Shiva linga has raised more controversy in both East and West than anything else. The debates involve the likes of Swami Vivekananda, Basav, Abhinavagupta and the staunch western critiques. Its amazing that Indian men and women, boys and girls rever Shivalingam with so much intensity that there never is iota of doubt about its changing history. For the masses, Shivalinga is the eternal and immutable sign of the Supreme Shiva. Many Orientalists have made fun of Indians worshipping a phallus-idol. But, the cultural relativism is not being studied in historical contexts.
Pashupat & Lakulish
Pashupat Shaivism is the oldest Shaivite sect and finds mention in the Mahabharata. If one considers the mention of episodes of Mahabharata in the grammatical analysis done by Patanjali in Mahabhashya during 2nd century B.C., one can safely assume the prevalence of the sect during 3rd-4th century B.C. When some scholars try to pit Indus Valley seal as representing Pashupat Shiva, it speaks much about the politics of history writing and least about some true account of Indus Valley civilization, the knowledge about which arose in tandem with the shift of British Indian capital from poitically active Calcutta to slavish Delhi .Since the script is yet to be deciphered and single seal can not be made the basis to represent a vast urban civilization like Indus Valley, I am not a votary of the idea of tracing genealogy of Shaiva worship to Indus Valley civilization
Pashupat is derived from Pshupati,a name of Shiva. Shiva is the shepherd of souls,the bonded souls being “pashu” in Indian tradition. It is mentioned that the followers of the sect wrapped deer skin around waist, held iron tridents and believed in intense devotion towards Shiva. They abstained from greed, sex, violence and followed strict code of ethics. Their final goal was to root out ego by assuming different practices like singing, dancing, laughing, walking like mad persons, talking absurdities.They were the earliest critiques of Vedic rituals after Buddhism and Jainism.
During 2nd century A.D., it is believed that the greatest Pashupat sage, Lakulish appeared in Gujarat .He is said to have died at his seventh month. But, the followers believe that Shiva himself entered his body to preach the doctrine. He became the Lakulish,the lord of Staff(lakula) and his every iconography depicts him holding a club.Somanatha temple became major centre for the followers of this doctrine.The order grew across North India and Nepal. The famous Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu is dedicated to this sect.
Lakulish ,club and the erect phallus
Lakulish is considered as Shiva himself in human form at Kayavarohan,in Gujarat, where it is believed Shiva entered the dead body of the child. It is mentioned in the local tradition that Lakulish and his main four disciples, Karushya, Mitra, Garga and Kushika installed a linga to commemorate the Kavyarohan. This linga is known as Kavyarohaneshwara. Image of Lakulish himself has been carved with the linga .Thus the iconocographic unity of Shiva and Lakulish was established.
I would like to suggest that the installation of lingam by the Shaivite Pashupat might have been influenced by the inscription of buddhist percepts on pillars. The earliest Shiva linga can be traced to 2nd century B.C. But, by that time inscriptions over pillars became a regular feature after the rise of King Ashoka(304-232 B.C.). Ashokan pillars were built across the Indian civilization and later kings adopted same mode to commemorate any significant event. These pillars were the master pieces of sculptures. The rivalry and exchange between Buddhists and Shaivites are known from earliest times. Probably, the idea of lingam as a miniature pillar was appropriated by the earliest Shaivites, Pashupat. Just as pillars were inscribed with the image of lions or the chakras, the Shivalinga was inscribed with the image of Lakulish.The puranic explanations available in Shiva Puran, Linga Puranas are constructions of later period during the Guptas.
http://lakulish.wordpress.com/
Not only that, in later centuries(a statue of 9th century during Pratiharas has been preserved), Lakulish is shown holding a club with the shape of phallus. In fact, he is shown as urdhavaretas ,meaning therby an erect phallus making semen to move against the gravity within subtle energy channels that runs parallel to the club(lakula) being held in the left hand. Thus, the genealogical history of Shivalingam hovers around Lakulish and his sects. He is the holder of phallus-club. He is the victor over sexual urge represented by an upward erect phallus in the idols. He is one with the Shivalingam also. The LingaPurana(the narrative about the origin and significance of lingam) mentions about Lakulish as an incarnation of Shiva.
7th century image of Lakulish
www.mparchaeology.org
Phallus, skull, khatvang… the unfolding similitude
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/mahakala/
The kapaliks(skull-bearer) sect developed out of the Pashupat, but they engaged in macabre practices and over indulagence in sexuality and drinking.The club of Lakulish was substituted by the khatavang,a staff capped with human skull. It is how the skull-ritual entered the Tibetan Buddhism. Padamsambhav who lived in the regions dominated by Kapalika-Shaivites borrowed many ideas from them. The paintings of Padamsambhava depicts him carrying a khatvang, the most representative item of the Kapalika. Its another matter that the Buddhists infused cognitive surplus in this borrowing by claiming that the three skulls topping the khatavang represents the bodies of three Buddhas.
How did this trandformation take place? How did the oneness of Lakulish and Lingam later evolved into Lakulish holding a phaluus-shaped club in his hand and an erect phallus paralleling the same? How was the phallus-looking club substituted by the skull-capped khatavang of the Kapalik and later by three skull-capped khatavang of the Vajrayana Buddhists? I must emphasize upon the logic of similitude. In Oriental civilizations, it is still the basic mode of thinking. Likes influences likes. There is structural resonance through which the effect of one structure gets transmitted to another structure. This explains the belief in microcosm reiterating macrocosm and the unity and connectivity of two. Therfore, Atman was believed to be the person-like but of thumb size residing in individual’s heart and the Atman as mere the individuation of the Parmatman,the great unity as described in the Upanishads, the oldest philosophical treatises. The logic of similitude gives credence to the idea of rituals since by propitiating rituals at micro-level, it is assumed that the cosmic layer can be both influenced and controlled. This belief-system lies at the root of primacy of ritual in our civilization in molding and holding the socital foundations.
The question of transformation of lakula into khatvang can be explained by the logic of similitude. The skull-bowl appears as the cap of the phallus. When the idea of Brahmarandha, the tenth door at the topmost cranial surface was assumed, the upper part of skull which looked like a cup bears striking resemblance with the phallus. Both have holes at the centre from where the life- enhancing fluid secrets. The semen and the nectar of immortality assumed to be secreted from the top of the skull has strong correlation also. Therefore, to preserve semen and make it flow against the gravity to the cranium became the highest goal of the Yogis as well as Tantriks in Indian tradition.
The hypothesis gets strength from the fact that Kapaliks still believe in consuming everything from the skull, where anything poured transmutes into nectar. Therfore, the tradition of Vammargi preactioners of tantras make use of skull-bowl for serving and consuming ritual prasad.
Thus ,by putting a skull –over the staff in form of khatvang, the Kapaliks believed that they are more authentic in appropriating the technology of similitude to gain the power of immortality that the lingam holds within.
Abhinavagupta and Sivalingam
http://www.koausa.org/Saints/Abhinavagupta/index.html
It was the great Shaivite philosopher ,Abhinavagupta who is credited with polularizing worship of Shivalinga to gain the grace of Shiva. It is to remember that Abhinavagupta grew during early 11th century at which time the greatest centre of Pasupat Shaivism, Somanath was destroyed by the marauding army of Mahmud Ghazani.Mahmud Ghazani has tried twice to sneak into Kashmir where Abhinavagupta lived, but failed to destroy the region. Most probably, Abhinavagupta being the sharpest mind, might have realized that for one destruction of linga representing Shiva at Somanath, let there be thousands of Shiva linga in every nook and corner of the nation.
Vira Saivism grew subsequently in southern India, particularly in Karnataka and Andhrapradesh .Basavanna who lived from 1105 AD to 1167 AD popularized the philosophy of “shiva is linga and linga is Shiva” .They even wore Shivalinga . The Shiva linga grew as the icon of Indian civilization both in the north as well as south.
Kailash/Arunachalam-Geographical Shiva-linga
Source:http://www.chinayak.com/Toursintibetmain.asp
From 7th century onward, the concept of ‘pithas’ grew. Each of the 51 Shaktapithas represented the phonemes of Sanskrit alphabet and contained the power of the universe since the universe itself is nothing more than the grosser manifestation of Phoneme-universe. The Word became world.Similarly, the idea of 24 sacred sites grew among the Buddhists, Nath cult as well as many tantrik tradition. The sites also stood for the aspect of lord that its geography represented. This was the homologization of geography with cosmogony of body. In such circumstances, hills like Arunachalam and Kailash became the most sacred Shiva-linga due to its resemblance with the Shiva-linga.
There may be problem in dating the emergence of Kailash as the sacred Shiva linga. There has not been mention of Kailsh in Vedas or Upanishads. The mention occurs only in the Puranas which grew as a part of millenarian movement from 5th century onward. It is Padamsambhava who is credited with consecrating the scared sites in the Himalayas. He meditaed near Kailsh-Mansarovar at Dharampuri and is believed to have transmuted into rainbow body at Chiru gonpa. Though, Hindus claim that Kailsah was consecrated by Sankaracharya, it seems unlikely that two greatest consecrator of sacred sites who almost at same time were in the Himalayas as well as Kashmir neither ever met nor argued. Since finding the footprints of Sankaracharya beyond Badrinath is nearly impossible and the fact that no monastery or temple exist in the Kaialsh Mansarovar region which celebrates Samkaracharya’s consecration, it can be safely assumed that he was never there. It was only after the Buddhist idea of Demchok living in Kailash became popular in the northern part of the subcontinent that Kailash assumed significance in Hindu imagination.
Now that we find varieties of Shivalinga (sphatika Shivalinga ) gaining popularity, one must ponder over the evolution of Shiva linga in Indian tradition. From the dark granite rocks to transparent, postmodern plastic Shivalinga is an amazing journey of an idea.
(Niraj, written on 30.4.2011, 0130 hrs.)
Posted by Niraj Kumar at 1:51 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Lohia and Asian consciousness: Fragments of a Young mind
Lohia and Asian consciousness: Fragments of a Young mind
Niraj Kumar
source:liveindia.com
Born in a non-descript corner of Hindi heartland, hundred years ago, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia's ideas often touched the lofty height of a prophetic visionary. He was an incessant fighter against injustices and valiant warrior of ideas. He was loyal to his conscience and the mankind. Everything else was transitory and inhered counterfeit value for him. He demolished the British imperialism. He fought for the racial equality in America. He resisted the state's oppressive laws in Manipur. He launched the struggle for the preferential treatment of the long-suppressed castes but resisted Ramaswamy Naicker's (Dravida Kazhagam leader) attempt to incite caste violence . He was a constant critic against the imposition of lone dynastic rule in India. He was the torch-bearer of democracy who resisted every attempt of glorification of individual may it be Babasaheb Ambedkar or Nehru or even his mentor, Mahatma Gandhi. He attacked Marx and he attacked Sankar's Advaita Vedanta. Admonishing both ideological camps, the Atlantic and the Soviet, he strived for the creation of the Third Camp. He formulated new theories of Small unit Machine, Equal irrelevance, Seven Revolution and Permanent Civil Disobedience. He spoke on truth, beauty contests, Olympic games, caste discrimination, Cold War, capitalism, liberalism, economics, philosophy, language, culture. There was hardly any aspect of national and international situation, which did not invite his attention. The structure of his mind corresponded somewhat with structure of truth to produce 'Aspects', 'Fragment's, as admitted by him in the preface of his musings over the political philosophy still relevant to democracy troopers, "Marx, Gandhi and Socialism"(1963). It is difficult to comprehend Lohia's mind as each aspect he discerned reveals the deepest secrets of existence. Else one may compare his thought with a hologram. Slice his argument to the smallest bit and still it shines with the wholeness, beauty and coherence- the three powers of truth. He advocated avoidance of extremes in theory and practice. He is the Gautam Buddha of Indian democracy. Being a student of Pan-Asianism, it is my attempt to retrieve Lohia's provocative insight into Asia, its youth and the future.
