The belief that sufferings in this life is a result of bad deeds in past lives stops Hindus from doing things that can make the human society more comfortable.
Peter Manuel's ‘Cassette Culture’ showed the booming Bhakti music during the '80s and '90s when Anoop Jalota, Gulshan Kumar achieved success by singing the sanitised Bhajans.
Economists say there are weaknesses in India’s GDP data. But statisticians claim the accusations are based on flawed understanding, saying while GDP has problems, the economists are looking in the wrong places.
This article shows the lack of understanding of Hinduism by the author. Every Hindu God has one or other Vahanam, which is an animal, bird or creatures. We worship animals and inherently respect every creature.
But, that it has changed in current culture of the Hindus as referred by Menakaji, is due to corruption of the followers, by surroundings and people of other religions, who are amidst.. what to say of one who goes for hunting as sport… Or one who looks at animal as delicious food…
Just because one reads a book, where author has a point of view, appreciate that. But extending to a general case or to a Hindu or Buddist, shows lack of deeper consciousness of God.
Hinduism inculcates in its adherents seeming detachment from suffering and the world around them. This is bad in way illustrated by you about inaction to stop suffering as seen in missionary religions.
But there is also a counter philosophy of giving ( दान धर्म) which is also emphasized in hinduism.
In my opinion, this attitude of indifference has come to aquire primacy in India due to widespread deprivation and poverty. If you see pain and suffering once in a while, it pricks your conscience but repeated exposure just dulls your sense and breeds despondency. Naturally a man is sad and sorrowful in such state and seeks release through indifference and belief in कर्म theory which liberates him from responsibility for suffering of others in society.
Thank you.
If Maneka Gandhi wishes to promote animal welfare, that is all by fine by itself. But her attempt to link failure of her cause to philosophical and spiritual thoughts of Hinduism are not at all convincing and are in fact illogical. There are strong aspect of cultural and social traditions and practices aspect with routine individual behavior and this cannot be linked to the philosophy of Hinduism directly. By her logic, there should not be acts of terrorism from some of the followers of other religions. While no one can deny the fact that we Indians generally do not care for the poor, it is also a question to ponder over as why our society and polity has not removed poverty over at least last 70 years? It seems keeping poor in poverty is a political objective of the system. No one will come out of poverty by just having pity at individual level.
What happened? Changed the title of the article. The title calling Hindus vicious is what you strongly believe in and so it was the immediate and instinctive expression of your hate/dislike. So why not stick to it? At least stay honest. After all one cannot help hate and dislike for an entire category of people.
Very odd piece by a so called “animal rights” activist born and brought up in India?
Ujaan Ghosh, Amrita Chowdhury, now Maneka Ghandhi.
Why does the pattern of The Print publishing this Hinduphobic content not make them subject to a lawsuit for “ offending religious sentiments”?
Why did The Print change the original headline of this article?
Was it because it was intentionally misleading and intended to cause controversy? The Print is very close to being branded as a Fake News portal.
Oh! So, we now have advise on animal cruelty from a woman who’s claim to fame is posing for pics wrapped in a bath towel?
Ms. Gandhi – stick to your knitting and stay out of topics you understand not about.
Religions are regressive , outdated and in no way these could be used to convey a positive message and inspire people towards a noble cause such as animal rights. Modern theories of human and animal rights which are rational should be used instead. The idea of Optimistic Nihilism is one of the best way that could advance animal rights.
Liberals already know about the foolish and bronze age philosophies of religions,question how these reach to general masses and the latter definitely not reading this article on The Print instead watching Ramayan or Fasting for Ramzan.
It is not that there is no logic in the article, but your understanding of the Article is poor, read again if you find some free time.
That’s not what the article says. The article says that you’d be less likely to help someone or an animal if you rationalised that it was suffering because of its deeds of past lives.
Madam, you have read the book written by a confused lady Savitri Devi, who had no idea of the every day life of hindus. She is an eurpoean, born and brought up in eurpose, supported nazism and married and Bengali brahmin soialist. And she concluded that reincarnation is responsible for visiousness in devout hindus!. i am not worried that she supported Nazism, but how easily you are taking a point of view, not considering the mind that nurtured that thought.
You have to be careful when you make a blanket statement like this. I am not saying statement is all wrong. When any body in any religion is devout, that means they have stopped thinking and started worrying about what to follow and what not to follow, to please some celestial being and seek some better living conditions in there next life or in heaven etc… When you stop living and stop toting and following procedures, rules, superstitions and written words, then you get a dumb, numb and semi dead being, which gets pleasure in being vicious.
