BOSSES.
Boy that was one long winded article!
You pose an interesting question. I am one of those people who can’t decide who I hate most: Congress, Left or BJP. I would love for the Central government to be as libertarian as possible with more power vested in local authorities.
One can also choose to make a decision based how non-corrupt and sincere a candidate is, which basically subjugates ideology to local politics.
But voting is not all. Ideas have consequences. I’d be happy as long as the common man is strongly engaged in honest debate about major issues affecting him. The media and blogosphere have a role to play here. That’s why I’m sometimes disappointed when Offstumped starts talking parties instead of ideas. I thought we have enough non-debate of the issues in mainstream media to not add to it
Coming back to Mr.Das’ bashfulness, I guess political correctness starts becoming a hindrance once the State dabbles in education. I don’t have an answer to the question of what schools should do regarding religion. I hope private schools have all the freedom to do what they want. Government schools will always be subject to random whims and fancies of the rulers. I am atheist, but I’m afraid the really dangerous religions of the present day are communism, capitalism and libertarianism since they drive the seats of power. One must be willing to jettison any/all of these as the world of facts changes. But that brings up the tough question of the efficacy of ethics in political philosophy…
Dear Bhanu, please check your fact. Miss. Barkha Dutt is not bengali.
Abusing any subgroup one can not acheive anything, It actually reveal his/her fundamentalist thinking hidden behind so called bhadralok’ outlook.
Every subgroup in India has its own identity, like as has been told ‘coward bengali’, parochial Tamil’, or power hungry cast driven UPties and Biharis’ and ‘money minded Gujaratis’tec. We need to understand whether it is really true or not? If you look back to Indian history, then answer will be definitely; not completely true. then why does people start abusing? Might be related to his own short-coming and unability to judge the thing properly.
Some people, who feels closer to RSS thinking, are worries of Bajrang/VHP posture. Does we need to reply the other fundamentalist by becoming more fundamentalist?
Malay I stand corrected on Barkha Dutt. Apologies to you and any one else.
Guys…
I dont agree with hurling abuses at any section of our Indian society.
Bengal is an integral part of Indian culture and state.
One of our fellow bloggers( I think PALASH) here on this forum but on different thread, had mentioned how the Communists have literally wiped out the Indianness in the Education system in Bengal.
If I remember correctly he said that Bengalis were encouraged by the Comrades to believe in that the education in Bengal was the best in India and the rest was all trash. He reasoned thats why lesser Bengalis appear in the IIT and IIM’s or other national institutes.
I am believeing him, 32 years of continued brain washing is a long time and even if we have sensible government in Bengal,it will take some effort to cleanse the generation of left sympathising brethren.
Also, note that it is not just Bengali journos who write crap, this has become a Indian phenomenon:
RAJ DEEP SURDESAI
PRABHU CHAWLA
BHUPENDRA CHAUBEY
GAUTAM ADHIKARI
And the other younger lot at CNN IBN and News papers.
The truth is that the two most corrupt institutions in India today are the ” MEDIA AND JUDICIARY”.
BJP had suggested that a NATIONAL JUDICIARY COMMITTEE must be formed to investigate and find remedies to end corruption in the JUDICIARY, the whole country ( including me ) opposed the idea then.
Now I want it and I want some such thing related to the media too. The Sedition charges pressed by the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner MIGHT be a START?
Guys, I’m not bengali, but its shocking to hear usay things like this. i like to think i’m nationalistic, and it shocks me to see ppl write this. its a act that a lot of leftist cancer is bengali – look at jnu for example – but abusing all bengalis is just crazy. is it their bangaliness that makes them leftists or their leftist brainwashing? common, more sense pls.
Jiggs – I had tried to explain the low success rate of Bengalis in IIT/ IIM entrances – which you referred to.
If I look back, the reason why I cracked both was due to my family – their single minded focus was that we should excel in education and get a better life than theirs (scarred by Partition and its after effects).
My father used to say way back in late 70s early 80s that the Soviet Union would ultimately collapse because individual rights were trampled upon – prophetic words indeed!
He was an unabashed admirer of the US (especially President Reagan) – he used to say the US would ultimately prevail and possibly defy history by remaining extremely powerful for a long long time because it is a magnet for excellence and talent.
He used to get very agitated when people used to gloss over Islamic fundamentalism in India – like when Urdu news was introduced in DD – Kolkata – though Bengali Muslims speak and write Bengali – people did not protest. He is very old now and is extremely despondent when he sees more of the secular fundamentalists pervade every section of society.
What is puzzling for me though is that while never stepped inside a temple – for him the ultimate fount of wisdom was the Srimad Bhagavad Gita!
