Pak Tea House » Uncategorized » Taliban, Society and The State
Taliban, Society and The State
Raza Habib Raja
A lot has been written about the phenomenon of Taliban and today a broad range of narratives try to offer various explanations about the reasons of their creation, the nature of their links with the state, their relationship with the Pashtun nationalism as well as their ability to ideologically overwhelm Pakistan.
This article will try to counter some of the commonly held perceptions about Taliban by some of the thinkers/journalists (including those who are against Taliban). It will then try to assess the possibility of a Taliban takeover of Pakistani society and state
A misperception about Taliban and quite prevalent amongst the liberal press is that state is actively supporting ALL the Taliban factions. In my opinion, the dominant “liberal” narrative that Pakistani state is actively supporting Taliban even now, is flawed because it fails to explain the fact that Pakistani army has itself fought Taliban. Even recently there have been reports of killings of army personnel by Taliban. Moreover, although the state, including the government, publicly has been opposing the drone attacks yet the fact is that prior to Osama bin Laden’s assassination, drone attacks were conducted from Shamsi Airbase in Baluchistan. These drones were and still targeting the Taliban militants. Obviously all of this had complete support of the Pakistani armed forces as well as the government.
What is probably true is that state is supporting some of the factions for its realpolitik concerns while continuing to aggressively engage others. By and large there is perhaps little to no resemblance between the monolithic version of Taliban of the 1990s and today’s fragmented and at times even mutually hostile Taliban groups.
Over the years, the state-sponsored monster has largely turned against it. Today this monster may bear little resemblance to the original version meant largely as an instrument to create the so-called strategic depth. Yes, Pakistani state may be supporting some of the groups—often the Haqqani Network is mentioned in this regard—but it cannot be fighting and supporting every group at the same time.
Let us not forget that more than 35,000 people have died during the past ten years. To simply assume that state itself is killing its own citizens and also its army personnel is stretching it too much.
This is an important fact to realize in our discourse because otherwise we are likely to come up with faulty conclusions and also end up having excessive blame on the state alone. Yes state has been responsible but with the passage of time, these actors have become more anti-state rather than its instruments.
This conclusion by no stretch of imagination diminishes the threat posed by Taliban and in fact further augments it, at least in the strict military sense. If state has less “control” over religious extremists then the extreme possibility of (i.e. takeover of the state), though remote, cannot be ruled out.
How realistic is the threat of Taliban to either ideologically takeover Pakistani society or physical takeover through military means by overthrowing the state?
I have often heard how religious Pakistan is rapidly becoming and this increasing religiosity is paving the way for an ideological takeover of the society by the Taliban. I fully agree that reigious fanaticism is on the rise and country’s ideological fabric is more religious. However, without underestimating the treat of Taliban, I really do not think that it is possible for Taliban to score any sort of ideological victory.
There are two major factors which thwart such a possibility. First, Pakistan has no singular version of Islam. Yes Pakistan is more religious compared to the past but that religiousity is not confined wthin one sect. There are many strains of religious beliefs and some of these are vehemently contradictory to Wahabi as well as Deobandi beliefs. Pakistan has substantial number of Brailvis, Shias and other sects. The lack of monolithic version of Islam makes it extremely difficult for an extreme outfit like Taliban to score an ideological victory of any sorts. They are inspired from Wahabi and Deobandi schools of thought and both of these are loathed by many other sects. The sectarian diversity, while being a reason for sectarian violence, has also acted as a countering force to the spread of scripture-based orthodox versions of Islam.
Second, Pakistan remains a society which is still largely rural and with very strong kinship and tribal characteristics. This is a very important element which makes any “revolution” whether of socialist or religious type extremely difficult. The rural cum tribal society which thrives on kinship has made Pakistan a country less vulnerable to Islamic radicalism. This fact has been explained at length by Anatol Lieven in his brilliant book titled “Pakistan: A Hard Country”. Lieven argues that the rural structure of the Pakistani society has put severe limits on radicalism.
I think rather than an ideological takeover a more realistic possibility is of Taliban becoming militarily so powerful that they take over some parts of the country or even the entire country through overthrowing the state. The former has already happened as there are areas where Taliban are in complete control and Pakistan does not enjoy sovereignty as the state has no writ and has ceded the sole authority over physical violence. However, it is still difficult for Taliban to take control of the entire country like that.
Another possibility of Taliban takeover is to gain significant influence on some of country’s key components such as armed forces. If an important section of the army can be “converted” to Taliban cause then through a coup the entire leadership can be deposed. In fact in the past there have been attempts by the Islamic extremists to do that.
Journalist Saleem Shezad has written about the possible infiltration of armed forces by Taliban and Al-Qaida, an act which eventually cost him his life. If this infiltration continues then Taliban do not have to conquer Pakistan through conventional means as they can do so through “softer” means such as a coup. Even if a coup does not take place, infiltration of key state institutions allows them to indulge in extremists activities freely and more effectively.
Apart from armed forces, we have to be watchful for sympathetic elements within civil services, judiciary and media. Eventually it is the professional classes more vulnerable to such influences.
Filed under: Uncategorized · Tags: concerns, Society, state, Taliban
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To all the responders to AHEM
don’t bother replying to this “hate preacher” brahaman called as “ahem”. He practices exactly what he criticizes. If you look around various articles on this forum, you will find him enjoying innocent kids being blown up in bomb blasts ( be it anyone’s fault, that’s not the debate), poor people dying hungary and homeless on the streets. He is just a slap on the face of humanity.
MA writes about ahem :
“…you will find him enjoying innocent kids being blown up in bomb blasts ( be it anyone’s fault, that’s not the debate), poor people dying hungary and homeless on the streets. He is just a slap on the face of humanity.”
This is how a frustrated irrational muslim man reacts. Islam has caused MA to become empty of any intelligence, wisdom and honesty.
I am a non-emotional person.
I don’t enjoy any children being blwown up nor do I lament over them. I did not create this world and take no emotional interest in it.
Muslims are blowing up children. Muslims shout “allahu akbar” when they kill. Muslims believe nothing happens except as allah’s will. Muslims believe that dead muslim children go directly to allah’s paradise. Muslims believe that dead non-muslim children go to hell.
So why is MA desperate at me? Has islam and allah made him psychologically so ill and topsy-turvy? How many such psycho-ill muslims are there on the earth? One billion, one and a half billion?