A name, the echoe and gestures of an Asian idea
I was born years after untimely, rumor-stricken demise of Dr. Lohia. While I might be seven years young, I heard a unique name from my father's mouth: Ram Monohar Lohia. Lohia, who? We had heard about Mahatma Gandhi , Pandit Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Khudi Ram Bose, Chandrasekhar Azad, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai. But this was a surprising word. Never in our schools did our teachers utter anything about Lohia. My father explained. In India, there were only two political philosopher-practitioners: Mahatama Gandhi and Dr. Lohia. I swallowed my childhood dissent. I had never encountered any image or discourse in printed schoolbooks with regard to the latter personality.
In subsequent years, I studied political science at University level. There was no mention of Dr. Lohia anywhere. We had to extricate political ideas from obtuse writings of Sri Aurobindo, M.N. Roy or effete works of Babasaheb. The adolescent disorder of ideological vagaboncy took over. In the sphere of social and political activities, majority owed allegiance to Dr. Lohia's socialism. The then leaders in power in Hindi heartland were seeking popular legitimacy by claiming themselves to be Lohiavadis.
The disjuncture between theory and practice is self-evident. The formal governance structure resists Lohia's ideas. It tries to efface him from nation's memory. But, Lohia's words find resonance in every blank face who dare to sacrifice at the altar of democracy. As much as the statist intellectuals and the state confabulate to marginalize Lohia's contribution towards Indian democracy and global political thinking, his name finds new echoes with multiple nodes.
I was introduced to Dr. Lohia's multifaceted personality and works by his close-aide, successor and the stalwart of post-independence Indian political history, George Fernandes. Since 1993, I was passionate about writing a book on a political philosophy to unite Asia. It was a young man's romantic flirtation with an unexplored terrain, which required intellectual rigour, the capacity to make proper judgments and resource mobilization. I lacked the expertise, skill and resource. When I shared my problems with Shri George Fernandes, he guided me to take a detour over Lohia's thought. He narrated how Lohiaji dreamt about an Indo-Pak confederation and held various political leaders, chiefly Nehru as "guilty man of India's partition." I began to study Dr. Lohia's writing. A ray of hope grew brighter. I felt I am at home with his magnificent writing.
Capitalism, Communism and Asia
Lohia always pondered over the changing reality. It was very difficult for him to hold established doctrine for a pragmatic action. He groped for new and elegant frameworks. He viewed capitalism as the doctrine of “people living upward of 40 degrees north of the equator'. Lohia found capitalism as being the doctrine of individual, free enterprise, mass production and balance of power based- ‘peace.’ ‘Capitalism imposed the peace of death on Asia and elsewhere, caused their population to grow and their economic apparatus to decay”, Lohia stated. He found how population and production proceeded simultaneously among the white or pink people, but the coloured people suffered crisis in culture and crafts along with the rampant population growth. He rejected the capitalist integration of Asia as capitalism bred poverty and war. He held a staunch view that capitalism will destroy the precarious national freedom.
His view on communism was as strong. Marxism and Soviet system was a fad among the first generation political elite of independent nations of Asia. Lohia was never enamored by these prevailing trends. He found a crisis inherent at the centre of the communist system. Communism necessitates a centralized party and subsequently a centralized state to develop the forces of production. A dictatorial party and state is immoral and cannot uphold the morality of a utopia.
Dr. Lohia viewed that “communism inherits from capitalism its technique of production, it only seems to smash the capitalist relations of production.” He viewed both as part of a single civilization as both are driven by continuous application of science to economy and rising standard of living. An individual may be either in US or in the Soviet Russia, is impelled by “identical aims of increasing output through mass production.” Lohiaji stated that the modern civilization has split up into these two warring camps to renew itself.
How right was he? China discovered this global gambit between two camps during 1960s that led to Sino-Soviet rift. China’s orchestration of ‘East wind will prevail over west” hastened the decolonization of Asia and Africa. When the Cold war ended, the Soviet Union collapsed. The USA and the USSR were geopolitical mirror images with morphological resonance. The crisis in the Soviet camp has produced crisis in the Atlantic camp even. Now the world system theorists like Immanuel Wallerstein et al. boldly assert that the Cold War was a well structured game and the Soviet Union merely played the role of a sub-hegemonic partner. During the Cold War, the blood that was spilt was Asian: either in Vietnam or in Korea or in Afghanistan. The two camps merely played the simulated games of “mutually assured destruction” and in the process checked the sedimentation of intra-Asian cooperative ties.
Dr.Lohia’s prognosis was astute and forthright. But he has been proven right in his laments for decay of the ‘Modern civilization’. He assured his generation that there would be shift of power from one region of the world to another, that when a civilization flickers, the torch generally passes into the hands of its out castes.” He claimed that civilizational creativity would be spurred among the underdeveloped two-third of the world.
With this view, Dr. Lohia ventured to invigorate Asian socialism. He wanted Asia’s socialists to keep away from both forms and camps of the existing civilization and of providing socialism with its own continental characteristics. He was instrumental in organizing a full conference of Asian socialists in Burma. While speaking on ‘Asia and World Order’ in December, 1952, Dr. Lohia sought Asian socialists to “reject the claim of the Atlantic camp to represent freedom as much as it must repudiate the claims of the Soviet camp to represent anti-imperialism'. He desired to make use of Buddha’s legacy to forge an Asian socialism based on cooperation, goodwill, unity and mutual development. He was highly critical of the enormous expenses being incurred at constructing Chandigarh by the Nehru Cabinet. Instead, he wanted Sarnath-Banaras to be developed as a national and international asset, which the East Punjab capital can never be. By using the goodwill based on Buddha’s life and thought, he wanted Indian Government to begin a Buddhist venture.
It is possible that he found Buddha as the antidote of Marxism in Asia. He condemned China for using powers flowing through hysteria of Marxism against other Asian nations. He described Marxism being Europe’s weapon against Asia and China as the source of wider civil war erupting across Asia. The vigor with which he took up the cause of Tibet in India and abroad explains his fascination with Buddhism.
Problems of Asian Socialism]
Dr.Lohia delivered a speech at Rangoon to the preliminary meeting of the Asian Socialist conference on 26th March 1952 on the lingering problems of Asian socialism. After elaborately dealing with the isomorphic nature of capitalism and communism, Dr.Lohia emphasized the third way. He shared how the rationalization of economic system would imperil Asian nations, which constitute high-density population. In Asia, there are “too many people, too little land and too few forces of production.” In such a situation, even communism that relies upon extreme rationalizations of economic sphere cannot feed billions of Asian while that might destroy individual liberty in the continent.
Dr. Lohia criticized communists for raising a phony slogan of ‘redistribution of land' as the panacea of Asia’s illness. For Dr.Lohia, redivison of land without democratization of the state and without decentralization of political power would culminate into a mere paper transaction.
The Soviet form of collectivization of agriculture or the corporatisation of farming in the Atlantic block would prove to be Asia’s bane. In Asian conditions, peasant must learn intensive, agriculture and enter into cooperative farming. They may utilize low-cost machine. The village should be given maximum state power. This kind of coupling would catalyze new way of living and an economic upturn.
Dr.Lohia championed the concept of ‘immediacy’ in the context of Asian Socialism. While European socialists worked for incremental changes in the state structure, Dr. Lohia suggested that socialist measures in Asian situation ought to be drastic so that the economic poverty is eliminated and the communists are deterred from usurping state power to redirect their energy and doctrine against Asian civilization.
Dr. Lohia had to jostle with the problem of methods and weapons of struggle against injustice. Though, five yearly elections give people chance to purify the system, Dr. Lohia advocated peaceful mass action beyond ballot and bullet. He opposed the organized violence and use of lies.
Dr. Lohia found the solutions to various problems of Asian socialism in few basic concepts: democratization of administration, small capital outlay such as small machine, socialized property and maximum attainable equality.
An Asian Policy
In the forthcoming days of the preparatory conference, Dr.Lohia developed a full fledged Asian Policy for the Asian socialist. Speaking in the Conference in March, 1952 at Rangoon, Dr. Lohia summed up his argument as follow:
1. All Asia is prostrate with the common disease of poverty, and it is aggravated in that Asians known so little of one another.
2. A major weakness of Asia is the existence of politics of religion or caste or race or language.
3. There is lack of integrated thinking and of discernment in Asia.
4. Major weakness of Asian politics is the disease of the big man who is in reality a small man.
5. Another Asian weakness is the emergence of a new middle class with expensive taste and habits.
6. The Asian politics is dominated by politics by assassination and government of terror.
Dr. Lohia was so appalled, at Asia’s hitherto negligible role in world affairs due to the above mentioned weakness, that he explicitly announced an all Asian foreign policy that might force the Atlantic and Soviet camp to say ‘yes’ or ‘No’ to the Asian voice. He pleaded for such a policy as without that the newly won Asian independence amounts to the mere right to say ‘yes’ or ‘No’ to Mr. Truman, the American President and Mr. Stalin, the Soviet Leader.
What was his prescription for an Asian voice in the international affairs? Dr.Lohia’s enunciations can be summarized as below:
1. The type of the tension where the combatants are a direct reflection of the Atlantic or Soviet camps, and have already begun waging war and where no third creative forces are present has to be reconciled and a third force needs to be created as in case of Indo-China and Korea.
2. Tension where combatants are native or are only partially under control of Atlantic and Soviet camps, the immediate remedy is to recognize existing frontiers and to attempt confederative agreements. For example, the case of India and Pakistan, Israel and the Arab Word, Peking China and Kuomintang Formosa.
3. Tension where an Asian people and government are being sucked into the orbit of one or the other camp as is the case of Japan. All Asia must put forward a policy of guaranteed neutrality in respect of Japan.
4. Tensions that flow out of foreign interests still existing in Asia are shown as in case of Iranian oil or Portuguese Goa. All Asia must associate itself with the native against the foreigner, but take good care to see that the native does not fall from the frying pan of the Atlantic into the fire of the Soviet Camp or vice versa.
5. Tensions that arise out of the weakness in body and mind of Asian areas unattached to either camp are latent throughout the belt that stretches from Indonesia to Egypt. This area must give itself joint ideological, economic and military security. Without internal economic reconstruction, no Asian country can become a fit instrument for such an all Asian foreign policy.
Dr. Lohia’s five-fold policy of abstention, confederative approaches, neutralization, expulsion of imperialist interest and mutual assistance pacts far surpass Panchshila policy formulated by the formal governments in India, China or Indonesia. His approach was concrete and simple. In fact, his ideas fructified in some form under the banner of Non-aligned movement. But the credit was given to Tito, Nehru and Nasser.
Dr. Lohia’s political activism can be traced to this five-fold Asian policy. He fought against the Portuguese in Goa. He worked for an Indo-Pak confederation. He opposed the fratricidal war across Asia. His elegant principles are still relevant. It seems Dr. Lohia formulated an Asian Policy for centuries and not merely for his decade
.
Emergent Pan-Asianism and Dr. Lohia’s path
The contemporary situation in Asia is worsening. Even though, there are no more split Euro-American ideological camp and their simulated struggle, Asia is teaming with anger against the encirclement of whole Asia by NATO military machine. The war is raging between declining Atlantic alliance and amoebic jihadis. One by one, the contagion of instability and politics by terror is encompassing Asian nations. Fanatic monsters gain popular legitimacy by pitting their martyrdom against Anglo-American imperialism and Russian Eurasianism. The need of the hour is an all_Asian policy.
Asia stands at a crossroad. Should it fry in the cauldron of Euro-American civilization or should it tread on Eastern approach to resolve the looming political, economic and ontological challenges. Asian nations were beguiled by the West in accepting the economic and financial architecture designed to perpetuate western hegemony. Asians worked hard, saved more and consumed less. The West frittered away their savings, gobbled Asian's wealth, consumed beyond their means and worked leisurely in merely the economics of sign-sector. Now they stand at Asian's door seeking financial help to bailout the pride of their modal of capitalism. Asia is awash with money earned with sheer dint of hard labour. The West is eyeing to appropriate our accumulated wealth. While carrying begging bowls, they blame Asia for their precarious situation. They view Asians' simple living within their means as a world problem. What if Asia decide to march on the footsteps of Gandhi and Dr. Lohia ? Will not then the whole edifice of Western hegemony collapse in a catastrophe ?
