True change will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities

Playing fast and loose – Pratap Bhanu Mehta Indian Express, Fri, Jun 03 2011 

But civil society is, unconsciously, abetting its own brand of authoritarianism.

First, the sensibility at work in this self-appointed civil society is to enhance state power. Most of them hate the one thing that has made a brighter future possible for India: liberalisation. It took us decades to struggle against the stranglehold of the state and concentrations of power. Under the guise of combating terrorism, the state encroached on our freedoms. Under the guise of promoting accountability, civil society now wants new concentrations of power. How else do you explain that a Baba who advocates the extension of the death penalty to economic offenders, whose views on sexual minorities border on the fascist, is now the saviour of our moral fibre? How else do you explain the fact that every bill the NAC touches is closing doors to experiments in the social sector? It played fast and loose with important constitutional values in the prevention of communal violence bill. How else do you explain the sensibility that says the solution to the problems of the state is more state, the solution to weaknesses of existing institutions is more institutions, and the key to dealing with the fact that most laws remain unimplemented is more laws?

The second element of creeping authoritarianism is the punitive mood. The presumptions that should remain dear to a liberal society, even though there may be costs attached to them, are all being tossed out of the window: like the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In this climate, can you even think of a judge being able to give someone bail fairly? Merely that act will expose her to the censure that she is corrupt. This is the tenor of much of the allegations our civil society representatives are bandying about as gospel truth. No one denies that “due process” has been a fig leaf to let many holders of power off the hook. But that is no justification for creating a climate of opinion about whole classes of people that is punitive rather than discriminating.

The third element of creeping authoritarianism is the erosion of a proper sense of balance. Each group is pursuing a single-point agenda as if that is the only thing that mattered. Each value like transparency is being taken to an extreme point where it could become dangerous. Sunlight may be a disinfectant. It can also blur your eyes. Disclosure of the assets of public servants may serve some functions, properly handled. But there is something invasive and unseemly about the way in which the whole persona of public servants is being defined in public discourse through an obsession with assets. The RTI Act is a wonderful instrument. But its use has to be measured. Recently, the CIC ruled that all confidential reports be made public. We can debate that ruling from an organisational point of view. But the large philosophical premise behind it is disturbing: information is a right. Privacy is not a right. Therefore the former trumps the latter. Remember the core of all authoritarianism is the claim that the individual is always subordinate to the collective interest. Transparency always trumps privacy. The core of totalitarianism was the claim that individuals be subject to a field of total visibility, so that slowly the whole notion of public and private disappears. A whole range of institutions is taking us down that path.

The fourth element of creeping authoritarianism is the invocation of the people as an abstract concept. All authoritarianisms mistrust the representative process. The concept of the people then becomes an abstraction; each group can claim to represent it simply by their self-proclaimed virtue. Each disagreement becomes a sign of treason. The people must be a unity. If anyone disagrees, they must, by definition be against the people. If you have different views on the Lokpal it must be because you are against the people: classic authoritarian rhetoric.

The fifth element of authoritarianism is endless confusion of roles. Baba Ramdev has solid achievements to his credit in raising consciousness about yoga. It is heartening that citizens take more interest in public affairs. But there is a presumption that accomplished individuals, by virtue of their achievements in one sphere, can leverage that authority everywhere. This confusion of roles is almost everywhere. Parts of the media cannot decide whether they want to be trustworthy institutions of record or tools of partisan, rabble-rousing demagoguery, with editors donning the mantle of revolutionaries. But the short-term gains of this activism will come at the price of long-term credibility. True change will not come from this confusion of roles; it will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities to the best.

A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion. And all this in a context where government paralysis is enhancing the two biggest risks to the well-being of the poor — entrenched inflation and slowdown in growth. Instead of clamouring for visibility, we should follow old Baba Ramdev’s advice: take a deep breath. The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi express@expressindia.com 

What’s in a solution? Thursday 14 April '11, The search for one-shot cures to our problem is in itself a problem. Of the few, by the few Thursday 7 April '11, Lokpal Bill agitation has a contempt for politics and democracy. A battle for Parliament Friday 25 February '11, The sidelining of individual MPs carries costs for our democracy.