So all you can say to an extent is this might be applicable to devout brahmins. It might be, but this is not applicable to all hindus. Most hindus, dont so much worry about the theory part, they are busy trying to get a decent living for themselves and there family.
And your theory of, live and help live, is too simplistic and juvenile, i could have explained, but i am tired and lazy.
I just want to point out one last thing. The caption of the article, if read by anybody in the umbrella of hinduism, will make him think that he or she might be holding a vicious trait, and this will induce a guilty feeling. Which is the feeling all hindus have been made to feel for two centuries now, saying this, that and that is wrong with there religion, which is the reason for the present love for hidutva.
Most Hindus don’t realise that religious texts need interpretation. Not the kinds obtained through TV religious celebrities but somebody who understands religions in general. Though there are surface dissimilarities between religions, there are deeper similarities too and few people other than religious scholars tend to look for them. All religious texts are apocryphal (the stories they say are not verifiable with evidence) and all of them use allegory. (they tend to use stories to illustrate a point) The irony is that adherents of religion believe in the truth of the stories but do not adhere to its teachings. Let me use a few stories to illustrate my point. The mahabharata has the story of Abhimanyu – the injustice of many warriors attacking a single person when it was explicitly forbidden to do so is the basis of the story. Whether that really happened or not cannot be verified but it’s teaching has surely been forgotten when we have so many muslim men surrounded, attacked and sometimes even killed by many people seemingly in the name of the same religion which explicitly forbids such a thing.
Ego and arrogance in his own invincibility made Ravan cross vast distances to abduct a lady who was someone else’s wife. He thought her husband was a nobody – someone who was asked to get out of his own kingdom. Someone who could do him no harm. The story illustrates that even a powerful ruler must not think less of anyone and must conduct oneself according to dharma (that which is correct) But everyday we have rulers who swear by the teachings of Hinduism run down political opponents, ridicule them and in some instances even jail people thinking that this is a state of permanence and all the support that they receive and the power they have accumulated means all their actions are justified and they can disregard correct behaviour towards opponents.
The real tragedy of this article is that the celebrated author herself has not followed religious teachings of her own religion where Vidura has said that it is the duty of the minister to remind his ruler that one always ought to rule by dharma and not differentiate between someone you consider your own and someone you consider not belonging to you. A great religion is being cynically used by the political class to propagate their rule and either we are silent (like the author) or helplessly wringing our hands (like me) or egging them on (like majority of the commentators on this and many other news sites) The apocalypse which follows spares no one.
Ma’am, instead of bothering to read a non-Indian, French-German Nazi spy’s book to decide on Hindu philosophy and pass a big typical intellectual judgement, you must pick up a Hindu book and read. Why don’t spend some time reading Sri Lala Lajpat Rai’s book – Unhappy India? Why don’t you actually read the Indian philosophies by Buddha or read Dr.Hiriyanna.
Impeachment of Man is a book by Savitri Devi, in which the author recounts a history of the general indifference toward the suffering of non-human life. She puts forth a pro-vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, biocentric, and misanthropic conservationist point of view. She does so within the context of her pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi political views, and devotes space to anti-Semitism and denouncing Jewish dietary practices. Source Wiki Pedia
If AN AUTHOR CAN JUSTIFY NAZISM AND ANTI SEMITISM .. dO WE TRUST HER LOGIC ?
Funny logic from Maneka Gandhi. If Hindus seriously believed that suffering is due to bad deeds in previous lives wouldn’t they strive to perform good deeds in their present lives, not only to make their future incarnations more comfortable but also to attain Moksha. The truth is that India is an over-populated hell where nobody has the time to think of theology etc. Everyone from the poor to the rich are engaged in a soul destroying rat race. When one’s own survival is at stake who cares what for others including animals and birds. The same holds true for ‘Westerners’ whatever may be their reasons for vegetarianism. There is ample evidence from history where conquering Europeans completely wiped out both the indigenous populations and flora and fauna in America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and to some extent their colonies in Asia. Hindus, Buddhists, Jains would be hard put to equal this achievement whatever may be their beliefs. Maneka Gandhi is great at animal welfare but human sociology is out of her depth.