Asians have to beware of subtle machinations by the western nations. TheWall Street is bankrupt, the shadow bakning system of investment banks have disappeared, the automobile and aviation industries are flailing and the giant banks have been exposed as mere zombies in the western world. Inspire of the succession of collapses, the dollar is growing stronger vis-à-vis Asian currencies. What is the fall out? Weaker Asian currencies signify reduction in credit extended to the US. Asian will keep on extending help to find itself cornered by the clever and bullying ploys weaved by a faltering West. One by one Asian nations will be devoured by financially hungry West. This is a challenge to Asia's imminent rise as propeller of future history.
What has to be done? Asian nations ought to devise a coherent and integral strategy for Asia's survival. The cooperative grids have to be operationalised at multiple levels. An Asian Monetary Fund and an Asian common currency, yanpee(a combination of Chinese yuan, Japanese yen ,Korean won and South Asian rupee) has to be created. To stall recessionary cycle from affecting Asian economy, a Keynesian booster of huge fiscal investment can be launched in the pan-Asian infrastructure sector. Asian nations have more than five trillion dollar of saving available for intra-Asian investment. Railways and Asian Highway projects has to be revitalized. A low-energy consuming small-machine technology has to be harnessed. Nano-technology, superconductivity, molecular biology should become the priority areas of research. Apart from revolution in new technology as envisaged by Dr. Lohia, mental blocks and prejudices have to be revived. Buddhism can be an apt vehicle for unifying Asian minds.
We have witnessed in recent years the competitive diplomacy of soft power around Nalanda, Silk Road and the Middle path doctrine. Japan, China, Singapore and India are engaged in a geo-cultural rivalry to outbid each other. Taking a cue from Dr. Lohia's philosophy. a cooperative dialogue can be initiated to revive the legacy of Buddha. Every world-religion originated in Asia. Buddhism flourished all across. Asia unlike other world-religions, which transcended the geographical barriers (Islam, Christianity) or localized within a particular geography (Sikhism, Hinduism). There are inherent complementarities between Buddha's thought and Asian consciousness. Sooner it is harvested, better it will be for the project of Asian integration. The forces of rising cultural nationalisaton have to be steered towards a pan- Asian predicament. The first prerequisite for such a stupendous task is a Lohia doctrine: Asia for Asians. Lohia's five-fold all- Asian policy has to be declared and adhered by each Asian nation, however big or small.
Let the West vacate Asia. Asia lies asunder. We need Dr. Lohia’s thought to create a powerful and united Asia. The beginning has to be made. Let this birth centenary be celebrated with the slogan ‘Lohia for Asia’ and the gloom that is marching steadily in Mumbai and Lahore, Nifty and Nikkei, will disappear immediately.
(Published, OtherSide, March,2009 on Birth Anniversary of Lohia)
Posted by Niraj Kumar at 10:19 PM 2 comments
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
God Particle discovered at LHC,Geneva?
Leaked memo reveals 'discovery of God particle'
By Louise Wells
Monday, 25 April 2011
Source:cosmosmagazine.com
It is the most elusive subatomic particle in the universe and its discovery could revolutionise nuclear physics.
So it is no wonder that a rumoured encounter with the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle", at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva has led to hysteria among some scientists. However experts have urged caution over a leaked internal memo, warning it could well be a false alarm.
Finding the Higgs is one of the main goals of the LHC, a 17-mile underground tunnel. The Higgs was proposed in the 1960s to explain why matter has mass and is the missing piece of the standard model of particle physics. Speculation has now run wild on the internet after an anonymous note was posted on the blog of Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit.
The memo revealed that one of the LHC detectors had picked up a signal consistent with what Higgs is expected to produce. The scientists noted that "the present result is the first definitive observation of physics beyond the standard model".
But Cern, the European organisation for nuclear research, stressed the note was only preliminary. Spokesman James Gillies said it was "way, way too early" to confirm whether Higgs had been detected, and he told Wired magazine: "The vast majority of these notes get knocked down before they ever see the light of day."
Source: Independent http://www.independent.co.uk
Posted by Niraj Kumar at 11:29 PM 0 comments
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Sunday, April 24, 2011
Pan-Asianism in Japan:18th Century to Present
Pan-Asianism in Japan:18th Century to Present
Kita Ikki(1883-1937)
Prince Konoe Atsumaro(1863-1904)
An alliance with the mighty Chinese empire was being mooted in Japan since the latter part of the eighteenth century, as a means of protecting the region against a possible threat of the West. Japan viewed China as saviour of ‘toyo’. In his Kaikoku heidan (Military Problems of a Maritime State, 1791), Hayashi Shihei, a Confucian scholar, urged the promotion of East Asian regional defence as a means to safeguard the Orientals from the assault of occidental intruders. Russia, being in the vicinity, was dreaded most. Sato Nobuhiro in Bokaisaku (Policy of Coastal Defence, 1806) recommended an alliance with China to counteract Russia’s southward expansion. Aizawa Seishihai (1782– 1863) in Shinron (New Proposals, 1825) advocated a similar alliance.
In the aftermath of the Opium Wars (1840–42), China’s decline as a bulwark against the western powers became obvious and Japanese intellectuals began to espouse the adoption of western science and technology. The myth of China as saviour of Toyo was destroyed, but the idea of Sino–Japanese alliance against Seiyo (West) regained vitality with Commodore Perry’s visit. The ‘lip and teeth’ maxim became popular as a basis of an interdependent ‘Shirishi hosha’ (lips-and-teeth, cart-andwheel kind of) relationship among Japan, China and Korea. Hirano Kuniomi (1828–64) argued in Seibansosaku (Concrete Measures to Control the Barbarians, 1863) that given the geographic and cultural proximity, China and Japan could devise common strategies against the West. When the Russians attempted to seize the Tsushima islands in 1861, Hirano recommended an immediate dispatch of an embassy to solicit China’s and Korea’s cooperation. Taking Russian moves as a sign of renewed western aggression, Katsu Kai shu, a leading naval authority, wrote to Kido Takayoshi in 1863:
“What we ought to do is to send out ships from our country and impress strongly on the leaders of all Asian countries that their very existence depends on banding together and building a powerful navy, and that if they do not develop the necessary technology they will not be able to escape being trampled underfoot by the West.”
The rhetoric of Sino–Japanese cooperation crystallized in the signing of the Sino–Japanese Treaty of Amity and Friendship on 13 September 1871.
In a memorial submitted to the Emperor in 1875, Iwakura Tomomi said:
‘If Russia took China, Japan’s teeth would lose their lips and grow cold. The two should help each other as the two wheels of a cart or the two wings of a bird.”
The Foreign Minister, Inoue Kaoru, wrote to the Japanese Minister at Peking, Tamaki Shishido:
“We, Go-Toyo (Orientals), we the two nations, should unite against the gai
koku (foreign countries), and help each other to defend ryokoku no dokuritsuken (our rights of national independence).”
With the success in the Formosan affair, a number of Japanese also started advocating the meishu (leadership) concept for Japan in Asia. In 1879, Kusama Tokifuku (1853–92) devised a plan whereby he entrusted upon a renovated Japan the duty of stimulating the oriental countries to attain freedom. His plan was to begin from India where the tide of nationalism had started growing and he urged the Japanese to help the Indian people to attain jichi (self-government). Once India was freed, the British hold in East Asia would loosen and China might regenerate, he said.
Baba Tatsui
Source:www.ndl.go.jp
Baba Tatsui, who was in London in 1874, had been attending several meetings with the aim of redressing the Indian problem. Another political figure, Ono Azusa (1852–86), a leader of the Kaishinto, viewed Japan as the leader of the Orient and urged it to cooperate with other Asian nations to prevent western dominance.
The advocacy of an East Asian alliance under Japanese leadership was, however, shortlived. The challenge came from none other than the father of modernization in Japan, Fukuzawa Yukichi. Striving for a complete modernization during the early Meiji era was highly influenced by Fukuzawa Yukichi. Fukuzawa’s ‘logic of civilization’ (Bunmei ron no Gairyaku—Introduction to the theory of civilization, 1875) which envisaged the history of mankind as a linear progression from barbarism to civilization became the guiding principle for Meiji rulers. He published the editorial ‘Datsu-a-Ron’ (Dissociation from Asia) in the 16 March 1885 issue of Jiji Shinpo (News of the Time) and argued that Japan should dissociate from Asia and strive for a status equal to European nations. Other editorials by Fukuzawa appearing around that time were similar in context: ‘Wipe out China and Make Peace with Europe’ (24 and 25 September 1884), ‘Poland of the Orient’ (15 and 16 October 1884).
Fukuzawa Yukichi
Source:www.forums.samurai-archives.com
Fukuzawa wrote in that famous editorial, ‘Datsu-a-Ron’:
“Western civilization spreads like measles…. Not only we cannot prevent the spread of civilization, but as men of wisdom we should endeavour to promote its spread so that the people may enjoy its beneficial effects…. Japan is alone in having freed itself from old ways, and it must now move beyond all Asian countries by taking ‘dissociation from Asia’ (datsu-A).”
Fukuzawa’s ‘datsu-a-ron’ thesis was lambasted by the contemporary ‘Ko-a-Saku’ (Policy of enlightening Asia) thesis. Sugita Teiichi (1851–1920), a member of the Liberal Party and later Speaker of the House of Representatives, observed:
“The yellow race is about to be devoured by the white. We used to be told that the white race loves freedom and values equality. It is very curious that they proceed to subvert freedom and deprive others of equality…. While the countries of Asia are inseparably bound to a common destiny, our thoughts are thousands of miles apart, we lack mutual empathy as members of a common race…. Now we must go even further and appeal for freedom throughout Asia under the banner of universal justice, dispelling the illusions that have caused the seven hundreds million people of Asia to temporize and act with servility for hundreds of years. We must cast off the shame of past insults at the hand of the white race, and take steps to usher in a new age of freedom and enlightenment.”
Sugita’s ideas were based on a concept of Sino–Japanese alliance first espoused at the beginning of the Meiji period by heroes of the Restoration such as Iwakura Tomomi (1825–83) and Okubo Toshimichi (1830–78). To resist the ever-increasing pressure of the western powers, Sugita proposed an alliance of all Asian countries, especially Japan and China. He termed the proposed alliance a ‘rengo’, a Great Asian Confederation, to obliterate the stigma of the humiliation suffered at the hands of the white race by liberating the whole of Asia. Sugita had asked his countrymen to promote the spirit of ‘heavenly mission of independence’ and ameliorate the lives of six hundred million people of Asia in accordance with tenchi no shinri (universal rational principles) and unai no kodo (law of the universe). Like most Japanese of his time, he saw Japan as the leader in a future scheme for Asia, but there were no aggressive methods involved in carrying out Asia’s revival.
Sugita set up the Toyo Gakkan (Oriental Academy) at Shanghai (1885), which later became the Nisshin Boeki Kenkyujo (Institute of Sino– Japanese Trade) under Arao Sei (1859–96). Sugita’s ideas influenced Chinese statesman K’ang Yu-Wei (1858–1927) and the Chinese poet Huan Tsun-hsien (1848–1905).
At the same time, People’s Right leaders, including Itagaki Taisuke, started showing a concern for freedom in other Asian countries. There were ‘Ko-a-ron’ (support Asia) personalities involved with the question of Korea. Oi Kentaro (1843–1922), Tarui Tokichi (1850–1922) and Nakae Chomin (1847–1901) were the main figures of this group. In 1885 Tarui Tokichi wrote down his views on united ‘Asia’. The original work was lost when he was arrested in the Osaka incident, but later it was rewritten and published in August 1893 as the ‘Daito-gapporon’ (Theory of Greater Asia) in the journal Jiyu byodo keirin (Freedom and Equality) edited by Chomin. Tarui’s essay proposed that Japan and Korea could unite on an equal basis to form the country of Daito (Great East) and both could work together in common defence against the West and that Korea could be set on the road to modernization. After Japan’s and Korea’s union, he wrote, ‘We can help China, Tartar, Mongolia and Tibet to regain their independence and join the grand federation…. In this way we shall be able to defend ourselves from mistreatment by foreigners’.
