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Reflections of India

~ by facing my shadows

Reflections of India

Category Archives: Caste & Social position

The India that alienates

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position

≈ 2 Comments

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firengi, foriegner in India

Missing India II : The Bikeby Silverwolf4000

Missing India II : The Bikeby Silverwolf4000

It is in India I first was called a foreigner. I suddenly felt the trauma of new Australians or their children, never really accepted.

“Foreigner?” he quizzed his Hindustani accent giggling, derisive but not mockingly so (“You are not Indian, us you will never understand”.)

There is always a distance, like the man and wife who in public speak with formulistic politeness, never fist name.

You ask someone to translate. But it is never your words. Instead a summary, a question is asked, they answer as if somehow your mind has been read.

But it is never me. I understand enough Hindi to know i said nothing of the sort.

You travel and a friend promises to translate the Hindi speaking guide. Five minutes of talk is condensed to 20 seconds. “He said ….” No requests for clarification or questions allowed. Asking for the details is met with disdain. “You ask too many questions, you are always in your head.”

It mirrors my inability to speak Hindi well.

Of course I don’t understand every cultural nuance.. That’s why I want my words translated correctly. That’s why I want to ask questions.

I want to understand. How can I explain to you that this is my home, the land of my heart. How do I prove to you I don’t feel I belong in Australia that sees me as too India, while you call me too Australian?

I am denied meaning of the experience and without meaning, I have no story – no narrative –that defies me.

I am left rootless in another land, a foreigner.

23.259933 77.412615

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The Mahabharata and Me

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Indian Festivals

≈ 1 Comment

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Indian ethics, karma on modern life, Mahabharata, Ramayana

Kurukshetra

“Alas, having vanquished the foe, we have ourselves been vanquished in the end! The course of events is difficult to be ascertained even by persons endued with spiritual sight. The foes, who were vanquished have become victorious! Ourselves, again, while victorious, are vanquished!” Mahabharata Sauptika Parva Section 10

In the grand itihas (all that is, a history of ideas) that this epic embodies, no individual – however noble their deeds might be, and no idea, despite its seeming idealism, is perfect and pure. This grand text of Indian civilization, even as it appears to be out measuring space and outlasting time, invites every generation living within the confines of its culture and facing the forces of history, to the semantic field of uncertainties and ambiguities.

That Kurukushetra is being fought now in the mind of every man, woman and child in psychological war is, as Rohin Mehta[1] reminds us, the lesson of the Gita’s first discourse. Bllind Dhritarshtra could see the battle in his mind as told objectively by Sanjaya. But the designs of Duryodhana meant he could not detach from them so war ensued.

The Gita helps us find an inner Sanjaya to avoid own inner psychological war.

If the Gita is a gospel of life then the Mahabharata is a panoramic epic of it. Like the great texts of the Bible and Quran, it addresses life’s joys and uncertainties with a vast breadth greater than its more concise brethren.

The Mahabharata is an honest mirror but its reflection will not please everyone. We readers live in different times and each of us will read the accounts differently.  For this reason, some people do not like the Mahabharata.  They prefer their scriptures to be sanitised, devoid of human frailties, as if past saints and devotees were  faultless.

The Mahabharata covers every aspect of human life.  It is brutally honest and yet not fuzzy in its idealism. There are the ideals of forgiveness and fraternity, as well as their absence in the real world.

“That which occurs here occurs elsewhere, that which does not occur here, occurs nowhere else.” (Swargarohanika Parva , Section V )

India is complicated.

Britain had a narrow view of nationhood, and dismissed the idea of India as united country. Their  ideas of nationality were shaped by the French Revolution, and a feudal Europe that merged under competing overlords. In India, before Bollywood and the internet, people a few hundred kilometers down the road diverged more in custom and dress, than say an Englishman did from a Spaniard or a Russian.

To the British mind it made sense to say, as did Gandhi that “India was many Indias.“ They seemed to miss that India was more a civilization  with an overarching broad cohesiveness that that held together differences by social negotiation.

India is complicated.

No wonder Gandhiji said the Ramayana and Mahabharata are a “must study” for all Hindu to understand the human psyche..

After all, a true patriot will examines the quality of his country, promoting the common good and seeking to change by orderly means what does not support it. Flag waving that ignores problems helps nobody.

True love of country prepares for a very positive spiritual benefit.

Now, I know some of you may dislike my being “Western” (whatever that means). So to support my thesis I call upon two points. When I left India I was more precisely  able to see the faults of my Australian roots, just as India’s Diaspora can see Bharat with a fresh perspective. Secondly, I will call on the principles of the great Sanskrit grammarian Bhartrihari.

bazaarart3

Mahabharata as mirror

Reading the Mahabharata is a dynamic interaction between the individual and cultural  heritage. So we expect tension between how we read the Mahabarata’s meta language and its past cultural history.

The barriers we put up between past and present are similar to the barriers we pace between east and west.

“It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly” wrote the linguist Bakhtin.  Travel to another country and what seems self evident at home may be seen a fallacy elsewhere. The cultural matrices of our life are complex. What we call everyday commonsense is many layered. Cultural materials shape  identities and cultural histories shape character.

Mahabharata 949 Bhismadevasml (1)

I ask you, like Arjuna, to place the chariot between the two opposing world views, as conch shells call your mind to battle.

As the Gita begins, battle seems suddenly detached – as a morose soldier talks to his mentor, god and charioteer. The great complexity of the occasion was greater than his mind, like life’s complexity exceeding our own facilities.

It is as if the blowing of conch shell before the battle disturbs Arjuna’s mind. He places the chariot between two armies like a mind caught between two opposites. Fear based decisions are not good. When we cannot decide on freedom we fall into dejection and depression. Arjuna seeks to escape decision,  asking Krishna to tell him outright.  But we cannot truly remain action less says the Gita.  After all life is a series of relationships with all their karma.

Abstain from activity and act when necessary in detachment without rude displays of virtue.

“The return to ones true nature is designated as devotion” Sankaracharya wrote in Viveka-Chudamani.

The Mahabharata and the Gita, of which it is part, are for spiritual transformation and not just moral reform . Therefore transcend the call for independence but include it. The path way is finding our identity on the pathway between personal and cosmic will. If we trod this path we can be free from tensions.

For the battle is between the armies are Sri Krishna’s cosmic will versus and Arjunas individual will.  Arjuna is the mind in its active alert condition, not aware of its limitations. Arjuna is like Jesus asking “may this cup pass from me”, says Dr Radhakrishnana in his commentary, but then uttering “Thy will be done.”

So many of us prefer ritual than reflection. We see solutions but are not prepared to any the price. We are like a monk robed in renunciation, but concealing deep fears and self destructiveness.

Hindus would rather “worship” rather than study the great epics. The Ramayana and Mahabharata on sit on a  pedestal, but are rarely read, analysed or critiqued. They are long texts. It is easier to listen to a guru’s summary, watch a television series than read them. It is easier to bow, garland, offer incense and wave arti in front of these great epics, than  to read them and learn their lessons.

Perhaps that is why we get defensive of Western science attempt to place the epics in time. We like it when a discovery gives us ancient credibility, but dismiss any critique as colonialism, or claim they don’t understand our cultural history (meaning ‘you guys invaded us’) . It is easier to look at the invader than our self.

That is the point. The Mahabharata is a mirror to force us to look! Illustrations_from_the_Barddhaman_edition_of_Mahabharata_in_Bangla,_which_were_printed_in_wood_engraving_technique_(7)

How  a Grammarian shaped my views of the Mahabharata

Bhartrihari, who probably lived in the fifth century, developed theories of space-time and language-cognition we would call poststructural and Einsteinian. Bhartrihari2  examines how language, thought and reality relate that  reflect contemporary questions of  language use, and communication asked by Chomsky, Wittgenstein, Grice, and Austin.

Bhartrihari asserts that cognition and language at an ultimate level are ontologically identical concepts that refer to one supreme reality, Brahman.

In his first verse Bhartrihari wrote:

The Brahman is without beginning and end, whose essence is the Word, who is the cause of the manifested phonemes, who appears as the objects, from whom the creation of the world proceeds.

The cyclical creation and dissolution  described in the Vedas, leaves a seed or trace (samskâra) from which the next cycle arises. This seed is  called a “Divine Word” (Daivi Vâk). If language is of divine origin, says Bhartrihari , then it Brahman expressing and embodying itself in the plurality of creation. The shabda tattva, “word principle,” is part of unity of all existence with Brahman.

Although Brahmin is “without beginning and end” (anâdi nidhânam), and not subject to the attributes of temporal sequence, we recognize the manifestations of Brahmin through the power of Kala (time) and dik (space). The universe is not sequential, but the action of kala makes it appear so. The past is a form of darkness and the past can only be experienced from the present. Being and world are inseparable but are interpreted by their own histories.