Antagonistic becomes complementary

Auroville Council self-appraisal 2011

Self-appraisal at the end of 2011 term of office

The term of office of the members of the Working Committee and Auroville Council ends on June 22nd. Both groups have published an appraisal of their functioning over the past two years. Here we share excerpts from these self-appraisals.

Since the beginning of our tenure, the team has worked reasonably well. It was possible to find mutual agreement between us and work through consensus, however long it may have taken at times to arrive at it. None of us had any particular agenda in mind and that is probably an important condition for a consensus.

Most of the members of the present Council were quite new to this type of task and it took us a long time to understand the complexity of the job and the full nature of the problems and how to address them effectively.

We felt as if we were thrown inat the deep end, with no continuity with theprevious group except for the saving graceof our secretary Sathya's presence as Council secretary.

Therefore, keeping in mind that it takes members quite some time before they can be pro-active within the group and contribute significantly, we think it would be advisable to renew some of the members every year, in order to allow new members time to get acquainted with the work, or to allow some members of the previous group to stay on with the new group for a period of a few months to ensure continuity in the work.

Having a totally new group, new to its job every two years, is not a good working formula. The members spend half their time reinventing the wheel.

The mandate of the Council is very wide and diverse, but more than 90% of our time was taken up by conflict resolution. The most essential part of our mandate, which concernsfinding living ways to manifest the ideal of Auroville, is thus continually put on hold as our time is consumed by conflict resolutions.

To avoid this overburdening of the Council, we propose that a Conflict Resolution cell be created under the Council with permanent members having the required profile to assist the Council in this aspect of the work.

Most of these conflicts are irrelevant to Auroville's aims and ideals. Most of the people involved just want recognition that they are right and that the other party is wrong. We have therefore come up with a set of requirements for bringing issues to us that puts the emphasis on the individuals involved working towards a true solution.

We are convinced of the impossibility of arriving at a true solution if the parties in a conflict do not want to make the necessary efforts to arrive at a mutual understanding. It is a progress that we cannot do for them and any decision taken then is a decision by default, not the truest one. It is far below what The Mother expected of us, when she mentioned several times the need to arrive at a point where what is antagonistic becomes complementary. As long as this effort is not made, we are not in the context of a society of unending education and constant progress.

Most of the Council members already have a full-time job and therefore cannot offer the needed time to follow-up on all of the issues which are generally brought to us when all else has failed and the situation has reached crisis point. This is hardly a way to function serenely. Help is needed to assist the Council members in their task by preparing and following up on the issues, as well in keeping a channel of communication open with the community and with the other working groups.

One of the areas where attention is needed is the communication/information aspect. The Residents Assembly Service needs to emerge as the group responsible for seeing to it that a living communication between the community at large and the working groups is maintained, perhaps through a certain minimum number of general meetings a year. A culture of consultation on key topics through forums with concerned community members who are determined to seek a comprehensive way forward and to stay with the process, also needs to be nurtured.

The Council mandate is obsolete in its wording. It is too vast and vague. It deserves to be more accurately formulated. There is a confusion of functions because the Council is asked to act as an executive body implementing decisions, as a judiciary in conflict resolution and as a supreme court of appeal in deciding conflicts between individuals or between individuals and working groups. We need to separate these functions because they have to be independent of each other and because they require people with different profiles and abilities.

To summarise, what is needed is to take organisational steps to allow more availability of the Council, more facilitated transition between two Councils, more coordination with other groups and more communication with the Community.

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Sri Aurobindo's Writings - The Mother's Collected Works

Village is a more representative unit of Indian civilization and culture

SARVAM: An Experiment in Integral Community Building

A unique project of Sri Aurobindo Society in Rural Development.

Senthil, Chitra and Chiranjeevi

An integral approach to village development which includes the inner growth of people as well as the outer development of the community; with a people-centric inclusive and participatory process of growth; where development programmes and activities are identified, planned, organized and managed by the village community with SARVAM acting only as a catalyst of the development process.