Thus, Tokichi provided an elastic concept of ‘Daito’ and a conception of unity based on the racial solidarity of non-Caucasians. While arguing in favour of the confederation, Tarui made the following points:
1. As proved by the examples of Germany and Great Britain, confederation is the ideal way to create a powerful country.
2. The yellow race must unite to safeguard itself against the colonialism of the white race, and specifically the danger of the Russian advance in East Asia.
3. Japan is a ‘wonderland’ of distinctive virtues of imperial rule and ‘perfect constitutionalism’, virtues which are instrumental in making Japan the leader of the anti-white front.
4. Since the virtue of harmony (shinwa) is the cardinal feature of eastern morality it is natural that this virtue be adopted as the moral principle of the confederation.
5. The confederation is to be formed on equal terms, despite differences in historical background and national strength.
Tarui’s concept of hebang (confederation) had wide appeal among Chinese reformers like K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Chi’ Chao.
Soon, pan-Asian rhetoric was punctuated by the Sino–Japanese War in 1894–95 over Korea. Japan’s victory gave its citizens a sense of achievement of equality with western powers as other western powers began to show a compromising attitude (Britain agreed to relinquish extra-territoriality of 16 July 1894 as on 1899) towards Japan. Yet Japan’s emergence as a new power in Asia aroused the western fear of the Yellow Peril. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941) began propagandizing about the Peril after 1895. A racial counter discourse was being poured out in a confident Japan too and the idea of the unity of non-Caucasian race (Asian) became the talk of the day.
Takayama Chogyu (1871–1902) said that the ‘last nation-states of the Turanian race, China, Japan and Korea, are now being subjected to an encirclement attack by the Aryan race’. Many voices in Japan were calling for friendship with China in order to prepare for a struggle against the Caucasians. This was the decade in which ‘racism’ became rampant in western colonies and within the ‘western home’ against immigrants. It was this background which impelled Konoe Atsumaro to take up the cause of Asian integration vigorously. Konoe published an article, ‘Do Jinshu Domei’, in the January 1898 issue of Taiyo:
‘We must ally with those of the same race and we must study the China problem.’
He observed that “East Asia will inevitably become the setting for a racial struggle in the future. However foreign policies may change for the moment, it is only for the moment. We are fated to have a struggle between the white and yellow races, and in that struggle Chinese and Japanese will both be regarded as the sworn enemies of the whites.”
Konoe also affected the government decision to give shelter to K’ang, Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i Ch’ao after the failure of Hundred Days in 1898 in China. Konoe and K’ang worked together for an ‘Asian Monroe doctrine’ to counter western intervention:
‘Western imperial powers compete in Asia for their own interest. Asia is Asia’s Asia. It should be only Asians who make decisions on Asian issues’. Yet Konoe was a meek witness to the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China by western powers in league with his own nation, and the Anglo–Japanese Naval Treaty of 1902.
In 1904, the Russo–Japanese war broke out. In modern times, it gave Japan the opportunity to become the first yellow nation to defeat a western power. Leaders from all over Asia celebrated the victory (even pacifist Rabindranath Tagore took out a procession in Santiniketan to commemorate the victory). This victory boosted pan-Asian thinkers more vigorously than any other incident. Japan had realized now that having attained military technology and imperial victories could not give it the status it deserved in western (civilized) eyes: they were merely the Yellow Peril for the West. The victory over Russia showed Japan the way to come out of this torn identity. Asians were jubilant. The West felt it as its humiliation, the white people’s humiliation. Japan was now convinced that it must return to its Asian roots in action (forgetting Fukuzawa’s advice of datsu-a-ron): it must re-Asianize.
Kakuzo Okakura in Taoist dress
Source:http://home.planet.nl/
In the meantime, Kakuzo Okakura Tensin (1872–1913), the Japanese art historian, had called for elevating ‘Asia’ to an aesthetic and moral unity, negating the orientalists’ programme of representing its present as inferior/barbaric/backward. Okakura had visited India in 1901–2 and published his monumental work Toyo no Riso (The Ideals of the East) in 1902. He wrote:
“For if Asia be one, it is also true that the Asiatic races form a single mighty web…. If the history of Delhi represents the Tartar’s imposition of himself upon a Mohammedan world, it must also be remembered that the story of Baghdad and her great Saracenic culture is equally significant of the power of Semitic peoples to demonstrate Chinese, as well as Persian, civilization and art, in the face of the Frankish nations of the Mediterranean coast. Arab chivalry, Persian poetry, Chinese ethics, and Indian thought, all speak of a single ancient Asiatic peace, in which there grew up a common life.… Islam itself may be described as Confucianism on horseback, sword in hand.”
In his next work, The Awakening of Japan (1905), he spoke about the ‘Night of Asia’, the ‘White Disaster’ and an Asian reincarnation. He was as much appalled by the ‘bogey of yellow peril, propagandized by western leaders, as every educated Asian was. He wrote:
If the guilty conscience of some European nations has conjured up the spectre of a yellow peril may not the suffering soul of Asia wail over the realities of the White Disaster … to the wounded imagination of Orientals history will tell of the gradual advance of the White Disaster which was descending on Asia.”
Making a scathing attack on western penetration, and the western reaction to Asian resistance, he wrote:
‘If China tried to lift her head, if the worm turned in its agony, did not Europe at once raise the cry of the yellow peril? Verily, the glory of the West is the humiliation of Asia.’
Okakura’s visit to this region was preceded by the little known visit of a Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi (1899) who, in a long letter to the Nepalese Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher, propounded the unity of Asia and pan-Asianism.
Mori Ogai, the Japanese novelist, coined the term hakka (white peril) in 1904 as a political provocation, under which he justified resistance of all non-western people subjected to colonial oppression. Ogai’s ‘hakka’ and Tokichi’s elastic concept of Daito (Greater Asia) came to haunt Japanese thinking. Tarui’s earlier appeal to unity of non-Caucasian races in his essay ‘Daito-gapporon’ (August 1893) contributed to ‘the development of a powerful stream of pan-Asianist rhetoric called “dosoron” (theory of identical ancestry), a theory that advocated the political unification of nations on the basis of their racial affinity.’ The idea was fuelled for further growth by the increasing number of Asian students eagerly seeking knowledge of modernization following the Russo– Japanese war. Nearly 8000 Chinese students went to Japan.
Phang Boi- Chau, a Vietnamese nationalist leader, also advocated between 1905 and 1909 sending talented students to Japan (the Dong-Bu movement).
Many exiled Asian leaders like Sun Yat-sen, Kim Ok Siun, U Ottama, and Aguinaldo took shelter in Japan. In 1905, the Tung Mengh-hui (Chinese Revolutionary Association) was established in Tokyo by Sun Yat-sen.
Another ideological current that was to be influential in pan-Asianism was the theory of harmony of civilization (bunmei chowa-ron). The Japanese felt pride in being inhabitants of the meeting-place of East and West, which made it possible to defeat both the ‘old eastern civilization of China and the old western civilization of Russia’. Okuma Shigenobu argued that ‘eastern and western civilizations spread along different routes and met by accident in Japan’ (1907).
There was a socialist undercurrent towards pan-Asianism too, which cannot be ignored, for its proponent Kita Ikki actively supported Sun Yat-sen in toppling the Qing dynasty in 1911. Kita harboured a strong resentment against the West for the backhanded treatment of the racial equality clause in the Versailles conferences. He returned to Japan from China in 1919, where he was an observer for the Amur River Society, carrying an explosive manuscript. In this manuscript, ‘An outline plan for the reorganization of Japan’ (Nihan Kaizo hoan taiko), published in 1923, Kita proposed the ‘Japanese emperor as a representative of the people’. He developed this argument further in Shina Kakumei gaishi (An Unofficial History of the Chinese Revolution) (1918) by figuring the Meiji emperor as Napoleon who had the task to expand the Meiji restoration all over Asia, precisely as Napoleon claimed to have expanded the French Revolution all over Europe. In the preface to this work, he outlined the basic principles of his own concept of pan-Asianism. These two works became the Bible for the young officers during the 1930s, who advocated the carrying out of a Showa restoration. Kita argued that
‘A socialist revolution in Japan … would be the first step in the chain reaction leading to the liberation of all Asian countries from western political and economic domination.’
After the end of the First World War ,the Japanese proposal for including a clause of ‘racial equality’ was rejected at the Versailles conference. Japanese plenipotentiaries Makino and Chinda had put up two alternative clauses for the same, but the chairman of the commission, Robert Cecil himself opposed the proposal. Greece, Belgium and other European nations vehemently opposed it, while China showed its support for the Japanese proposal in spite of the Sino–Japanese confrontation at that time. This was the period of charged racial arrogance of the Eur-American authorities. This issue had become dominant in the domestic political discourse of Japan. The League for Racial Equality was convened by Sugita Teiichi in the first half of 1919, at Tokyo. Addressing a meeting of the League, Paul Richard, a French philosopher, was so appalled at the contemporary racial politics that he equated western civilization with the civilization of the barbarians. Richard suggested the ultimate way to resolve this humiliation:
‘Organize the League of Nations of Asia—the United States of Asia’.
Race consciousness was pervading politics and academics on both sides of the Pacific. This was the time when the grandest text on pan- Asianism written by Kodera Kenkichi swayed the Japanese mood. Kodera Kenkichi’s 1200-page text, Dai Asia Shugi-ron (Theory of Pan-Asianism) opened with an emotional protest against the racially discriminatory international climate. In response to criticism of his argument, Kodera wrote:
“Some people denounce pan-Asianism as being based on a narrow racist frame of mind. But racial prejudices are what the white nations have taught us. To speak of the white peril and to advocate pan-Asianism cannot touch the malicious propagation by Europeans and Americans of the yellow peril and their call for a white alliance. While the former is defensive, passive and pacifist, the latter is offensive, aggressive and imperialistic.”
Kodera had developed his theory of cooperation with China only to undermine this white alliance. Kodera Kenkichi (1877–1949) was a veteran member of the Lower House of the Imperial Japanese Diet till 1926. He was later, the Mayor of Kobe and an alumni of George Washington University where he studied western law and international relations. His work influenced politicians like Nagai Ryutaro and Nagashima Ryuji who proposed the idea of Japanese leadership in Asia to rejuvenate Asia to rid it from the “white peril”. In the year 1919, Sawayanagi Masataro published a book,”Asianism”(Ajiashugi) reiterating Kodera’s ideas of pan-Asian unity. In 1924, the journal, Nihon oyobi Nihonjin(Japan and the Japanese) published a special issue on Pan-Asianism. In 1926, Murobose Takanobu published three volumes on “Asianism” describing the role of Asianism in the world after the end of the First World War.
This magnum opus inspired growth of various pan-Asian organizations. Though the work of Kodera Kenkichi became the source of inspiration for Japanese officials during 1930s, Kodesa himself never championed a militaristic version of the idea. His pan-Asianism was defensive, one in which Asian integration would protect Asian countries from threats abroad,particularly the “white peril”..
In the meantime, domestic politics in Japan too was in turmoil, culminating in the assassination of Prime Minister Hara by ultranationalists in 1921. At international level, the Washington Conference was held (1921– 22) establishing military equilibrium in the Pacific. Japan was isolated in the western international system centred around the newly created League of Nations. Japan was viewed abroad as having challenged the powers and crossed the line from ‘respectable imperialism’ to bold aggression in the Twenty-one Demands and the Siberian Intervention. The Bolsheviks abrogated the 1916 Russo–Japanese Alliance. Soviet Russia re-established itself in maritime Siberia by 1922, which Britain, the USA and France forced the Japanese to abandon, as well as the Japanese claim upon Shantung. In 1925, the maritime province of Siberia and the northern half of Sakhalin were formally restored to the USSR.