GAY GANDHI
Gandhi with some Balilla boys in Italy. Website for this image
Paul Rudnick asked Gandhi if he’d come out to his parents, and he said, “Oh, no, they’re all old-school Hindu and they wouldn’t understand.” (Paul Rudnick: “I Was Gandhi’s Boyfriend” : The New Yorker)
Joseph Lelyveld wrote a book on Gandhi, Great Soul, which relates that Gandhi had a Jewish gay ‘lover’.
Gandhi (left) and the Zionist Kallenbach (right)
Letters between Mahatma Gandhi and the Zionist Hermann Kallenbach are said to shed light on their ‘loving relationship’
The letters were bought by the Indian government in July 2012.
Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect, met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904.
Gandhi and Kallenbach became constant companions.
Gandhi and Kallenbach lived together for two years in a house in South Africa.
They promised to give one another “more love, and yet more love… such love as they hope the world has not yet seen”.
Balilla – Italian fascist youth group.
According to Lelyveld’s book, Gandhi reportedly told Kallenbach: “How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.”
Gandhi split with his wife so he could be with Kallenbach, according to Lelyveld.
Gandhi wrote that vaseline was a ‘constant reminder’ of Kallenbach.
More on the ‘sex’ stuff here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172967/Indian-government-spends-700-000-buy-letters-prove-national-hero-Gandhi-gay.html#ixzz20ZEVC5dD
Gandhi with Lord Mountbatten, who reportedly was fond of boys.
Among muslims there is a fixation on filthy and obscene words, homosexuality, sexuality, rape, bombs and bloodshed, hating jews and hindus, bootlicking arabs and turks. Every muslim sooner or later displays this fixation.
What a decrepit and sick ideology this islam is.
Manish,
Have you not noticed that a large number of peasants have invaded this blog and are trying to prevent the discussion on the article and instead want every one to discuss the practices of pagans before the word Religion was born.
Now you want to turn this sight into a class room?
I have no problem with you classifying my faith as a cult if it makes you feel good about it. Since I personaly do not give any credibility to words. However in Oxford English dictionary the definition of the religion is what I stated in my earlier post. I do not have any desire to promote or defend English language on any one. You do not have to translate Dharma, if that is what you call your cult, and leave it at that.
Rex Minor
CM
i really do not know how you are interpreting whatever you are interpreting from my posts. such ridiculous interpretations and then writing long rebuttals are a waste of your time.
i made it abundantly clear to you in my previous post that i do not think that Brahmins are the be all and the end all of scholarship and intelligence and yet you make such a blunder of comprehension?!
saying that the Brahmins are the most intelligent among the castes does not in any way imply that other castes are not intelligent.
nor did i even talk about ‘bravado’ or ‘genetic superiority’. all i said was that Kshatriyas as a group tend to be big people. that is it. no need to infer anything else into it.
no need to talk about Shivaji, no need to talk about anything else that you wasted your time on. i made it abundantly clear that Brahmins are not the proprietors of intelligence and yet you misconstrued it all missing my main point of ossification of casts leading to a passing down of certain genetic traits that have remained so because of the custom of no inter-caste marriage.
i suggest you read my post again. generalizations of certain groups are always made by anthropologists and that is why India is considered such a unique case study. so generalizing about a certain caste( Brahmins) does not imply anything about another.
calling Brahmins smart people does not imply that any other caste is stupid. why did you fall a victim to the either or none fallacy.
again, please infer dispassionately. had you done that, you would not have misconstrued my post.
when i did not even use the term ‘superiority’, you decided to attribute it to me. how did you do this?
did i ever say that Kshatriyas are ‘better’ in battle or more ‘brave’ in battle? these are words you used FOR me whereas you completely missed the drift of my post. i am the last person to deny that non-brahmins have also produced wonderful scholarship. just saying that if you look at their numbers and then look at their achievements, you wont find suh a ratio in any other group and this phenomenon can be explained by social evolution. so what was the intention of attributing this to me and then giving me your verdict of a post that you just happened to cook up? your agenda is your own.
anyway, i suggest you read up on the social evolution of India. especially the early vedic period and the manner in which social evolution perpetuated thereafter. you do not seem to have understood what i am trying to suggest.
PS i have never objected to a Muslim claiming that historically they have been better at battle than others. i have only objected to claims of invincibility in war that Minor harps about. they are two very different things. i also object to the attempt of some people to use the history of Muslims warriors to predict the future in a manner they like. this i believe, is incorrect since the nature if war has seen a paradigm shift. you seem to be on a roll as far as misinterpretations are concerned.
“HENRY”
nothing wrong with being gay whatsoever. does not change anything nor does it undermine Gandhi and his achievements in the slightest.
try another angle.
just don’t try the sleeping with nieces angle because that is not true and again, does not make the slightest difference if it was.
try something else.
Last time inbred Talibans were honored with the woman dress thus it was a Indian who thought and gave finishing touch to the Muhamad’s plan to emasculate his follwers and install his own diol as a Superman among them. If wretched Talibans ever reach indian border after removing, finishing the murtads, kaffirs and non martial of Pakjab then IMHO, 2 Piece Bikini will be made their national dress .
They say in india, when dog’s time approach, It rund to City. Same way whenever Islamist time for departure from this world comes, he/she runs toward India.
And just to make sure they understand the equality, The Bikini dress will be made obligatory on both male and females over the age of puberty. We are very fair people only.
CM
in that post which you made an unpalatable stew out of, i even said, “all this is NOT to say that other castes do not display intelligence( they obviously do) but to say that Brahmins, becasue of the unique process of social evolution in India do so more than any other caste.”
just cant understand under what circumstances you interpreted what you did. just leaves me baffled. you literally made a xenophobic, severely bigoted racist out of me!
thank you very much for that.
nothing wrong with being gay whatsoever. does not change anything nor does it undermine Gandhi and his achievements in the slightest
partition of india was a planned zoinist game.bose was far better leader than gandhi.he was chief recruiter of indians for british forces.
he went to south africa for money leaving his wife to others.stayed there for 22 years.came india to promote brhmnsm and put brake on reforms.ramrajya is apartheism.begger marwari banias became billionaire.cheated everybody.used to sleep naked with many young girls.
he was father of which nation,i dont know.brhmn killed him dalit hated him.muslims avoided him.khatris rediculed him.
