The Dharma Dispatch

Those Hindus who were really benefited by Western contact were never unwise enough to denounce their own cultural achievements and contributions.🔖🕉🛕🪔 https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/the-training-character-and-legacy

The Deracinated Nehruvian Power Elite Derails the New Indian Renaissance   In 1947, a deracinated power elite seized the Government and wrecked our social harmony by uprooting a moral and ethical order, which was based on the code of Dharma.    Roughly since the 1960s, our courts became flooded with disputes, which for centuries, had been resolved by a single angry glare from an elder in a village or community.   Even a superficial reading of the Privy Council judgements reveals the caution that the British took in sticking to these age-old customs and usages prescribed by our Dharmasastras.   “Independent” India has thoroughly abandoned even the notion of Dharma in areas which even the colonial British were scared to touch. This perversion was not only allowed but actively encouraged by the aforementioned power elite. -- Do read the full essay and share it widely! 📑🕉🪔🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-deracinated-nehruvian-power-elite-derails-the-new-indian-renaissance

The Training, Character and Bequest of the Stalwarts of the New Indian Renaissance ---- THE SUNNY TRAIT COMMON TO all the luminaries of the New Indian Renaissance is this: they were polymaths in the widest sense. They had a solid training and grasp of the Bharatiya tradition and had also mastered the Western intellectual and philosophical milieu dating way back to ancient Greece, Rome and all the way up to say, Huxley. This command enabled them to confidently hold the fort in any argument or debate with Western scholars. To illustrate their mastery, majesty and sweep of knowledge, we have selected five glorious names: P.V. Kane, S. Srikanta Sastri, M. Hiriyanna and D.V. Gundappa. For example, here is how Hiriyanna defines Vedanta: Vedanta is the art of right living more than a system of philosophy. No British or European scholar who studied Hindu philosophy and was Hiriyanna’s contemporary, was able to supply this definition of Vedanta in his own mother tongue. --- Do read the whole essay! 📑🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-training-character-and-bequest-of-the-stalwarts-of-the-new-indian-renaissance/

The New Indian Renaissance as a Guide to Decolonisation   A little-studied period of recent Indian history is the Golden Age of the New Indian Renaissance spanning the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. The jaw-dropping contribution of this period to Hindu decolonisation is a sure shot guide for our own time. --- As Indians began traveling to Europe in greater numbers, they got a first-hand experience of that society and its conditions. They were able to produce fine, comparative analyses with the Indian condition. One major finding was that the so-called “modern,” “scientific,” “rational,” and “progressive” British society was after all, none of these on the ground. The 19th and early 20th century British society was a deeply status-conscious society and London for example, was notorious for rampant teenage prostitution. But back in India, the same British had already compiled voluminous treatises about the inherent evils of the “caste system,” which they declared was the primary reason for the Hindu society’s backwardness. -- Episode four of our series on decolonisation. Read the full piece! 📑🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-new-indian-renaissance-as-a-guide-to-decolonisation

Kalyan Singh is perhaps the only mainstream BJP leader, who truly emulated Sri Ramachandra and gladly gave up his Chief Minister’s throne in service of Sri Ramachandra. -- My old tribute to him on the Dec 6 anniversary 🙏🕉️🚩 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/kalyan-singh-a-civilisational-hero-for-all-seasons-and-reasons

The Lost Access to the Hindu Societal Past   THE CLEAREST DIFFERENTIATOR that marks an India before the advent of the British is found in the realm of social engineering. For the preceding six hundred years, successive alien Muslim regimes had not mucked around with the traditional and social institutions of Hindus.   By mid 19th century, the British initiated a generational project of social engineering. Among its chief outcomes was introducing a new education system, an alien legal framework, and dismantling traditional Hindu institutions and replacing them with British models. For example, the university system and the elaborate court hierarchies that we’re all familiar with now did not exist before the British disruption of India.   Until the British began vandalizing our social institutions, a king, a chieftain or a rich Zamindar would only tell a poor man, “you can’t build a bigger house than mine.” He never said, “you can’t eat more than me.” -- Episode 3 of our decolonisation series. Do read and share. 📑🙏🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-lost-access-to-the-hindu-societal-past

