India can become the spiritual leader of the world,if only its own people will allow

[Guest guest]

Cry O my beloved India!

 

Francois Gautier

 

 

June 07, 2004

 

 

I have lived for 35 years in India. I can say without boasting that

I am one of the few Western journalists who believe in India,

believe in the greatness of this country, believe that India is on

the way to becoming a superpower, industrial, economic, social,

military, and above all spiritual.

 

Throughout my professional career, both as a journalist and a

writer, I have tried not to dwell too much on the negative, the

superficial, the anecdotic, and the folkloric that most of my peers

are affectionate to when reporting on India. On the contrary, I have

strived to the best of my ability to change the image of poverty, of

corruption, of untouchability, of the City of Joy and Mother Teresa,

which is hanging on India's neck since the British, the Christian

missionaries, and, later, the Marxists fashioned it.

 

 

It has cost me dearly. I have had trouble with all the newspapers I

have worked for and been bitterly attacked by most of the French

India specialists who think I am a right-wing Hindu fanatic and anti-

Muslim, though the only thing I have ever said is that the greatness

of India lies in its Hindu ethos -- the eternal spirituality beyond

religion, which has influenced even India's minorities -- and that

there is a serious problem with Islam in South Asia.

 

 

Today I feel sad. By voting out a government that, whatever its

faults, had given back to India some pride, some stability, some

recognition in the world, I feel Indians do not really know what

they want. As usual, it is not about the people, but the system.

There are good people in the Congress, but a party which was founded

by a Briton (A O Hume) for the British has had throughout its

history some craving for Western rule, as symbolised today by this

irrational hankering of so many Congress leaders and a greater part

of the Indian intelligentsia for an Italian Christian to rule them.

 

No doubt, the new government has some very good people, but it also

boasts of many members who have only their selfish interests at

heart and will pull India down without thinking for a second of the

harm they are doing to their country.

 

Everybody is raving about coalitions nowadays. But only people who

wish India ill can wish for a coalition government. What happens in

a coalition such as the one we see today? A weak government where

everybody is pulling to his or her side, where there is no single,

united aspiration for the good of one's country, no rallying point

of common programmes.

 

What India needs now is a strong, united government, which can

muster enough popular support and votes in Parliament so as to

initiate the changes that this country so badly needs: a common

civil code, a presidential system, a reform of the judicial network,

an Indianised education curriculum, where you learn about India's

past greatness, about Ayurveda and Vedic mathematics and the science

of pranayama and the history of its proud kings and the art of

meditation.

 

The BJP government has fallen. You are exulting, O Christians! You

seem to forget how much this country gave you: the first Christian

community in the world, that of the Syrian Christians, was

established in Kerala in the 1st century. It was welcomed by the

local Hindus and Christians there were always allowed to practise

their religion in peace, at a time when other Christians were

persecuted all over the world. Indeed, it is the Portuguese of Vasco

da Gama and Albuquerque who clamped down on the syncretic, all-

inclusive Christianity that had evolved in Kerala, thereby splitting

the Syrian Church in two.

 

The BJP government has fallen. You are rejoicing, O Muslims! You

seem to forget that Arab merchants came to Hindu India long before

the first Muslim invasions of the 7th century. They were also

welcomed and allowed to practise their religion in peace and to

trade as they liked.

 

Islam has flourished in India in a way that it has not flourished

anywhere else: you have a Muslim President now and Muslims are free

to practise and preach. Do Muslims in India think Hindus could have

one of their own as president of Pakistan, or king of Saudi Arabia?

No way! They can't even practise their faith openly there! And are

you also forgetting that the BJP government made so many efforts to

reach out to you and prove that they loved you too?

 

The BJP government has fallen. You are rejoicing, O Marxists! But do

you understand that Marxism is dead all over the world; and that

even in China it is Marxism in name only, as its government actually

implements capitalist policies? In India you have been free to

practise Marxism as you wish and have democratically governed two

states for decades. Even more, Marxism here is an Indianised brand

of Marxism, often with a human face, that was baldly missing in the

Soviet Union or China. Don't you have any gratefulness to the Hindu

ethos for that? Are not most of your converts Hindus themselves, who

practise Marxism with a zeal unknown in the world today?

 

The BJP government has fallen. Your are rejoicing, O members of the

Indian intelligentsia! You think that reading the latest New York

Times bestseller, speaking polished English, and putting down your

own countrymen, specially anybody who has a Hindu connection, makes

you an intellectual. But in the process you have not only lost your

roots, you have turned your back on a culture and civilisation that

is thousands of years old and has given so much to the world. Your

are forgetting what a privilege it is to be born an Indian -- and a

Hindu at that -- inheritors of a spirituality that accepts that God

manifests Himself under different names, at different times, when

today the world's two biggest monotheistic religions still think

their God is the only true one and it is their duty to convert

everybody by guile or force.

