Challenges Faced by Youth Overseas, by Siddhartha Shankar Sinha
Our cultural motherland celebrated its 60th, ‘diamond’ year of independence this month. The past 60 years have quite possibly been the most tumultuous in our many-millennia-old history, with India rising from the status of the biggest jewel in the Colonial crown to being acknowledged on the world stage as a superpower in her own right. The rest of the world has much to thank India for: her material, intellectual and spiritual riches, all of which have benefited the world, not just her people alone.
Our biggest contribution to the world, our ‘largest item of export’, has been the people of India themselves. People in all four ashramas (stages of life) of life go abroad - students pursuing higher education, working professionals, parents visiting children, as well as spiritual teachers spreading the knowledge of Sanatana Dharma. Of all the people from these four ashramas, it is we, the students, who are by far the most important. We are the ones who undergo development of character overseas; we are the ones who imbibe the global outlook; and most importantly, we are the ones who will dictate the future progress of India. Indeed, we are the karnadhars, the worthy sons and daughters of India. It is therefore of utmost importance that we be knowledgeable about our heritage.
For many of us, life abroad is the first time we have ever been away from family. For almost everyone it is the first time that we are in a society radically different from our own. The majority of us react in one of two ways - withdraw into a “comfort” zone consisting of our own countrymen, or go “native” and completely imbibe the culture of the place. As can be seen, neither option is particularly positive. The only healthy choice is to accept the new environment while still keeping in touch with our roots, developing along the way, a healthy sense of perspective that will hold us in good stead throughout our lives. The values of the Hindu way of life are the best possible support that we have access to in our journey during these years.
This task, however, is easier contemplated than acted upon. Trying to lead a life in a strange land is not easy, and with constant pressures to adjust to the demands of life, it is all too easy to follow the path of least resistance: take up the lifestyle of the people around us. Practices and observances which were second nature to us back home quickly fall by the wayside. We celebrate local events without ever giving a thought to our Hindu festivals. However, we have the enviable position of being from a country admired for its culture and its contributions to the world. We are regularly asked questions about our country, often by people whose knowledge of our nation, customs, and religion are minimal. How will we be able to confidently answer these questions and successfully represent our culture?
The answer is simple: let us not forget our roots! Keep in touch with people back home. Read about our country, both in current news and history. Keep an almanac of festivals and days of religious observances, and celebrate them with friends! Visit a temple or if that is not possible, keep a small shrine at your home. Even something as simple as applying a tilak on one’s forehead is a great way to ‘stay connected’ (and if people ask about it, tell them! You will refresh the connections by repeating the knowledge to others). Join a group like the Hindu Students Council or Hindu YUVA, or start one! Above all, remember who you are, and where you are from. You are an Indian, a Hindu. These two terms hold immeasurable importance. Wear them with pride.
Siddhartha Shankar Sinha is an undergraduate student at the Bioengineering Department of University of Washington. You can reach him at sssinha@gmail.com
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January 20th, 2011 16:05
Dear Beta, Good see ur write up
March 23rd, 2011 17:27
There are 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas (public toilets) in Delhi; all of them are cleaned and looked after by Brahmins (this very welcome public institution was started by a Brahmin). A far cry from the elitist image that Brahmins have!There are five to six Brahmins manning each Shauchalaya. They came to Delhi eight to ten years back looking for a source of income, as they were a minority in most of their villages, where Dalits are in majority (60 per cent to 65 per cent). In most villages in UP and Bihar, Dalits have a union which helps them secure jobs in villages.Most number of Brahmins working as coolies at Delhi’s railway stations.One of them, Kripa Shankar Sharma, says while his daughter is doing her Bachelors in Science he is not sure if she will secure a job.You also find Brahmin rickshaw pullers in Delhi. 50 per cent of Patel Nagar’s rickshaw pullers are Brahmins who like their brethren have moved to the city looking for jobs for lack of employment opportunities and poor education in their villages.Even after toiling the whole day, Vijay Pratap and Sidharth Tiwari, two Brahmin rickshaw pullers, say they are hardly able to make ends meet. These men make about Rs 100 to Rs 150 on an average every day from which they pay a daily rent of Rs 25 for their rickshaws and Rs 500 to Rs 600 towards the rent of their rooms which is shared by 3 to 4 people or their families.Most rickshaw pullers in Banaras are Brahmins.This reverse discrimination is also found in bureaucracy and politics. Most of the intellectual Brahmin Tamil class has emigrated outside Tamil Nadu. Only 5 seats out of 600 in the combined UP and Bihar assembly are held by Brahmins — the rest are in the hands of the Yadavs.400,000 Brahmins of the Kashmir valley, the once respected Kashmiri Pandits, now live as refugees in their own country, sometimes in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi in appalling conditions. But who gives a damn about them? Their vote bank is negligible.And this is not limited to the North alone. 75 per cent of domestic help and cooks in Andhra Pradesh are Brahmins. A study of the Brahmin community in a district in Andhra Pradesh (Brahmins of India by J Radhakrishna, published by Chugh Publications) reveals that today all purohits live below the poverty line,who are the real Dalits of India.