A muslim who finds out the truth about muhammed faces two problems to fully get out the cult of Islam –
1 guilt of following a false prophet
2 emptiness after Islam
For 1 it is not a Muslims fault that he has been fed lies since childhood
For 2 we will have to learn to live without a god.
PS i have never objected to a Muslim claiming that historically they have been better at battle than others.
khatris were terrorising local population and collect money from poor indians.when brhmns found u people useless theybrought parusram to physically liquidate u.
with muslim warriors u have no comparison.
i made it abundantly clear that Brahmins are not the proprietors of intelligence and
except frauds tell me one invention of brhmn.
“NC,
.
You couldn’t do worse than quoting Aakar Patel, a classified jackass. He has written such pearls as how he sat in a bistro in Bangalore and heard some words of wisdom emanating from one corner and instantly concluded that those chosen words were from the mouth of a South Indian Brahmin, and lo and behold! it turned out to be the case.
.
First of all, we should stop talking about how caste system was fluid and all that. That was so long ago that it doesn’t matter at all. At that time we also sacrificed horses and ate beef and women took multiple husbands. So, that view of how this was so and so is completely irrelevant. You have a point that “vocational practices and tastes may “run in the families” “, but we are talking about scholarship not vocational practices. If scholarship entails innovative and exhaustive learning then it cannot be considered to “run in the family”. That thinking is the root cause of most of our ills. We cannot compete in Olympics because genetically we are not made for that stuff. I mean, we are not made for sports, scholarship in international journals is barely visible. So what do we do best? That is a very lazy argument.”
.
CM,
.
We need to restore some sanity here. There is a danger of falling to the levels of tajender and Rex Minor which all of us must avoid.
.
Quoting Aakar Patel was in the context of something I cited for Gujarat. He being a Gujarati himself would probably give a correct information about his own state.
.
I agree with you that the caste system may have been fluid at some time is an irrelevant argument now. A much more relevant point is it hasn’t remained so and that has been a curse to our society. But here we were discussing why and how scholarship and Brahmins became associated with each other. You said they didn’t and even if they did it was at the cost of the other castes. What I said in response was specifically in that context and with no intention of establishing or proving anything else.
.
Note that we are discussing an era (Aryabhatta, Kalidasa) about which very little is known in written documents (not least because of the burning down of the libraries). My point was simply that there could be another angle to it (other than simply saying the Brahmins made everyone’s lives miserable), that it wasn’t that only Brahmins could study and the others were denied it, but anyone who attained a certain degree of scholarship would automatically be called a Brahmin. In the Mahabharata, the terms Rishi/Mooni and Brahmin were used interchangeably and, as you well know, some of the greatest Rishis (Vyas, Valmiki, Viswamitra, Jabala) were not from the so called high castes. In the same vein we have no idea what castes Aryabhatta or Brahmagupta belonged to and yet somehow they are all vaguely known as Brahmins. Simply saying that Brahmins deprived everybody and kept all education and learning for themselves, what concrete evidence there is of that? It could very well be that it was simply a matter of aptitude and taste and anyone who was engaged in scholastic activities would automatically be known as Brahmins (or Rishi or Sage or Priest). That the Priests were engaged in education and scholarship was certainly not unique to India, rather it was a general phenomenon all over the world including Europe.
.
The notion that the Brahmins somehow have historically dominated the subcontinent is also a false notion. Like everywhere else, the Khstriyas (Rajas) and the Vyasyas (Shresthis) have dominated most spheres of life and this is not unnatural. It is true that the Brahmins or the Priestly class have theoretically been given the highest status (in books written by the Brahmins!) but in reality they have always been at the mercy of the Rajas and the Shresthis. So the one-sided argument from the likes of tajender that the Brahminism somehow is at the root of every evil that bedevils India today is probably false.
.
“You have a point that “vocational practices and tastes may “run in the families” “, but we are talking about scholarship not vocational practices. If scholarship entails innovative and exhaustive learning then it cannot be considered to “run in the family”.”
.
It’s a matter of habit, aptitude and taste. One who has been raised in a business family, however small a business, usually does not think of holding a job. He/she rather starts another business and thus Billionaires are born (most of them in India from Gujarat). It is the same with education. Education used as vocation eventually lead to scholars. You may or may not want to attach a particular tag to which people or communities are inclined to one kind of activities or another, but at the level of families such differences exist. It just so happens that in India they have acquired different name tags, but the resultant ossification and exploitation are results of an arrested social development which we have started to unravel only recently.
.
“I mean, scholarship in international journals is barely visible. So what do we do best?”
.
I think I don’t agree with you there. While we do not come up with earth shaking discoveries at the rate the Americans or the Europeans do, but, at least in science, the two other people visible in international journals other than the Americans and the Europeans are definitely Indians and Chinese.
“henry”
they brought Parashuram to physically liquidate us.
and yet here i am.
“henry”
whenever you indulge in an argument, remember to support your hypothesis with some proof.
Gandhi was the first of the modern leaders of India who campaigned widely for the abolition of untouchability. he was the one who fought for Dalit’s and Muslims and he was shot for siding with Muslims everytime there was a riot.
as far as the Taliban are concerned, if hating them is being wrong, then i am willing to be wrong for the rest of my life.
today , in a democratic India, the Brahmin has no power and no say. there is no way in which he can deprive anyone of anything because his numbers are too small and caste politics is the order of the day today.
your anti-Brahmin rants are just a critique of a bygone time. besides your attack on Brahmanism is an excuse to attack Hinduism in general because various posts you have referred to Hindus as ‘snakes’, idiots, people who are frauds, cheats and so on and so forth. the fact that you interchange Hindu and Brahmin just goes to show what you are attempting.
as far as Muslim fighters is concerned, i do not think that they are genetically better but i have no problem with someone else making such a claim. i just have a problem with claims of invincibility. Muslims had better logistics entering India and that has always helped them( cavalry, artillery, gunners etc).
by that logic, the power dynamic of the world would suggest that the Caucasians are the best fighters in the world.
apart from India, their colonies included most of the modern day Muslim countries. the answer to that also lies in logistics and the difficulties in rising up in a revolution considering each individual has a different set of priorities( home, family etc). these are the same for anyone in any part of the world and has nothing to do with ‘genetic superiority’ whatever that ridiculous phrase means as has been suggested here.
Gandhi was the first of the modern leaders of India who campaigned widely for the abolition of untouchability
dalit should nottt convert to islam,was the only concern ghandhi had for them.