Bhartrihari  concludes that knowledge is constructed by language and meaning is made by the words that interpret it.  This differs from Buddhist belief that pre-conceptual cognition or pure perception (nirvikalpa-pratyaksha) is distorted by language created constructed perception (savikalpa-pratyakasha). It also differs with the Nyaiyayikas who agreed word and thing correspond, but distinguished between language and its object-referents. Perception is a two-step process, argue the  Nyâyas,  involving  initial apprehension of an object and then awareness that results in mental and syntactic/linguistic representations of the first moment of awareness.

“Bhartrihari argues that the word makes the thing an individual. As one moves further and further along the refined categories of what is conventionally known as denotation, the word makes the thing what it is. .. [it] make meanings of all kinds, mundane ones and religious ones, contingent on the circumstances and speaker…. if perception is innately verbal, no perilous bridge need be suspended over some supposed abyss between vision and truth, both in our mundane lives and for the rishis who pronounced the Vedas. The word then makes the thing, and Brahman makes the world, and so it is entirely proper to speak of words as the creator of all things (shabda–Brahman).” – Lakshmi Bandamudi[2]

Similarly, Heidegger wrote that the relationship of self to the other is  shapes what we cell knowledge by phenomenological intuition. He rejects Kant’s idea of utopia of transcendent logic.

In the same way, as we read the Mahabarata we meet our “multiple histories, those of the individual, the recent cultural and the ancient. During the interpretive encounter, the boundaries between here and now and what lies beyond in time and space, shift. As Bandamudi 2 suggests, some “read the Mahabharata to discover dimensions about self, text and history, while others evade the flow to make sense of the text in a detached manner.”

These are cultural parameters of meaning: The Mahabharata  is not about purity, since it captures the pathos of human existence in its most sordid form and seems to assert that it is one of the most insoluble disharmonies of existence.  The Mahabharata  is not about hopelessness and despair, but it directs our attention to the unfinalizability of ideas and ideals.

Indeed the text itself continued t evolve and is called a chakra and each generation a cognitive spoke in the wheel, we see synergistic evolution of self and the text.

“All roles are reversed at some point – the valorous warrior Arjun becomes despondent and turns into a pacifist, and the godhead Krishna resorts to human tactics and counsels on warfare. Even the most profound treatise on salvation is not Utopian in nature and does not necessarily rescue the individual from the abysmal world …; instead, they are instruments for shaping and reshaping individual and social consciousness … by repeatedly directing our attention to the complexity and multiplicity of truth.”

If we look into the Mahabharata as a mirror, like the characters of the epic, we must also face our shadow eventually or we will face karma later on.

 

Why it matters

Everyday behaviour can become codes of identity when society grapples with its identity. As India  grapples with identity in the rush of progress, dress codes are given meaning that otherwise would have passed unnoticed. An Indian of the diaspora, more often a woman than a man,  may be more “Indian” abroad than at home.

I think religion offers a language, a vocabulary, for self exploration. All too often its symbols become blocks in the politics of ego.

Some see the Mahabharata  as Scripture, but it calls itself an itihas – history – and not a scripture.  The Gita implies that it is a message is a “scripture”. It has its own agenda – to deliver a spiritual message, explain the philosophy of a particular “darshan” and affirm the reader’s faith in a particular deity.  An “itihas”, on the other hand, has to lay out the facts of historical events for all to see – without judgement or prejudice. Some Hindu scholars, such as Swami Dayananda,  argue the epic is corrupted. Making Krishna God, or  physical avatar is inconsistent with the formless Brahman of the Vedas.

How people remember the epic, retold is the village or recast for the screen, distorts, and repeats distortions. Untruth becomes facts with no foundation. Truths become legends – guide posts to a past – not quite accurate either.  They are fractals of the past, but not a hologram.  Our personal life, a microcosm of the macrocosm, repeats the same distortions. The same karma.

But the eternal truth – the culminating   focused in the Gita itself remains transcendental and untouched.

The Gita (18:66) asks us to “abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.”We must accept communion with the unborn and  unmanifest the whisper of the soul can be heard.

As Dr Radakrishnan says ”the spiritual is not an extension of the ethical, but is a new dimension all together, dealing with things eternal.”

In a democracy like India this point is even more important.

A democratic consciousness operates in the synecdochic mode” writes Bandamudi “and therefore conflicts in the epic are framed not between the powerful and the weak, but between justice and injustice. In the ironic mode, the interpreter recognizes the fine line between justice and injustice. As the boundaries between right and wrong dissolve, the interpreters recognize multiple dimensions to truth and justice and therefore, are capable of saying things about themselves and the text in alternate ways and reflecting on why they choose these alternatives.”

I find myself  by finding the i for myself, finding the I or others other and then, being willing to let the other find me.

The Mahabharata is a carnival ride of raunchy and ribald characters  “where distinctions of high and low culture, self and other, sacred and profane are erased” : of split, fragmented multiple subjects and identities and collectivities.

If we seek to understand a people, we have to try to put ourselves, as far as we can, in that particular historical and cultural background…It is not easy for a person of one country to enter into the background of another country. So there is great irritation, because one fact that seems obvious to us is not immediately accepted by the other party or does not seem obvious to him at all…But that extreme irritation will go when we think … that he is just differently conditioned and simply can’t get out of that condition. One has to recognize that whatever the future may hold, countries and people differ…in their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. In order to understand them, we have to understand their way of life and approach. If we wish to convince them, we have to use their language as far as we can, not language in the narrow sense of the word, but the language of the mind. That is one necessity. Something that goes even much further than that is not the appeal to logic and reason, but some kind of emotional awareness of other people
– Jawaharlal Nehru, Visit to America)

Consider an Indian who moves to the USA. In India he may see the Mahabharata as the text of India, but by moving the text is also a way of engaging with his past.

Just as a child grows up and sees things differently, a change takes place in individual and cultural history.

So when re look into the mirror of the Mahabharata, we see through the lens of our own experience. It remains for us to see our self in part of our society, karma and history, so we can reassess our society, and inevitably lead to a change in mans consciousness and behavior.

However, the Mahabharata also reveals that for every social force there is simultaneously its opposite. The  serious purva-paksha analysis of the past died with the birth of neo-Hinduism. Hindu philosophy declined from serious and systematic critiquing of differing systems to then merely serving as a pseudo-intellectual tool and a political agenda. It is easier to blame (at times rightly) former colonial masters than look at our self.

Others debate important issues but are so stuck in the minutiae that they forget the large more important picture.

Notice how you feel when you read a book. Now read the same text from behind a computer screen or kindle. Do you feel differently?

Similarly, the domination of one group (Hindu, Muslim, White, Black, Brown, Straight or gay) shapes how we react to what we hear or see.

kurukshetra-war

Living in the past will not do. Bhakti saints have even argued that the traditions of the past, are of no use in the age of Kali.

For example, Bhakti saints like Lord Chatanya[3] argued that in the age of Kali there is no longer a justification for caste. “In the age of Kali the varnasrama-dharma is so degraded that any attempt to restore it to its original position will be hopeless. He also rejected varnasrama-dharma because it has no value in relation to pure devotional service.

The second, more important consideration is that even if the varnasrama system is observed strictly, it still cannot help one to rise to the highest plane of transcendental service to Godhead. The virat-purusa is a material conception of the Personality of Godhead and is just the beginning of spiritual realization.” Any tradition, is not an end in itself.

True, India also has a tradition of freedom and equality that supposed Greeks for its equality. Unfortunately, it was forgotten and distorted.

The heroism of the past must be reignited, by reconciling the  “monumental culture” of legend, with democratic principles of the modern world. If I may borrow from Emerson, “there is properly no history, only biography.” The epics of history are what we make of them when they inspire a passionate self reliance to service, dispassionate of the outcome, between cosmic love and human apathy.

Facing modernity, we should remember we do not enculturate mechanically. How we respond to another culture reveals the depth of our own cultural history, mannerisms, and myths which we then internalize.

To read the epic is to inherit, transform and transmit a tradition. A lesson the Mahabharata lays bare for us to see.

If Indians lived by the “Laws of Karma”, we would remember that even the victors at Kurukushetra paid bad karma for their violence.. If we had internalised its message they would realise the consequences of hate anger and unforgiveness. If we understood the enormity of our karmic actions, there would be no bribery or corruption.  We have not learned from our itihas.

People don’t like the Mahabharata because it tells it like it is.   Most of us don’t like to see ourselves as we really are.

The “Mahabharata is a must read because it is a mirror for us to evaluate ourselves and see where we are being reflected in its myriad characters.  If we don’t like what we see in the mirror, there is no point in blaming the mirror or throwing it away, that is not a credible solution.  Ideally, we should change ourselves to make and reflect those values and characteristics we do like in the Mahabharata. “

Issues between science and scripture, or East and West would be irrelevant. We would understand the complexity of relationships, why and how people play subtle mind games, understand the bigger picture so you can rise above such pettiness, understand human society, ourselves and our purpose in life.

In that sense, spirituality is like art, Its outer form comes from within.