Key Perspectives

Background; the strategic vision; manaveli, a model hamlet: vision in action; village journal & TV; village coordinators & social workers; practices for inner growth.

Background

There are two factors, which make the Indian Village important for the future of India. First is that, the village in India, even now in our modern age, is a more representative unit of Indian civilization and culture than the urban towns and metros, which have become more or less westernized. However we need a more integral approach to Rural Development. The integral view looks at a community not merely as an economic and social unit but as a living human organism with a collective soul, mind and life. In this view the main emphasis is on inner growth of the community, which means mental, moral and spiritual development of the group, through education and yoga but without ignoring or neglecting the outer growth in the economic and social dimension. For, our approach cannot be integral if we ignore the development of the outer life. But the integral ideal is that outer growth has to be a spontaneous expression of the inner growth.

The Strategic Vision

Sri Aurobindo Rural Village Action and Movement (SARVAM), is the Rural Development wing of Sri Aurobindo Society. The SARVAM can be considered as an experimental “action-research” in integral community development. The programme of action is four-fold, covering the following areas:

 Physical and economic development using available local materials and technology.
 Development of the family and community, particularly empowerment of women, skills enhancement and entrepreneurship.
 Psychological and cultural development through education and training.
 Spiritual development through the right understanding of religion, spirituality and Yoga, and their role in life.

Sri Aurobindo's Writings - The Mother's Collected Works

Reforms introduced by the British were of benefit only to upper caste women

Politics and ethics of the Indian Constitution - Rajeev Bhargava - 2008 - Thus, the first task before us is to ask just what it is that the Constitution is trying to say, to identify the broadest possible range within which all of us, coming as we do from diverse background and different presuppositions, ...

Religion and law in independent India - Robert D. Baird - 2005 - India's Constitution and Traditional Presuppositions Regarding Human Nature Harold G. Coward A major conflict exists between the Constitution of India and the traditional presuppositions of karma and guna theory. The Constitution ...

India's living constitution: ideas, practices, controversies - Zoya Hasan, Eswaran Sridharan, R. Sudarshan - 2005 - EgGP Verma, Caste Reservation in India: Law and the Constitution, Chugh Publications, Allahabad, 1980; BAV Sharma and ... related example of the transnational discourse is, Clark D. Cunningham and NR Madhava Menon, 'Race, Class, Caste . ...

Power and contestation: India since 1989 - Page 15 - Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam - 2007 - The recalcitrance of caste The "backward castes" in power The period since the mid- to late 1980s has seen a dramatic collapse of old political formations and parties, which had dominated politics in the Nehruvian era.1 Even the ...

Recovering subversion: feminist politics beyond the law - Page 170 - Nivedita Menon - 2004 - the growing presence of backward castes through successive elections is an equally significant development. I will argue that these processes produced two very different (even opposed) sets of concerns ...

Sexualities - Nivedita Menon - 2007 - The grounds of restriction are caste 'purity', a notion passed down through the caste hierarchy. Notions of caste purity have something to do with economic forces, the means of production and control over these, with such division of ...

The blindness of insight: essays on caste in modern India - Dilip M. Menon - 2006 - See Dilip M. Menon, "Caste and Colonial Modernity: Reading Saraswativijayam" , Studies in History, XIII, 2, 1997; also reproduced in this book, 110-144. 27 CA Bayly, "Returning the British to South Asian History: The Limits of...

Cultural history of modern India - Page 77 - Dilip M. Menon - 2006 - What is important to stress is that the upholding of genealogy is perhaps stronger in the low-caste groups than in the ... The Bhats charge the lower castes large sums of money to maintain their genealogy, and their poor patrons have no ...

The caste question: Dalits and the politics of modern India - Page 288 - Anupama Rao - 2009 - With regard to Christian conversion of the lower and untouchable castes in western and central India, ... Dilip Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism in India: Malabar, 1900–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); ...

Gendered citizenship: historical and conceptual explorations - Page 222 - Anupama Roy - 2005 - The period also saw a vehement and vociferous rise in upper- caste opposition to caste-based reservations in jobs. ... Menon shows how upper-caste opposition to the Mandal Commission reservations in jobs for the scheduled castes and ...