The Kyoto Conference(October, 28- November, 9,1929) after the collapse of the League of Nations therefore emphasized a shift in Japanese policy from universalism to regional schemes and bilateral approaches. This regional impulse was, partly, a byproduct of the intellectual groundwork of the Kyoto School. Nishida and his Kyoto School were working on the principle of overcoming the modern. The nation-state that had been developed with industrial capital beginning in the Modern Age had to be overcome, they argued. This could be done by introducing the ‘particular’ as a mediator between the ‘universal’ and the ‘individual’. A version of Romanticist philosophy, it was different in application. In romanticism ‘race’ was discovered as the ‘particular’ that mediated the ‘world’ and the ‘individual’; in the Kyoto School, an expansive notion of ‘region’ as the ‘particular’ assumed the mediating role between the world as the ‘universal’ and the nation-state as the ‘individual’. This regionalism was supposed to be a reality going beyond both exclusive and narrow-minded nationalism and abstract cosmopolitanism, and beyond both capitalism and socialism. The crisis of ‘modern’ (as evident from the world economic depression, the product of capitalism) and the threat to the nation-state (as evident from the rise of Soviet cosmopolitanism, a product of communism) was to be overcome by treading the path of Asian regionalism.
Apart from the philosophical grounding of regionalism, academic interest had shifted to the study of geopolitics after the publication of German ‘Geopolitics’ in the late 1920s. Japanese geopolitics did not emerge out of the need to justify expansionism. Rather, anti-western ideology and an emphasis on indigenous tradition was brought about by Japan’s isolation in international politics. The Kyoto geopoliticians emphasized the uniqueness of Japanese spiritual tradition, tennoism, being the only state in the world ruled by a unilineal tenno family for more than two thousand years. Shinto ideology was mobilized to identify the people’s geopietal sentiments with tenno worship.
The upsurge in regionalism was paralleled by a rise of the revolutionary right wing who were planning Showa Restoration, to restore the country to its ancient virtues under the authority of the emperor. Okawa Shumei, Mitusukawa Kametaro and Kita Ikki formed Yuzonsha (Society for the Preservation of the National Essence) in 1919. In 1922, the League
for the Prevention of Communism was formed. The celebration of the Empire Foundation Day commenced from 11 February 1926. The most prominent right-wing thinker, Okawa Shumei (1886–1957) while liaising with the Army for a coup d’état, also began to develop a programme of Asian Liberation.
Okawa formulated a theory of civilizational confrontation (bunmei taiket su-ran). In his classic work, Nihan Oyobi Nihonjin no michi (The Fate of Japan and the Japanese) published in 1925, he argued:
“Throughout the process of world history, the encounter of East and West and their blending has almost always, or more precisely without exception, been achieved by means of war. The battle between East and West is a conceptual formulation; it does not mean that Asia as a whole will wage war against United Europe…. In reality, it means that one nation from each group will be selected as representative and they must fight to realize the forthcoming new world.”
Okawa was involved in a range of activities that bridged the world of officialdom and militant paramilitary organizations. A respected scholar of Islamic studies (he translated the Qur’an), he was a visionary of Asia’s liberation. He believed that Asians must liberate themselves through collective movements and common purpose. In an essay ‘Kakumei Europpa to fukko Ajia’ (Revolutionary Europe and Renascent Asia, 1922), he meditated on the consequences of the domination of Asia by Europe and saw its solution in an Asian renaissance.
Okawa and his contemporaries were now providing an ideological map of pan-Asianism to eliminate western hegemony in Asia in an ultimate encounter, ‘the war to end wars’. Okawa even prepared plans to launch a war either on the Asian continent against the Soviet Union or in the Pacific against Great Britain and the USA.
Toyama’s Kokuryukai started publishing an English monthly, New Asia(Ajia Jiron) (1921–23). It is this magazine which first started using the term Pan-Asianism prominently. In the very first issue of the magazine, the Editors explained the mission in following words:
“ The danger posed by the white people (hakujin) to the yellow people(ojin) is imminent… The Japanese Empire ,as the last representative of Asia, is the only one that can face and fight the West as the backbone of the yellow races(oshoku minzoku)…We have to implement a foreign policy , and implant the idea of Greater Asianism-the great achievement of the foundation of our country-in the minds of the people, and bring about a comprehensive solution to the East Asia problem based on this Asianism”[Ajia Jiron 1,1 (July, 1917]
Besides this , another journal, Eastern Review( Toho Jiron) began publishing articles on Asianism.
The 1920s were troubled years of party government in Japan. Japan underwent the domestic depression of 1926. World depression began in the United States in 1929 and the march north of the Kuomintang troops together with the emergence of a strong Chinese nationalism threatened Japan’s position in Manchuria. Action was necessary if Japan’s position in Manchuria was to be maintained. Finally in September 1931, the Japanese army advanced into areas beyond the South Manchurian Railway zone on a plan prepared by Ishiwara Kanji. In March 1932, Manchuria was proclaimed an independent state under the last Qing ruler (P’u-yi).
Prime Minister Inukai, who wanted to restrain the army in Manchuria, was assassinated by ultranationalists on 15 May 1932. These ultranationalists were opposing internationalism and favoured Japanese expansion or pan-Asianism. Amidst such domestic confusion, power came into the hands of officers like General Tojo. Soon, Japan was caught in the throes of international rivalry and mistrust, and invaded China (1937).
Leadership had shifted into the hands of pan-Asianists like Konoe, Kanji and Tojo. In March, 1933, about 40 military officers, academicians ,leaders and civil servantsfounded the Greater East Asia Socity(Dai Ajia Kyokai) and ventured into an offensive, militarist version of pan-Asianism which was to bring disaster to Asian neighbours itself. The group included the maverick general like Inshiwara Kanji(1889-1949) and leaders like Konoe Fumimaro, son of Konoe Atsumaro.
Ishiwara Kanji with Okawa Shumei
Source:www.japanfocus.org
Ishiwara became an influential thinker of Japan’s ‘Greater Asia’ foreign policy in the period that culminated in the Pacific War and Fumimaro became the Primew Minister of expansionist imperial Japan. In July 1937, Japan invaded China. In January 1938,Japan launched an all-out offensive in China in order to set up a new central government favourable to the Japanese. By October 1938, Hankow and Canton were under Japanese control and Premier Konoe Fumimaro announced the establishment of Japan’s New Order in East Asia on 3 November 1938.
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On one hand, governance fell into the hands of pan-Asianists like Konoe, and on the other hand people like Okawa Shumei and Yabe Teiji, Ishiwara Kanji and Royama Masamichi provided ideas to the government to take pan-Asianism across the whole continent. Konoe’s announcement of Japan’s New Order in East Asia was not a sudden decision. A number of regional models were proposed for peace machinery in the Far East to overcome international seclusion and condemnation . Ashida Hitoshi, a diplomat, sponsored the Asian Locarno concept in 1932. He argued that if the international powers persisted in refusing to recognize Manchukuo, Manchuria would remain a ‘chronic disease’, perpetually fouling Japan’s relations with other major nations. He envisaged a Locarno pact for the Far East (Kyokuto Rokaruno), as an instrument for the peaceful solution of disputes just like the system developed in Central Europe in 1925. Ashida considered Japan, Manchukuo, Soviet Union and China as possible members of this pact.
Takagi Yasaka and Yokota Kisaburo presented a detailed proposal for a security pact of the Pacific in August 1933. The contracting parties of this Pacific Agreement were to include Japan, China, USSR, USA, Great Britain and France. The two proposals were not based on any reference to a common culture.
Asian regionalism based on ‘cultural essence’ was promoted by proliferating pan-Asianists during the 1930s. Greater Asianism (Dai Toashugi) was promoted through a new organization, Dai Ajia Kyokai (Greater Asia Association), founded on 1 March 1933. Konoe Fumimaro was a member of the group. The group viewed such a federation as a defence of East Asia against cultural conquest by occidentals, represented most demonically by Soviet Communism. In 1934, a semi-official agency, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai (KBS) was established to expand cultural relations with the Asian nations. Ishiwara Kanji, a member of the Dai Ajia Kyokai formed his own Toa Remai Kyokai (East Asia League Association) in 1939.
Various plans were already afloat, such as Ishiwara Kanji’s concept of East Asian Federation, the concept of East Asia Cooperative Body (Toa Kyodotai) by the famous spy Ozaki Hotsumi (Sorge spy case), ‘Greater East Asia Co-existence Sphere’ (Dai Toa Kyo Zonken) of Yabe Teiji, Okawa Shumei’s The Establishment of the Greater East Asian Order (1943) (Dai Toa Chitsujo Kensetsu). This apart, Kamikawa Hikomatsu had proposed a Japanese version of the Monroe Doctrine.
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Royama Masamichi made the concept of regionalism the rationale for a new order in East Asia. Takhashi Kamekichi emphasized the idealism of Japan’s endeavour as a peacekeeping force. These ideologues influenced the official policy. First, the Navy showed an interest in creating such a Greater East Asia sphere. In a radio broadcast, Premier Konoe Fumimaro proclaimed ‘The New Order in East Asia’ on 22 December 1938. The concept embraced only Japan, Manchuria and China but not yet South-East Asia. It was Matsuoka Yousuke, the foreign minister, who proclaimed ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’ on 1 August 1940, followed a few days later with a
radio address by Premier Konoe.
After the Pacific War broke out, Premier Tojo Hideki spoke to the House of Peers in the 79th Diet on 20 January 1942 (Japan had already occupied Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines). He spoke of liberation from Britain and America and of including Burma and possibly even Australia within the sphere.
Six nations in the Co-Prosperity Sphere attended the Greater East Asia Conference held in Tokyo on 5 and 6 November 1943. Subhas Chandra Bose was present as an observer, being the head of the government of Azad Hind. Other leading delegates were Ba Maw, Head of State of Burma, Wang Ching-Wei, President of China, Chang Chung- Hui, Prime Minister of Manchukuo, Prince Wan Waithayakan of Thailand and Laurel, President of the Philippines.
A number of Asian leaders voiced support for Japan and placed the war in an East vs West, oriental vs occidental, and ultimately blood vs blood context. The Tokyo conference was designed to be an inspiring symbol of
pan-Asian idealism and the demise of white rule in Asia, and it fuelled for the moment the Asian racial dream and western racial fears. The western media fuelled the Asian dream further by emphasizing the ‘war against Japan as a holy war, a racial war’, the perpetual war between oriental and occidental ideals. Pearl S. Buck and Lin Yutang were so appalled by the ‘racialization of the war against Japan’ that they warned of a Third World War between whites and non-whites within a generation.
Japan had taken a leap in the name of Greater East Asia Co-prosperity to implement the ideology of the Showa Kenkyu Kai (Showa Research Association that included influential civilians of various ideological persuasions), namely Showa Restoration (nativistic and nationalistic harping for a period of security, strength and prosperity) and Kyodoshugi (cooperationism). The Japanese army was chanting its victory song after expelling ‘white peril’(hakka) from Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya and Burma. Korea and China were already under Japanese control. A Japan-centred hakko ichiu had emerged in East and South-East Asia.The Japanese victory and pan-Asiatic slogans fed into each other. Asian leaders exulted on the surrender of imperial powers in the Pacific.
The defeat of Japan ended the co-prosperity sphere, and all outward manifestations of pan-Asianism. But the slogan ‘Asia for Asiatics’ had inspired people. Japanese determination had unmasked the white man’s invincibility and Asian jubilation on every fall of colonial outposts instilled a dread of ‘Yellow epidemic’ among the ‘white’ imperialists. Asian nations then ran amok for independence.