“Art and life are not one, but they must become united in myself – in the unity of my unanswerability”– wrote Mikhail Bhaktin. Art he argues must not just inspire, but also reach the prosaic in life. Or as scholar Lakshmi Bandamudi suggests that Bhaktin’s observations of shared answerabiity and mutual blame in art applies to the vast relationships of karma that are mirrored back to us in the Mahabharata.

Meanwhile, in my own  life I try and remember Kalidasa’s words “they whose minds are not disturbed when the sources of disturbance are present, are the truly brave.”

”We must accept communion with the unborn and unmanifest the whisper of the soul can be heard.”

 

[1] Rohin Mehta Mind to Supermind- A commentary on the Bhagavad gita, T C Manaktalaand Sons, Bombay,,1966.

[2] Lakshmi Bandamudi, Logistics of Self: The Mahabharata and Culture.

[3] Sri Ramananda Samvada, In Search of the Ultimate Goal of Life, By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

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Where are your principles!

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Madhya Pradesh

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Tags

corruption, culture shock, hypocrisy, morals, shadow side, society shadows

Pottery workshop at  'Merkaba the Ascension' my Bhopal home.

Pottery workshop at ‘Merkaba the Ascension’ my Bhopal home.

Returning to Bhopal I find my sump has been ‘hacked’ by water deprived neighbours. In my absence back in Australia,  they decided it was cheaper to pipe from my supply than repair the pump to their bore.

In fact my arrival caused somewhat of a shock to their servants. While I did not over act to this innocent piracy, I was not impressed when they refused to let me turn off my own sump tap as water refilled from the mains.

It seems my partner had another cause of consternation. The neighbours cleaner had offered to sweep out the house before she began her work there at 10 am. For some reason the neighbour accused us of poaching her staff – “Where are your principles?” she demanded even though she had evicted them from her home and Advity had allowed them temporarily  to stay in space behind my rental.

It seems the only ethics offended is her pride. Guilty conscience at being caught out for ripping offer her workers and the risk of being publicly shamed.  Shame seems compelling in the network of down to earth grittiness in the lived details of architectural planning and haphazard lives.

What does it reveal about me?

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Bhopal is less compact than some Indian cities, its variegated population exudes a surprising hope in the dense  safety of  knowing everyone possible. With a roving population can that be really true? All cities In a society, or ashram yes perhaps. I suppose the locals have their myths. It seems cities are now only for business or cars. How dare you put in a RTB lanes and expect the middle class to take the bus!

Later , that day, as I cycled to Shahjehanabad, through Bitten market, I smiled at the fancy  plastic angles of modern forms will soon look like 70’s forgotten architectural  leftovers.  I was reminded of an architectural conference that spoke of fancy designers who forgot the toilets.

Then at MP Nagar for Poha, the grass close to the rail ray line, reminds me cities are like ecosystems. (Will that ever be true in India, I wonder, when in Delhi, stone pavers blocked the water run off and is reducing the water table?).

Finally, in the Old City. I love the small blocks and allies that chance new discoveries. Past the lower lakes Shri Mataji Temple, used more , it seems for washing clothes than worship, then across to Bara Bagh.

cemetary2014-10-09 10.33.38res

I reflect on the dignity of the old Muslim cemetery.  I would prefer the serenity of a stupa than a therapist, I decided. In that moment I remember own social mistakes. The uncouth loudness of an outback Aussie  at times outspokenly offending neighbours who had politely left unsaid what they thought I would understand.

near shahehanabad gate (2) res

India confronts me. It forces me to face my shadows.

Cities are like people. They offer hope and freedom, and oppress others. Behind houses , each side tells a truth of the experience. Every culture has a dark underbelly a shadow it wants to hide.

In Australia, a people yearned to be free, yet they ignored the oppression of aboriginals or blackbirds, the islander ‘labourers’ who worked the cane fields.

“They must work for it”,  I hear them scream. “No more hand outs.”

Something of an older tribal walking by reminds me of an aboriginal body ritual, tattoo scarred like the stripped earth mined for a profit and scars our soul.

No country is better or worse. In every land we find the focus on national identity and values shaped by a nation’s myth. We also find the exact opposite, simultaneously.  Perhaps less, focused, a shadow diffused through the masses, at times through its underclass.

In India perhaps it is Kashmir that is denied. Or we praise Akbar’s tolerance yet ignore the women of Gwalior who burned themselves alive rather than be his soldiers concubines.

Or should we criticise Aurangzeb oppression yet ignore the Hindu temples he sponsored no doubt out of political need? Admire Gandhi for non violence and ignore that in the process – as well meaning as it was – he alienated his son?

The West praises it heritage freedom and ignores Ashoka offered equal right s for all sexes, religions and castes.  Greek democracy applied only to the 20 percent male population and not women. It took the US 150 years to legally ensure black people “were created equal” and enjoy  “the pursuit of happiness” enshrined in their constitution. Australia took 68 years to recognise Aboriginals as citizens.

So much for its principles.

Meanwhile, India’s Constitution gave equality to all 2 years and 4 months after Independence. All three lands have racial shadows haunting them.

2014-10-14 12.42.33res

Next morning as I dig soil at dawn, the Sindor swastika from yesterdays Pooja attracts the  dancing feet  of minor birds pecking rice from the remains of offered rice. A small satin blue bird dances in the tree above the hardened shallow soil.

Then, I find a yellow envelope waiting addressed from Delhi. It must have arrived while I was away. The customs declaration is ticked gift, and described as “ORNAMENTAL BEADS FOR DECORATION ONLY”. Of course , in it seeds in plastic envelopes were inserted in a standard sized envelope also yellow.

It’s probably cheaper than admitting seeds are being posted, i thought.

 “WITHANIA somnifera , ashawaganda Indian Ginseng”
“stevia revaudiana sweetleaf , sweet leaf, sugarleaf seeds”
“seeds tribulus terrestris puncture vine SPEED POST”

So much for principles.

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Does the Mahabharata ask us to defy society?

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Indian History, Religion & Spiritualty

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Detachment and war, gita morality, religious violence

Mahabharata 949 Bhismadevasml (1)

The Gita inspired the Independence Movement:  the Gita inspired both Tilak’s call for violent over throw and Gandhi’s clarion for non violence.  Aurobindu spoke of Tantric passion in his call for independence, and puritan Victorians responded (unfairly)that Indians were over sexualised, and early marriage weakened their mental disposition.

Media wars are nothing new, I believe this was behind William Sleeman’s linking the Thuggee phenomenon to Kali. Later British linked the Independence movement too it.

“The Hindu student, depraved . . . by too early eroticism, turns to the suggestiveness of the murder-monger and worships the nitro-glycerine bomb as the apotheosis of his goddess.”

A century back, Valentine Chirol the independence movement “in its extreme forms Shakti worship finds expression in licentious aberrations which . . . represent the most extravagant forms of delirious mysticism” (Indian Unrest , 1910).

These attacks have led some to reject Western science when it attempts to place the ancient past on a timeline. I would love the past golden to be discovered scientifically:  Article 51 of India’s constitution includes as the duties of a citizen developing a scientific temper.

But if it cannot be, does it matter?

A retired Indian Army Colonel once advised me not too worry. “We cannot even prove that Krisna even existed. But that is not the point. The message of the Gita us timeless. It is outside of space and time.”

What I might call an archetype, a coded message in our psyche. What Jean Houston would describe “something that never happened but is always happening.” A legend – that is the key on the side of our mental page that allows us to read our psychic terrain to go beyond the image (or the computer screen) to access the real life.

Perhaps we can learn  lessons from the repeating pattern of past ages . Fractal patterns of history repeat  with their own its own unique echo in modern history.

But looking at these lessons from the position of objective witness we  can embrace life without falling into self loathing guilt trip of failing to be good Hindu’s, Muslims Christian etc.

Guilt is a cry for help. So I can sympathise with the bhakti call for a religion of no religion similar to what Krishna describes in the Bhagavad Gita (18:66).  “Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.”

However, let’s think a little more pragmatically.How could we personally apply the Gita’s advice ?

karnaconfrontsKrishna

Karna confronts Krishna

The question haunts me. The themes of karma and Krishna’s grace contradict each other and the Gita leaves enough room for both sides: a little bit more than how the later bhakti movement is now interpreted .

Krishna proclaims “Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into transmigration, into various demoniac species of life” (16,19). Also: “Those who worship me and surrender all their activities unto me, being devoted to me without hesitation, engaged in devotional service and meditating unto me, I deliver them quickly from the ocean of birth and death” (12,6-7).

Yet his ‘Avatar’ is subject to karma, killed when shot on his own ‘Achilles heel’ in the Mahabharata. Karma seems to move on with detached clockwork precision. This leads to the Gita leaving unexplained the contradictions between Vaishnavism’s claim that Krishna is only an incarnation of Vishnu wheras the Gita’s  super-personal Krishna is the Supreme Lord of the Universe (5,29), eternal (4,6) and the source of all existence: “I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from me” (10,8). , spiritual and material (9,16-19; 8,4; 10,20-42) even contrary to Vedanta, the source of Brahman (14,27) and contrary to Vaishnavism he is the instrument of attaining fusion with Brahman (14,26). Although the intention of components.