Tajender
Gandhi’s own elder son converted to Islam and he had no problem with it and you talk about Dalit’s. for a man like Gandhi, spirituality could be found in every religious text. so even though he was a devout Hindu, he was a devout Christian, a devout Muslim and a devout sikh.
this is why in his prayer meetings he used to read from all religious texts.
in the period when communal tensions were running high, he would continue reading from the Koran even though Hindu fundamentalists asked him not to.
and you could not even spare him?! the model of secularism? this is how you force certain people into a corner. if you have an issue with Gandhi, then obviously you have an issue with every other Hindu because nobody else can boast of more secular credentials. and when this is your position, when you hate even the most secular of Hindus, you give rise to the hate that then spawns groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena. and then the irony of it all is, you end up spewing venom against the groups that your hate created.
you are a fool Tajender. at least realize that and your ways when someone point it out to you.
also, you were talking about Muslims Nobel laureates vs Hindu Nobel laureates like as if it was a competition., trust me, i will be the happiest when Muslims take to holistic education as a group. my issue is that they are not because many Muslims are not able to be eclectic as far as Islam is concerned which is due to a variety if factors which includes the nature of the Koran, Islam, the environment it creates and so on.
here, watch what some intellectuals think about the narrative of Islam through the ages. Hasan Nissar is a man i can relate with since his reading and analyses is not influenced by his religion or emotions as he explains in this video.
http://youtu.be/geyXlmfsHSQ
Tajender
Hindus have won more Nobel prizes for science and if you look at the number of Hindus and Muslims in the world then you realize that there are some 2 Muslims for every Hindu. considering that in your calculations.
it is sorry that things have come to this, but this is the level to which you force someone to stoop if one is to carry out a conversation with you.
NC,
I won’t waste space talking about Aakar Patel beyond saying that he knows as much about Gujarat as I know about Timbuktu.
.
First of all, I would like to qualify my definition of what I meant by fluidity in caste system. It may have been true that caste was merely a tag in ancient times but it became ossified later on. It remained fluid to an extent in all ages, by which I mean that certain castes moved up and down but there was no movement ***between*** the castes.
.
“But here we were discussing why and how scholarship and Brahmins became associated with each other. You said they didn’t and even if they did it was at the cost of the other castes.”
.
That is not the crux of my argument. I have no issue with accepting that the notion of scholarship has been appended (for right or wrong reasons) with Brahmins. My problem is with the reasoning behind it and the deductions based on that reasoning. What you have said is certain qualities(vocational) “run in the family”. A straight-forward logical step from then on is to imply that some sort of “selection” process has led to such a phenomenon.
.
“It just so happens that in India they have acquired different name tags”
.
Things would be fine if it was a mere tag. You wouldn’t talk about ossification if it was merely a tag, would you? That is the basic point I am making. Now the cost factor: It is true that brahmins who did the learning stuff did so on their own volition or followed a family profession just like a trader sitting on his shop does. However, this is not such a straightforward comparison. Anyone can engage in trade. That was not true with the job apportioned by Brahmins. Now we don’t for sure when it happened, whether it happened in Aryabhatt time or Brahmagupta’s time, but we know for sure that the bulk of population(lower castes) were completely cut off from any kind of education. If someone from the lower castes came up periodically it was after a humungous effort and hardship. This has been true even in recent times. So that point about the cost is very valid. Therefore, if people claim that the bulk of scholarship was done by the Brahmins then they have to be reminded at what terrible cost that was achieved. And I am frankly not impressed by the overall output. When I talked about scientific achievements in the modern age, I was specifically referring to those brahmins whose innate qualities made them predisposed towards scholarship. Their output, regretfully, is very little. You have to understand that there was a section of population that did nothing except read or learned by rote those scriptures that 90% of the population didn’t understand nor would give a rat’s ass if they were making a mistake in pronunciation or whatever. And after all that support, you get an Aryabhatta or Brahmagupta every 500 years or so. That is a sorry return on investment. And the point about vocation or innate ability has been thoroughly debunked in modern times. Infosys is a perfect example: Behind the veneer of an intellectual, the company, at its basic level, is more bania than the best of banias.
Fingolfin,
I’ll address your post in detail but before that I want to make sure I understand what you are claiming and which I didn’t understand before. I also noticed that after your initial claim you have backtracked a bit and have added qualifiers that are, frankly, needless.
.
What you have essentially stated is that due to certain reasons(sociological or whatever) certain groups of people acquire certain qualities, which means that they are better at it than others. Those qualities can be qualitative, like intelligence (though how you measure it is a complete mystery to me) or physical attributes, as displayed by muscular frames of Kshatriyas. Your reasoning for the above mentioned effect is some sort of initial selection(voluntary I presume, due to “innate” qualities) which was maintained through ages by the absence of inter-caste marriages. I will expand in detail on both these aspects because, as I said before, your logic and the subsequent deductions, in addition to the facts, is way off the mark.
.
“did i ever say that Kshatriyas are ‘better’ in battle or more ‘brave’ in battle? these are words you used FOR me whereas you completely missed the drift of my post. ”
.
That is just the logical implication of your argument. If one particular quality like intelligence can be handed over from one generation to another, then why not bravery? You cannot claim that I got it wrong because you have written copious amount on the achievement of many Brahmins and their impressive numbers in IIT and IIM, which I also have doubts about.
.
“just saying that if you look at their numbers and then look at their achievements, you wont find suh a ratio in any other group and this phenomenon can be explained by social evolution.”
.
If the social evolution that you are talking about is the reasoning offered for such a phenomenon, then it’s a completely flawed one.
.
“PS i have never objected to a Muslim claiming that historically they have been better at battle than others.”
.
You should. Because that is another nonsense frequently parroted by the Islamist. At the height of its power, the Caliphs were ground to dust by the “barbarians” of their time, the Mongols, who, to quote Rexie, cared two hoots for one mighty god and his assorted prophets.
Rex Minor has not said anything of the sort but the reported history says that the entire mongol Nation converted to Islam and declared their allegance to ONE God, once they had conquered the whole world. They did so not out of fear of muslim armies which were defeated by them because to be a muslim means to be good. This is what the Pashtuns Afghans did as well.