This article shows the lack of understanding of Hinduism by the author. Every Hindu God has one or other Vahanam, which is an animal, bird or creatures. We worship animals and inherently respect every creature.
But, that it has changed in current culture of the Hindus as referred by Menakaji, is due to corruption of the followers, by surroundings and people of other religions, who are amidst.. what to say of one who goes for hunting as sport… Or one who looks at animal as delicious food…
Just because one reads a book, where author has a point of view, appreciate that. But extending to a general case or to a Hindu or Buddist, shows lack of deeper consciousness of God.
Hinduism inculcates in its adherents seeming detachment from suffering and the world around them. This is bad in way illustrated by you about inaction to stop suffering as seen in missionary religions.
But there is also a counter philosophy of giving ( दान धर्म) which is also emphasized in hinduism.
In my opinion, this attitude of indifference has come to aquire primacy in India due to widespread deprivation and poverty. If you see pain and suffering once in a while, it pricks your conscience but repeated exposure just dulls your sense and breeds despondency. Naturally a man is sad and sorrowful in such state and seeks release through indifference and belief in कर्म theory which liberates him from responsibility for suffering of others in society.
Thank you.
If Maneka Gandhi wishes to promote animal welfare, that is all by fine by itself. But her attempt to link failure of her cause to philosophical and spiritual thoughts of Hinduism are not at all convincing and are in fact illogical. There are strong aspect of cultural and social traditions and practices aspect with routine individual behavior and this cannot be linked to the philosophy of Hinduism directly. By her logic, there should not be acts of terrorism from some of the followers of other religions. While no one can deny the fact that we Indians generally do not care for the poor, it is also a question to ponder over as why our society and polity has not removed poverty over at least last 70 years? It seems keeping poor in poverty is a political objective of the system. No one will come out of poverty by just having pity at individual level.
What happened? Changed the title of the article. The title calling Hindus vicious is what you strongly believe in and so it was the immediate and instinctive expression of your hate/dislike. So why not stick to it? At least stay honest. After all one cannot help hate and dislike for an entire category of people.
Why is The Print publishing such shallow articles on Hinduism? A discussion on Hinduism is welcome. But at least get some respected scholars to write.
Well put.
@ vish
Very odd piece by a so called “animal rights” activist born and brought up in India?
Ujaan Ghosh, Amrita Chowdhury, now Maneka Ghandhi.
Why does the pattern of The Print publishing this Hinduphobic content not make them subject to a lawsuit for “ offending religious sentiments”?
Why did The Print change the original headline of this article?
Was it because it was intentionally misleading and intended to cause controversy? The Print is very close to being branded as a Fake News portal.
Oh! So, we now have advise on animal cruelty from a woman who’s claim to fame is posing for pics wrapped in a bath towel?
Ms. Gandhi – stick to your knitting and stay out of topics you understand not about.
Religions are regressive , outdated and in no way these could be used to convey a positive message and inspire people towards a noble cause such as animal rights. Modern theories of human and animal rights which are rational should be used instead. The idea of Optimistic Nihilism is one of the best way that could advance animal rights.
Liberals already know about the foolish and bronze age philosophies of religions,question how these reach to general masses and the latter definitely not reading this article on The Print instead watching Ramayan or Fasting for Ramzan.
Biggest menace of Hinduism is brahmanism.
Brahmin basher spotted.
For anything and everything bring in the brahmins. How convenient.
Yeah my grandmom or grandfather may reincarnate as a dog and thinking that i would attack dog. No logic in this article.
It is not that there is no logic in the article, but your understanding of the Article is poor, read again if you find some free time.
That’s not what the article says. The article says that you’d be less likely to help someone or an animal if you rationalised that it was suffering because of its deeds of past lives.
Madam, you have read the book written by a confused lady Savitri Devi, who had no idea of the every day life of hindus. She is an eurpoean, born and brought up in eurpose, supported nazism and married and Bengali brahmin soialist. And she concluded that reincarnation is responsible for visiousness in devout hindus!. i am not worried that she supported Nazism, but how easily you are taking a point of view, not considering the mind that nurtured that thought.
You have to be careful when you make a blanket statement like this. I am not saying statement is all wrong. When any body in any religion is devout, that means they have stopped thinking and started worrying about what to follow and what not to follow, to please some celestial being and seek some better living conditions in there next life or in heaven etc… When you stop living and stop toting and following procedures, rules, superstitions and written words, then you get a dumb, numb and semi dead being, which gets pleasure in being vicious.