Then there is the personal decision we face like Ajuna.

Do we obey duty or dharma verses the karma we must face if we do our duty against our conscience.  Krishna tells Ajuna “When you become confused in your false ego you say to yourself, ‘I will not fight’ you are misled. By your nature you must fight” (18,59). Action is better than inaction we are told, the three gunas of Krishna’s past karma, and his warrior caste, determine his nature or prakriti. Our past karma is the hand we must play in the game of life which limits our choices.

Ajuna  must break the Vedic code by killing his relatives. “Those who think that they can kill or those that think they can be killed are confused in the manifestations of ignorance. The infinite, immortal soul can neither kill nor be killed” (2,19). Therefore Arjuna is free to kill his relatives, considering them only temporary abiding forms for the eternal self, mere mortal frames.

Or as S. Dasgupta states in his commentary:

The theory of the Gita that, if actions are performed with an unattached mind, then their defects cannot touch the performer, distinctly implies that the goodness or badness of an action does not depend upon external effects of the action, but upon the inner motive of action. If there is no motive of pleasure or self-gain, then the action performed cannot bind the performer; for it is only the bond of desires and self-love that really makes an action one’s own and makes one reap its good or bad fruits. Morality from this point of view becomes wholly subjective, and the special feature of the Gita is that it tends to make all actions non-moral by cutting away the bonds that connect an action with its performer.
-S. Dasgupta, Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass, 1991, vol.2, p. 507.

But if “actions are performed with an unattached mind, then their defects cannot touch the performer” then why does Yudishthira, Arjuna’s brother, try to expiate the sin of killing his relatives at Kurukushetra through repentance, gifts, asceticism and pilgrimages (Mahabharata 12,7).  Yudishthira bad conscience could not be cleansed by a right mind, he needed compensatory acts.

Does not a morality that any act is good as long as it is dedicated to God risk becoming the justification of terrorism? If God controls all could I not decide, as Ajuna is asked to do, to reject well-established moral codes?

The demon Kamsa, whose corruption of karma Krishna came to destroy,  used the same argument to kill the children of Krishna’s parents in the Bhagavata Purana;

In the bodily conception of life one remains in darkness without self-realization, thinking “I am being killed” or “I have killed my enemies”. As long as a foolish person thus considers the self to be the killer or the killed, he continues to be responsible for material obligations, and consequently he suffers the reactions of happiness and distress.

Perhaps Krisna, whose avatar comes to destroy Kamsa intends to fight fire with fire.

If the same “detached” perspective on moral values can be used both by the demon Kamsa, who caused the corruption of the dharma, and by Krishna as the divine avatar who came to restore it (Gita 4,6-7) and kill the demon, it is hard to accept that such an approach could represent a true basis for morality.

This I suppose where we as a society and individually must balance the competing forces of life, lest the eros of fanaticism and nationalism takes over.

True detachment is does not stop with nihilistically accepting reincarnation to justify defiance, violence or terrorism.

We must be fully prepared to take the full consequences of our Karma. To go inside and listen.. We must accept communion with the unborn and  unmanifest the whisper of the soul can be heard.

As the victors at Kurukshetra  reflected

“Alas, having vanquished the foe, we have ourselves been vanquished in the end! The course of events is difficult to be ascertained even by persons endued with spiritual sight. The foes, who were vanquished have become victorious! Ourselves, again, while victorious, are vanquished!” Mahabharata Sauptika Parva Section 10

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Will India’s Mars mission inspire Quality India? (Successful abroad – but why aren’t Indians successful at home)

29 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Indian History

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Indian Diaspora, Indians abroad, overseas success

indiamarsmission

When India’s .Mars mission successfully reached the red planet, I was impressed. It seemed inconceivable that for a mere 74 million dollars, man reached mars when the 1969 landing of the moon cost $365 million (what is that in todays currency) or the $671 million to launch the Maven satellite.

It showed Indians can excel. Of course, there have been many scientific summits crossed in the subcontinent, and scientist Abdul Kálam became India’s president.

So why do so many Indians excel overseas and not at home?

A study ranked the individuality-conformity of nations ranked India 48th on I-C scale[1] (tied with Panama; Ecuador, 49, Guatemala 50 Pakistan tied with Indonesia at 44) the most Individualistic nations were from 1 to 3, the USA, Australia, the Great Britain with the Netherlands and Canada tied at fourth more collectivist nations.

When nations see themselves in terms of their inner feelings (“I am patient, easy going, kind” they will sacrifice to the group good, even strongly loyal, but demand their own needs are l bound to fewer groups distinctions, have shallower relationships that may end. Collectivist nations see themselves as “I am a daughter, a nurse, an Indian”) with interdependent cooperative relationship, see strong in out group distinctions, are far more adept at reading body language and interpersonal clues seeking group harmony ad long term relationships.

Or as the old joke goes “You can tell Indian crabs because while crabs will climb out of a jar, Indian crabs will get back in.”

All cultures have a Pavlovian reflex to seek group approval. It seems more pronounced in the large communal population that we are quick to condemn non conformists. Unless that nonconformity leads to wealth or power.

Indians do seem to be gifted with a heritage of inductive logic, an intuitive grasp that seems to elude some of our more addictively minded Western contemporaries.

Perhaps its the meditation? Or is it the need to take a street smart hunch to get ahead homed by years of reading the subtle clues of community. Reading body language and expression is a fine Indian art, less developed   by more verbal nations who take you by your word alone.

Indians lead Microsoft and internet technology . Unfortunately, Indian born Nobel prize laureate scientists Hargobind Khurana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar  and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan were no longer Indian citizens when they gained success.

“We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth” Ramakrishnan said.

Sadly “Indian” successes abroad have little to do with the fact that they are Indian. They succeed because they abandoned India.

India’s policy of exclusion that holds us back?  India forbids joint citizenship, so to get ahead you become a foreign national. Or is it because the history of caste exclusion?

Go to a repairman and there will be plenty of promises but little performed, unless it can be put off onto somebody else.

Or is it the culture of mediocrity that discourages achievement?

Perhaps it is by escaping the social confines of the group, moving to USA, Britain or Australia, where innovation is rewarded, their gifts now shine. Many will not succeed  of course: I have seen many arrive expecting the Pan Indian network to land them a career. Misplaced nostalgia does not work.

Where personal effort and innovation counts, the hard work to simply get by in India, may find results for those seeking solutions. Colonial Britain wrongly criticized Indians as lazy, failing to realise the lazy Indian simply did not want to work for something that meant nothing to him.  The new Industries nations incentivise solutions. Where oversees there is personal reward – in India family  nepotism may swipe your profit.

I hope the successful mars mission inspires us to prove we can do it home in India. There have been great Indian successes when industries broke away from the mould. Let’s build the infrastructure to keep leaders where India needs them.

[1] Hofstede’s national scale 1980 study ranked 117,000 employees of a multinational corporation in 40 countries, that was expanded in 1983 to 50 nations. (Colleen Ward, Stephen Bochner and Adrian Furnham, The Psychology of culture shock, Routledge, 2001, Philadelphia.)

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A Free Trade Deal In One Year? I dont think so

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position

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Australia India Trade, Free Trade Agreement, Nahendra Modi, Tony Abbott

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Tony Abbott depart the House of  Representatives. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Tony Abbott depart the House of Representatives. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

In 2007, when Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama were elected they over promised an under delivered. The Euphoria for Australia and US change led to disappointment.

The most popular prime minister in Australian history was ousted by his own party.

As Australia and India now promise a Free Trade deal in a year I wonder if both Prime Ministers are making the same mistake.

I am sure they are well intentioned.

From Bhopal, I watched Indians display their inked fingers as they voted for change. The old order was worn out and is retired; at least for a while. I also read of the reviews and critiques of Mr Modi’s first 100 days in office.

I appreciate Mr Modi has achieved much in Gujarat as Chief Minister. Gujarati’s are known world over for their natural business acumen. But now, like Obama, the weight of expectation will weigh on the Prime Minister long after the euphoria has died.

After Independence, to get Princely States to join the Union, law makers ensured powers still rested in India’s states. With its complicated democracy even Prime Minister Nehru complained it was easier in centralist China than in India.

Yet, it took China and Australia nine years to reach a Fair Trade Agreement. Six of those were under a labour government that was for part of the time led by an Australian Prime Minister who spoke fluent Mandarin. I sincerely hope both governments will succeed, but It seems unrealistic to me that the complicated democracy of India can be so quickly tamed.

Mr Modi has great public support. He is a master of shaping his speeches to his audience. I saw this in listening to his speech in the Australian parliament compared to his words to the Indian Diaspora in Sydney. From Brisbane, I watched with interest the G20 Summit.

Both Prime Ministers have extensively travelled on the world stage but little reform has been achieved at home.

