crisis of identity; case point south asia. the national emblem of india is ashoka chakra.emperor asoka was a buddhist.buddhism after a period of glorious existence was finally chased out of india by hinduism arround 10th century a.d.the other day I was both amused and amazed by the present indian prime minister modis astounding historical discovery that vedic rishis knew how to transplant a head.as an example he cited the case of ganesha, the hindu elephant headed god.this gave me an opportunity to ponder where does history begin in south asia?. Between 2760 and 1750 b.c south asia had a splendid civilization(pics1), known as mohenjodaro civilization (present day pakistan).in spite of plethora of artifacts,there is no evidence that these people worshiped any god or godess.after 1750 bc there is no evidence of its continuity .aryan invasion,was at one time touted as the fall of this civilization but this is not much pressed these days.mohenjo daro people had a script but this remains undeciphered.it is generally agreed that mohenjodaro declined partly due to environmenta causes. The priod between 1500bc and arrival of alexandar(325bc), is regarded as the vedic age.this is also,as far as history is concerned, the darkest period of south asia.there are no archeological monuments, no system of writing,no artifact of significance , found during this long period.how could a subcontinent remain in a civilizational slumber for nearly one thousand years?.except for a few shards known belong to painted gray culture(pic.2) of circa 850 bc nothing much there is of this period to prove that vedic civilization was a civilization at all.historical delirium of indias present hindutva chauvinists is therfore understandable. Recorded history of the subcontinent begins with maurya empire(pics 3) whose founder was a jaina and not hindu.we know more about the beginning of south asias history due two reliable sources.ashokas rock edicts and meghastheneses account of india- indica.megasthenes was a greek ambassador at chandraguptas court.he correctly obeserved that indians did have a system of writting as is evidenced by archeological absence.but megasthenese also tells us that hindus has a religious scripture called veda which passed from generation to generation by memory, called shruti.how can a books integrity remain intact if it is not penned down?.alberurini,regarded as the first scientific indologist, has also discussed veda, in his famous book indica.curiously about the same time as alberuni(1000 ad),sanskrit play write sri harsha in his famous booknaishdheo charit has doubted the authenticity of many shlokas of veda.i have read rg veda many times.to me it seems that it reflects the culture and spirit of pastoral society as could the vedic age be called. Not only the hindus have identity crisis. it is very much prevalent amongst the muslims also.most. Of the muslims with the family title syed,sheik and mir or with a lighter skin coloration think they are pure bred arabs or iranian.therefore look arrogantly or surreptitiously towards middle east or iran for indentity.how can such attitudes of either hindus or muslims help nation builiding in india, pakistan and bangladesh?.the middle class in pakistan seems to be coming out of this limbo.on the other hand the middle in india seems to be retrogerssing.the case of bangladesh is even more pathetic,thanks due to awami leagues modern myth making regarding our very recent history. But such crisis of identity can lead to dangerous situation.hitlers germany and present day zionist agressiveness and its resultant pariah status are glaring examples of that.80% of the jews are not jewish. They were ashkanazi pagans of eastern europe. False identity based on falsehood and mythification can only lead to self delusion and self destruction .we must therefore seek truth from facts,if at all we have to find an identity.in that if we find that we are a mixture of various ethnicitis and our culture is the confluence of numerous currents, then we should consider ourselves blessed.because in the last analysis mankind is bound to become homogeneous by the mixing of so many conflicting elements
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:04:08 +0000
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