On Monday 09 Mar 2009 9:41:57 pm Radhika, Y. wrote: > Some of you may be interested in the South Asian Idea weblog, started by > Dr. Anjum Altaf of Pakistan
This is a favorite theme of Hindutva. After all "Kandahar' is the town from which Gandhari came, and Kasur in Pakistan was named by one of Ram's sons "Kusha" (of Lava-Kusha), and Lahore by Lava. What is the cut off date for Indian culture? At what date was culture in India "purely Indian"? When did "mixing" start? This gets more and more Nazi-esque as we move backwards in time searching for culture as "what was" rather than looking at culture as "what is". Pakistan is commiting hara-kiri by trying to remove every vestige of "Indian culture" from Pakistan. Some Indians too appear to be trying to do exactly the same thing in India. Let me unashamedly cross post my own thoughts from another forum on the same subject: ".. what a lot of us say and do is shaped in a Western framework. I accept this, but I would also like to point out that at least some of what we say and think might also, in the same manner, carry Islamic baggage or influences. I am dead certain this is the case - but it is very difficult to try and address the degree of influence Islam may have had on Indian psyche without getting into emotion and controversy. Saying that there may be unquantifiable Islamic influence in the modern Indian mind on this forum is a bit like alleging that there is a bit of rapist in every man's mind. The idea causes anger and revulsion (on here) - but it may be the anger of cognitive dissonance. If we can accept that we have swallowed a part of the Western mindset to arrive at the modern Indian, the idea that we may also have swallowed an Islamic mindset is not difficult to construe, but more difficult to dissect and examine objectively in an environment that sees Islam as a rigid embodiment of murder, intolerance and mayhem. But the possibility exists that we have internalised certain Islamic influences for whatever reason and those Islamic influences are mixed with older indic influences and newer Western influences to make the modern Indian. We get a real problem here (or a real solution) depending on how you want to view it. The Indian mind today could well have a mixture of influences. Claiming that a given mind has more of one influence and less of another is exactly the game of politics that is being played by various groups and parties in India. When you speak of a "battle for the hearts and minds" of Indians - this is exactly what it means. That brings me to the second point you make - in the second para quoted above. What is the way forward. Do we seek "forward" by engaging reverse gear attempting to remove X, Y or Z influences as Pakistan is doing? Or do we battle the people who are trying to do that and say - we need "forward" not "reverse"? If we do, what is forward? shiv