Indian politics is described as a game within a game. However, Prime Minister Abbott, swaggers into the diplomatic ring hoping to land a knockout punch. Its long term gain not short term promises that will be revealed in the detail over time.

I hope PM Modi’s popularity will allow him to power through his reforms, but I do not the signs of real change are good. For example, the Union Government has promised to cut corruption and red tape, yet India’s trade minister continues the same legislation leaving things as they were.

I think former PM Singh must be remembered for reforms that opened india’s to economic prosperity. With rapid social change came increased corruption that destroyed his governments legitimacy and unrealistic expectations of continued high growth during global financial decline.

Without active family connections[1] I hear hopes that PM Modi will push reforms unhindered by family demands for favours. But what favours will states demand as India modernises?

The hug made this Austro-Indian feel embarrassed

The hug made this Austro-Indian feel embarrassed

In India when a person is doing well his sins are ignored. But any sign of decline and you are quickly abandoned.

Both Prime Minister s have crafted a Pro business image. Mr Abbott lost credibility for breaking major promises and Mr Modi exaggerated Gujarat’s considerable growth. Undeniably, Gujarat is now more investor and Industry friendly. Investor Summits promoted Gujarat’s business readiness.

However, many state have surpassed Gujarat in growth and investment with far less publicity. In 2013 four states (Odisha, Maharashtra, Punjab and Andra Pradesh) received more investment. In 2013, Odisha received 27% of all India’s investment Rs.53,000 crore), Gujarat received only Rs.10,600 crore.

From 2006 to 2010 Chattisgarh and Odisha signed Memorandums of Understanding worth Rs. 3.61 lakh crore and Rs. 2.99 lakh crore more than Gujarat. Gujarat’s own Soco-Economic Review 2011-12 indicated that of 12,39,562 lakh crore proposed investment from the 2009 Vibrant Gujarat Summit only Rs. 1,04,490 materialised and Rs. 2,81,629 were in progress.

Gujarat has the seventh highest growth rate in India manufacturing, behind Uttarkhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir. Gujarat ranks fifth in the services sector.

I intend no disrespect of Mr Modi and his considerable success, or to denigrate Mr Abbott. Both have achieved much. However, while Democracy requires part rule and part advertising, ultimately, results and not hype, will last.

Unless India’s ragged criminal justice system is repaired, its jaded institutions rejuvenated and made truly free and social stability ensured, tinkering with economic reforms and giving stentorian pep talks alone will not help.
–Soutik Biswas

I hope for both India and Australia both governments’ trade hopes are more delivered than over promised. I hope the results will match the advertising.

[1] Mr Modi was married as a child but at puberty refused the union. They are still legally married but have never lived as husband and wife.

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Karma and maya: Why Indians never give up

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position

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dhanda, dharma, Indian business, karma, maya

carpet vendors MP Nagar res

People are wrong to think India is other worldly. Indians are not mantra wielding ascetics, but pragmatic who think the worst of sins is to miss an opportunity to get ahead. But they relish in the spiritual reputation,

Indians are not oblivious to the world, but rather oblivious to what is of no direct interest to them says Pavan Varma in his book Being Indian. They will droop if there is no prospect of upward progress. That is why the British wrongly thought Indians lazy. Britain gave opportunity to only a few – mostly Brahmins – so why should they bother? Yet, as British found out in the 1857 rebellion, they would risk their life for the high return of smuggling food to the British enemy.

Ritually obsessed by personal purity they ignore filth around him stray dogs sewerage stench does not distract them from prayers. Theologically, God may be the unrepresentable Brahmin, but gods and goddesses are shaped into beautiful women, or heroes seen as all to human patrons to his profession.
There is the giving of charity, but this is part of the barter with the gods. There is no special day of worship that offers community spirit. It is as if each has their own ‘special arrangement’ with god and the community excitement of regular lunar festivals.

workplacehealth10112011660res

I find my neighbours constantly taking the customer and personal parking. I returned to Bhopal to find water was being piped from my homes sump, and electricity diverted from my building.
Yet in a land known for corruption, I have witnessed remarkable honesty.

It seems strange that in business men routinely pay bribes, yet Gujarat diamond merchants can simply hand over millions of dollars in diamonds to Angadias, or door to door specialist couriers on trust. Their service offered in Surat, Ahmedabad and Mumbai has no receipts or records of transfer and yet it works.
The gambling during the 2003 cricket world cup, illegal at the time,  totalled about 10 billion US but people paid their debts even though there was no way to legally enforce it.
Yes Indian life and religion seems like disorganised chaos, but then people are convinced anything can happen in the cosmic play of the gods.

To be honest, many foreigners have described the people of Bharat as callous, It is so pervasive it can infect a visitor over time.
But that should not discount the alchemy of personal gain personal salvation or deny Indians their spiritual nature.

Hinduism recognises the legitimacy of atha (economics progress), dharma (duty), and kama (pleasure). The order of importance varying according to each school of thought.
Each has its place in the four stages of Hindu life:

  1. Brahmacharya, the learning student
  2. Householder , with the pursuit of pleasure, livelihood, and experience
  3. Then begins the graceful withdrawal from active life
  4. Finally, one prepares for the next reincarnation

While there are rare ascetic or saints, youthful renunciation, is not the most robust choice.

It is commonly held that the three objectives of human endeavour are interdependent and should be pursued equally. The scholar Kautilya explains without pretension ”Excessive importance given to anyone of brings harm not only to that objective but artha (sound economics) is the most important , for dharma and kama are both dependant on it. “

Similarly, Vatsyayana, who wrote the Kamasutra included kama in the four purusharthas of a successful life. If a householder is meant to enjoy pleasure, or kama, then he should learn to be a successful lover. He is equally utilitarian: artha is placed first even over dharma. While together dharma more important than artha , atha is king because men’s livelihood and pleasure depends on it.

In reality, few Hindus care about the intricacies of religious philosophy or know the details of their scholars.But they refuse to be deflated.

Milega nuqaddar ,I will find my destiny, and in hope that by some chance if a god may be found, a gurus blessing works or ritual will be blessed, then he will seek it.
Na jane kis mein mil jaaye bhagawan, you never know what form you will run into God.

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So why remain so optimistic in a hostile struggle of India?

The answer is in the two pervading doctrines of Maya and Karma.
Only Brahmin is real. Anything that cannot survive this life is an illusion. Maya is the power that makes the illusion of this universe that appears to us only because of our ignorance. Life is like a computer game, and we the characters in it, forget we are only the play of pieces of computer code. Like Neo in The Matrix, salvation comes when you can experience the hidden reality and short circuit the program.

Worry is seen as confusing a rope for a snake.
Karma suggests your misfortune or success is linked to your past life, carried over when the imperishable soul changed its clothes in a new birth.

While both ideas seem intended to promote self responsibility for the future and seeing beyond short term appearances, for many they offer an escape valve.

If you succeed you have played the game of maya well, if not its only an illusion so why worry, is at best a short set back. Maya in some contexts means wealth, but if you fail nothing of real value is lost. Besides, what is one bad life time in the time scale of eternity.

The Hindu scholar may not agree that karma omits our personal responsibility. However, it is easy to blame a past life, or if you have to cheat to get ahead, then you pass accountability to an impartial but future court of justice of your future karma.

As a Director General of Police once told me, Hinduism is a religion of survival.
Destiny may change by surprise blessing of the gods, a guru, or a future life.
Either way, the Indian never believes he s defeated.

A Delhi businessman, whose shop was beneath the painted women of GB Road’s bordellos, seemed oblivious reports Being Indian.
“My dhanda (business) is my dharma. It does not matter what is going on outside. Once I am in my shop, I do dhanda. So long as I make money I fulfil my dharma. Those outside must fulfil theirs.”

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Indians on the move: Migration in search of livelihood

28 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position

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Rural Migration

india-cooking

Why I care
When I moved to India my first glimpse was of blue tarps and Mumbai’s airport slum.
It shocked me. Even though I knew of its existence, as I looked out my flight window the reality of twenty million people, nearly as many as Australia’s entire population, live in Mumbai. Half are homeless.
Four years on, I have since visited villages of Madhya Pradesh, and seen the good work of the Satpura Integrated Rural Development Institution, (SIRDI), Madhya Pradesh and witnessed the life of Tribals in MP.
Now I find myself disgusted that my native country of Australia has made the arrival of 153 boat people from Sri Lanka a national emergency when Pakistan has 1.5 million refugees, shores of France, and unaccompanied children flee to the USA.
That racist politics of a minority in key marginal seats has exploited the fear of terrorism with half truths to use the military to intercept unarmed refugees with military secrecy seems against the principles of informed democracy and moral decency.
I believe the ultimate in cowardice is to blame others so we don’t have to look at ourselves.
India also cares for political refugees, however rural migration is primarily economic.
India has helped me to treasure respect the decency of those struggling for a better life.

