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Swaveda - Articles - Krunvanto Vishwam Aryam: The Cultural Mi...
By Peter Pratir | May 13, 2005
This article is a result of heated debates over last few years with many NRIs who harbored dreams of going back home to contribute. In chasing this elusive goal, they neither perform their duty for India oversees nor ever return to India. Here are few things NRIs can do for India and its culture right from wherever they are:
NRIs as Academic/Intellectual Kshatriyas
There are two ways to improve the profile of Indian culture: one is the bottom-up grassroots approach and the other is the top-down approach leveraging existing institutions such as universities, think-tanks and the media. These institutes are major producers and distributors of knowledge today. Furthermore academic scholars are at the top of this knowledge chain because their views eventually permeate the culture through the media. For instance, Marxist scholars of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have influenced Indian politicians for several decades and have been the major reason for heavy state-controls on our industries. Similarly Marxist historians misportrayed our own heritage and history in all our textbooks. JNU is the Mecca of all such so-called scholars. Yesterday's JNU products are today's academic scholars in various American universities and they are doing great harm to our culture in more dangerous ways. It is high time, that orthodox Hindus start to counteract this dangerous negative propaganda. However, this negativity cannot be defeated by a grass-roots approach – we need to counter this propaganda at the academic level.
The good news is that there are many NRIs who are active in this area. You just need to read the columns by Rajiv Malhotra, Sankrant Sanu, Vishal Agarwal, Shrinivas Tilak to name a few. And these NRIs have spread this awareness in India also. For the first time, JNU now has a Sanskrit department and a major initiative is underway to promote the academic departments to study our own traditions.
The Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana have translated into every Indian language. But why limit them to Indian languages? Why not undertake to translate them into every international language? It is a shame that even today, there is virtually not a single Indian scholar who can teach with authority in foreign universities. Whether you like it or not, our culture is studied, taught and written about in foreign universities by outsiders. But that is not the case for other religions. Only Hinduism and Jainism are still controlled by others, and this last stretch of Swaraaj can be won only if our people emerge powerfully outside India, both academically and financially. You might know that Microsoft Encarta Hinduism essay was replaced due to activism by NRIs, an infamous book on Ganesha replete with misinterpretation sexuality was banned in India and so was a book on Ramakrishna Paramhansa. All this because NRIs taking active interest in how the world perceives our culture.
Japan Foundation has sponsored dozens of Japan Studies department in US universities, China foundation has done that for China. Islam, Judaism and Christianity all have their own foundations. This kind of organized effort needs millions of dollars and a strong awareness about the issues. Good news is we have already started to actively participate in politics, government and other social issues here.
Two big strengths of Israel are internal military/economic strength and strong a Jewish Diaspora. We have to do the same for India. Let Indians inside India take care of internal strength and let us emerge as the external strength (both economic and intellectual).
NRIs as Investors in India
When BJP decided to make formally declare India a nuclear country, it was the dollar power of NRIs that enabled the country to shrug off all the sanctions imposed by the major countries of the world. BJP launched the resurgent India Bonds and within six months, NRIs invested billions of dollars to make sure our Forex reserve remained intact. This reserve is now $100 Billion Plus. This is the classic example of internal and external strength. Subhash Chandra Bose, Gandhiji, Vivekananda and many others did tremendous work outside before getting recognition by our own people in India. Let's build on these foundations instead of negating or ignoring this powerful external strength of our own people.
Let us learn from Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants. Today the only Asian-origin senator in USA is Chinese. The biggest investors in China are Chinese expatriates. China, Japan and Korea have emerged as huge trading partners with the United States. NRIs do the same for India – emerge strong politically, make India as a huge trading partner with USA and invest billions of dollars back home. All this can happen only when more India-loving Indians settle outside India and do what Chinese did.
NRIs as Global Indic Messengers
What our motherland expects from us is similar to what Muslims did for Islam. Those who left the Middle East went thousands of miles far to spread Islam and settled in places like Spain, India, Indonesia and many such countries. Similar is the case with Christianity. We Sanatanis (Hindus) were also good ambassadors of out religion – which is why some of the oldest Hindu temples are seen in Indonesia (Angkorwat) and Thailand and Mauritius. Somehow in last thousand years we have lost the zeal to spread ourselves outside India. But the opportunity to change that has come upon us. We as a true cultural ambassadors have to transfer our values to our next generation right here in USA, so they in turn can serve as true cultural ambassadors when they grow up.
