randomGuy Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 We can talk about nature vs nurture till kingdom come but I feel Religion is a personal choice and isn't something passed down through your genes. If that is what you are getting at. He was born a Hindu, did he publicly renounce Hinduism? He gave provision for religion based laws.
surajmal Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 Why single out only educated Hindus? Educated Christians' date=' Jains, Muslims and Sikhs are also fairly Westernized in their outlook. A 20 something year old urban upper middle class guy (or girl) is going to have more in common with a person 1000s of kms in New York ( in terms of aspirations, lifestyle, priorities and values in life) than a person a few 100 kms away in the Indian hinterland.[/quote'] Screams of intellectual bankruptcy but we already know that. Million dollar question: What to do about it? I raise you an general example from my field. Just-in-Time Manufacturing. Devised by Toyota engineers in late 50s/60s, its main aim is to minimize inventory. But it is impossible to implement if your processes and infrastructure isn't tip top. Many American companies imported it in 80s and failed miserably. What was the reason? Not processes (process control to be specific) since the Japanese Industry (quality assurance) itself was built on concepts produced in the west. Clearly America wasn't lacking in infrastructure. Main reason: people. America companies couldn't replicate in their workers, the work ethic of the Japanese. I don't want to get into a Religion pissing contest but equating Pure Islam to Pure Hinduism is being disingenuous. Former is a rooted in history to a specific time and a place while latter is simply series of practices/ideas to be applied perpetually. (And if a said practice is outmoded junk it and devise a new one) Ultimately, getting back to something is really equivalent to saying: take ownership and responsibility. To do otherwise is simply being mental midgets or good Macaulay's children.
surajmal Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 He was born a Hindu, did he publicly renounce Hinduism? He gave provision for religion based laws. Nehru was a coconut. I thought it is well known fact.
randomGuy Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 Nehru was a coconut. I thought it is well known fact. The comparison was with spain , so if Spain had a leader like Nehru, maybe they would have had seperate laws from diff religions.
surajmal Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 Here are Nirad Chaudhuri's views on Nehru and Gandhis. Much better than anything I can come up with. The most striking aspect of government in India after the gift of independence by the British people was its total falsity. Nothing was authentic, nothing sincere, nothing disinterested in it. Instead of showing fear of this gift from white men, all Indians exulted over it. Those who took over the business of governing India proved the truth of the saying 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' Yet, the man who on the day of independence became virtually the dictator of India, was not himself a scoundrel or even a counterfeit. He was wholly genuine, as an Englishman of radical views. But he was not endowed with practical political capacity. As soon as with independence he abandoned his former role of demagogue, he became an ineffable ideologue, flapping his wings against the bars of the cage in which he was put by the bureaucracy. The political programme which he himself wished to put into effect was to make India a Soviet Union in technology, and a parliamentary democracy in governance. He alone did not realise that he was really a dictator without the will to exercise his dictatorial power. I said so publicly in an article published when he was living. But just as he would not act like a dictator, he could not also become a practical democratic statesman. He took refuge in escapism. He shunned all policies and actions in which he knew he would have to face the massive stability of the Indian masses and the cunning self-seeking of the professional politicians of his party. He began to build national structures like dams with the help of American engineers and public buildings with the help of Le Corbusier. His object was to bypass all realities in India. I called these material structures the pyramids of Nehru; alas! Not as long-lasting as those at Gizah. So, the task of actually governing and legislating India passed to the officials and Congress politicians, both of whom were hard-boiled opportunists and adventurers, the most hard-boiled to be seen anywhere in the world. Another natural inclination of Nehru's, which was created by his entire upbringing and education by an English tutor at home, and at Harrow and Cambridge later, was that he would not employ anybody who was not educated abroad, especially at Cambridge or Oxford. As all Indians so educated were, as a class, pure opportunists who only pursued self-interest, he got a whole cohort of them round himself. His political colleagues he was compelled to accept as the unavoidable company imposed on him by the new universal franchise. But he would not accept them as fellow-workers. He got together those who were educated abroad. This made him select as his highest adviser on foreign policy Sir Girija Shanker Bajpai, a member of the Indian Civil Service, who under the British had carried on active propaganda against the Congress in the United States. But at least he was a decent and refined opportunist. Most of the others whom he selected for important jobs were maldodorus like skunks. Thus India under the Nehru government was like castles in Spain resting on kitchens, if not sewers. I assumed that this unnatural government could not last in India and the power of the Anglicised Indian would disappear with Nehru's death, which in any case could not be far distant. At that time I was asked by a very important journal in India to write an article on the question: 'After Nehru, What?' was the crucial question and not 'Who'. My assumption did not prove to be correct. The dictatorship of the Nehru dynasty continued with short interruptions, which were like the 'accidentals' in a musical composition. The normal key was quickly restored. Its restoration as intended by those who brought in the new government in 1967, was to install a figurehead to their government. Instead it produced the opposite result. In making Indira Gandhi, the sweet and gracious daughter of Nehru, prime minister of India, they caught a Tartar. The position brought about a transformation in Mrs Gandhi's character paralleled only by the promising Ivan Romanov's becoming Ivan the Terrible. The Indian Boyars were routed. Mrs Gandhi's sole preoccupation was to remain in office and in power by foiling the Hydra-headed opposition to her in a faction-ridden political world. This made her resort to such unscrupulous yet imprudent manoeuvres that she was murdered by agents of the fanatical Akali Sikhs. http://www.rediff.com/news/nov/22nirad.htm
Swing_n_Speed Posted September 21, 2013 Posted September 21, 2013 Reading Ms Maria Wirth's article has been unnerving though. :nervous: The previous German to have an affinity for a symbol of Hinduism caused a world war. :P I kid I kid :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: :icflove::icflove: That was comedy gold rit there :hysterical:
coffee_rules Posted September 23, 2013 Posted September 23, 2013 Reading Ms Maria Wirth's article has been unnerving though. :nervous: The previous German to have an affinity for a symbol of Hinduism caused a world war. :P I kid I kid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
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