Obituaries

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jayakris
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Re: Obituaries

Post by jayakris »

Shibi: You could be welcome to offer your money (Indian money from an Indian) to any charity or activity you want to give, but you have to give the 4% income or whatever level is fixed. In case you don't know whom to give, you could also simply earmark money for specified religious denominations and let the government decide which specific activity of that denomination gets your money. These funds cannot be mixed with taxes (which may be reduced as the government passes on many developmental activities to the religious voluntary organizations charged up to spread religion while doing the activities) ..

I know I am now really pushing it. Talk about a pie-in-the-sky idea :) ... But why not think outside the box? The whole idea of a pluralistic democratic India was a big experiment that nobody outside India thought was going to work, till the 60s. Why not push it a bit more then?

In India, there is/was no need to be afraid of religions and their power, like the western countries' systems always were. A lack of true understanding of Hinduism is what caused the worry. The majority religion in India, without ever having such institutions, was just going to cause troubles of that kind and would even have acted as the buffer against it, had the founding fathers realized it (well, some did, but the Fabian socialists with their British education and fear of religion wouldn't understand what they were saying). The majority religion started causing trouble only much later (90s) when a lot of pent-up anger surfaced, though that itself has been dying a bit of a natural death already because some level of secularism and state-religion separation being inbuilt in the Hindu thinking. If only Nehru and co recognized it! .. But then how could they, seeing the bloodshed of partition! .. Vote-back politics made everything worse, and our wishy-washy constitution that can be interpreted whichever way the politicians wanted, paved the way for that.

What a meandering discussion this has become .. The fault is mine, entirely... It may all look silly, foolish, and amateurish but what the heck ... Thinking strangely is never bad, as long as acting on it is done only with care.

Jay
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Re: Obituaries

Post by jayakris »

shibi wrote:Also, the caste system within the Hindu society makes it difficult to have a central authority acceptable to all (like, why can’t a man belonging to a lower caste offer pooja in the temple if he is learned in the Vedas & Puranas?- the question of Brahmin by birth or by guna and karma).
Let the Hindus elect the people running their religious activities. A parallel religious election. The swamis are allowed to be elected, but none elected to religious positions are allowed to run for political elections. Brahmins may not get elected in a democratic system (though interestingly the first democratically elected communist in the world, who got elected mostly due to the Hindu votes, Mr. EMS Nampoothirippad, was a brahmin!).

Note that, in other words, I am explicitly bringing religion into the governmental system. The western concepts have the 1) executive 2) legislature and 3) judiciary ... My system would have a 4th part that may be called executive-2 or "religious executive". Their job is to carry out societal and developmental activities by using the deep personal connections people have to their religious beliefs and its ability to make people productive.

The religious executive will get a lot of things done but their funds come from political legislature branch (NOT executive, preferably!) .. They do not control police or military, and hence their power is quite limited just like in the case of the judiciary. The religious executive will have NO judicial powers either. The nature of the electoral system for the religious executive on the constitutionally-listed religious denominations can be left to the people of the denominations (if there is an existing church, it will be no problem to let that structure stay because people will vote the existing system in thanks to the pulpit campaign power the church will have. Same with muslim bodies).

This is all unthinkable in western countries, because of the deep fear of the church taking over. A powerful catalyst for societal work was being cut out because of that. Well, political historians (I know neither political science nor history) may comment .. I am not sure if such systems were officially experimented with somewhere (early England for instance). Anyway, it would have worked in India because of the majority religion's nature.

Religion is a part of life, and there was no need to fear and get away from it, especially in India. That is my point. It would be a very bold experiment that would have truly brought secularism in the society without removing religion from people's lives.

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Re: Obituaries

Post by shibi »

Jay, how can you say that there is no need to be afraid of religion and its power in India? Historically, religion has always been powerful in India. Though Brahmins were not the rulers, they were always powerful and had great influence on the ruling class. The ruling class protected the religious class (Brahmins) who in turn bestowed religious legitimacy on the ruling class. Ruling class ensured that religious class had special right and the sole say on religion. Lower classes had no right to learn Sanskrit or the Vedas (and compete with the religious class) and an ‘untouchable’ who happened to hear the Vedas had to have molten lead poured into his ears or if he recited the sacred verses had to have his tongue cut-off. So please don’t be under false assumption that the Hindu religion hasn’t been/ is not power hungry and is different from other religions.

Hindus already have their religious institutions and are free to elect their own leaders. There is nothing new here. But if selection is to be by election, it may go on the caste lines. I am all for having no Govt. controls on the temple property administration. Let the devotees decide how to run it. Devaswom Boards in Kerala may not be properly managing the temple funds, as you have mentioned a couple of times in your posts. But who is responsible? It is run by Hindu believers (at least by those claiming to be Hindu believers) and it has representatives from all major castes like Nair, Ezhava etc. If they aren’t able to run it well, how different will be the new religious body you have in mind, with or without Govt. intervention?
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Re: Obituaries

Post by jayakris »

Shibi: None of the problems Hinduism had were under a democratic system of elections with universal franchise. As for saying Hindus are welcome to do what they want in the current system, well, that is no solution because there is no system there to coordinate people of that religion from the religion side itself. Looks like there are more explanations needed about my "scheme" :) .. I will take it up after my travels (or in Spain, if I find time) .. Jay
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Re: Obituaries

Post by prasen9 »

jayakris wrote:there is no system there to coordinate people of that religion from the religion side itself.
Why do we need this? I don't know why I am getting into this argument; if you think that religious/faith-based-initiatives should be the 4th branch of government, then we are so far apart that no amount of talking will get us any closer. Religion should be as far away from government as possible. We do not have a secular government --- we have a government that persistently takes sides in religious issues. We need a truly secular government.

--pm
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Re: Obituaries

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Re: Obituaries

Post by S_K_S »

A sad loss for Indian cricket. He was a fantastic administrator and during his reign the fortune of Indian cricket started to improve. Unfortunately, Indian cricket seems to be losing people of this stature all too frequently.

http://blogs.cricinfo.com/surfer/archiv ... a.php#more
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Re: Obituaries

Post by prasen9 »

It does not sound good to criticize a person who has passed away, but I fail to see significant contributions from Dungarpur. Correlation is not equal to causation. I guess I will leave it to comments by Amarnath, Gavaskar, and Ganguly and not elaborate further. I believe Kapil Dev, Gavaskar, Ganguly, and Dhoni have moved Indian cricket forward significantly and among administrators Dalmiya and Lalit Modi have made enormous strides in marketing. Azhar's contribution was in pushing towards using more spin-friendly pitches.
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Re: Obituaries

Post by Sandeep »

Didn't know where to post this!!!

Happy 61st birthday to YSR, the greatest leader I have ever known and the highest source of inspiration to me. We miss you
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Re: Obituaries

Post by S_K_S »

:Offtopic: "don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters"
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Re: Obituaries

Post by Sandeep »

It has been one year since YSR died in a fatal chopper crash. We miss you :notworthy:

http://bit.ly/aWMP2e
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Re: Obituaries

Post by Sandeep »

Nawang Gombu, the first person to have scaled Mount Everest twice died in Darjeeling. RIP
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Re: Obituaries

Post by jaydeep »

RIP MF Husain ji ... Maqbool Fida Husain, India's grand old man of art has passed away in London.
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Re: Obituaries

Post by suresh »

MAK "Tiger" Pataudi passed away today after a brief illness. He was 70 years old. RIP Tiger.
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Re: Obituaries

Post by jaydeep »

RIP Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi ... Last three months he was battling with a lung infection.
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