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Canada -India
Temples were symbols of King's power
Temple building boom during medieval times particularly in south, predominantly and popularly symbolised power and authority of the Kings. When Chalukyas raided Pallavas or Rashtrakutas sacked Chalukya cities or Cholas went all the way Orissa and Bengal they took down temples as show of their power and to humiliate the losers. World during those times was like that all over. Kings were using religion almost as it is being used by rulers of today. Mughals, Turks or Abbasids or our own locals Kings were doing nothing against their moral standards. They all were ruthless politicians at heart. Their standards of morality were not as developed as we have today. Sacking places of worship, taking away women of defeated armies and destroying their intellectual properties, and viharas, temples and palaces was casually done as legitimate actions by every ruler and that had nothing to do with their religious faiths though they might have used that to rationalise their actions as some muslim rulers did. They were all the same. Hun, Turk, Mughal, Kushan, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, Cholas all did it. They were all politicians like of our times masquerading as religious faithfuls with purpose to subjugate public.
Vaccine War
Against Corona was a global war, no one nation fought alone. That’s why we all, in every nation of the world, defeated it without as much of damage as it was perhaps being feared for initially. All the vaccines were collective efforts of scientists and pharma companies at diverse places all round the world. And were result of already undertaken efforts of decades even before corona impacted us.
Years of legacy researches resulted in quick roll out of covid vaccine. In India primarily it was Oxford Astra Zenca vaccine ( not an Indian one) which was foundry manufactured as Covishield by smart local pharma company appreciatively. Our vaccine dispensation for rural and urban infrastructure which had always been known as gold standard since decades came handy for fight against corona as platform for vaccines dispensation.
It’s also important to note that over 85 percent people in India were vaccinated with this originally Oxford researched AstraZeneca vaccine called Covishield. Other locally acclaimed vaccine Covaxin had only 12-15 percent usage in India. This vaccine also did not get universal approval as many countries refused to accept its claims on tests. It would also be almost blasphemous rather just only cheap allegations to speak ill about mRNA vaccines, which most of the western world used successfully to contain spread of covid. Being expansive to deliver at remote places it was not popular in developing nations who skipped it. However mRNA research has been one of the most innovative in recent medical development and not just for Corona it has reported potential to save humanity from many such virus afflictions, disease and malignancies in future.
हमारे मंदिर, कब की विरासत
जैन और तद्दपश्चात बौद्ध धर्म ही विशेष रूप से संगठित एवं नियम बद्ध मूल धर्म रहे हैं सदियों तक भारत के। अन्य समुदाय अलग अलग देवताओं को मनाने वाले विभिन्न संस्कार, कर्म कांड करने वाले पंथ भर रहे है। तथाकथित वैदिक लोग भी शायद इन्हीं में कुछ थे जो बौद्ध धर्म के उत्थान के साथ और नगण्य हो गये या कालांतर में बौद्ध धर्म में समाहित हो गये ( और जैन-बौद्ध धर्म से ही निकल, नये देवताओं और कथाओं के साथ पुनः भी पनपे और सशक्त भी हुए कुछ सदियों बाद)। बौद्ध धर्म ने चौथी शताब्दी ईसा पूर्व से लेकर लगभग ११०० साल हिमालय से दक्षिण समुद्र तक एक छत्र अपना प्रभाव रखा।
Indian local products: a myth
Nothing is Indian, Chinese or American these days. We are global village. No country barring one or two can go self reliant and manufacture even a missile without using significant hardware procured from outside (though it feels pleasurable when a politician tingles your patriotic soft nerve saying we are self reliant).
Go maufecture a satellite without Korean or US made miniature components or write its code in sanskrit inspired shlokas, you can’t. Humara nuclear reactor, humara missile , humari vaccine, humari local cars all are to please your that nerve. Yes quality of manufacturing differs. In India it’s difficult to get SUSTAINED quality from most brands. Most of Indian cars brands have USP of best roadside assistance and wide street side repair workshops, precisely because these are cars we find mostly stranded on road. Yes I am talking about Tata cars, Mahindra and Maruti. This all is because we are not bothered about quality of service at human level.
A bolt or bearing in my car can be of best quality but its fitment will be done casually by a stressed bidi smoking man at shop floor who has been recently harassed by his boss. All this we accept because of the same ‘who cares?’ attitude. This goes for most of the thing we manufecture. Finally a middle class person saving earnings to buy a phone or car must have option to same quality of product as any consumer any where globally. Middle class Indians have been long blackmailed to go for substandard products in name of patriotism. While same people who preach this, buy expansive imported cars, phones, suits, watches, teleprompters and even planes.
Lion and Elephant
Lion is ferocious beast which neither possesses discernment of just or unjust actions nor has humility to submit to rules of any social order. It never made itself useful to human. Its glory remained only in fables, myths and fantasies. For all that, it always remained confined to jungles or recently to zoos and circuses. There should be no pride in being a lion.
India and Indian represent our global importance
Even if they prove that some old books have some reference to Bharat for part or whole of the peninsula, that can’t challenge that ‘India’, ‘Indian’, or its variant have been popular word referring to this land in most global and Indian languages for past two and half millennia. Greeks, Achaemenids, Kushan, Saka all knew it as India for 3000 years. Poor British came just 300 years back.
Forget India, globally ‘Indian’ or its variant have been most popular and refer to soul of something inherently belonging or resembling to this land. Even places or people who resembled circumstantially to this land have Indian or Indo as primary prefix for their identity. So vital India had been to the world. Indo China, native Indians of America, Indian ocean, Indonesia, West Indies. India is not just name of a nation it also represents our stature and importance we should be proud of.
Fruits of perpetual ethnic conflicts and false pride
Not just respecting and but assimilating good from other faiths is what makes ours distinctively superior to every other. Amusingly majority of the pseudo activists from right, sleeper cells and kartpushers of dark brigade infesting every WhatsApp group, reels, and X these days, appear to know more about Islam and muslims than any Mufti, Maulvi or Maulana in Cairo, Deoband, Barreilly or Lucknow would ever know ! And surprisingly charlatans know little about flexibility, vastness, universality of their own all encompassing faith as also its stark imperfections which they ignorantly celebrate over rather prioritising to reform.
Religions could have selective value only
Every religion which claims true connection to God is fake and based on ancient and ever evolving imaginary stories created, modified and redeveloped to entertain, control or brain wash masses into stark unquestioning subjugation of the Masters of Interpretations, Rituals and Ceremonies, who claim to know more and better and are prime movers of traditional religions as we know. These masters are to religion as much religion is to them.
For centuries every next transaction of these stories has been altering and adding new content to the original which keeps blurring in meaning or in its lesson to ultimately unrecognisable irrational and illogical form while masses still kept hypnotised to believe them as what happened. Though these never happened as told.
Understanding of existence or even absence of God has nothing to do with these stories or rituals based on mythical imaginary tales.
However following religious practices and even rituals, nevertheless based on imaginations and being no mean to reach associated God, have though selectively, potential to show value in creating order in society and bringing integrity of moral conduct conducive to harmonious existence and growth of overall humanity and every other life on the planet. To this extent religions can meaningfully be worthy to make human life better and more eligible to attain nirvana by understanding existence of God or even realising God’s absence on a good laugh.
If one still finds it necessary to follow, every mythical, religious story and ritual which provides universal moral preaching and imparts respect for every life, idea and belief, may not be valued on its genuineness for practical consideration but as mean to achieve better human progress, peace, happiness and societal integrity.