 

Maybe Indians need to go through this painful process, maybe they

need to be faced with a government that will show its selfish and

ineffective face openly, maybe they need to experience the confusion

and greed of their politicians with full force, before they realise

that they had a good government going before that, one that brought

stability and pride to India, not one that pulls India down just to

please the minorities, the Vatican, and the Western powers who do

not want India to emerge as a strong and independent nation.

 

But in the process, India's economy is going to suffer. It has

already lost thousands of crores in stockmarket crashes. India's

image will again go down in the eyes of the world. India's foreign

affairs will go haywire, with such useless policies as getting close

to Palestine in vogue again. And India will get a little more

divided along caste, ethnicity, and religion, thanks to those who

are now in power in Delhi.

 

At the moment, there are forces at work to destroy India, not by

dropping a nuclear bomb on it, but simply by pitting one against the

other, by blindly copying the fads, failures, and excesses of the

West, by siding with forces that are inimical to India, by attacking

from all sides its ancient spirituality.

 

For the greatness of India is spiritual. The world has lost the

truth. We have lost the Great Sense, the meaning of our evolution,

the meaning of why so much suffering, why dying, why getting born,

why this earth, who we are, what is the soul, what is reincarnation,

where is the ultimate truth about the world, the universe... But

India has kept this truth. India has preserved it through seven

millennia of pitfalls, genocides, and mistakes. And this was meant

to be India's gift to this planet in this century: to restore to the

world its true sense, to recharge humanity with the real meaning and

spirit of life. India can become the spiritual leader of the world,

if only its own people will allow it.

 

Today I feel sad. Sad for India, sad for the world. For India is in

mortal danger, its eternal sanatana dharma is under threat from its

own people. And if India dies spiritually, the world will die also.

India is the last chance for the world to avoid pralaya, self-

destruction.

 

Cry O my beloved India, look what thy children have done to thee!

 

[xxvvii]

 

India can become the spiritual leader of the world,if only its own people will allow

...

What India needs now is a strong, united government, which can muster enough popular support and votes in Parliament

...

The BJP government has fallen.

 

 

You seem to be not a western but a supporter of BJP. You only spoke out your hopes & questions but you haven't given your solutions.

 

Now let's see the quote:

a) India's spirituality can't exist & develop alone. It needs the support from all aspects.

b) Its own people can't "allow" as they haven't grasp the destiny by now.

c) No strong & united government can muster enough popular support.

d) BJP hasn't fallen. It's frustrated temporarily because the rapid dev. pulls the economy into a rod, its head being IT & its handle being ind. & agr..

[Guest guest]

India is not capable of becoming a leader. Great nations like America, Pakistan, Bangladesh, UK should take the initiative and try to become leaders of the civilized world. Indians are too silly to do that. Besides, Krishna hates the land of corruption, beware!

[Guest guest]

where new terrorists are born every day.

 

In response to your remark of Pakistan as a great nation, I can't stop laughing at that ridiculous remark.

 

 

[Guest guest]

They are destined to become world leaders by propagating islam. May peace be upon you!

[Guest guest]

by the doctors after seeing your ugly face. You must have hit your head hard, and that's why you're so delusional to think that Islam brings peace and that Pakistan will become a world leader.

 

Pakistan is going to crumble within a few years. It's inevitable, because it is occupied by fanatic Muslims such as yourself.

[xxvvii]

a) India's spirituality can't exist & develop alone. It needs the support from all aspects.

-------------

That's the reason why I stood on the nation's side in Rama temple dispute.

 

Besides, Krishna hates the land of corruption, beware!

-------------

Mm, this word is sort of philosophical anyway. No one can obstruct a future winner, & No one can rescue a future loser.

[theist]

If the world does not choose accept the essence of India, which is her divine knowledge, and allow itself to be ruled under those guidlines its doom is certain.

 

I am not saying adopt "hindu" customs. But giving credit where credit is due seems fair also.

[Guest guest]

The spiritual India, the land of Vedas, has disappeared long ago. This India is different, it is part of kali yuga. According to vedas, time is cyclic, so the India of Rama or Krishna or Vyasa is TOTALLY different from the kali yuga India. That cycle is over, and so are the Krishnas and the Vyasas, and a new cycle has begun to accomodate a nwe India. It is that simple.

[theist]

Forgeting the India that we commonly think of and looking deeper we find the essential knowledge of how to run a spiritual life and a spiritual society still there. Especially in the Srimad Bhagavatam that Srila Prabhupada has given to the world.

 

I don't see India "ruling" militarily but the brahmanas never did that anyway. Let India be the brahmanas of the Earth planet.

 

But even that needs to be broken down. The formalities of classic brahminical life will never be accepted throughout the world on a large scale.

 

But the quintessence of braminical culture, bhakti to God,can. But this will require many adjustments to accomodate the external world, to allow the outer world of this age to accept this essence.

 

The sannyasi mind in a business suit.

 

This revolution has been long ago begun by Srila Prabhupada. Through the principles he has given the best India has to offer can become the ruling force.