Everyday nationalism: women of the Hindu right in India - Page 176 - Kalyani Devaki Menon - 2009 - Caste in particular is of concern to the movement, which faces serious threats to its electoral base as well as its moral image from political groups and parties affiliated with lower-caste and dalit groups. Several women spoke of the ...

Borders & boundaries: women in India's partition - Page 21 - Ritu Menon, Kamla Bhasin - 1998 - The issue of gendered identities is central to any discussion on the interplay of community, class and caste with wider political, economic and social forces. The adoption of a perspective that locates women at the intersection of these ...

From Mathura to Manorama: resisting violence against women in India - Kalpana Kannabirān, Ritu Menon, International Centre for Ethnic Studies - 2007 - By the same token, demonstrating control by humiliating women of another caste is a sure-fire way of reducing the "manhood" of those castes.25 Spaces, domestic and public, are similarly structured along lines of caste and gender. ...

Women empowerment and challenge of change - Latika Menon - 1998 - Most of the reforms introduced by the British administrations were of benefit only to upper caste women who were the ones who were denied the right to remarry if widowed, and whose families could afford to educate them, if education ...

Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected

Strangers Nowhere in the World rom Coordination Problem by Peter Boettke

That phrase comes from Kant, but it is also the title of an excellent book that I am reading at the moment by Margaret Jacob (U of Penn Press, 2006).  Jacob's book is about the rise of cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe.  It is, in short, about the rise of European Liberalism.

This last point I want to stress because too often in the popular media the teachings of the Austrian school are identified with conservative politics when in fact the great Austrian economists, such as Menger, Mises and Hayek were in fact European Liberals.  Radical liberals that opposed intolerance, militarism, and arbitrary state authority.  Yes they were economic liberals, but their views on economic policy were part of a larger world view that followed consistently from an embracing of the cosmopolitanism that Jacob writes about.

For anyone who doubts this, read Mises's Liberalism.  As he says on p. 56, "Liberalism demands toleration as a matter of principle, not from opportunism."  Only toleration, he continues, "can create and preserve the condition of social peace without which humanity must relapse into barbarism and penury of centuries long past."

On colonialism, Mises wrote: "No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism.  Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly.  Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated.  All this can in no way be extenuated or justified." (see p. 125)

Every sort of national chauvinism is to be rejected, and instead the free mobility of people and goods is to be pursued.  We are to be citizens of the world.  Cosmopolitanism, toleration, trade are the hallmarks of liberalism.  That is what Ludwig von Mises stood for in his politics. 

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Sri Aurobindo

Right to freedom of religion: a study in Indian secularism - Kanan Gahrana - 2001 - 195 pages 

With most of the leaders of the modern renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo shared an abhorrence of quietism, asceticism and illusionism. He was more thorough going in his opposition to these tendencies than the rest of them. ...

The Indian Encyclopaedia: Gautami Ganga -Himmat Bahadur - Page 2604 - Subodh Kapoor - 2002 - 322 pages - Preview

Ghosh exhibited his abhorrence for terrorist style militant resistance. He had propagated the idea of an open armed ... Ghosh came to be known as Sri Aurobindo to the world. Aurobindo completed his "Savitri", which he began writing in ...

The Mother: the story of her life - George Van Vrekhem - 2000 - 545 pages 

'He felt no call for the ICS and was seeking some way to escape from that bondage,' Sri Aurobindo would write about himself ... Besides, he abhorred the administrative aspect of all ICS offices, with their routine and dreary paper work. ...

Decolonization and development: Hind svaraj revisioned - Makarand R. Paranjape - 1993 - 240 pages 

Both had a deep abhorrence for this civilization. Aurobindo, though, accepted a whole set of liberal values, including parliamentary government, democracy, human rights, and so on. Gandhi, on the other hand, had little respect for ...

Colonialism, tradition, and reform: an analysis of Gandhi's ... - Bhikhu C. Parekh - 1989 - 288 pages 

Aurobindo expressed a similar view:" Liberty is the life-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, ... On occasion after occasion, they expressed their abhorrence of violence and insisted that they would have preferred to ...