It is incorrect to state that historicaly muslims have ben better than others, per say. There is no such thing as Islamists, it is simply a hostile word used in the media by satans and the enemies of Islam. Wars are fought, won or lost on several grounds. Most wars initiated by muslims in history have been lost.But most wars initiated by satanic forces including those of catholic church initited crusades were defeated. The stregnth of muslims is on account of their compassion and love for each other and the next one, the neighbour and the weaker human and is imbedded in their geist(mind and soul) when they are born. This comes to play when the cause for the struggle is righteous and not unjust and satanic.
Rex Minor
Martin Luther King was a great womaniser; but what he did to promote the acceptnce of Black slaves as equals in the American society cannot be ignored by the fellow blacks. The day he was killed by a white man was the darkest time for thhe Americans.
Mahatma Gandhi was a human and as such a sinner as all f us are. But his philosophy of non violence resistance not only impacted the characteristis of a famous Pashtun Bacha Khan who became a mouse instead of a Tiger, but it has impacted the generation of his times and the one after him. The day he was cu down by a fellow hindu is the darkest time in the history of Hindus which later culmnatedin the massacre of Sikhs and desecrations of sikh temple as subsequen murder of the radicaly violent Hindu leader. While the name of Mahatma Ganghi lives on with non violence, Indian hindus as a whole are today the most violent and anti muslim people known in the world. Indian torture against Kashmiri people is only second to that of George W crusade against Iraq which continues today by the man with a Kenyan father.
Rex Minr
Gandhi’s own elder son converted to Islam and he had no problem with it and you talk about Dalit’s. for a man like Gandhi, spirituality could be found in every religious text. so even though he was a devout Hindu, he was a devout Christian, a devout Muslim and a devout sikh
he was fraud.what muslims wanted wss employment and better life ,wht he gave ,khilafat movement.what indians wanted was modern state what he he gave was ramdhun.he was a hindu revivalist.hindu past was very bad.
tajender is fraud. that is the only word that he knows and it fits him most.
CM
why don’t you just ask me what i meant instead of passing judgement again and again? obviously it stems from some deep seated arrogance on your part which frankly is unsettling. first you were disappointed in me, then you advised me to clear the webs in my head, now it is the accusation of backtracking.
as far as Kshatriyas are concerned, let me make it final and clear now that i never implied ‘genetic superiority’, a term i find unpalatable given the gross misuse of the term by various groups depending on their definition of superior( Hitler and the Aryans). if i meant that, you can be sure i would have used word and phrases like ‘genetic superiority’ , ‘braver’ and ‘better’. the fact that i did not mean that means that i did not imply them. understood?
the only statement i made was that they are ‘bigger’. the manner with which this is explained is that size in the annals of world history, has played a role in creating a certain perception among people of being ‘warlike’. and so, this perception then gave rise to bigger, intimidating people gravitating towards the profession whether out of their own proclivity or at the insistence of others. this has then created the narrative of Kshatrya being bigger so they were invariably part of the war machine.
i have never used the words ‘better’ because i know that size does not mean that you are better at war. there are many other parameters that go into deciding ‘better’ at war. a shorter man might be a better swordsman than a bigger man and so a better warrior.
a man who has an acute war acumen will make a better soldier than a bigger one. you either did not know this yourself, or you thought that my thought process was remarkably ordinary when you mistook my ‘bigger’ as better and genetically superior’.
the reason that Kshatriyas in India are bigger on an average is because as i have already mentioned, because of that mindset in days gone by which size was on of the primary markers for being part of the army and this created the Kshatriya narrative. an army comprising of bigger men is more intimidating and in those days of hand to hand combat, size was perceived as an advantage although it was not necessarily one.
as far as Brahmins are concerned, intelligent per say, does not have too many other parameters associated in describing it( like warfare) so it is much easier to make a generalization. i am implying that they are smarter. period.4 out of India’s six Nobel laureates are Brahmins and that too when their numbers in India are that much smaller.Ramanujan, India’s one great modern mathematician was one. all this is too compelling not to allow for a safe generalization that has its explanation in social evolution. plus i know of several other scientists and scholars who have not gained that much recognition. the run of the mill scientist in India premier research institute are also Brahmins( i know. i am there very often and grew up in the institutes backyard.) growing up among them has also reinforced it. i have only just about managed to compete with them and not been able to with others in the fields of Math and Science.
but neither does implying that Brahmins are smart mean that others are not, and nor does implying that Kshatriyas are big mean that they are ‘better’ at war and genetically superior as you foolishly thought.
i hope i have cleared your misconception although i have no idea what you will interpret out of this.
we can agree to disagree of course. you are probable under a different impression as far as social evolution at the early vedic age is concerned. time is not a factor here since through time the ossification of the caste has meant that certain genetic traits have remained. so time is not a factor simply because all humans are the descendants of roughly 10000 humans. there was a time when the future of mankind was in jeopardy( during the last ice age that vanquished the Neanderthals).
considering this, almost everyone is distantly related within certain population groups like the Indian subcontinent. so you can safely say that i am the descendant of Ashoka the great and you will not be wrong. this comes from Anthropological studies of the recent history.
in this backdrop, when you add a paradigm such as vocational caste system and then ossify it with no inter-caste marriage, then certain genes amplify their assertion and make their characteristics dominant. so when looked through the lens of the narrow gene pool of humanity , the creation of vocational caste based society and the paradigm such as an a rigid caste system, the kind of time you are talking about( 3 or 4 thousands years) really does not match up compared to the millions of years of history of mankind to alter or dilute the effect of perpetuating certain genes by marrying in such a narrow spectrum of society.
CM
it is hilarious that you take the example of Infosys. this innovation oriented company was founded exclusively by Brahmins( one of the founder is a father of my classmate). Raghavan, Gopalakrishnan, Shibulal, Nandan Nilekani and Narayan Murthy are all Bramins.
just clarifying. as far as the backbone is concerned, no backbone can comprise of only Brahmins since their population is miniscule but the ideation and the thought process of starting it( which is most important) was done by Brahmins.
example of Infosys
infosys was doing their forfathers were doing,SELLING INDIAN LABOUR AT CHEAPEST POSSIBLE PRICE.DID HE INVENTED ANY PROGARAMM LIKE SKTPE.
Fingolfin
UNDER HINDU INDIA,HOW MANY INDIANS GOT NOBLE PRIZE.AWNSER IS NIL.UNDER HINDU SYSTEM PEOPLE COMMITTING FRAUD WILL SHINE NOT INTELLECTUALS.
Tajender
out of the people i named, only Tagore got the Noble prize before Independence.
Fingolfin,
in this tête-à-tête with tajender, you will waste valuable time. Set up your own blog or something!
