Sunday 18 July, 2010

Why education is no good

I start seeing this lecture on Religion & Violence. 

Nehru tried secularism, which failed; and was replaced by BJP or Hindutva which was very successful in politics. They wanted to go back to the vedas, which gave all the Hindus an  identity after years of foreign rule.

When? We had a BJP led coalition, but at no time was BJP a dominant party in the sense the Congress was after the 1984 elections. In fact, we haven’t had a dominant party in the Lok Sabha since 89. What is she talking about?

And which veda was Vajpai, Advani & Co taking us to? Which Hindu rightist is the vedic scholar? What's in those vedas anyways that would make the Hindu's bosom swell with pride, assuming he gets along to reading some.  

Of course, she prefaces this with the British taking over after 500 years of Mogul rule. I recently heard an Indian medieval history processor say something like that (700 years of Muslim rule). Are there people deliberately bending history to spread hate? Or why do they not recognise that vast areas of India were not ruled by Muslims by the time the British expanded their empire?

And, while we are on it, why isn’t British rule Christian rule and the British invasion (conquest) a Christian conquest or Crusade? 

Then, Tamils were favoured in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese were marginalised before its independence. Tamil coolies were the favoured race!  

With scholars like this, what will we learn? That white people don’t give a damn about us darkies? 

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