Human consciousness and its evolution: a multidimensional view - Richard W. Coan - 1987 - 189 pages 

Both Aurobindo and Wilber argue that the concept of evolution logically implies involution or that the one process requires the ... or psychological state that seems ideal to one person may be viewed with abhorrence by someone else. ...

Netaji, a realist and a visionary - Amita Ghosh - 1986 - 276 pages - Snippet view

... Cuttack who roused the feelings of wrath and abhorrence against British imperialism in Bose's heart. ... The ideas of Aurobindo also influenced him to some extent. Indeed, Bose was also influenced by Candhi's non-violent ...

Through different eyes: foreign responses to Indian writing in English - Kirpal Singh - 1984 - 284 pages - Snippet view

Even P. Lal in his introduction to Modern Indian Poetry in English cites Aurobindo as the major influence that had to be ... This New Poetry was new because it abhorred the old conventional jargon (sociological as well as literary) and ...

The intimate enemy: loss and recovery of self under colonialism - Ashis Nandy - 1983 - 121 pages 

On his yogic intervention in the war, see Sri Aurobindo, On Himself (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972), pp. 38-9, 393-9; see also p. 388 for his comments on Lenin and the Russian Revolution which seem to suggest that Aurobindo ...

Kundalini, evolution, and enlightenment - John Warren White - 1979 - 482 pages 

In the integral approach of Sri Aurobindo, there is a full appreciation of the many-sided perspective of tantra on the ... Therefore it is not to be neglected, abhorred, or condemned, but understood and transmuted for the higher purpose ...

Glory of India: Volumes 3-4 - 1979 

Sri Aurobindo, the great Yogi and philosopher of modern times, discusses here the principal ideas of all the variations of Yoga ... however which is based mainly upon those aspects of Tantrism formerly looked on with so much abhorrence. ...

The Quarterly review of historical studies: Volumes 17-18 - Institute of Historical Studies (Calcutta, India) - 1978 

Bengal discovered a Mazzini in Aurobindo. He joined, while in London, a secret society called 'Lotus and Dagger', ... spirit of Mazzini as the foundation stone of his actions and motives, although he abhorred Mazzini's violent method. ...

Economic and political weekly: Volume 12 - 1977 

The reflection of this 'reaction' can be found in Dadabhai Naoroji, Aurobindo. Wadia, Tilak, and Gandhi as well as ... movement very often coincided with tendencies towards national regeneration and abhorrence for modernisation and...

The Hindu personality in education: Tagore, Gandhi, Aurobindo - William Cenkner - 1976 - 230 pages 

What urged him to place his theory on a national scale was an abhorrence of the British system of education imposed upon India. Considering the British system as impractical and destructive of the Indian imagination, Gandhi called it an ...

Long journey home: a biography of Margaret Noble (Nivedita) - Barbara Foxe - 1975 - 239 pages 

More dangerous to her was her friendship with Aurobindo. His aims were frankly revolutionary at this period of his life. ... and the rock which finally smashed the Kali-symbol as a rallying-point for a united India was Muslim abhorrence ...

Social and political ideas of Bipin Chandra Pal - Amalendu Prasad Mookerjee - 1974 - 184 pages 

What, therefore, can fairly be said about Pal is that in the ultimate analysis, he differed from all the three — Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo in the matter of religion and philosophy. He abhorred revivalism and medievalism of any ...

Evolution and the earthly destiny - Nolini Kanta Gupta - 1976 - 378 pages 

Its dislike and even abhorrence for things it chooses to call immoral is the ransom it pays for rescuing its sense of morality, and paradoxically this very abhorrence for unholy things has pushed it all the more into their grasp. ...

Integral Yoga is the ultimate of social activism

The Gita, like Aurobindo , elucidates the divine human who has the ability to perform the work of God, like the soldier Arjuna, firm in transcendent worldly action. From here Aurobindo extends the Gita into evolutionary possibilities for the liberation of all humanity, for as the Gita brings hope to the individual for liberation why not also the collective? 