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tajender has more lies up his musharraf (ass) than neurons in his brains!
out of the people i named, only Tagore got the Noble prize before Independence
since india became hindu india from 1947,no indian got noble price.some nris who brought up in foriegn atmosphere,where education is respected got recognization.but there also more are arrested on financial corruption.many mny babas are in jail for attempted rape on teens.
tajender is like a drugged man with an iron rod in his hand hitting out in all directions in a crowd.
Just as muslims send chidren with bombs strapped on them, similarly the arab god and Mohammad have sent tajender to lie and slander.
One wonders who is handling tajender – like the terrorists in Mumbai (Nov. 2008) were handled from agents of islam in Karachi.
tajender is like a drugged man with an iron rod in his hand hitting out in all directions in a crowd
tell me if anything is wrong.hundeds of babas are srving jail sentences in america for attempting rape on minors.a boy strapped to avoid innocent casaulities.ur huge economic offences kills the families of innocents.
Mumbai (Nov. 2008) were handled from agents of islam in Karachi.
26/11 was work of sacred brhmns of indian intelligence.aim was to kill honest socialist brhmn KARKARE and pressurize pakistant and drown india in communal riots.that is why no enquiry commission was established to find truth and recently pakistani investigating team was not allowed to question kasab and other witnesses.
immediately after 26/11 nk narayan an evil brhmn and chief of indian intelligence was sent to bengal as governor.it seeems operation had no prior approval of sonia jee.
Fingolfin says:
July 20, 2012 at 7:05 am
“henry”
they brought Parashuram to physically liquidate us.
and yet here i am.
that is why sindh was given to muslims and hind they(brhmn)kept.
to tajender
How can Sonyajee work without consulting tajender, the biggest intellectual product of islam? Allah himself is indebted to tajender for tajender’s fits of brilliances and advices.
Dear Fingolfin,
I apologize if I sounded arrogant. Having said that, if I appeared scornful, it was because most of the academically sounding tosh you have written is really just that, silly and contradictory.
I will write in detail now that you have cleared some doubts but I’d be very pleased if you refer to these sociological and anthropological studies that you have harped on. I am really curious now.
Also, do explain what you mean by the following paragraph in simple clear english:
“in this backdrop, when you add a paradigm such as vocational caste system and then ossify it with no inter-caste marriage, then certain genes amplify their assertion and make their characteristics dominant. so when looked through the lens of the narrow gene pool of humanity , the creation of vocational caste based society and the paradigm such as an a rigid caste system, the kind of time you are talking about( 3 or 4 thousands years) really does not match up compared to the millions of years of history of mankind to alter or dilute the effect of perpetuating certain genes by marrying in such a narrow spectrum of society.”
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I think you are contradicting yourself. But I’ll wait for your explanation.
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“it is hilarious that you take the example of Infosys. this innovation oriented company was founded exclusively by Brahmins( one of the founder is a father of my classmate). Raghavan, Gopalakrishnan, Shibulal, Nandan Nilekani and Narayan Murthy are all Bramins.”
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Thank you. You probably didn’t notice that you have, in fact, proved my objections. That these caste brahmins, no doubt having scholary genes/inclinations/habits (whatever you want to call it) could so easily take up entrepreneurship, which was, for most part, according to you, a result of habit inculcated over centuries, proves either of two things:
(1) Entrepreneurship is easier than scholarship.
(2) There is very little effect of what you describe as “since through time the ossification of the caste has meant that certain genetic traits have remained”, since most of these gentlemen were first generation entrepreneurs.
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“intelligent per say, does not have too many other parameters associated in describing it( like warfare) so it is much easier to make a generalization.”
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I would think it’s precisely the opposite.
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” i am implying that they are smarter. period.”
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I think you should leave your verbal jujitsu for something else. Saying A is smarter than B means that B is less smart as compared to A. Very helpfully, you have taken the example of few people you know and some nobel laureates and concluded that it is true in general. I mean, if we start taking such sample sets for our theories, then we have our own renowned Ahem here and there were some others who periodically gave evidence of their high scholarship. Do you think I should conclude the opposite: that marrying within the caste over thousands of years has had the opposite effect?
CM
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“I won’t waste space talking about Aakar Patel beyond saying that he knows as much about Gujarat as I know about Timbuktu.”
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I have no idea why you say that but this is a minor point. Let me just say that the context in which I referred to him – whether or not they sell translated Bengali novels in Gujarat book stores – is a verifiable fact. This is not one of his opinion pieces that touch many raw nerves in India and Pakistan. It’s very easy for a Gujarati to confirm or refute such a claim with very little effort. It beats me therefore why Patel, himself a Gujarati, would make a patently erroneous (but falsifiable) claim in a national newspaper. But I will let it pass.
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“That is not the crux of my argument. I have no issue with accepting that the notion of scholarship has been appended (for right or wrong reasons) with Brahmins. My problem is with the reasoning behind it and the deductions based on that reasoning. What you have said is certain qualities(vocational) “run in the family”. A straight-forward logical step from then on is to imply that some sort of “selection” process has led to such a phenomenon.”
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I didn’t get the straightforward logic in your argument. Let me give you an example to clarify my point. In Bengal especially in Calcutta almost all the businesses are owned by the Marwaris and the Gujaratis. (This is true even in Mumbai where the industry houses are almost invariably Gujarati and Marwari while the typical Marathi is in the middle class). It was common for a typical middle class Bengali to resent the success of business savvy Marwaris as if the Bengalis were deliberately shut out from the business world. This, despite the fact that having your own independent business is considered among Bengalis as some sort of an inferior career choice to having a regular risk free professional job with a fixed salary. So this is what I meant by habit aptitude and taste; I do not see where and how these qualities imply some sort of “selection process” that has led to the business dominance of the Marwaris.
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“Things would be fine if it was a mere tag. You wouldn’t talk about ossification if it was merely a tag, would you? That is the basic point I am making.”
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The ossification can very well be a phenomenon of the last few hundred years. Confined only to the periphery of the mainstream political and social life it’s not unnatural for cultures to become inward-looking insular and dogmatic. Nirad C. Choudhury is probably right on mark here (despite all his faults he is not known to flatter anyone, least of all the Indian nationalists). It took a politically relevant urban open and relaxed city people to produce Meghdutam, Kamasutra, or the eroticism of Khajuraho and Konark. Can we imagine the 16th or 17th century village Hinduism (the word “village” here understood in the proper context) to produce another Meghdutam or Kamasutra? The arrested development resulting in the ossification of castes could very well be a similar degeneration. There is of course nothing to conclusively prove this hypothesis (not enough documents) but it doesn’t seem unreasonable in the overall trend of things.