Japan’s Asian Quest During the Cold War
The objectives of the Japanese leadership during World War II were to oppose ‘Communism in Asia’, to liberate the Asian colonies from the yoke of European imperialism and to foster pan-Asian solidarity. Instead, the result was the rise of communism in mainland Asia, stationing of more foreign troops on Asian territory and disarray in Asian solidarity on the issue of communism, anti-communism and neutrality. The atomic bomb was used for the first time against the ‘Yamato nucleus of Asia’ and the territory of the ‘leader of Asia’ fell to American occupation (1945–52). In theory, the occupation was inter-national, with a thirteen nation Far Eastern Commission in Washington and a four-power Allied Council for Japan in Tokyo, but in practice, the power was in the hands of American General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). The SCAP dismembered the empire, disestablished the Shinto and removed the old leadership. General Tojo was hanged with six others as war criminals. Japan was paralyzed and made a base by USA to continue its containment against the new rising leader of Asia, namely China.
In this pessimistic phase, the cultural undercurrent for a renewed nihanjinron continued to flow. The memory of the treatment meted out by the ‘white people’ during the war did not vanish. The harsh treatment meted to the Nisei (American citizens of Japanese descent) during the world war in concentration camps was seen now as a war against the ‘race’, not alone a ‘nation’.
In contrast to the western behaviour, the Chinese, who also fought against the Japanese occupation forces, declared ‘repaying violence with virtue’. Chiang Kai-shek appealed to the nation in a radio broadcast from Chongqing on 15 August 1945, the day of Japan’s unconditional surrender, ‘not to repay violence with violence’. His appeal was heeded. The Chinese people refrained from vindictiveness, allowing over two million Japanese soldiers, paramilitary, and civilian residents to return safely by June 1946. The Japanese, after all, were Asians, just like them. Chiang Kai-shek also blocked the USSR-led machination to abolish the Emperor system. He saved Japan from being divided and occupied by multiple powers after the war, sparing it the fate of Korea or Vietnam.
The contrasting treatment given to Japan by Asian nations and the West reminded the Japanese of their Asian identity. But the continued occupation by the Allied powers and the installation of a puppet regime did not help in pursuing the pan-Asian discourse vigorously. The US, in its turn, sought to re-educate Japan ideologically and to root out its Asianism. It purged offending politicians from public service, controlled the freedom of speech to suppress Japanese nationalism and Asianism, and promoted western liberalism and moderate socialism. Till 1951, Japan was virtually isolated from the rest of Asia. All its relations were filtered through the sieve of the SCAP authorities.
When Japan regained its independence on 28 April 1952, Yoshida Shigeru stood at the helm of the administration. Known for his contempt of Asia and Asians, he still held the Chinese people in great esteem. Obviously, Yoshida could not divest himself of the Asianist baggage he had acquired from his association with Konoe Fumimaro. He maintained the lofty idea of developing Asia, but being a pragmatist, he realized that it could be done through the combination of American money and Japanese technology. He sent the first economic mission to South-East Asia in the summer of 1951 and began to build up a regional framework of economic cooperation.
Regaining independence, Japan swung into action to build up a ‘triad of union’ predicated on economic cooperation between the US, Japan and South-East Asia. In a policy speech, Yoshida expatiated in October 1952 upon the need for ‘mutual understanding with Asian democracies’ and ‘strengthening economic relations with South-East Asia’. Isolated from its neighbour China and Koreas because of the cross-game of the Cold War, Japan may have sought the alternative of cultivating relations with South-East Asia. Withstanding American pressure, Yoshida signed the Japan-China Private Trade Agreement through Ishibashi Tanzan in January 1952. He was trying to forge an independent course when he was forced to step down and Hatoyama took over in December 1954.
The Hatoyama cabinet sent Takasaki Tatsunosuke as its official representative to the Afro-Asian conference held in Bandung in April 1955. The delegates conferred with Chou, and after the conference he and other Asian statesmen adopted a vehemently anti-American posture. In December 1956, Ishibashi Tanzan became Prime Minister. He had been the key architect of Japan-China Private Trade Negotiation and was known for his pre-war view of renouncement of all territorial claims. He had advocated ‘small Nipponism’ before the war and worked as editor-in-chief of Toyo Keizai Shimpo (New Oriental Economic Review). He was widely held as a rare combination of liberalist and Asianist. Ishibashi, soon after assuming office, expressed his keenness to improve relations with China and to expand Japan–China trade, making the US wary of him. Ill health forced Ishibashi to step down within two months and his foreign minister, Kishi Nobusuke, assumed power.
Japan under the Kishi Nobusuke cabinet (1957–60) committed itself to a strong alliance with USA. Nobusuke had been an advocate of Great Asianism during the prewar years. Soon after assuming power, he made a round of visits to Asian countries in May 1957, to consolidate his position in Asia so as to bolster his bargaining position vis-à-vis the USA in June 1957. Same year, he floated the plan for a South-East Asia Development Fund to ‘liberate Asia from poverty’ through US-Japan cooperation. In one way, he was responding to the American dilemma—if Asia remained poor, communism would overcome it and American hegemony would be lost forever. In November 1957, Nobusuke made another round of visits to the Asian and Pacific countries in the hope of building an anti- Communist Asia-Pacific alliance. His visit was also meant to help him achieve his pre-war Greater Asia ambition.
With Japan dependent for its security upon USA, Nobusuke could not have gone far ahead on Tanzan’s line or Yoshida’s latter-day initiatives, inviting the Americans’ wrath. He, therefore, let other political groups take the initiative in bringing Asia closer. The first secretary of Japan Socialist Party, Asanuma Inejiro was allowed to visit China in March 1959 where he declared that ‘American imperialism is the common enemy of the peoples of Japan and China.’ Matsumara Kenzo, leader of the anti-Nobusuke camp within the LDP, visited China soon after and held frank exchanges with Chou En-lai on four occasions. This visit paved the way for the Liao-Takasaki trade agreement in November 1962, which provided for Japanese exports to China on a deferred payment basis. But the official line maintained by Nobusuke was merely subservience to US authorities. A revised US-Japan Security Treaty replaced the Security Treaty of 1951 in January 1960. The treaty becoming unpopular, the projected visit of Eisenhower was cancelled and Nobusuke had to resign in July the same year.
By this time, an upswing in the Japanese economy helped define Ikeda’s economic diplomacy towards Asia. In January 1964, when President Sukarno visited Japan, Ikeda was already finalizing his plan for an Asian version of the European Economic Community. He took initiatives for establishing an Asian Productivity Organization (APO) in 1961 and an Asian Parliamentarians’ Union in 1960. Sato Eisaku, who succeeded Ikeda in November 1964, maintained the pace of Ikeda’s economic diplomacy in Asia. He concluded the Japan– Republic of Korea treaty, initiated by Ikeda, in 1965. On the occasion, the official representative, Shiina Etsusaburo expressed his ‘deep remorse’ for Japanese wartime actions in Korea. But the treaty was opposed by Utsinomiya Tokuma, a prominent LDP member, who advocated friendship with North Korea and visited Pyongyang a number of times, claiming Kim Il-sung was an Asian leader and third world representative rather than a communist.
By then, the USA had begun bombing North Vietnam, with Sato giving full-throated support to the American propaganda of ‘dominolike fall to communism’. He also visited South Vietnam in 1967. But other Japanese leaders argued that it was ‘intervention against national self-determination in Asia’ reflecting ‘American imperialism’. Vietnam’s becoming communist would do nothing to harm the USA, Miyazawa Kiichi said, because the Vietnamese would not dare to try to become a source of worldwide revolution. To assuage Japanese feelings the decision to revert Okinawa in 1972 was finalized at a summit meeting between Nixon and Sato in November 1969.
On the economic front, Sato showed sympathy with Asia. The Asian Development Bank was founded after an inaugural meeting in Tokyo in November 1966. Sato toured Australia, New Zealand and Korea in early 1967, and soon the prototype of an Asian EEC, the ASEAN was established in August 1967. No vision of an Asian EEC could, however, have been fruitful if the colossus of the East, China, was sidelined. Earlier, Premier Sato convened a ministerial conference for the economic development of South-East Asia (MED SEA) in Tokyo in April 1966. This included countries of Indochina, Burma and the five South-East Asian nations. This was the first time since the war that Japan had called together an international conference, without prior notice being given to the USA, and which was not included.
The task of normalizing relations with China fell on the shoulders of Tanaka Kakuei, who succeeded Sato in July 1972. Tanaka visited China in September 1972 and offered to normalize diplomatic relations with it. On the occasion, Chou En-lai said that China would abandon its claims for reparations from Japan as the Japanese people were suffering hardship. Tanaka, on Japan’s behalf, expressed ‘deep remorse for the huge trouble which Japan caused to the Chinese people’. Tanaka had developed the consciousness of ‘Asian village’ type of community.
Propelled by his Asian consciousness, Tanaka established diplomatic relations with North Vietnam in September 1973 and toured five South- East Asian countries in January 1974. Tanaka deployed an independent ‘resource diplomacy’ towards Asia in the wake of the 1973 oil shock, to make Japan less dependent on the major US oil companies. The Japanese government also pursued an independent Middle East policy resisting the pressure brought by Henry Kissinger on the leadership and recognized PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. Further, Japan asked Israel to cede the Arab territories occupied in the 1967 war. An interest in Middle Eastern studies was also created and a number of institutes and journals like Chuto Keizai Kenkyusho (Economic Research Institute for the Middle East) and Jime Review came into being during the early 1970s. Soon Tanaka was arrested and imprisoned in the Lockheed affair
in what many believe to have been retaliation by the US for his independent
resource diplomacy.
The premiership of Miki Takeo, Tanaka’s successor, witnessed the defeat of USA in the Vietnam War. The situation was ripe for charting an independent Asia policy. Fukuda, the next premier, visited South- East Asia on 18 August 1977. In Manila, the last stop of his tour, he announced the Fukuda Doctrine of his Asian policy, drawn up with emphasis on the importance of ‘heart-to-heart ties’, based on the following principles:
1. Japan will devote itself to peace and never become a military power.
2. Japan will promote cooperation as an equal partner, upholding the value of ‘heart-to-heart ties’ among members of Asian society and affirming ethnic diversity.
3. Japan will cooperate energetically in voluntary efforts by members of ASEAN to enhance the organization’s solidarity and strength, in the expectation that mutual understanding and coexistence can eventually be achieved in Indochina.
Fukuda signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with China in August 1978. Japan’s Asia policy had come of age. In October 1981, Suzuki Zenko, the next prime minister, received the PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat in Tokyo while he was on an ‘unofficial’ visit. Japan also refused to toe the American line during the Iran hostage and Afghan crises at the turn of 1979–80. As Japan gained economic strength and influence during the 1970s and ’80s, other nations of South-East and East Asia began to appreciate its achievements. Malaysia and Singapore turned to Japan as a model for economic and social development in the 1980s, an approach encapsulated in the ‘look East policy’ advocated by Mahathir in 1981. Japan, if it had to be the model of Asia, would have to erase the memories of its past deeds in Asia. This realization led to the beginning of ‘politics of apology’: Emperor Hirohito expressed his deep regret to South Korean President Chun Doohwan in September 1984.
Japan was re-entering Asia through aid, economic cooperation and apology diplomacy. This was accompanied by the process of denigrating the West and celebrating the rise and creativity of its own region. The cultural threat from western Christianity was being highlighted. In his 1976 call for a return to Buddhism, philosopher Takeshi Umehara characterized Christianity as a blood-stained religion and denigrated western civilization. Hideaki Kase complained of a century’s onslaught by Christianity on Japan. Within Japan, the view of ‘Asian liberation’ began to gain prominence: Okuna Seisuke, Director-General of the National Land Agency in the Takeshita cabinet in 1988, declared in 1988,
It was the Caucasian race that colonized Asia. If anybody was the aggressor, it was the Caucasians. It is nonsense to call Japan the aggressor or militaristic. The people of Asia, long colonized by whites, needed to be liberated to give them stable livelihoods.… Eventually we were defeated, but Asian nations all became independent. ( Asahi Shimbun, 26 April 1988).