Here again we see a slight expansion from Hindu tradition. Aurobindo is inspiring in his ability to take the tradition into modernity adapting for the purpose. Aurobindo remains true to the heart of the tradition and it seems that he succeeds in carrying out the spirit of Hinduism to its simple, logical, spiritual heights. If, according to the Gita, there is hope for every human no matter how wretched in their transgressions against the will of Spirit, why not also provide hope for humanity as a whole. Just as Aurobindo succeeded in offering the spirit of acceptance, inclusion and adaptation from the tradition to modernity, he succeeds in transmitting the message of the Gita and further the spirit of its cause by adapting it to the global community and the modern subject. Aurobindo seems to have the vast tradition, the yogis, the gurus of the past cheering him on into modernity. Aurobindo, at the same time, exemplifies the spirit of the Western exploration by pioneering new territory for the Indian tradition. Posted by Adam Dietz at 9:04 AM TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2010

Integral Yoga and Social Concern

Just as Aurobindo shows us the social-political ramifications, outer ramifications, Western necessity, for pursuing the divine for the sake of fulfilling a sort of divine evolution, he also examines the inner tradition in terms of Yoga. Aurobindo refers to the various Indian traditions in which we find inner experience such as the Kundalini experience. He examines the various yogas as separate and distinct paths that must become synthesized. He explains that as we advance in one arena of spirit its effects manifest themselves in the other arenas. If we advance in the mental we will see the fruits of our relation to spirit manifest in action and devotion as well. Aurobindo ties these together with the additional benefit seen in Tantric yoga, the benefit of enjoying the outer universe as an extended experience of the Divine. Again we see the pattern of Aurobindo to synthesize the ancient tradition, and again we see him take it to its logical conclusion. If the yoga benefits the practitioner in all arenas of experience then would not, from the modern, global perspective, the yoga benefit humanity as a whole? Wouldn't Tantric yoga have implications in the broader social and political realms of experience. Aurobindo asks the practitioner of any yoga to, upon the growth in relation to spirit in the realm of the personal exercise, begin to seek the growth of the spiritual relation in all realms of life. Yoga for Aurobindo is the discipline by which the individual may free the self from the many egoic veils that obscure the manifestation of spirit.
SOCIAL CONCERN
Again, if this is the possibility for the individual why then is it not also the possibility for the group? In this sense Aurobindo believes that Integral Yoga is the ultimate of social activism. To lower the veils obscuring our relation to the Divine through discipline, to begin to see those veils being lowered in integral life, and to begin to see the possibility of lowering those veils through sympathetic, or better, empathetic action, is the beginning of the next stage in evolution. Again this is where Aurobindo simply extends the spirit of the Hindu tradition into realms that were not as widely understood in the 'smaller' ancient world. Aurobindo simply applies the spirit of the tradition to suit his experience with the modern world, a world in which social, global questions are increasingly significant. Many efforts are made by many people for social justice, Aurobindo’s own philosophy arose partly out of grave concern for changing India. But his answers come in the form of intense spiritual practice, a synthesizing practice that plays within the outer world but always remains rooted in its relationship to Divinity. The cultivation of spirit in oneself and in the larger social sphere is for Aurobindo the ultimate act of social concern. If, as the Gita illustrates, each human no matter their transgressions has the capacity for spiritual achievement then the logical extension of this would be the capacity for large scale group achievement. Posted by Adam Dietz at 6:20 AM FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010 Ethics and Spirituality Today

Discrimination and persecution in the Ashram are the first things that have to go

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This is Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram not yours and not P...": 

There is certainly truth in what you are saying. Indians today do have a long way to go in improving the lives of other Indians. […]

Indians are at least taught, through her teachers, to find the Divine in all things and beings. It is this and not some extremem discrimination that makes India unique among peoples and nations. This is a fundamental truth that even Sri Aurobindo repeats throughout His Works. If we have fallen from that state and strayed from that teaching then it is because of some fundamental weakness and error for which Sri Aurobindo provides the necessary corrective. If you feel that there is still a sense of discrimination and persecution in the Ashram then that is absolutely one of the first things that have to go, even as a preliminary to entering the spiritual life, which fundamentally rests on seeing and loving the One Divine Truth in all things and beings. Posted by Anonymous to Savitri Era Open Forum at 8:54 PM, October 19, 2010