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“Now the cost factor: It is true that brahmins who did the learning stuff did so on their own volition or followed a family profession just like a trader sitting on his shop does. However, this is not such a straightforward comparison. Anyone can engage in trade. That was not true with the job apportioned by Brahmins. Now we don’t for sure when it happened, whether it happened in Aryabhatt time or Brahmagupta’s time, but we know for sure that the bulk of population(lower castes) were completely cut off from any kind of education. If someone from the lower castes came up periodically it was after a humungous effort and hardship. This has been true even in recent times. So that point about the cost is very valid. Therefore, if people claim that the bulk of scholarship was done by the Brahmins then they have to be reminded at what terrible cost that was achieved.”
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I would say there is evidence of that for *only* in recent times and even then poverty as a cause should be factored in. Let’s keep the case of the so-called “out-castes” out of this discussion. The treatment meted out to them (not just by Brahmins), not wholly dissimilar to that in segregated America, is nothing short of indefensible. But aside from that, do you really think the Ksatriyas or the Vaishays were denied an education? How about the Rajas the Amatyas the Shresthis? Why would then only the Brahmins be associated with scholarship? Can individual and family inclination be a factor here? Could it be also that anyone who became a scholar came to be known as a Brahmin? If the Rajas and the Shresthis were not denied education, and the Brahmins still became associated with scholarship, why do you hold the Brahmins responsible for the cost factor?
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I would go on and ask what evidence there is that even the Shudras were denied an education? Please don’t bring in the Manusmriti here. If there was one Manusmriti, there are too many instances in the Puranas and the Mahabharatas exactly telling a different story. Satyakam the son of Jabali (a prostitute) (hence Jabal Satyakam) was not denied an education and was a very learned man. Was Karna the son of a charioteer (hence a Shudra) denied an education? Going over the conversation of Yuddhisthira with Dharma one will find a substantial rebuttal of Manusmriti right there. Now, I am forced to bring in all this mythology because that’s the only (indirect) evidence of the pre middle age Indian society out there. And that society seems much more relaxed and open than that in the next thousand years. This later period is also the most unproductive in the long history of India. That itself is some evidence that a doctrinal degenerated society like this could not have produced the Aryabhattas, the Kalidasas, and the Kamasutras.
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One final point about denying education to the Shudras (even within the span of the last few hundred years). There is a community of people in Bengal, the so-called Baidya Brahmins (the Sen-Guptas, Das -Guptas, etc), who apparently were Shudras initially but became Brahmins after they acquired expertise in medicine (hence “Baidya Brahmin”). This is not a small community by any means (although no one cares about their caste identity any more) and even now they are disproportionately represented in the practice of medicine. What does it say about your claim of denial of education to the Shudras and the lack of movement between castes?
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“And I am frankly not impressed by the overall output. When I talked about scientific achievements in the modern age, I was specifically referring to those brahmins whose innate qualities made them predisposed towards scholarship. Their output, regretfully, is very little. You have to understand that there was a section of population that did nothing except read or learned by rote those scriptures that 90% of the population didn’t understand nor would give a rat’s ass if they were making a mistake in pronunciation or whatever. And after all that support, you get an Aryabhatta or Brahmagupta every 500 years or so. That is a sorry return on investment.”
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First off, if we are talking about the age of Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta (fully unaware of their caste identity), the scientific and literary contributions of the sub-continent were nothing short of phenomenal. We all know about the usual discoveries of numerals zeros etc. so let’s not repeat those. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that even the famous Fibonacci number (named after the famous middle age Italian mathematician Fibonacci) has a deep Indian connection. It turns out the Indian mathematician by the name of Hemachandra invented and discussed the number and its associated theory at least fifty years before Fibonacci and lo and behold Fibonacci was fully aware of that and actually acknowledged it in his treatise which went by the name of Number Theory from the East or something. This is just one relatively little known example but let’s not digress here.
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About more recent times I must say you are not being sincere enough to think it through. you have not factored in the poverty the malnutrition the lack of resources the absence of industry the insularity and above all the conservative doctrinal unintellectual turn of Indians themselves in the last few hundred years. Even so, despite the fact that citing a few examples does not prove anything, if you take a tally of Indians excelling in science in just a few decades of its modern existence, you will see that it’s not bad at all for a abjectly poor country like ours.
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Let’s also not make it a Brahmin vs non-Brahmin argument. Kayasthas, the traditional Indian professionals, have been equally successful. The media, for instance, is singularly dominated by them. Both Boses (S. N. Bose of the Boson fame and Sir J. C. Bose now IEEE acknowledged father of wireless communication in the form of millimeter scale wave transmission), Sens, Rays, etc (forgive me if I have just Bengali examples at the top of my head) are Kayasthas. Meghnad Saha on the other hand would be classified as a scheduled caste in today’s terminology. He is the classic case where the humongous effort you speak of has its origin in poverty not social discrimination.
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In the end I completely agree with you that one should not give any importance to the caste identity (I never thought I would), but I had to cite these examples only because you made a claim to the contrary.
no-communal,shudras got education during british era.brhmns were medical profession so das guptas or baidh brhmns entered.during hindu period,even swarsati was kept illetrate.
no-communal,shudras got education during british era.brhmns were medical profession so das guptas or baidh brhmns entered.during hindu period,even swarsati was kept illetrate.
brhmns were not ready to take medical as profession so shudras like das guptas or baidh brhmns entered in this proffession..during hindu period,even swarsati was kept illetrate.
If there is one invention an Indian made in the modern times that changed the world it is Prof. J. C. Bose’s discovery of solid state diode detectors which led to wireless communication. CM, the following does not particularly relate to your earlier post, but since there is some free time to kill in the weekend I did a little internet research (mostly the IEEE website, IEEE: world’s largest professional association for technology based in the US) on the origin of wireless communication. In 1998 the IEEE brought out a special issue on the 100 years of semiconductor diode detectors commemorating Bose’s discovery in 1997 (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?sortType%3Dasc_p_Sequence%26filter%3DAND%28p_IS_Number%3A14340%29&pageNumber=2). The issue also includes a scan of the world’s first patent (discovered only recently after an exhaustive search of the US Patent Office) on semiconductor diode detectors for wireless communication taken by Bose.