“So long as your state does not develop we will continue to have problems in Mumbai. ..We keep getting three trainloads of people into Mumbai daily from states like MP, Bihar, UP and Rajasthan and one trainload goes back with those unable to get jobs. How can we cope with such a situation? It’s not a Marathi versus Hindiwallah confrontation, but about the lack of development in these populous states I am talking about.” Congress politician  Shrwad Pawar  to journalist Abhilash Khandekar (Shivraj Singh and the Rise of Madhya Pradesh, Abhilash Khandekar:118).

India’s migration is largely a survival or subsistence strategy in response to economic and social conditions. A second reason is short term attempt to supplement the income during low periods of seasonal employment.

Migration is a mix of being compelled by “push factors” or drawn, by opportunity, or “Pull factors”.

“Migration in search of livelihood is a stark reality in India today. The bleak livelihood scenario in backward, hilly, tribal, desert, drought-prone, rain fed, flood-effected, high density or conflict ridden areas has led to the emergence of migration as a survival strategy” writes Dr Gopal Kalkoti who estimates India’s internal migrants to exceed 100 million.

“Preferred for their cheap labour, most of these migrants work in the informal sector devoid of social security and legal protection. Lack of portability of entitlements across State borders makes them lead a subhuman existence, devoid of access to basic services and labour rights.”

India’s urban population was 17% in 1951, but will reach 42% in 2025, meanwhile the rural population has decreased from 82 to 68.9 percent in the last 50 years.

Agricultures share of GDP has declined from 40% in the 1990’s to 15% presently.  At 23% of GNP agriculture sustains 70% of the population. Agricultures decline is a catalyst for migration as farming community of looking for other alternatives opportunities.

But here is more to migration than tales of sorrow. The results of urban migration are a mix of good and bad: increased income but poor living conditions. The market driven economy with its increased telecommunications has reduced migration costs.  It has the potential ti contribute to the economy.  Indeed, migration is a boon for industry and has helped many under employed rural people.

In 2007 -2008 the National Sample survey Office random sampled 572,254 people from 79,091 rural and 46,487 urban households from 7921 villages and 4688 urban blocks. The survey was nationwide except for Leh, the Kargil district of Jammu Kashmir interior Nagaland, and villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The report entitled “Migration in India, 2007-2008” found:

  • Most migration remains within the state (72% in urban; 78% rural). The proportion of migrants is 35% of urban population and 26% rural.
  • Nearly 57% had migrated from rural areas and 29% from urban households. The majority migrated for employment (55% of those moved to rural and 67 in urban homes).
  • The majority of women migrating were for marriage: 91% rural, 61% urban.
  • Rural male migration has declined. 28.6% of rural males and 0.7% of rural males migrated for work. Only 4% of non literate males migrated, 14% of graduates or above. Urban illiterate males were 17% compared to 38% of graduates.
  • The lowest rate of migration was among scheduled castes.
  Industry Percentage
1 Construction 41.6, often seasonal workers
2 Agriculture 23.6
3 Manufacture 17
4 Mining/quarrying 1.1
5 Trade 7.3
6 Transport 16.8

There are 40 million migrants in the construction sector, 20 million domestics, 11 million in textiles, 10 million in brick kilns. The number of migrants in Construction increased by 26.5 million from 2000 – 2010 (Kalkuti: 14, 15).

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Why? The Reasons:

“Migration does not necessarily signify a rejection of the rural livelihood” explains Dr Shrikanta K. Panigrahi (2014:11-13), Director General of The Indian Institute of sustainable Development, New Delhi. Survival strategies  extend beyond the immediate vicinity, but are also linked into other economies rural and urban locations. “It is precisely the inter-linkage which supports rural communities and helps them to survive in such climactically unstable environments.”

Push Factors: Compulsion, distress

Population pressure: depleting resources
Decreasing per capita land availability: 80 of famers now have uneconomical medium or small land plots. Increased farmer suicides or leaving the land.
Declining yieldsLack of livelihood opportunities & under employment: Coupled with absence of day schools, health care, financial institutions and suitable markets.
Secondly, locals are expected to be content with paying the social and cultural costs entailed in development caused by modern markets that undermine local crafts and skills. Ecological disturbances caused by large-scale mining and power generation cause soil erosion and pollution. The benefits from coal mining, power generation and timber felling felt by urban middle class, are often at the cost of land based poor.
Improvement in communications and transport: Cyclic or migration is an ancient Indian tradition, But improved roads make it easier for farmers to earn supplementary income elsewhere and return home for the owing season.
Marriage: 61% of urban & 91% rural females moved because of marriage.
Climate Refugees: increased floods and droughts are anticipated to reduce cereal crop yield by 2.5-10% in South, South-East and East Asia. A 1 degree Celsius rise in annual mean temperature above pre-industrialised levels may reduce developing nations GDP by 1.75%.
Dr Hefin Jones of Cardiff University anticipates 30 million environmental refugees in the next 50 years. Rising Sea levels would alter the Ganga-Brahma Putra Delta including the Sunderbans making 70,000 homeless by 2020.Legally India assists 200,000 refugees from surrounding countries. Migration from China and Bangladesh would increase.

Pull Factors

Opportunity, better education, healthcare, modern transport, opportunity, growing craze of urban life.

The effects:

Migrants often report increased incomes but may suffer poorer living conditions. However, many from poor or remote villages have increased their living standard and invest money in the agriculture of their home village.

The supply of workers could result in increased education of the workforce.

Urbanisation:  The UN estimates 60% of urban growth in the developing world is natural increase, the rest migration.
Rural Depopulation:
Equalising social status: 
Bihari’s used to a frugal and rustic lifestyle  held back by caste pollution were often seriously deficient but lived an isolated life not aware of outside opportunities. Migration has released many from stratified caste taboos and economic gain (Amarendra:29-31).
Remittances  10% of rural households who receive money from migrating family paid debts; 13% for saving, investment. India received $24.6 billion in 2005-2006; the highest in the world. A UN study in 2000 found Bangladeshi women sent 72% of their earnings home.
Poor management  Uncontrolled migration has forced migrants to take up rickshaw pulling, roadside cart vendors, congestion and sometimes crime.

Pavement Dweller Bhopal

Pavement Dweller Bhopal

Health Effects

“In India, in is the migration which has been shredding the moral fabric of the migrant population, shattering the family structure and disturbed the whole economic and social structure of the society” In a survey Kanpur Nagar district 3/5th of migrants Issues of acclimatization, lack of basic facilities including water, sanitation, lack of toilets, poor or no housing, joblessness, idleness, deprivation and disease.

The Kanpur Nagar study found that while those settled permanently ia way from their native home were more deprived than migrants returning to their homes, but returning migrants suffered more ill effects.

The incidents of disease in rural migrants was 72.10%  Incidents for in returning migrants were higher than in migrants, for example, gastrointestinal (19.57 returning;  9.14 in-migrant), diabetes (10.33; 2.79), Back pain (10.97; 3.22). The exception being handicap (13,54% in migrants, 5.98% returning) and  visual impairment  (10.21 in-migrant; returning 4.35).

Returning migrants were less likely to have bad habits than in migrants:  40.6 of returning immigrants did not indulge in bad habits, for in migrants only 18 percent had not succumbed. These habits included gambling, chewing Gutka, tobacco, beedhi’s, drinking, or drugs in the form of charos and ganjha filled cigarettes. About 4% have resorted to stealing.

Possible Solutions

Providing urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA)

PURA uses public and private partnerships to provide rural infrastructure. Conceived by  former President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam it provides drinking water, sanitation, sewerage, village streets, drainage, solid waste management and skill development.

However, Hassan and Khan (2000:33) reported return immigrants alleged  corruption in the system.

Wage Opportunities

Increasing nonfarm rural activities will stimulate wage opportunities.

The  Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment  Guarantee Act ensures 100 days paid employment.  However, the real benefits do not always reach the target group and there are loopholes in implementation and accounting.

A study of 18 Panchayats in Dindigul district Tamil Nadu found after implementation migration stopped in 5  Panchayat where MGNREGA was applied. Migration continued where it was not implemented.

Vocational training and rural colleges

Making Agriculture Pay

Farmers see failure cultivation costs rise and declining yields. Sustainable agriculture with high yield seeds and irrigation may help. However, claims by some seed producers, including GM, have caused losses to farmers in the past.

Dairying

A secondary income source for many, emphasizing the the National Dairy Plan may help increase milk yields in local areas.

The Prospects

The World Population Council anticipates India’s productive population (of 15 to 60 year olds) will stop increasing by 2025 then decrease to 62% of the population by 2050.

If migration continues to be seen as an escape route, then by extension, a brain drain of skilled professionals emigrating from India will hamper the nations future.

Unless migration is seen as “a social process that promotes  that promotes that contrivbutes to the well being of the society, that promotes cultural diversity, specialisation and division of labour and spirit of unity among diversity” explains Parveen Kumar, Rehbar-e Zirat (agricultural guide) with Jamma Kashmir .

References:

Articles for this post were taken from Kurukshetra, Ministry of rural Development, Vol. 62 No. 11 Pages 52, Sept. 2014.