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This is Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram not yours and not P...": 

ashramites are deeply conscious of their "chosen ones", superior air.
they talk about being equal amongst themselves but it is in theory.the bengalis consider themselves superior, due to art, culture, intellect. the business class gujarati/marwari is inferior, the working class oriyas are treated worse in the ashram as brainless, poor etc. […]

gave some books on dalits to the ashram school/library and the response was uncomfortable, as if the problem does not exist or is not their agenda. okay agree on it.
just a few kms. outside pondy near villupuram and other areas, dalit discrimination is in full force. such as 2 tumbler system in tea shops. etc.
on ecr road before pondy university, after tsunami, the upper castes did not allow dalit bodies to go through certain areas.
okay ashramites/devotees are not supposed to solve these problems, but to talk about equality and toilet cleaner as archivist etc, is not fair. these issues and work of archives is not easy, takes years to learn, and the archives always, had to take help of experts, as many owrking there were not trained, so this talk of anyone doing it is not fair. Posted by Anonymous to Savitri Era Open Forum at 7:52 PM, October 20, 2010

Standing by the authentic and the elevating

Comment posted by RY Deshpande Re: Sraddhalu Ranade writes to Manoj Das ... Manoj Das’s Disastrous Advice

These are all human problems arising out of human clumsiness. As long as it is there, they are there. But one goes to a spiritual institution for spiritual progress and not for, for instance, writing academic treatises for the sake of treatises. Unless these turn into spiritual aids, they have no value and any representation of such things to the ‘outside’ world then becomes a misrepresentation. It is that which becomes the source of annoyance. 

Intolerance of such an annoyance may not be absolutely yogic, but fighting against hostility that always surrounds it is also an aspect of yogic business, including fighting against authorities that uphold it. Repugnance towards untruth is to promote greater sincerity in the values that are cherished. Never can truth and falsehood stay together if spiritual pursuit is the concern, and dismissing falsehood is a part of that concern. In it precisely lies the hero-warriorship and standing by it is an act of spiritual nobility. There is no other identity in it except standing by the authentic and the elevating which comes only by developing finer perceptions. ~ RYD

Seven distinctive features of Indian secularism

Social citizenship rights of Canadian Muslim youth: youth resiliencies and the claims for social inclusion. CONCLUSION: THE BEGINNINGS OF A WAY FORWARD 

Given the discussion so far that point to the very serious limitations of the Canadian secular welfare state to recognize social citizenship rights of Canadian-Muslims in socially inclusionary ways, alternative ways of defining secular welfare state's relationship with its faith-based communities need to be conceived. Rajeev Bhargava (2008), an eminent Indian political theorist has undertaken compelling theoretical work in this direction, by grounding his analysis from lessons learnt through expressions of secularism found in India. Starting with the admission that the Indian state has its own failings, Bhargava analyzes the constitutional claims that the Indian State offers an ideal for a rearticulation of secularism that takes the rights, interests and values of the multiple faith-based communities within which social citizenship rights are negotiated.

There are seven features of Indian secularism that Bhargava (2008: 101-103) feels can provide western welfare states with alternative definitions of secularism and which correspond to the earlier critique of the Canadian welfare state as an example of western secularism discussed in this paper. The first is its multi-value character. Bhargava argues that the Indian state takes seriously values that have been forgotten in western secular states, such as peace between communities as well as defining values of autonomy and equality in both individualistic as well as non-individualistic ways. This recalls the earlier discussion in this paper which was concerned with the limitations that were placed on faith-based communities through individualistic definitions of autonomy that overlooked the resiliencies that Muslim youth spoke of when they envisioned themselves as being part of something greater than their self. Thus Indian state supports the rights of faith-based communities to establish and maintain educational institutions that are crucial to the survival of these communities. This is very unlike Canada where the state feels it has no role to play in relation to such educational institutions unless it is a policing role.