The Japanese were rediscovering the old vision by the end of the 1980s. No sooner did the Cold War architecture collapse, Japan surged ahead in singing the Asian chorus emanating from the newly industrializing economies of East and South-East Asia. The Asian voice culminated in the Kajiyama vision of 1995, a vision to be ‘a member of Asia, to share both good times and bad times with fellow Asians.’
Japan is now a member of ASEAN+4 and East Asia Summit. Though, Japan is in throes of prolonged recession, Japan helped the growth of Asia by pursuing a Flying Geese Model of economic development. The economic growth has propelled Asia to the status it once held before the Opium Wars. Japan has been using the multilateral platforms like Asian Development Bank to establish common infrastructure as well as institutions for integrated Asia. ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda is the leading force to propel Asian states towards vision of integrated Asia.
ADB Chief, Haruhiko Kuroda
Post-Hiroshima period was marred by Japan’s silencing for Asian voyage. Recent crisis at Fukushima following earthquake and deadly tsunami may reinvigorate the Japanese society to discover hope in the vision of United Asia, a peaceful, prosperous village type community of Asian people.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Anti-Christian Violence in India
It is reasonable to argue that the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party [hereafter BJP] to relative supremacy in Indian politics over the course of the last few years bears a direct relationship to the considerable, even dramatic,increase in violence against Christians and other minorities in India. In this short paper, I shall be furnishing a brief chronicle of the recent violence, besides foraying, again briefly, into such questions as the politics of conversion, the inaccuracy of claims regarding the alleged growth of the Christian population in India, and so on.
Christians in Modern India: A Brief Political and Social Survey
The history of Christianity in India goes back to a few decades after the birth of Christ, and there is evidence of Syrian Christians having established themselves in Kerala before 100 AD. India’s contacts with Christianity were renewed with the coming of the Portuguese in 1498: this was wholly inauspicious for the modern beginning of Christianity in India, since the conduct of the Portugese is without exaggeration described as barbaric. The Christian presence became more marked in some respects in the nineteenth century after British rule had been consolidated in India, though here again the pretense was often maintained that British rule had no association with Christianity. The sleight of hand is witnessed, for example, in James Mill’s fatal characterization of Indian history into three periods: Hindu; Muslim; and British.
Some of the anti-Christian sentiments harbored by contemporary Hindu extremists dwell on the time when India was under British colonial rule, and when a substantial number of Christian missionaries openly voiced crude anti-Hindu sentiments. There is also the widespread belief among advocates of a more militant Hinduism that the colonial state encouraged conversions of lower-caste Hindus and otherwise promoted Christianity as a state religion, but on the whole there is little to substantiate this view, though doubtless Christians were looked upon more sympathetically than they had been in India under Muslim or Hindu rulers. It is a remarkable fact that in 200 years when India was under British rule, the Christian population of India never exceeded 3% of the population. Though the sentiments of Hindus were often flagrantly wounded by Christian missionaries, whose insensitivity and arrogance come across in countless number of texts, missionaries today are nonetheless more often remembered for performing social work in both metropolitan centers and more remote parts of the country, and for establishing schools where the bulk of the Indian elites still receive their schooling (see Bhavana Pankaj, "India’s Christians Protest Persecution", Asian Week [7 January 1999]).
The reality faced by Christians in modern India is that they are a small minority and not noticeably present in public life. They are dwarfed by the Hindus (nearly 78% of the population) and Muslims (around 14% of the population). The much smaller Parsi population has had a far more tangible and far-reaching impact on Indian civilization as well as what is called "nation-building". The militant Hindus have spread a canard that the Christian population is increasing rapidly in India, and they have attempted to create the widespread impression that lower-caste Hindus are being forcibly converted in large numbers to Christianity. For instance, on the very day that Pope John Paul II arrived in India in late 1999, an advertisement in the form of an open letter addressed to the Pope was placed in Indian newspapers by the Citizens Committee of the Dharma Raksha Sammelan [Association for Protection of the Hindu Faith] in Chennai [Madras], which stated that "the Christian missionary activity in our nation is tearing apart families and communities in every strata of our society." The letter states that "religious conversion, which seems to be synonymous with papal work, is violence pure and simple." Purporting to speak on behalf of the nation, the letter concluded thus: "We Indians are deeply hurt by the spurt in the aggressive campaigning of the Church to convert the people of India by all available means" (see V. Sridhar, "A Numbers Game", Frontline [Madras], Vol. 16, no. 25 (27 November 1999). In fact, there have been many other similar calls for an end to conversion (for example, M. V. Kamath, "Mission Impossible: Putting an End to Conversion Activity", Times of India 13 October 1999), all implicitly based on one of more of the following assumptions, all patently false: (1) Christian missionary activity is illegal; (2) the Christian population is increasing dramatically; (3) and that conversions take place forcibly, or are otherwise inauthentic because the converts are seduced with offers of money or other forms of patronage.
The evidence to the contrary is ample. The Constitution of India (1950) recognizes the right to freedom of religious worship, and the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Indian Constitution, recognized further that people have the right to "propagate religion". More importantly, the Census of India, which remains the most authoritative source for population statistics, clearly shows that the Christian community has stagnated and even registered a small decline in recent years. In an article published by Rajendra K. Chaddha in the magazine Organiser (31 October 1999), which is the mouthpiece for the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party that has been governing India since March 1998, it was claimed that the Christian population had grown from 2.53% of the total population of India in 1981 to 2.61% of the total population. However, the Census of India tells a different, and obviously more reliable, story. While the rate of growth of the Christian population was higher than that of the population as a whole between 1921 and 1971, the gap narrowed and was eventually reversed. Thus, between 1981 and 1991, Christians declined from 2.45% to 2.32% of the entire population. Moreover, while the population of India increased by 23.79% between 1981 and 1991, the Christian population grew by only 16.89% in the same period. . The Justice Wadhava Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Government of India came to the same conclusion, and it adds the interesting fact that between 1991 and 1998 the Hindu population increased by 2.5%, while the Christian population increased by .008% (see V. Sridhar’s article in Frontline [above]; Rajeev Dhavan, "Christians in India", The Hindu (5 November 1999); and P. R. Ram, "To Be or Not To Be: The Conversion Debate", available through South Asia Citizens Wire).
In short, the most common rationale offered for violence against Christians in India, namely that the community is growing at an alarming rate through forced conversions, is absurd and has been decisively rejected by the print media and the world of scholarship. Even if the allegations made by Hindu extremists were true, they cannot be offered as an excuse for violence against another religious community. It is also the case, though the scholarly and popular literature on this question leaves much to be deisred, that recent converts to Christianity fare much worse than those Indian Christians who have been members of that faith for one or more generations. Recent converts are seen as traitors to Hinduism, as people who are against the tide of history and fail to recognize that India is -- as the Hindu militants would like to think -- a Hindu nation, and as people who are determined to weaken India in the face of opposition from hostile countries, including Pakistan. There may also be some resentment against the generally improved lifestyle of Christians: rates of literacy among both Christian men and women are higher than among Hindu men and women, and in the various indices that are used internationally to determine social and economic development, such as infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, and death rate, Christians score better.
The Hindutva literature on conversion, finally, has entirely failed to enter into an engagement on the complex philosophical, political, and ethical questions surrounding conversion. Some of the Hindutva advocates, whose contempt for Gandhi is barely disguised, have brazenly furnished Gandhi’s views as justification for their opposition to conversion. Gandhi was not keen on conversion, partly because he held to the view that the convert had an inadquate understanding of his or her own faith; and Gandhi did not think that any one religion was superior to another. But absolutely nothing in Gandhi’s life, teachings, or writings can even remotely be summoned in support of the view that Gnadhi would have opposed a person’s right and desire to convert, and it is unthinkable that he would have countenanced the use of violence to prevent conversion. In this matter as in many others, the militant Hindus have shown themselves extraordinarily adept in abusing and manipulating Gandhi.
Anti-Christian Violence in India, 1997-2000
The media first actively began to report incidents of violence against Christians in 1997. As I have argued earlier, the increase of violence against Christians must be viewed in the context of the rise of Hindu nationalism and the ascendancy of the BJP to political power at the center of the nation. From 1964 to 1996, only 38 incidents of violence against Christians were registered in the country, though doubtless many incidents were not recorded at all; in 1997 alone, 24 incidents were noted by the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, and in 1998, the number had gone up to 90, though some Christian spokespersons have claimed that the true figure is several times higher. Hindu militants, one can safely conclude, see the rise of the BJP and other like-minded parties as an invitation to commit violence against Christians and other minorities with impunity.
Though incidents of violence against Christians have occurred in nearly all parts of India, the violence has been largely confined to north, central, and western India, to the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and the capital area of New Delhi -- not coincidentally, most of these areas have been under BJP rule in recent years. Some of the more gruesome incidents took place in eastern India, in the state of Orissa. Intimidation of Christians has extended to such acts as arson (the fire-bombing of Churches), the distribution of threatening literature, the forcible reconversion of recent converts back to Hinduism, the burning of Bibles; there have also been incidents, though much fewer in number, involving the rape of nuns and the murder of both Christian priests and missionaries. Cases of physical assault have also been recorded from various parts of the country: on 5 November 1999, 26 students -- not all Christians -- of St. Joseph’s Evening College, Bangalore, were attacked by 40 VHP activists for allegedly converting lower-caste Hindus (the Dalits) to Christianity (Walter Fernandes, "Caste as vested interest", The Hindu [4 January 2000]). In Gujarat alone, where the BJP grip over power is very strong, 22 churches were burnt or destroyed, and another 16 damaged, in 1997. In the following year, 1998, according to the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, 5 nuns were raped, 9 killed, and 25 subjected to physical abuse (see Ravi Arvind Palat, "Violence against Christians in India", New Zealand Herald [26 January 1999]; also V. Venkatesan, "A pattern of persecution", Frontline 15, no. 26 [19 December 1998]). In mid-June 2000, four churches in different parts of India were bombed, while in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, church graves were desecrated. In the same month, a church in Maharashtra was ransacked, and an evangelist working for the India Campus Crusade for Christ was found stabbed to death at his home (see Robert Marquand, "In India, a Pattern of Attacks on Christians", Christian Science Monitor ([29 June 2000]).
There have also been at least five widely known cases involving the murder of Christian clergymen, though perhaps as many as 20 priests and pastors may have been killed. Two might be mentioned by way of illustration. The entire country was shocked in January 1999 when an Australian Baptist missionary, Graham Staines, was murdered along with his two sons by being burnt alive inside a locked car. Staines had lived in India for the greater part of his life, and was working among lepers in Orissa, one of India’s most deprived regions (see the Human Rights Report and State Department Report, as cited below). His assailant, a Hindu militant by the name of Dara Singh, went around boasting about his deed, and even gave television interviews, while the police claimed that he could not be found. On 7 June 2000, the Catholic priest, George Kuzhikandam, was murdered in his sleep in a church in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. The church cook, Vijay Ekka, who slept near the murdered clergyman and first reported the murder, was taken away by the police for interrogation, and himself died in police custody. Though the police claimed he had committed suicide, the autopsy indicated that he had been strangled. It is widely believed that the cook was silenced.
Anti-Christian violence in India has been widely noted, and in April 1999 Human Rights Watch visited the Dangs district in southeastern Gujarat, where over a period of 10 days, from 25 December 1998 to 3 January 1999, there were numerous violent and clearly premeditated attacks on Christians and their institutions. Their 1999 report on the violence perpretrated against Christians furnishes a detailed record of what they saw and heard, and provides the testimony of those victimized (it can be accessed at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/indiachr/christians). A chronological record, as well as the historical background to the present spate of violence, can also be found in the U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: India (released by the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington, DC, 9 September 1999). Shortly before dying in a car crash in Poland in the summer of 2000, Archbishop Alan de Lastic of New Delhi addressed a letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee, drawing his attention to the attacks upon Christians in all parts of the country, and stating that the thugs engaged in violent activity and attacks upon Christians "know no action will be taken [against them], and they can get away with any kind of violence" (Seema Mustafa, "Archbishop to PM: Your Silence Kills", The Asian Age (14 May 2000). The Archbishop noted that the Christian community was threatened with its worst crisis since India acquired independence in 1947 (see Pamela Constable, ‘The Burden of the Cross in India", Washington Post [3 July 2000]).