Decolonisation is a National Duty and a Hindu Civilisational Impertive   DECOLONISATION IS A NATIONAL DUTY and a potential national asset. Duty, to borrow the Bhagavad Gita’s eternal edict, is a profound, lifelong inner calling that has to be pursued for its own sake.    Decolonisation is diagnosis, scholarship, process and a civilizational continuum.   Even after three-fourths of a century, Indians have actually become more colonized than they had ever been under British rule. This embedded colonial nature is the direct cause for how easy it is, even today, to stir separatist sentiments along various fault lines. A thorough decolonisation makes for a united India.   At an even more fundamental level, decolonization is the recovery of memory. When we recover this memory, we automatically recover our narrative memory.   As an all-encompassing phenomenon, decolonization includes everything from politics to performing your daily Puja at home. -- Do read the second episode of our mega series on decolonisation. 🕉 🙏🛕🪔   https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/decolonisation-is-a-national-duty-and-a-hindu-civilisational-impertive

Bharatavarsha Must Consciously Reject the Western Model of Ideological Universalism and Accelerate Decolonisation ---   The Western model of ideological universalism of Left and Right has broken down on its own home turf. India must consciously reject it and reshape her destiny using homespun models through decolonisation.   Even in the limited sphere of electoral politics, equating Narendra Modi with Geert Wilders or Giorgia Meloni is akin to forcing a simile between Christ’s alleged Second Coming and Krishna Janmashtami. The West has a well-defined Right Wing. India has only a well-defined Left Wing fully populated by spectral Indian slaves of the West. Members of this Indian Left Wing are equal opportunity slobberers: they avidly lick the saliva-stained crumbs off the palms of both the soul-vultures of the Joshua Project as well as the world-burning denizens of George Soros and Pierre Omidyar. India thus is a freak case where the ideological opponents of the (Indian) Left are yet to define themselves unambiguously. Defining themselves as “Right Wing” causes more self-inflicted harm than good in the long run. This is not to question the genuine commitment of the Indian non-Left to their pet causes but to point out a historical and common sense reality: that the best weapons in your arsenal pose the constant danger of backfiring. ---- We begin a mega-series on decolonisation and comparative ideological analysis. Don't miss it! 🕉 🙏🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/bharatavarsha-must-consciously-reject-the-western-model-of-ideological-universalism-and-accelerate-decolonisation

[PODCAST] From Alexander to Ahmad Shah Abdali: How the Hindu Civilisation Remains Unconquered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jAAv1lvQE

The Foundation and Value of Language Education in the Indian Tradition   In this profound piece, Shatavadhani Dr. Ganesh delves into the sorry state of language education at the primary level and suggests some methods at reform.    Some excerpts are given below. --   ONE OF THE TRAGEDIES OF OUR TIME is not prescribing evocative literature at the level of primary school instruction. It is tragic that the Government has kept numerous chicaneries of religion, caste, regionalism, and political ideologies in mind and has continued to design textbooks, which resemble manifestos. In this project, history and language textbooks have become the first sacrificial goats.   Language instruction occupies a separate realm. It has its own specialty. It chiefly works through literature and grammar. Here, literature preserves its identity through Rasa (Feeling), Dhvani (Suggestion) and Vakrōkti (Poetic Expression) at all times. Sans these, it will never become literature in the truest sense of the word.   If language and literature attempt to perform the tasks of other topics or branches of knowledge, which are the disciplines that will perform the task of language?    --- Do read the full brilliant piece! 🕉🙏🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-foundation-and-value-of-language-education-in-the-indian-tradition

Bharatavarsha now Awaits a New Mahakavya   On August 15, 1954, just seven years after India attained freedom, DVG delivered a deeply contemplative lecture on All India Radio. It remains relevant till date and contains a wealth of insights.   Here are some excerpts from it. ---   If India should live as the original India, we must rekindle our interest in our Svadharma.   It appears that there is no place left on the earth that can act as a sanctuary of peace and contentment. The old beauty has vanished from life, and there’s no sign of a new form of beauty replacing it.   THE FOUNDATIONS OF OUR SOCIETY have been irreparably displaced. The conduct, customs, and traditions handed down to us from ancient times have been erased.   The world now awaits a new Mahakavya (Epic Poetry). What we today seek from literature is not mere entertainment but the revelation of the grand and the exalted. The inspiration for germinating such life-nurturing literature cannot be achieved without Tapas. Neither should only those endowed with literary ability perform this Tapas. All of the educated people of the country, all thinking people must perform this Tapas in their respective fields.  -- Do take the time out to read and reflect on this profound essay! 📑🙏🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/bharatavarsha-now-awaits-a-new-mahakavya