In fact, according to this study there has been an overall decline in the number of Brahmin students. With the average income of Brahmins being less than that of non-Brahmins, a high percentage of Brahmin students drop out at the intermediate level. In the 5 to 18 year age group, 44 per cent Brahmin students stopped education at the primary level and 36 per cent at the pre-matriculation level.The study also found that 55 per cent of all Brahmins lived below the poverty line — below a per capita income of Rs 650 a month. Since 45 per cent of the total population of India is officially stated to be below the poverty line it follows that the percentage of destitute Brahmins is 10 per cent higher than the all-India figure.According to the Andhra Pradesh study, the largest percentage of Brahmins today are employed as domestic servants. The unemployment rate among them is as high as 75 per cent. Seventy percent of Brahmins are still relying on their hereditary vocation. There are hundreds of families that are surviving on just Rs 500 per month as priests in various temples (Department of Endowments statistics).Priests are under tremendous difficulty today, sometimes even forced to beg for alms for survival. There are innumerable instances in which Brahmin priests who spent a lifetime studying Vedas are being ridiculed and disrespected.At Tamil Nadu’s Ranganathaswamy Temple, a priest’s monthly salary is Rs 300 (Census Department studies) and a daily allowance of one measure of rice. The government staff at the same temple receive Rs 2,500 plus per month. But these facts have not modified the priests’ reputation as ‘haves’ and as ‘exploiters.’ The destitution of Hindu priests has moved none, not even the parties known for Hindu sympathy.
The tragedy of modern India is that the combined votes of Dalits/OBC and Muslims are enough for any government to be elected. The Congress quickly cashed in on it after Independence, but probably no other government than Sonia Gandhi’s has gone so far in shamelessly dividing Indian society for garnering votes.The Indian government gives Rs 1,000 crores (Rs 10 billion) for salaries of imams in mosques and Rs 200 crores (Rs 2 billion) as Haj subsidies. But no such help is available to Brahmins and upper castes. As a result, not only the Brahmins, but also some of the other upper castes in the lower middle class are suffering in silence today, seeing the minorities slowly taking control of their majority.Anti-Brahminism originated in, and still prospers in anti-Hindu circles. It is particularly welcome among Marxists, missionaries, Muslims, separatists and Christian-backed Dalit movements of different hues. When they attack Brahmins, their target is unmistakably Hinduism.
So the question has to be asked: are the Brahmins (and other upper castes) of yesterday becoming the Dalits of today?
March 23rd, 2011 17:27
Brahmins are still suffering due to actions of the selfish and glory seeking leftist bramnins who came to power after Independence its high time that brahmins start getting vocal. Brahmins are by no means minority. There are enough of us spread all over India. This country’s culture and heritage was shaped by brahmins and non brahmins should be grateful for that.Maybe it was our ancestors single largest mistake that they were always King makers but not kings. India is nothing without Brahmins.
March 23rd, 2011 17:28
Brahmin and Kshatriya communities lived for the common good and focused their energies and intellects to bring about common good. In return, the rest of the society took care of their needs by providing for them by giving what is surplus in the society. Kshatriyas served as to how modern Governments serve. Brahmins focused on Spiritual and religious aspects, and also served as advisors to Kshatriyas. The traditional functions of various people served the Indian society well. The problems started after Indian kingdoms fell to the invaders and the nobility, for most part, was usurped by the invading classes. Both Brahmins and Kshatriyas had to compromise. Several converted, inter-married, learned new languages, and trades and adapted to the new Order. The emerging competition perhaps forced Brahmins to insulate themselves and became more secretive. This secretiveness perhaps was at the root of many superstitions.
About Women: If you lose women, as they are the source of the next generation, you lose your community. Brahmins have been over protective of their women for this reason and must have imposed a lot of restrictions through the ages. However, due to the new found freedom in a democratic polity, some women may be rebelling.
March 23rd, 2011 17:29
Swami Vivekananda about Brahmin
THE FUTURE OF INDIA.Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora.The Brahminhood is the ideal of humanity in India, as wonderfully put forward by Shankaracharya at the beginning of his commentary on the Gitâ, where he speaks about the reason for Krishna’s coming as a preacher for the preservation of Brahminhood, of Brahminness..