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Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves in 1895, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. In 1896 the Daily Chronicle of England reported: “The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel.” Popov in Russia was doing similar experiments, but had written in December 1895 that he was still entertaining the hope of remote signalling with radio waves. The successful wireless signalling experiment by Marconi on Salisbury Plain in England was not until May 1897. The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Calcutta predates all these experiments. Later in 1899, Bose unveiled his invention of the mercury coherer with the telephone detector in a paper at the Royal Society. This same Mercury coherer technology was used by Marconi for his demonstration of transatlantic communication in 1901. Marconi was later awarded the Nobel Prize and Bose has remained unknown. Investigations by the IEEE group show that both Bose and Marconi were in London in 1896-97 and Bose said he was not interested in commercial telegraphy and that others could use his research work.
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Not many people know about J. C. Bose today but if there were two geniuses India produced in the modern times they had to be J. C. Bose and S. Ramanujan.
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All this is not particularly relevant to your earlier post on Indian science (since you mainly questioned the contributions of the “Brahmins”) but I just figured this was an interesting fact one could share about Indian science in general. I also reproduce below the abstract of the main article in the special IEEE issue (linked above) commemorating Bose’s contribution to wireless communication.
“Under the glare of a thousand Suns: The pioneering work of Sir J. C. Bose” (IEEE, Volume 86, issue 1, 1998)
.
“The origin of solid-state diode detectors of wireless waves
has been traced to Sir J. C. Bose’s pioneering millimeter-wave
propagation experiments with certain polarizing crystals during
1896–1898. His seminal paper published in the January 1897
issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society is reproduced in
this issue to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of
the invention of the solid-state diode detector. The world’s first
patent on the solid-state diode detector, invented by Bose and
taken out in the United States, is also reproduced in full in this
issue. Bose’s further pioneering work with diode detectors, then
known as “self-restoring coherers,” is discussed, in particular
his invention of the “iron-mercury-iron contact with a telephone”
detector that received the first transatlantic wireless signal of
Marconi on December 12, 1901.”
.
Keywords—Differential conductivity, galena detector, millimeter-
wave detector, millimeter-wave wireless autocoherer,polarizing crystal detector, self-restoring coherer, semiconductor
diode.
Sorry that a large part of the text came out in bold.
cells are not important body is…
let me rephrase – body is more important than cells…
an interesting map –
http://maptd.com/map/earthquake_activity_vs_nuclear_power_plants/
CM
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Find below a better formatted version of the post above:
.
If there is one invention an Indian made in the modern times that changed the world it is J. C. Bose’s discovery of solid state diode detectors which led to wireless communication. CM, the following does not particularly relate to your earlier post, but since there’s some free time to kill in the weekend I did a little internet research (mostly the IEEE website, IEEE: world’s largest professional association for technology based in the US) on the origin of wireless communication. In 1998 the IEEE brought out a special issue on the 100 years of semiconductor diode detectors commemorating Bose’s discovery. The issue also includes a scan of the world’s first patent, discovered only recently after an exhaustive search of the US Patent Office, on semiconductor diode detectors taken by Bose.
.
Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves in 1895, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. In 1896 the Daily Chronicle of England reported: “The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel.” The successful wireless signalling experiment by Marconi on Salisbury Plain in England was not until May 1897. The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Calcutta predates these experiments. Later in 1899, Bose unveiled his invention of the mercury coherer with the telephone detector in a paper at the Royal Society. This same Mercury coherer technology was used by Marconi for his demonstration of transatlantic communication in 1901. Marconi was later awarded the Nobel Prize and Bose has remained unknown. Investigations by the IEEE group show that both Bose and Marconi were in London in 1896-97 and Bose said he was not interested in commercial telegraphy and that others could use his research work.
.
Not many people know about J. C. Bose today but if there were two geniuses India produced in modern times they had to be J. C. Bose and S. Ramanujan.
.
All this is not particularly relevant to your earlier post on Indian science (since you mainly questioned the contributions of the Brahmins) but I just figured this was an interesting fact one could share about Indian science in general. I also reproduce below the abstract of the main article in the special 1998 IEEE issue commemorating Bose’s contribution to wireless communication.
“Under the glare of a thousand Suns: The pioneering work of Sir J. C. Bose” (IEEE Explore, Volume 86, issue 1, 1998)
.
“The origin of solid-state diode detectors of wireless waves has been traced to Sir J. C. Bose’s pioneering millimeter-wave propagation experiments with certain polarizing crystals during 1896–1898. His seminal paper published in the January 1897 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society is reproduced in this issue to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the invention of the solid-state diode detector. The world’s first patent on the solid-state diode detector, invented by Bose and taken out in the United States, is also reproduced in full in this issue. Bose’s further pioneering work with diode detectors, then known as “self-restoring coherers,” is discussed, in particular his invention of the “iron-mercury-iron contact with a telephone” detector that received the first transatlantic wireless signal of Marconi on December 12, 1901.”
.
Keywords—Differential conductivity, galena detector, millimeter-
wave detector, millimeter-wave wireless autocoherer,polarizing crystal detector, self-restoring coherer, semiconductor
diode.
MTG
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There’s a lot of noise from the likes of tajender that “Hindu India” is somehow illiterate. Remember the comment “you even kept Saraswati illiterate” or something like that. Even though the post is addressed to CM, pioneering contributions of an Indian to something as important as modern wireless communication (for which the Nobel Prize could easily have been awarded if not for the lack of lobbying and publicity) is indirectly directed to the likes of them.
MTG
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“let me rephrase – body is more important than cells”
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MTG, you must be someone who uses a cell phone for all kinds of things. Now close your eyes and think that the first communication between two bodies not in direct contact (in fact separated by a mile) was first invented by an Indian. The rest can be interpreted as improvements of technology. Do you still think the “body is more important than cells”? Do you think this is something worth informing the likes of tajender and Rex Minor whose favorite hobby is disparaging Indians?
nc
I appreciate you dug out that info. It does inspire, no doubt about that. Mine was a general comment, may be because Amit Goswami is still fresh in my mind.
Don’t worry much about the Rexies and tejenders, they are yelling from the well but none the less such info is important and credit should go to the deserving.
My apologies –
MilesToGo
Do listen to Amit Goswami, he is gifted with words.