So all you can say to an extent is this might be applicable to devout brahmins. It might be, but this is not applicable to all hindus. Most hindus, dont so much worry about the theory part, they are busy trying to get a decent living for themselves and there family.
And your theory of, live and help live, is too simplistic and juvenile, i could have explained, but i am tired and lazy.
I just want to point out one last thing. The caption of the article, if read by anybody in the umbrella of hinduism, will make him think that he or she might be holding a vicious trait, and this will induce a guilty feeling. Which is the feeling all hindus have been made to feel for two centuries now, saying this, that and that is wrong with there religion, which is the reason for the present love for hidutva.
Think please.
Not convincing.
Most Hindus don’t realise that religious texts need interpretation. Not the kinds obtained through TV religious celebrities but somebody who understands religions in general. Though there are surface dissimilarities between religions, there are deeper similarities too and few people other than religious scholars tend to look for them. All religious texts are apocryphal (the stories they say are not verifiable with evidence) and all of them use allegory. (they tend to use stories to illustrate a point) The irony is that adherents of religion believe in the truth of the stories but do not adhere to its teachings. Let me use a few stories to illustrate my point. The mahabharata has the story of Abhimanyu – the injustice of many warriors attacking a single person when it was explicitly forbidden to do so is the basis of the story. Whether that really happened or not cannot be verified but it’s teaching has surely been forgotten when we have so many muslim men surrounded, attacked and sometimes even killed by many people seemingly in the name of the same religion which explicitly forbids such a thing.
Ego and arrogance in his own invincibility made Ravan cross vast distances to abduct a lady who was someone else’s wife. He thought her husband was a nobody – someone who was asked to get out of his own kingdom. Someone who could do him no harm. The story illustrates that even a powerful ruler must not think less of anyone and must conduct oneself according to dharma (that which is correct) But everyday we have rulers who swear by the teachings of Hinduism run down political opponents, ridicule them and in some instances even jail people thinking that this is a state of permanence and all the support that they receive and the power they have accumulated means all their actions are justified and they can disregard correct behaviour towards opponents.
The real tragedy of this article is that the celebrated author herself has not followed religious teachings of her own religion where Vidura has said that it is the duty of the minister to remind his ruler that one always ought to rule by dharma and not differentiate between someone you consider your own and someone you consider not belonging to you. A great religion is being cynically used by the political class to propagate their rule and either we are silent (like the author) or helplessly wringing our hands (like me) or egging them on (like majority of the commentators on this and many other news sites) The apocalypse which follows spares no one.
oh oh, truth and wisdom comes from unexpected sources.
Ma’am, instead of bothering to read a non-Indian, French-German Nazi spy’s book to decide on Hindu philosophy and pass a big typical intellectual judgement, you must pick up a Hindu book and read. Why don’t spend some time reading Sri Lala Lajpat Rai’s book – Unhappy India? Why don’t you actually read the Indian philosophies by Buddha or read Dr.Hiriyanna.
https://www.hindustanbooks.com/books/unhappy_india/Unhappy_India.pdf
Impeachment of Man is a book by Savitri Devi, in which the author recounts a history of the general indifference toward the suffering of non-human life. She puts forth a pro-vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, biocentric, and misanthropic conservationist point of view. She does so within the context of her pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi political views, and devotes space to anti-Semitism and denouncing Jewish dietary practices. Source Wiki Pedia
If AN AUTHOR CAN JUSTIFY NAZISM AND ANTI SEMITISM .. dO WE TRUST HER LOGIC ?
Funny logic from Maneka Gandhi. If Hindus seriously believed that suffering is due to bad deeds in previous lives wouldn’t they strive to perform good deeds in their present lives, not only to make their future incarnations more comfortable but also to attain Moksha. The truth is that India is an over-populated hell where nobody has the time to think of theology etc. Everyone from the poor to the rich are engaged in a soul destroying rat race. When one’s own survival is at stake who cares what for others including animals and birds. The same holds true for ‘Westerners’ whatever may be their reasons for vegetarianism. There is ample evidence from history where conquering Europeans completely wiped out both the indigenous populations and flora and fauna in America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and to some extent their colonies in Asia. Hindus, Buddhists, Jains would be hard put to equal this achievement whatever may be their beliefs. Maneka Gandhi is great at animal welfare but human sociology is out of her depth.