It is the duty of the Brahmin, therefore, to work for the salvation of the rest of mankind in India. If he does that, and so long as he does that, he is a Brahmin, but he is no Brahmin when he goes about making money..You on the other hand should give help only to the real Brahmin who deserves it; that leads to heaven. But sometimes a gift to another person who does not deserve it leads to the other place, says our scripture..
You must be on your guard about that..He only is the Brahmin who has no secular employment. Secular employment is not for the Brahmin but for the other castes. To the Brahmins I appeal, that they must work hard to raise the Indian people by teaching them what they know, by giving out the culture that they have accumulated for centuries..It is clearly the duty of the Brahmins of India to remember what real Brahminhood is. As Manu says, all these privileges and honours are given to the Brahmin, because ” with him is the treasury of virtue ” ..
But it is one thing to gain an advantage, and another thing to preserve it for evil use. Whenever power is used for evil, it becomes diabolical; it must be used for good only. So this accumulated culture of ages of which the Brahmin has been the trustee, he must now give to the people at large, and it was.because he did not give it to the people that the Mohammedan invasion was possible..
It was because he did not open this treasury to the people from the beginning, that for a thousand years we have been trodden under the heels of every one who chose to come to India. It was through that we have become degraded, and the first task must be to break open the cells that hide the wonderful treasures which our common ancestors accumulated; bring them out and give them to everybody and the Brahmin must be the first to do it..There is an old superstition in Bengal that if the cobra that bites, sucks out his own poison from the patient, the man must survive. Well then, the Brahmin must suck out his own poison..
To the non-Brahmin castes I say, wait, be not in a hurry..Do not seize every opportunity of fighting the Brahmin, because, as I have shown, you are suffering from your own fault.Who told you to neglect spirituality and Sanskrit learning? What have you been doing all this time?.Why have you been indifferent? Why do you now fret and fume because somebody else had more brains, more energy, more pluck and go, than you? Instead of wasting your energies in vain discussions and quarrels in the newspapers, instead of fighting and quarrelling in your own homes — which is sinful — use all your energies in acquiring the culture which the Brahmin has, and the thing is done.
Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Co…uture_of_India
March 23rd, 2011 17:31
The foregoing discussion shows that the problem is not that of the Rama Janmabhumi Temple of Ayodhya, or the Krishna Temple of Mathura or the Visveshvara Temple of Varanasi. In its deeper aspect, the problem relates to an aggressive theology and political ideology which created an aggressive tradition of history. Needless to say that the problem in all its huge dimensions admits of no easy solution. In an ordinary situation, one could appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, from a man’s passion to his reason and conscience. But in the present case when Islamic theology is on the side of its historical practice and its more aggressive aims, this option is hardly available. But even then while showing, by exercising firmness, that aggression will not pay, we must yet be patient and understanding. We must realize that the problem is not Muslims but Islam or Islamic theology. Therefore, this theology needs a more critical examination than has been hitherto done. We must properly study Revelatory religions, their Gods and their prophets, their theories of special covenants and favoured ummahs, their doctrine of one God and two humanities, their categories of believers and infidels or pagans, their theory of Prophetism, their divinely ordained mission to convert and crusade.
March 23rd, 2011 17:31
The relationship of the U.S. governments over the years with missionaries is a complex one. Some, mainly Republican administrations have not hesitated to use them as political tools for spying and other covert activities. Democratic administrations on the other hand have supported them in the fond hope they will carry out social works and advance ‘human rights’. (Both show that Christian outfits are willing political stooges.) Human rights bodies today are heavily infiltrated by evangelic interests pushing their own agenda. It is no exaggeration to say that human rights is a neocolonial ideology that has taken the place of the White Man’s Burden— of imposing a set of their own but alien values on the people of the Third World. But the situation today is far too grave for such games: Indian and U.S. strategic interests now overlap to a degree that was unimaginable even a decade ago. And no area is more important than fighting terrorism. Fighting terrorism presents the greatest challenge for the two countries. But Church organizations, in their tunnel vision, focused on gaining maximum converts are oblivious to the social damage it is causing and the ill will it is generating. This discord can only help the terrorists. Leaders and thinkers in both countries must recognize the dangers of this ‘Breaking India’ activity that can only benefit forces that are bent on destroying freedom and civilization as we understand them. Needless to say these evangelists and human rights-wallahs will not be in the front lines when terrorist forces strike home. It is impossible to do justice to the full scope of Breaking India in an article like the present one.