The Fake Atheism of Nawab Nehru   An oped written in the 1950s by the eminent Kannada Litterateur Masti Venkatesha Iyengar deliciously shreds Nawab Nehru's fake atheism.   In an acerbic piece written sometime in the mid-1950s, Masti uproots three central pillars supporting the Nehruvian cult: his alleged rationalism, scientific temper, and democratic spirit, all of which were supposedly rooted in his atheism.   Here are a few excerpts from it.   Nehru learned the mentality of blindly condemning the superstitions of our own people from the British. Like Christians, he too, began to condemn our own beliefs without himself becoming Christian.   In the process, he overlooked an important aspect. Blind belief and superstitious rituals aren’t exclusive only to Sanatana Dharma. -- Read the full, brilliant piece! 📑🙏🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-fake-atheism-of-nawab-nehru

A little-known fact of Hindu history shows how the mighty Gahadavala Empire built a solid deterrent against alien Islamic invasions using a fiscal measure called the Turushka-Danda 📖🛕🕉 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/turushka-danda-a-hindu-fiscal-response-to-early-islamic-invasions

Ever Heard of Jhain? This is what Jalal-ud-din Khalji did to it   This is the little-known story of a Jhain, a prosperous town in medieval Rajasthan, heartlessly obliterated by Jalal-ud-din Khalji. Now it is known as the Chhan village. --- On March 22, 1291 Jalal-ud-din frontally led a massive troop from Delhi and marched towards Ranasthambhapura. His expedition was a colossal failure but the collateral damage it inflicted on Hindus was truly appalling.   One of the sites that suffered extensive destruction was a small town named Jhain. It is a geographical skeleton still awaiting our full rediscovery. Thirty-five kilometres from Sawai Madhopur.    "The sultan went again to the temples, and ordered their destruction, and set fire to the palace, and thus made a hell of paradise. In every ruin a treasure had been found.   "While the soldiers sought every opportunity of plundering, the sultan was engaged in burning the temples, and destroying the idols. There were two bronze images of Brahma, each of which weighed more than a thousand maans. These were broken into pieces, and the fragments distributed amongst the officers, with orders to throw them down at the gates of the Masjid on their return to Delhi."   -- Do read the painful story in full! 🙏🕉🛕🪔😢 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/ever-heard-of-jhain-this-is-what-jalal-ud-din-khalji-did-to-it

Why Annamalai Infuriates the DMK ---   IT IS RATHER BEFITTING that Tamil Nadu BJP President Annamalai chose Srirangam to launch his latest salvo against the ruling DMK.   Srirangam is an emotional and eternal monument to the memory of Vellayi, a Devadasi who enticed a Turushka iconoclast and jumped to her death so that the deity of Sri Ranganatha Swamy could be saved. If we go by the alleged rationalism spewed by the spurious Dravidian discourse, Vellayi’s heroism too, would be bracketed as a Brahminical conspiracy.  Thus, among other things, the presence of E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker’s statue in front of the Ranganatha Swamy Temple is an affront to the sacred memory of countless such Vellayis who sought no glory for themselves but gladly died so that Dharma could remain undefiled.  Ramaswamy Naicker, the Dravidian version of epic Murti-Bhanjakas like Mahmud Ghazni and Aurangzeb had statues built for him in his own lifetime.    The unambiguous verdict of the history of Indian public discourse over the last eighty years is this: the atheism and rationalism of Indian intellectuals with Hindu names comes to a screeching halt on the marbled steps of a mosque and bows at the pew of a Church. -- Read the full essay! 📑💪🕉🛕🪔 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/why-annamalai-infuriates-the-dmk