As for the members of this blog who have been berating Bengalis – Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, D Raja, V S Achutanandan, B T Ranadive, Prabhat Patnaik, Suhasini Ali, Madhu Dandavate, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and other such notables are not Bengalis.
Please remember for Communists/ Leftists – the allegiance is not to country but the movement – that will allegedly bring about a classless world/ society – as if Mother Nature is ever going to permit it. Leftists do not believe in individual rights as well – witness some of the most brutal dictators across the world have been Leftists – I am waiting for the first purge to happen in Nepal now.
So to mention that a Leftist/ Communist is a Bengali/ Maharashtrian/ Punjabi/ Andhraite is to insult the region itself.
All the more, it is not just coincidence that the region of WB continuosly gives power on a platter to this rogue outfit, with not a slightest semblance of resistance.
Gurcharan Das is a confused westernised Hindu.
This is not something new. This can be traced to Missionary propaganda unleashed in early 19th century calcutta that created “Young Bengal”.
The reaction was severe in the form of Bankim Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda, Bipin Pal and so many others.
These idiots enjoyed good life, derive disproportionate power in society, media considering their small number.
GUESS, WHO CARES WHAT GURCHARAN DAS SAY.
>>OFFCOURSE THESE BANDARLOKS
U have wrong noting of Bhadralok.
Bengal is NOT CPIM, Jyoti Basu alone. Much of Indian Nationalism’s root can be traced to Bengal, including RSS founder’s diksha in nationalism as a student of Calcutta medical college during those tumultous days of 1905 (partition of bengal).
Commies mock Indian nationalists from Bengal as Bhadralok.
So, in a sense, u would love Bhadralok. Not Commies.
* have wrong notion of Bhadralok.
U can understand how Commies hate Bhadralok from Ashok Mitra (Marxist ideologue);s often quoted comment:
“I am a communist, not a Bhadralok.”
@kaushik….
That exactly is the point.
Here on this forum Tathagata and Palash on other threads have given us INI readers deep insight on the intellectual cleansing conducted by the Communists in Bengal.
I have read many works of bengali writers and I rever them.
What has been written over here taunting and abusing Bengal and Bengalis is simply not done.
this is the best blog in the entire blogosphere
Totally OT, but take a look at this:
http://www.ndtvprofit.com/2008/06/14155938/Promote-Islamic-banking-in-Ind.html
Why do we even bother calling ourselves a secular country.
Is demand for gorkhaland is justified?
I think yes and its also any opportunity for BJP to snatch way part into its fold. What do you guyz say?
Gujjuman,
My wife is from that area and (OK, am being biased here) her people are among the best hearted I’ve seen in India.
If they want Gorkhaland, so be it. They are on India’s side and that is all that matters.
Besides, if Uttranchal could break away despite sharing a common language with the rest of UP, what ostensible logic is there in keeping an ethnically distinct people who don’t even share Bangla with the rest of West Bengal under the CPIM thumb??
Gujjuman,
gorkhaland can definitely be used as a doorstep by the BJP to become relevant in Bengali politics. I think it should go one step further, and destroy the commies by force in Bengal once the BJP is in power in the center. It can be done, it just needs someone with the Machiavellian cunning of Mrs Indira Gandhi, and the Iron will of the M.O.D.
Who is M.O.D?
M.O.D.==Ministry of Defence
Merchant OF Death =)
1. I have gone through the article, but couldn’t find any substance in it. It is as shallow/confused as Shri Gurucharan Das himself. A person who does not have originality, can’t write original.
2. He wrote, “Despite this religious background, I grew up agnostic, which is a luxury of being Hindu.” He recognised, being a Hindu only possible to be anything- atheist, agnostic, theist, and so on. Then, why not speak out loudly saying, this is the most beautiful dharma which provide us unlimited freedom. This is the dharma, which sheltered persecuted people. Because of this dharma, this nation is secular. Because of this dharma, an Italian christian naturalised citizen could hold the supreme power of the govt of the day. And list goes on.
3. This brand of name-sake Hindus were the collaborators to Islamic and European invadors. Some Rajput Hindus collaborated with Mughals to enjoy sub-ordinate power and they were happy to be sub-ordinate. They did what the Mughal emperors ordered, they attacked hindu kingdoms and subjugated them under Mughal empire. Same story goes during British rule. They are snakes inside our house, and snakes inside our house are more dangerous than enemies outside.
4. Those hindus shy away or feel embarasse to say they are hindus, suffering from lack of self-respect and self-confidence. They have no faith in themselves, and a person who have no faith is dead. To have self-respect and confidence, one need to cultivate it.
Bharat
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