These include:

Tarique Hassan & Prof. Jabir Hasan Khan, Repercussions of Migrant or Rural Migrants A case study.
Kumar Amarendra Narain, Impact on rural Migration on Agricultural labourers from Biar and Assam.
Parveen Kumar, Consequences of rural Migration.
Srikanta Panigrahi, Environmental Refugees- the result of another form of forced rural migration.
Gopal Kalkoti, The status of rural migration-need for development initiatives.

 

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Ambushing the Hijacker. Hero or Villain? You Decide

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position, Indian History

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Christopher Kremmer, hijacked plane, Satish Chandra Pandey

www.indexoncensorship.org/

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/

On January 22, 1993 Satish Chandra Pandey hijacked flight IC810. On board the Focker F-27 en route from Lucknow, was journalist Christopher Kremmer along with 47 other traumatised passengers as the hijacker threw fake paper bombs and surrendered.   Despite the probono services of a star lawyer it took four years to get conditional bail. He was not permitted to leave his village except to report monthly to the Lucknow Police. Meanwhile his father and mother died.

Five years later, Kremmer decided to pay Satish a visit.  The small, imperfectly formed man did not recognise the journalist in his jacket and tie. Kremmer told a ‘half truth’: he had heard of Satish defence of the temple movement and wanted his views on the upcoming 1998 elections.

Before arriving from the fields, the family filled in the family back story.  Son of a junior commissioned officer of the Ordinance Department, his rootless upbringing took him across the country, changing schools and once evicted from a missionary school when he and others reported the illicit relationship of some teachers. His wife died  giving birth to a child that did not survive.

On bail,  as eldest son he had responsibility of hours of backbreaking labour on the farm. For three generations his poor Brahmin family had owned eight bighas, about five hectares, in the ‘cow belt’ of Uttar Pradesh.  The five villages of Saraiya Maafi have no running water, and no electricity people carry 12 volt batteries five kilometres for recharge. The nearest landline phone was 19 kilometres.

Once the home of patrician Congressman a more secular India at times has made UP’s cow milking Yadavs and Sighs the butt of jokes for their betel nut chewing earthy speech. The Cow Belt, once honoured for between the Himalayas and Vindhya mountains is now derided as crude, backward, lawless, poor and illiterate.

Still, in the cow belts of UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan politicians routinely declare their love of the cow.

Premature hints of gray, betrayed his a teen like face, and youthful black hair, Side on his smile seemed more the grimace of a man who longed to be happy. His furtive glances e seemed to need to be seen giving darshan to this foreign visitor. A small crowd of children gathered.

“Having spent years thinking of him as an irresponsible fool, my subconscious had tricked me into expecting contrition, not pride.” The 1857 Rebellion had been triggered by UP Brahmin Mangal Pandey and Satish Pandey was equally defiant.

Panday was protesting against the then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s assurance-soon after the demolition of the Babri Masjid-that “it will be reconstructed”.

“I was ready to die. Ready for the pilot to lose control, or for the commando’s to shoot me. In any case, I knew, I didn’t need to buy a return ticket. The night before leaving the village, I showed the family my air ticket, I said, “I have to go to Delhi.””

He asked his brother to cycle him 19 kilometres to the train station and told him “make sure you get tomorrow’s newspaper.” However, police would arrive to search the family home before they had a chance to pick up a copy.

In the Spiritual hypermarket of Hinduism, the many gods express the humanities diversity and the many hidden parts our psyche.  This allows us to express the polytheistic nature of our competing inner life.

The Bhakti movement rejected ritual sacrifices and knowledge in favour of love and devotion often to the divine avatars of Rama or Krishna.  A person of the West is probably familiar with devotees people chant with ecstatic devotion the names of Krishna. They claim in the degraded present age of Kali, the meaning of caste and ritual is so corrupted and chanting the names of God is enough.

Bhakti would become a nationalist force. Aurobindu Ghost called on the divine warrior Kali to cleanse India of Britain. Long before Britain claimed the unemployed ex mercenaries turned criminals were a religious fanatics, were over sexualised Thuggees determined to destroy civilization.

The activist Tilak used the  Bhagavad Gita to call for violent overthrow. Gandhi, on the other hand, claimed a Bhakti of ahimsa, or non violence, twisting the Gita‘s call for the warrior Arjuna to fight injustice into a spiritual struggle for non violence.  His interpretation was similar to Jesus Sermon on the Mount and was influenced by Tolstoy’s interpretations of Jesus words.

Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse invoked the Gita when blaming the massacres of Partition on Gandhi’s  ahimsa.

Ronaldshay described the Tantric image of Chinnamasta, who cut off her own head to feed others as “symbolized the Motherland (India) ‘decapitated by the English, but nevertheless preserving her vitality unimpaired by drinking her own blood’.”

 

One act of Nationalist Bhakti that inspired Satish Sandra Pandey was the call by Lal Krishna Advani for the construction of a Rama temple at Ayodhya where a mosque stood over an ancient temples remains. It is claimed the birthplace of Rama.

Only India and Nepal are Hindu nations, reasoned the hijacker, their are Christian, Buddhist and Muslim lands, so why cannot India defend her religious integrity? A month after the demolition of the Babri Mosque, Satish decided to act as Hindu nationalist leaders were rounded up to prison to try as attempts were made to keep social order.

It seems he was noticed in high places he said. Asked about being publicly scolded by Vajpayee for using “wrong methods”, Satish suggested the journalist should know better.

“Atal-ji has to talk like that. He’s a politician. He doesn’t need to promise to liberate Hindu sites. People like me will take care of that.”

The Mask, as the Opposition leader was called, could smile selling hard-line policies and Satish returned with a personally signed letter from Atal Bihari Vajpayee dated June 27, 1996 typed in English with the official letterhead of the leader of the opposition.

“I share your grief” Mr Vajpayee had written, in condolence of the death of the hijackers father. “I pray to the Lord for your fathers soul and [to] give the family members the strength t bare this.”

Kremmer was shocked describing “the nexus of mainstream politicians and the mob is one of Indian democracies unhappy features.”

Recognition came in prison, Satish claimed, when the BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, also jailed at that time, bribed guards to spend time with him.

Their cause was united but patient and cautious Vajpayee methods differed to the gamble of desperate Satish.  Vajpayee could lose much, Satish had nothing to lose. Both were part of a loose confederation of the Hindu nationalist family or Sangh Parivar.

Perhaps Kremmer had the last laugh.

Kremmer slyly admitted to a “hidden purpose” and explained four five years his plan had been brewing from the fateful day when, flying to be reunited with his fiancé,  48 eight passengers had been hijacked had been traumatised.

“The revelation that he was sitting accross from one of his own victims drew a sharp intake of breath from the hijacker. His eyes darted left and right, vainly searching for support from among his audience of children and ruminants. ‘But what did I do?’ his helpless, innocent expression seemed to say. He was, I realised fearful. Had I come alone? Was I armed with some form of weapon, legal or otherwise? Now Satish knew what it was to be ambushed. He might be sitting in the courtyard outside is own home, in his own village, in his own country but, suddenly, anything could happen to him.  If I felt as strongly about honour,a premeditated act of violent revenge was not out of the question. He could be a dead man.

Reaching into my pocket, I produced a white handkerchief which I used to wipe the barfi crumbs off my fingers. Then I extended my hand towards the hijacker in friendship.

“Koi baat nahin” I said to him. It doesn’t matter.

I have never seen anyone look so relieved. The realisation that he was Okay, that he would not suffer the consequences released an audible gasp from the young farmer.

“You didn’t think I wanted to take revenge did you?” I said ribbing him. He laughed ruefully, apologising for any inconvenience to my family.  He called for more sweets, the traditional gesture of felicitation.

However, the bravodo returned. He had no regrets.

“You know, the Hindu nation was threatened. And if the Hindu nation is threatened, I will do anything.”

“When the law respects Hindu sentiment, then I will respect he law.”

But what is Hindu sentiment in a religion of diverse and conflicting views?  The Mahabharata reveals the complexity of human aspiration and duty. “Dharma is subtle” says the sage, and like modern politics each opposing camp has justifiable concerns.

We have various levels of understanding and expression, the many nations of India it is hard to find unity of what can be condemned?

The story raises in me some questions:

Modern India is proclaimed a Sovereign, Socialist (officially since Indira Gandhi), Secular, and Democratic Republic. A nation is expected to defend her soveriegnty, but civilization means the law is taken from the hands of vigilantes and placed into the hands of appointed leaders.

A core existential value is truth. Gandhi claimed God is truth, but admitted that in hi pursuit of this ideal at times his own personal truth changed. God is the only absolute truth.

The path of truth, or Shreya, can be  unpleasant and ruthless as is shown in the Hindu epic of the Mahabharata. But Untruth, or Priya, seems to have taken hold under the tide of populist politics. Many now hope with a change of Government will grasp hold of India’s challenges and tackle them.

