tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7903195987872833754.post3537306513477174594..comments2017-04-03T22:55:27.518-07:00Comments on A Hindu Counterpoint: “Yes, bring on Bharatiyata" by Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the Indian Express website on March 29, 2017A Progressive Hinduhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15022630573677227771noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7903195987872833754.post-639172267178130272017-04-03T22:55:27.518-07:002017-04-03T22:55:27.518-07:00Comment by Vikas Bamba:
"This can hardly mea...Comment by Vikas Bamba:<br /><br />"This can hardly mean that Islam has “nourished India”! <br /><br />Yes, and well stated. Islam has been principally militant as is evident in its political forms. Islamic reformation has yet to take place though there are stray signs of it in the sprouting of progressive Islamic thinkers. The problem is that this reformation has to take place in a nuclear age. <br /><br />"If Islam had really “nourished India”, then there would have been no problems at all in unifying the Indian nation." I don't believe that the failure of the political unification of India can be ascribed solely to the thorn of Islam, though undoubtedly, as Sri Aurobindo noted in the Bande Mataram, India was "greatly disturbed and thrown into continual ferment and revolution".<br /><br />Based on Sri Aurobindo's comment below one even wonders whether Islamic Culture has given anything to the world "of fundamental importance". <br /><br />From A.B. Purani's Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo (1995), p. 59-60:<br /><br />12-9-1923<br />Disciple : The "Utkal Star" has written an article on the 15th of August and the writer points out the absence of islamic culture in the grand synthesis you have made. I believe the Modern Review also pointed out the same.<br />Sri Aurobindo: The Mahomedan or Islamic culture hardly gave anything to the world which may be said to be of fundamental importance and typically its own. Islamic culture was mainly borrowed from others. Their mathe¬matics and astronomy and other subjects were derived from India and It is true they gave some of these things a new turn. But they have not created much. Their philosophy and their religion are very simple and what they call Sufism is largely the result of gnostics who lived in Persia and it is the logical outcome of that school of thought largely touched by Vedanta.<br /><br />I have, however, mentioned that Islamic culture contributed the Indo-Saracenic architecture to Indian culture . I do not think it has done anything more in India of cultural value. It gave some new forms to art and poetry. Its political institutions were always semi-barbaric.<br />A Progressive Hinduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15022630573677227771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7903195987872833754.post-92200633168980272152017-04-03T22:54:03.218-07:002017-04-03T22:54:03.218-07:00Comment by Govind Rajesh:
Unfortunately as events...Comment by Govind Rajesh:<br /><br />Unfortunately as events since the early 1900s have demonstrated the religion of Islam itself is the problem. Wherever it goes it acts as a corrosive acid that either dissolves its non-Islamic cultural prey with constant aggressive inundations from the outside or disintegrates it gradually from within. In India this same process has continued for 14 centuries & has achieved its greatest success in the past century in the form of external Pakistan & the no less dangerous & rapidly metastasizing internal Pakistan of Muslims within India itself that has gamed India's democratic system to hold its native Hindus hostage & keep its civilizational outflowering in check. No amount of wideness of its unlucky host can change Islam’s cancerous DNA. The same tragedy is unfolding today in most western liberal societies that have flung their doors open to Islam & Muslims. My own view is that the Hindu-Muslim unity is a misleading & dangerous chimera. My focus is on 1) Hindu-Hindu unity and 2) for the New Force to flood the earth & for the power of its new creations making it impossible for the forces of ignorance & violence to even exist.<br />A Progressive Hinduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15022630573677227771noreply@blogger.com