One might say that until the land of origin is perfect, there is no point in spreading outside. And I agree with that. What my argument is that lets keep building the foundation all over the world by preparing our next generations. Let both internal and external progress be parallel. To expect 100% perfection of an individual or a society is never possible. In any society, only 30% can be Sattvik, the rest are just followers. To start spreading out only when a perfect society is achieved would not be wise. In any case, like it or not, the Indian Diaspora is already 20 million strong. Why not build on this rather than expecting them to return to India? Yes, we did leave India for materialistic profit; why not sublimate it to higher goal rather than feeling guilty about it and doing nothing. What I call wild goose chase is the fact that most of NRIs leave a life of dilemma, they neither perform their duty of cultural ambassador outside NOR EVER RETURN HOME. Why wait for tomorrow? Start doing it right away, right here. In my last seven years, I have met at least ten very patriotic people who were determined to go back to India, but today all have bought houses here, have green cards but still they continue to delude themselves by saying they will go back. I am only asking such people to think of future generations and act aggressively to prepare cultural ambassadors right now, right here instead of dreaming of going back, which may never happen.
Today Islam is not merely an Arabic religion. Can others ever call Hinduism a global religion or culture? Can we ever stop thinking about our culture by our own perspective and see how others perceive us? Islam did not spread globally just by violence. Violence was used only in Asian parts; Indonesia was converted largely by peaceful means, by traders. And thats exactly NRIs came in as, traders and service-class people. I am not interested in making the whole world Hindu. What I want is that our rich values be spread outside, such as Yoga, meditation, indwelling God based human dignity, respect for natural resources. None of our traditions or values is dogmatic or limited only to Hindus. These values will spread to non-Hindus and non-Indians if we play an active role.
Portraying Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma as global cultural brand
Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) is oldest culture but always referred to as a religion of south Asia, whereas Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and others are referred as global religions. We Hindus have to come out of the ghetto mentality of restricting ourselves only within India. Let us create many more Indias by settling ourselves successfully wherever we are right now.
It was orientalist and Eurocentric myth that only Westerners have religions that are universally applicable, whereas Hinduism is only relevant to certain ethnic people of one part of the world. To be limited as "South Asian" runs against all claims about universal truths in the Upanishads, Gita and other scriptures. As an example, Judaism is not classified under "Middle Eastern Religions" given that is where most Jews are from? Why are other religions given Global status and not Hinduism? Just because a religion did not historically expand does not limit its validity in a global context. So Hinduism should not be marginalized for its global relevance. It has many contributions to make to the world at large. There are approximately 1 billion Hindus in the world.
There are Hindus in the Caribbean, USA, Canada, Europe, Gulf countries, Malaysia, Singapore, Africa and their needs must also be considered. This group is expanding, and there are many who are not immigrants but were born and raised outside India. There are many books on the Hindu Diaspora now, notably by Steven Vertovec, T S Rukmani and Lessinger.
There are also 18 million non-Indian-origin Americans who practice yoga, meditation etc. These neo-Hindus are an important category. Since Hinduism has been locked up in the south Asian ghetto, it has discouraged these non-Asians from claiming Hindu identity.
The "South Asia" category was made up by the US State Dept during the Cold War as a way to manage non-western nations. Geopolitical drivers have dominated its study. Most South Asian scholars are not experts in religion, and so spirituality of the people gets downgraded into anthropology, sociology, politics and exotica.
Hinduism and Hindutva are two separate entities. While the former represents a modern form of ancient Vedic culture, the latter is simply a political and opportunistic adoption of the same. As an example, Wahabbi version of Islam cannot represent Islam as a whole.
There are dozens of universities in Europe, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and USA where Hinduism is still treated a south Asian religion only and it is taught as if it is just what BJP/VHP/RSS do to a mosque in Ayodhya or how Satis were burnt or how dowry murder is a common occurrence. We all know that India has developed socially to a great deal but because we do not have a strong presence in academic world, we are still being misrepresented. Luckily, we already have a strong place in technological world now, thanks to IT folks. Of course, all this does not mean that I am against Indian universities coming up as well. Ideal situation would be where hundreds of Taxilas and Nalandas are set up in India also where all religions are studied and students would come from all over the world.
Conclusion
Ramakrishna Mission president Swami Ranganathananda once said: If America sneezes, Europe gets cold. Today we can say that, not only Europe but the entire world gets flu if America sneezes. We just cannot ignore US hard- and soft-power – its thousands of universities, its huge economy, and its military might. We have to partner with it in every walk of life instead of remaining isolated. Sam Pitroda once said to NRIs, please come back intellectually and emotionally to India, we don't need you physically. NRIs can inculcate Indian values and culture in their children growing up abroad, and invest their skills and dollars back home.
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