India has a lot to benefit from Rajiv Malhotra’s work and we better pay heed to his work, not just for him but for the sake of our nation.
It is said that the sign of progress of a nation is how well it debates ideas, evolve strategies and implement those strategies. A country needs not only the best of its thinkers but the rulers who are open to listening to those ideas. Akbar is considered great not because of his conquests but because of his openness to listening divergent views and in fact ended up creating his own religion. Krishadevaraya is known to invite best thinkers to challenge the learned men of his court and their lineage ruled a large part of India for 350 years.
In our own times, Narendra Modi is said to be open to listening different ideas that contributed to the development of Gujarat. There is a video on social media by a doctor on how he met Narendra Modi as a fresh CM of Gujarat on an airplane trip where during the course of chatting with Modi, he mentioned that the best time to take care of a child is when it is in the mother’s womb. He relates how within few days, Narendra Modi invited him and met him with a large contingent of all his officials, listened to his ideas and suggestions and implemented the schemes for pregnant women that yielded best results. If there is one complaint about Narendra Modi today is he has little time to meet such ideas/thinkers because of enormous duties as Prime Minister and the only advice he gets is from seasoned bureaucrats. Yes, there are a lot of avenues to pass information to him and his office through social media but that is different from engaging in the thought process with the best of those in the fields. One person I think he will benefit most for the country is to look closely into the works of Rajiv Malhotra and see how the country can benefit from his works.
His magnum opus eight-volume work of India’s history of Science and Technology can be a game changer from the perspective of a nation which constantly put forth as only a country of cow, caste, and curry.
The danger we face as a society is putting people especially some of the best minds in a box and ignore the message. In fact, when someone’s ideas will bring forth the truth, the forces will quickly label a person so that the message will never get heard. When someone asked Rajiv Malhotra if he is a right winger or left winger, his response was what would that person consider Gandhi to be a right or left winger. It is about free thinking with intellectual honesty. Some of the ideas Rajiv Malhotra present about the identity of the nation are extremely critical. The vacuum left by successive governments since independence in our country in developing our identity is taken advantage of many forces that today we are struggling with Dravidian movements, North Eastern aggression, Conversions and many others that have become increasingly intractable and we as a country are busy fighting fires rather than address the source of the fires. Yes, development of the country has potential to address many issues of the nation but not necessarily always as Kashmir has recently proved. No amount of development will help when forces are fighting the country ideologically.
India is spending enormous resources to build our defenses, but it is equally or even more important to spend resources to develop ideological resources of the nation. After the second world war, Churchill is believed to have said the new war is the war of the mind. Countries like the US, China not only develop their identity but spread their way of life with enormous zeal outside their borders. China invests in American academia to develop their point of views. At the same time, China brazenly demolishes the biggest churches for violation of rules and land ownership but West would not even raise a flutter but US organizations like USCIRF openly castigate India because India is viewed as a soft target that can be easily digested. We are easily digestible because we lack a strong and collective identity of who we are as a nation. Would Obama go to China give a speech about freedom of religion, nor Nikki Haley talk about it during her recent trip to India? Churches in combination with Western agencies can boast of their stupendous results in India with what some believe have converted 7 to 10% of the country that will have enormous consequences to the future of the nation when these forces are openly saying they will break India. CIA, US AID, Churches in America and West work very closely each working with its own set of goals in a cooperative and symbiotic manner.
Every lawmaker, officials, IAS and IFS officials in India need to read the extensive research and findings provided by Rajiv Malhotra’s ‘Breaking India‘. This is not a small effort but requires enormous research and resources which Indian agencies should have been doing in the first place. His book, ‘Being different‘ is an eye opener to everyone by bringing in concepts of mutual respect than tolerance and foolishly viewing all are religions are same when some religions are using the very same arguments to convert and break the country.
His magnum opus eight-volume work of India’s history of Science and Technology has the potential to change the perspective of our nation forever. This can be a game changer from the perspective of a nation which constantly put forth as only a country of cow, caste, and curry.
Leftists have been most effective, they not only waged intellectual war but also created student leaders, media who waged war on/from the ground.
Every BJP leader starts any function with obeisance to Deen Dayal Upadhyay, not because he fought any physical battle but because of his ideas, his thought process that gave birth to a nationalist party. We need to invite and respect those with intellectual honesty and rigor and benefit from it. One simply cannot do justice to Rajiv Malhotra’s work with one article. There is enormous work he did in the form of videos on youtube, conferences, original research through his organization, Infinity Foundation, that needs to go from the ambit of few thousands to millions in the nation, particularly the academics, the media and the think tanks. Doordarshan can have a series of discussions on his thought process. His works can be translated into different languages and into audios. We can provide resources to build an app to learn from his works. We need to get his work into libraries, universities of not just India, but also in the West and other nations of the world.
This is not to say Rajiv does not have flaws of his own. His impatience with mediocrity is understandable but sometimes you have to convince the mediocre as well because not everyone is intellectual. This has changed a lot. His views sometimes debating alone will help move things is not true, an intellectual war should be many times be fought with war on the ground. That is where leftists have been most effective, they not only waged intellectual war but also created student leaders, media who waged war on/from the ground. For the military to be successful, we need an effective strategy but also an efficient foot soldier contingents. Some of the works of the people he has exposed such as Wendy Doniger (who are CIA fronts) have become famous not just because of their works, but people like Rajiv Malhotra felt they are important enough to be responded. This is a trap where we are thinking we are exposing someone but in the end their profile increase and become more famous. It is a difficult and challenging balance. That said, India has a lot to benefit from his work and we better pay heed to his work, not just for him but for the sake of our nation.
Here are some resources and data from Rajiv Malhotra’s work:
First thing is to join Rajiv Malhotra Discussion group:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RajivMalhotraDiscussion/info?guccounter=1
Subscribe to his youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BreakingIndia
Infinity Foundation
https://infinityfoundation.com/
Donate here: https://infinityfoundation.com/donate/
Books by Rajiv Malhotra
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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Excellent article. Every word speaks truth.
Glad that there are people who could see through things.
Mutual respect is definitely needed for Hinduism.