Tolerance and compassion are also theological values. Unfortunately the fault lines of tribalism between  caste, village and ethnicity has reduced tolerance to a buzz word. Many individual groups fought for freedom from Britain, but seem to find it difficult to accept the right of any authority – even an Indian one – over their own sectional interests.  It seems strange compassion moves city governments  to desex stray dogs, rather than put them down, but allow homeless to die exposed to the elements.

I fear the likes of Satish Chandra Pandey would only find another fight if their goal was achieved.

The soft-spoken former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh once had the indignity of escorting terrorists and setting them free in exchange for passengers of hijacked flight IC 814 in 1999, had some excellent advice.  “The best security against forces inimical to India is for us to remain united.  A divided India can only benefit its adversaries.”
But will people listen?
“I am nobody to advise anybody. I am a stray passenger in this train of politics, party colleagues act as they see fit,” says the former minister to the (then) Prime Minister Vajpayee .

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Not Just caste: Muslim Hela’s clean toilets by hand 

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by opus125 in Caste & Social position

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Hela, scavengers, untouchability, Valmiks

A manual scavenger carried a basket of human excrement after cleaning toilets in the northern village of Nekpur, Uttar Pradesh, Aug. 10, 2012. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A manual scavenger carried a basket of human excrement after cleaning toilets in the northern village of Nekpur, Uttar Pradesh, Aug. 10, 2012. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

 

With both hands holding the basket of human excrement on her head, widowed grandmother Kela walks through a stream of sewage, up a mound of waste and then dumps the filth while cursing.

“Nobody even pays us a decent wage!” she spits as she rakes mud and rubbish over her newly deposited pile, one of several she drops in the course of her working day cleaning toilets as a “manual scavenger” in India. She and around 20 other women in the village of Nekpur, 60 kilometres from New Delhi remove the contents of toilets daily using just their hands and a plastic shovel.- AFP

In Madhya Pradesh there are 30,000 Muslim scavengers, discriminated against by their fellow believers even though Islam forbids such discrimination. I first read of it in Syeda Saiyidain Hameed’s 2012 book Beautiful Country: stories from another India.

Syeda Hameed, a member of the former Singh governments Planning Commission wrote of dry toilets been cleaned by Valmiks (Hindus) and Helas (Muslims) in Madhya Pradesh. Because scavenging pollutes even those who leave the profession are still treated as untouchable.

We all know Mahatma Gandhi called it the untouchability the “greatest blot upon Hinduism” but in vilagers the outlawed practice continues.The newly released Human Rights Watch 96-page report, Cleaning Human Waste: ‘Manual Scavenging,’ Caste, and Discrimination in India, has again focused on issue. Earlier, Mari Thekekara’s book Endless Filth gives a chilling account of manual scavenging.

According to a 2011 census, there are still around 800,000 Indian households with dry latrines that have to be cleaned manually. Another government survey identified more than 11,000 manual scavengers in 12 states.  Some activists say the number is much higher, particularly if you include those who do the work for the government.

The Human Rights Watch report said people who clean such toilets in villages are often not paid cash salaries but instead paid with leftover food, grain or used clothing. Most of them earn less than $4 a month.

Of course, abuse of people in any religion is abhorrent, so I was surprised to learn it had crept into the lives  of Muslims who officially oppose it. Scavenging is unpaid work which is  convenient for villagers of for members of any religion who seek to  greedily exploiting others.

Some of my Indian friend dismissed the whole issue as exaggerated. After all, in 1997 the Madhya Pradesh government passed the Manual Scavenging Act.

However, in MP if Valmik  or Hela parents give up maila athana their children’s scholarships are rescinded, they are forced from school and some have become child labourers.  “Only if a state official testifies that a woman has been scavenging for one hundred days, does her child become eligible for scholarship” writes Hameed who alleged no officers were prepared to testify the problem still exists.

As an informant told her “It seems as if the schemes are designed to keep people in scavenging because if a woman stops, her children are no loner eligible.”

Some women have been threatened by village and family if they stop.  In one example the Mali and Thakur communities threatened a woman who wanted to stop clearing dry toilets after fifteen years. She was told “We wont allow you to collect wood, draw water, and work anywhere else.”

Since Ninety-eight percent of the MP scavengers are women, leaving the trade would risk the social exclusion and cause financial hardship for the whole family.

“There is choot-chaat (untouchability) at every step. Five hundred to seven hundred of us (Valmiki and Hela women) walk two kilometres and queue for two to four hours to get water, there are several wells in the village but we are not allowed to draw water from them. Our children are not allowed to sit with the swaran jaatis (upper castes) in school. Barbers refuse to shave our men.”

Often villagers threaten them saying “ether you clean or you will be thrown out”. A threat that has been carried out.

Many have started when young and get skin diseases. At times medical personal have refused to touch them Because bribes must be paid to  apply for positions as an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) or Anganwadi Worker, Valmiki and Hela women can take up positions  that could help their fellow caste members.

During a Polio campaign in Jaipur village, the drops were handed to a Valmiki girl to administer to babies because because a woman did not want contamination doing it herself.

Muslim Scavengers

What surprised me was that even Muslims, whose religion claims equality of all, practiced discrimination against the Muslim Hela community in some areas of Madhya Pradesh.

Syeda Hameed is a Muslim and admits “perhaps the biggest shock was to learn of a Muslim community of scavengers. We had never associated such practices with Islam. As a child. Syeda had been strictly told never to demur from drinking water at the hands of a woman who came to clean the toilets of the house.   But in MP as in some other states, caste has become part of the Muslim ethos. The Muslim scavengers here are called Hela. There are 30,000 of them in the region.”

A scavenge named Ali Hussan from Ujjain describes that “As a child, when I went to the Masjid, the maulvi sahib sent me away saying “tumhari Amma latrine saufkarti hai, tum bhaago yahan se.” (Your mother cleans toilets, you run away from here.) Not only do we have separate masjidss and madrassas , our Muslim bretheren do not even sit with us for roza Iftaar. When my eighteen year old cousin died in an accident, for three days no doctor was prepared to do a post mortem.”

Hela and Valmiki are barred from hotels, Temples and mosques. Their children take their own plates for the midday meal, cannot use the hand pumps for water, or drink from taps.   They are not allowed to wear slippers or sit in vehicles and even the Manihars (bangle sellers) refuse to place chooris on their wrists. If they do, it is when all other customers have gone, an their shirts are removed lest they be contaminated, so they can quickly wash themselves of contamination.

Devi Lal, a 43-year-old manual scavenger, cleans drains in New Delhi on July 13, 2012 Sagar Kaul—Barcroft Media/Getty Images

Devi Lal, a 43-year-old manual scavenger, cleans drains in New Delhi on July 13, 2012
Sagar Kaul—Barcroft Media/Getty Images

HRW notes there are throughout India there are laws to curb caste subjugation, but it remains wide spread.

Dalit women typically collect waste from private homes, while the men do the more physically demanding, and hazardous, maintenance of septic tanks and public sewers. Many suffer injuries and serious health problems writes Charlie Campbell in Time magazine.

People are coerced to collect human excrement on a daily basis, carrying it away in nothing more protective than a cane basket.

“The manual carrying of human feces is not a form of employment, but an injustice akin to slavery,” says Ashif Shaikh, founder of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, a grassroots campaign to end manual scavenging. “It is one of the most prominent forms of discrimination against Dalits, and it is central to the violation of their human rights.”

“People work as manual scavengers because their caste is expected to fulfill this role, and are typically unable to get any other work,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at HRW. “This practice is considered one of the worst surviving symbols of untouchability because it reinforces the social stigma that these castes are untouchable and perpetuates discrimination and social exclusion.”

 

But do the Muslim Hela’s indicate that the discrimination transcends caste?

A World Health Organization report in May this year said that more than a half-billion Indian citizens still defecate in the open. Using fields, rivers and abandoned lots as toilets exposes people to diseases such as polio, hepatitis A and diarrhea. One in every 10 deaths in India, the World Bank said, is due to poor sanitation, a total of around 768,000 deaths a year.

India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, highlighted the importance of modernizing India’s sanitation during this years election campaign, stating that building toilets was more important than building temples.

A new law has been proposed that modifies the India’s 1993 law  that criminalized scavengers. The new law would prohibit the building of non-flushing toilets that must be emptied by hand,. Anyone who employs a manual scavenger could face a one-year jail term and/or a fine of up to 50,000 rupees.

Would police enforce the law? Would it be easier to pretend the problem no longer exists?  Unless the law is enforced, greed will drive exploitation.

“Successive Indian government attempts to end caste-based cleaning of excrement have been derailed by discrimination and local complicity,” said Meenakshi Ganguly of HRW. “The government needs to get serious about putting laws banning manual scavenging into practice and assisting the affected caste communities.”

Modernising toilets will help, but as long as employers refuse to recognise that scavengers save people and governments a lot of money, they will be ignored, underpaid and exploited.

Note:

A pdf copy of the report is available at: Cleaning Human Waste: ‘Manual Scavenging,’ Caste, and Discrimination in India

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