Second, India is concerned with issues of domination in inter-religious as well as intra-religious relations. Thus it recognizes community-specific socio-cultural rights of faith based communities. Within Canada recognition of the socio-cultural rights of faith-based communities is withheld and rationalized in terms of the harm that can occur to citizens' individual rights of autonomy and equality within faith-based communities. In particular the state invokes Muslim women's rights of equality within their faith-based communities to make the case (Kymlicka 1995). Hence, as discussed earlier, faith is relegated to a private space. In the example of the Indian state, these thorny issues of community and individual rights of autonomy are viewed as maters of state concern and the effort is to set up institutions that can help negotiate and balance these sometimes conflicting claims to autonomy, rather than turning a blind eye to the lives of citizens for whom their communities of faith are central to their lived experiences of being citizens.

Third, building on the first two features discussed above, is that the Indian state is committed to the idea of principled distance rather than the mutual exclusion model of secularism that is characteristic of the Canadian welfare state. The mutual exclusion model, as has been previously discussed sees the state as having no connection to religion and vice versa. India recognizes some level of inclusion at the level of law and public policy, so long as the principles of autonomy and equality (defined in more communal terms) are not trammeled. India recognizes the falsity of a separation that is mutually exclusive because it recognizes that for some of her citizens such a separation would be meaningless in terms of their lived experiences. In the following quote Bhargava defines what he means by principled separation in an eloquent and nuanced fashion that resonates with many of the arguments made in this paper:

      ... for mainstream western secularism, separation    means mutual exclusion. The idea of principled distance unpacks the metaphor of separation differently. It accepts a disconnection between state and religion at the level of ends and institutions but does not make a fetish of it at the third level of policy and law.... How else can it be in a society where religion frames some of its deepest interests?.... a secularism based on principled distance s not committed to the mainstream Enlightenment idea of religion. It accepts that humans have an interest in relating to something beyond themselves including God, and this manifests itself as individual belief and feeling as well as social practice in the public domain. (2008: 103)

A fourth characteristic of Indian secularism is the distinction that it makes between unpublicized and depoliticization. It does not depublicize religion, as mentioned earlier; it provides public space for faith-based groups through its laws and public policy; however it depoliticizes religion in one form, by insisting on a disconnection between the ends of its own activities and those of religious organizations. In other words the state does not exist to serve the ends of religious organizations; it exists to serve its own political ends. Similarly at an institutional level it remains disconnected from religious organizations whose own institutions and personnel are different from the personnel that run and maintain state organizations. This is in contrast to theocratic states like Iran who's political and religious institutions are run more explicitly by the same people and on the basis of their attachment to faith.

Fifth, the Indian definition of state secularism is defined by active hostility to some aspects of religion that are incommensurate with secular liberal notions of social justice whilst maintaining active respect for its other dimensions. This allows for faith-based communities to have a voice and visibility in society but disallows it from using that voice to discriminate against its own or others. Faith communities are open to critique but not to active hostility or "respectful indifference," which could work as a wonderful alternative to address the concerns of Canadian citizens who fear limitations on their freedom of speech to critiques religious organizations, while addressing the needs of faith-based communities for respect.

A sixth feature is the malleability of the Indian state to allow for various and multiple definitions of secularism. The rather rigid definition of Canadian state secularism does not allow for such fluidity leaving secular Muslims at a loss of accounting for and articulating the complex characteristics of their identity.

Finally Indian secularism challenges normative notions modern welfare secular states by providing an alternative that is both modern but departs significantly from mainstream conceptions of western secularism (Bhargava 2008: 103). It speaks to the importance of young Canadian-Muslims to be both a part of modern Canadian society as well as deeply attached to the world vies offered by their faith, without having them choose between the two as incompatible.

In summary the Indian example of secularism treats faith-based communities as participating citizens whose voice is made visible in their own terms and as members of faith-based groups through a vision of social justice that is inclusionary of liberal conceptions of autonomy and equality--and much more. COPYRIGHT 2009 Association of Arab-American University Graduates. No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder. Copyright 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.