i thought i'd post this here as an example of the kind of discourse a hindu can expect from a committed 'secular' intellectual. the issue of labels is very interesting. through labeling, hindus have been turned into non-persons, and hinduism into a non-existent artificial construct. therefore, obviously, hindus and hinduism do not have any rights! QED!
at the end of the day, we sort of agree that we cannot let facts pollute our opinions!
not to make it personal with brp, whom i have known for a long time and get along well with (so long as we don't discuss certain topics. oddly enough, just like with mohammedans!)
the entire edifice of 'aryan invasion' has been shown to be resting on very thin ice: the pseudo-science of philology. do read the papers on this website to see how the increasing body of evidence negates this motivated fairy-tale. oppenheimer's work on genetics actually even suggests an out-of-india origin for europeans.
your information is a little outdated. the genetic studies now most widely accepted suggest that early humans came to india from africa around 100,000 years ago and then, through a complex series of events -- including a giant volcano that completely depopulated india -- ended up creating the entire non-african part of the world. kindly see the bradshaw foundation's website (re oppenheimer's work).
there is emphatically no large-scale migration of new genetic material into india after 35,000 years ago. yes, no 'aryan' invasion.
the term hindu was used much earlier than al biruni. it was used by persians whose s-cognate was h, thus 'sindhu' became 'hindu', like malayalam 'patti' becomes 'haddi' in kannada.
oh, i do not by any means claim that barbarians cannot overthrow civilizations. i ... Read Moreagree with you, they usually do. i am with will durant who said, "The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within."
i choose the work of one of the greatest geneticists of the recent past, and the competing hot theory (from oxford) says more or less the same thing. no large-scale genetic influx into india.
i choose not to believe the work of a 19th cent church guy who dated the vedas based on his belief that the world was created on oct 12th, 4004 BCE at 10am. and he recanted later, anyway. like phrenology, 'aryan' invasion is idiocy, and even witzel/thapar types no longer peddle that particular snake oil. they dissimulate -- 'migration' it is, now. ... Read More
but i am disappointed that you have apparently dismissed my cogent 'aryan' tourist theory. why, i am even in agreement with steve farmer (witzel's foul-mouthed sancho panza) in his assumption that the indus script is not a language!
how does it matter that hindu texts do not say anything about "hindu"? for that matter, hindu texts do not say ... Read Moreanything about "kafir" or "pagan", but that's what some others with "garv" call hindus, right? so why all this fuss about nomenclature?
fairness? well, as a small minority hindus are entitled to some extra consideration (remember all the talk about minority entitlements all the time). around the world, 50% are followers of jesus, 33% are followers of mohammed, and hindus are only a part of the remaining 17%. in kerala, 30% follow jesus, 30% follow mohd, 30% follow marx, only 10% are hindus.
The Supreme Court has provided guidelines to decide who is a Hindu, what is Hinduism etc because sometimes it becomes necessary for courts to decide whether or not a person was a Hindu. That does not make the Supreme Court a competent authority to decide these questions because essentially these are not legal issues. And do you know ... Read Morewho gave the court the authority to decide who is a Hindu? The British! After the British acquired control of Bengal in 18th century, they were called upon to decide various legal issues. Warren Hastings got Hindu scholars to tell him what Hindu law and Muslim scholars to tell him what Muslim law was. The Hindu scholars he picked were all followers of the Vedic tradition and on their advice the colonial courts accepted the Vedas and Manu Smriti as basic texts of Hindu law.
Sree Narayana Guru, now depicted in yellow robes by his followers, actually wore white all his life. He switched to saffron at the fag end. This was to prevent alienation of the property he had acquired. To keep the property with the Sangham he had set up it was necessary to establish that he was a sanyasi. According to the guidelines the court had laid down earlier, a sanyasi had to be habitual wearer of saffron. Would Sree Narayana not have been a sanyasi if he had not switched to saffron?
i note in passing that ... Read Moreyou do not consider the supreme court a competent authority, but you do consider the constitution a competent authority in its definition of "minority" as well of "minority rights", i take it?
once again, we are in violent agreement on not liking the british. i too, find that they caused serious problems with their census, which had the effect of ossifying the caste system, which hitherto had been quite fluid. by arbitrarily deeming certain groups to be xyz, the british perverted the caste system, which had been a sensible system of division of labor hitherto.
the british not only paupered a lot of the caste guilds by de-industrializing india, they also cemented their position -- previously marvelously fluid -- in the caste system with their absurd censuses. in addition, they 'demoted' a lot of the martial castes after removing their weapons to ensure they would not be a challenge to the british. so the british perversions of the caste system were a huge factor in the later problems of the country. they successfully drove giant wedges between the various castes, which we are still experiencing the evil results of.