The evidence for violence against Christians in India is consequently incontrovertible. There are numerous compilations of atrocities perpetrated upon Christians, and they suggest an alarming pattern of violence: the intimidation of priests; threats placed against Christian schools; false allegations against Christian priests; the destruction of Christian institutions, such as the Damian Leprosy Hospital complex run by Catholic nuns for 31 years; attacks upon churches; assault upon Christian nuns and pastors, such as in the city of Jhansi on 2 May 2000; the distribution of scurrilous literature; and murder of Christians.
Christians in Modern India: A Brief Political and Social Survey
The history of Christianity in India goes back to a few decades after the birth of Christ, and there is evidence of Syrian Christians having established themselves in Kerala before 100 AD. India’s contacts with Christianity were renewed with the coming of the Portuguese in 1498: this was wholly inauspicious for the modern beginning of Christianity in India, since the conduct of the Portugese is without exaggeration described as barbaric. The Christian presence became more marked in some respects in the nineteenth century after British rule had been consolidated in India, though here again the pretense was often maintained that British rule had no association with Christianity. The sleight of hand is witnessed, for example, in James Mill’s fatal characterization of Indian history into three periods: Hindu; Muslim; and British.
Some of the anti-Christian sentiments harbored by contemporary Hindu extremists dwell on the time when India was under British colonial rule, and when a substantial number of Christian missionaries openly voiced crude anti-Hindu sentiments. There is also the widespread belief among advocates of a more militant Hinduism that the colonial state encouraged conversions of lower-caste Hindus and otherwise promoted Christianity as a state religion, but on the whole there is little to substantiate this view, though doubtless Christians were looked upon more sympathetically than they had been in India under Muslim or Hindu rulers. It is a remarkable fact that in 200 years when India was under British rule, the Christian population of India never exceeded 3% of the population. Though the sentiments of Hindus were often flagrantly wounded by Christian missionaries, whose insensitivity and arrogance come across in countless number of texts, missionaries today are nonetheless more often remembered for performing social work in both metropolitan centers and more remote parts of the country, and for establishing schools where the bulk of the Indian elites still receive their schooling (see Bhavana Pankaj, "India’s Christians Protest Persecution", Asian Week [7 January 1999]).
The reality faced by Christians in modern India is that they are a small minority and not noticeably present in public life. They are dwarfed by the Hindus (nearly 78% of the population) and Muslims (around 14% of the population). The much smaller Parsi population has had a far more tangible and far-reaching impact on Indian civilization as well as what is called "nation-building". The militant Hindus have spread a canard that the Christian population is increasing rapidly in India, and they have attempted to create the widespread impression that lower-caste Hindus are being forcibly converted in large numbers to Christianity. For instance, on the very day that Pope John Paul II arrived in India in late 1999, an advertisement in the form of an open letter addressed to the Pope was placed in Indian newspapers by the Citizens Committee of the Dharma Raksha Sammelan [Association for Protection of the Hindu Faith] in Chennai [Madras], which stated that "the Christian missionary activity in our nation is tearing apart families and communities in every strata of our society." The letter states that "religious conversion, which seems to be synonymous with papal work, is violence pure and simple." Purporting to speak on behalf of the nation, the letter concluded thus: "We Indians are deeply hurt by the spurt in the aggressive campaigning of the Church to convert the people of India by all available means" (see V. Sridhar, "A Numbers Game", Frontline [Madras], Vol. 16, no. 25 (27 November 1999). In fact, there have been many other similar calls for an end to conversion (for example, M. V. Kamath, "Mission Impossible: Putting an End to Conversion Activity", Times of India 13 October 1999), all implicitly based on one of more of the following assumptions, all patently false: (1) Christian missionary activity is illegal; (2) the Christian population is increasing dramatically; (3) and that conversions take place forcibly, or are otherwise inauthentic because the converts are seduced with offers of money or other forms of patronage.
The evidence to the contrary is ample. The Constitution of India (1950) recognizes the right to freedom of religious worship, and the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Indian Constitution, recognized further that people have the right to "propagate religion". More importantly, the Census of India, which remains the most authoritative source for population statistics, clearly shows that the Christian community has stagnated and even registered a small decline in recent years. In an article published by Rajendra K. Chaddha in the magazine Organiser (31 October 1999), which is the mouthpiece for the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party that has been governing India since March 1998, it was claimed that the Christian population had grown from 2.53% of the total population of India in 1981 to 2.61% of the total population. However, the Census of India tells a different, and obviously more reliable, story. While the rate of growth of the Christian population was higher than that of the population as a whole between 1921 and 1971, the gap narrowed and was eventually reversed. Thus, between 1981 and 1991, Christians declined from 2.45% to 2.32% of the entire population. Moreover, while the population of India increased by 23.79% between 1981 and 1991, the Christian population grew by only 16.89% in the same period. . The Justice Wadhava Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Government of India came to the same conclusion, and it adds the interesting fact that between 1991 and 1998 the Hindu population increased by 2.5%, while the Christian population increased by .008% (see V. Sridhar’s article in Frontline [above]; Rajeev Dhavan, "Christians in India", The Hindu (5 November 1999); and P. R. Ram, "To Be or Not To Be: The Conversion Debate", available through South Asia Citizens Wire).
In short, the most common rationale offered for violence against Christians in India, namely that the community is growing at an alarming rate through forced conversions, is absurd and has been decisively rejected by the print media and the world of scholarship. Even if the allegations made by Hindu extremists were true, they cannot be offered as an excuse for violence against another religious community. It is also the case, though the scholarly and popular literature on this question leaves much to be deisred, that recent converts to Christianity fare much worse than those Indian Christians who have been members of that faith for one or more generations. Recent converts are seen as traitors to Hinduism, as people who are against the tide of history and fail to recognize that India is -- as the Hindu militants would like to think -- a Hindu nation, and as people who are determined to weaken India in the face of opposition from hostile countries, including Pakistan. There may also be some resentment against the generally improved lifestyle of Christians: rates of literacy among both Christian men and women are higher than among Hindu men and women, and in the various indices that are used internationally to determine social and economic development, such as infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, and death rate, Christians score better.
The Hindutva literature on conversion, finally, has entirely failed to enter into an engagement on the complex philosophical, political, and ethical questions surrounding conversion. Some of the Hindutva advocates, whose contempt for Gandhi is barely disguised, have brazenly furnished Gandhi’s views as justification for their opposition to conversion. Gandhi was not keen on conversion, partly because he held to the view that the convert had an inadquate understanding of his or her own faith; and Gandhi did not think that any one religion was superior to another. But absolutely nothing in Gandhi’s life, teachings, or writings can even remotely be summoned in support of the view that Gnadhi would have opposed a person’s right and desire to convert, and it is unthinkable that he would have countenanced the use of violence to prevent conversion. In this matter as in many others, the militant Hindus have shown themselves extraordinarily adept in abusing and manipulating Gandhi.
Anti-Christian Violence in India, 1997-2000
The media first actively began to report incidents of violence against Christians in 1997. As I have argued earlier, the increase of violence against Christians must be viewed in the context of the rise of Hindu nationalism and the ascendancy of the BJP to political power at the center of the nation. From 1964 to 1996, only 38 incidents of violence against Christians were registered in the country, though doubtless many incidents were not recorded at all; in 1997 alone, 24 incidents were noted by the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, and in 1998, the number had gone up to 90, though some Christian spokespersons have claimed that the true figure is several times higher. Hindu militants, one can safely conclude, see the rise of the BJP and other like-minded parties as an invitation to commit violence against Christians and other minorities with impunity.
Though incidents of violence against Christians have occurred in nearly all parts of India, the violence has been largely confined to north, central, and western India, to the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and the capital area of New Delhi -- not coincidentally, most of these areas have been under BJP rule in recent years. Some of the more gruesome incidents took place in eastern India, in the state of Orissa. Intimidation of Christians has extended to such acts as arson (the fire-bombing of Churches), the distribution of threatening literature, the forcible reconversion of recent converts back to Hinduism, the burning of Bibles; there have also been incidents, though much fewer in number, involving the rape of nuns and the murder of both Christian priests and missionaries. Cases of physical assault have also been recorded from various parts of the country: on 5 November 1999, 26 students -- not all Christians -- of St. Joseph’s Evening College, Bangalore, were attacked by 40 VHP activists for allegedly converting lower-caste Hindus (the Dalits) to Christianity (Walter Fernandes, "Caste as vested interest", The Hindu [4 January 2000]). In Gujarat alone, where the BJP grip over power is very strong, 22 churches were burnt or destroyed, and another 16 damaged, in 1997. In the following year, 1998, according to the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, 5 nuns were raped, 9 killed, and 25 subjected to physical abuse (see Ravi Arvind Palat, "Violence against Christians in India", New Zealand Herald [26 January 1999]; also V. Venkatesan, "A pattern of persecution", Frontline 15, no. 26 [19 December 1998]). In mid-June 2000, four churches in different parts of India were bombed, while in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, church graves were desecrated. In the same month, a church in Maharashtra was ransacked, and an evangelist working for the India Campus Crusade for Christ was found stabbed to death at his home (see Robert Marquand, "In India, a Pattern of Attacks on Christians", Christian Science Monitor ([29 June 2000]).
There have also been at least five widely known cases involving the murder of Christian clergymen, though perhaps as many as 20 priests and pastors may have been killed. Two might be mentioned by way of illustration. The entire country was shocked in January 1999 when an Australian Baptist missionary, Graham Staines, was murdered along with his two sons by being burnt alive inside a locked car. Staines had lived in India for the greater part of his life, and was working among lepers in Orissa, one of India’s most deprived regions (see the Human Rights Report and State Department Report, as cited below). His assailant, a Hindu militant by the name of Dara Singh, went around boasting about his deed, and even gave television interviews, while the police claimed that he could not be found. On 7 June 2000, the Catholic priest, George Kuzhikandam, was murdered in his sleep in a church in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. The church cook, Vijay Ekka, who slept near the murdered clergyman and first reported the murder, was taken away by the police for interrogation, and himself died in police custody. Though the police claimed he had committed suicide, the autopsy indicated that he had been strangled. It is widely believed that the cook was silenced.
Anti-Christian violence in India has been widely noted, and in April 1999 Human Rights Watch visited the Dangs district in southeastern Gujarat, where over a period of 10 days, from 25 December 1998 to 3 January 1999, there were numerous violent and clearly premeditated attacks on Christians and their institutions. Their 1999 report on the violence perpretrated against Christians furnishes a detailed record of what they saw and heard, and provides the testimony of those victimized (it can be accessed at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/indiachr/christians). A chronological record, as well as the historical background to the present spate of violence, can also be found in the U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: India (released by the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington, DC, 9 September 1999). Shortly before dying in a car crash in Poland in the summer of 2000, Archbishop Alan de Lastic of New Delhi addressed a letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee, drawing his attention to the attacks upon Christians in all parts of the country, and stating that the thugs engaged in violent activity and attacks upon Christians "know no action will be taken [against them], and they can get away with any kind of violence" (Seema Mustafa, "Archbishop to PM: Your Silence Kills", The Asian Age (14 May 2000). The Archbishop noted that the Christian community was threatened with its worst crisis since India acquired independence in 1947 (see Pamela Constable, ‘The Burden of the Cross in India", Washington Post [3 July 2000]).
The evidence for violence against Christians in India is consequently incontrovertible. There are numerous compilations of atrocities perpetrated upon Christians, and they suggest an alarming pattern of violence: the intimidation of priests; threats placed against Christian schools; false allegations against Christian priests; the destruction of Christian institutions, such as the Damian Leprosy Hospital complex run by Catholic nuns for 31 years; attacks upon churches; assault upon Christian nuns and pastors, such as in the city of Jhansi on 2 May 2000; the distribution of scurrilous literature; and murder of Christians.
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