fauji
1yr ago
I get that completely, I would point someone towards S Radhakrishnan, a respected scholar who also served as president of India.
The whole CW surrounding Hinduism in this current era is very fascinating and I hope I would be able to cover that in future threads.
I find it very hard to take Wendy Doniger seriously as an expert of Hinduism. It is very apparent to people born and brought up in Hindu tradition to see the inherent misunderstandings in her view regarding Hinduism.
For example, she wrote a book Shiva trying to reconcile how he is viewed as both a householder and ascetic in India. She theorized that tribes in war to attain peace adopted both opposite elements to describe the same deity, completely ignoring not only the available literature and tye depth of this contradiction. Ignoring the fact that all mythology invloving Shiva has depicted him always of being a walking contradiction, destroyer of the world acting as a protector of creation by consuming the poison with the threatening the existence of the universe, an ascetic with ash smeared all over his body despite adorning the holy river Ganga and the Moon on his head, with a nature described as calmness and yet having a fiery (would be an understatement) temper. All commentaries on Hindu thought historically starting from Vedas points to this and yet her academic assumption ignores this widely accepted fact.
fauji
1yr ago
This topic is part of a very contentious and visceral cultural war here in India with a lot of parties having vested interest in each interpretation. The whole subject is quite political. Academic Indology is extremely dominated by left leaning ideologues both in West and in India. Indology would either comprise of a postmodernist analysis of caste based power dynamics or a marxist histographical (again very anti-brahmanical) view of history which surprisingly is very pro-islamic. For example, Aryan Invasion Theory (proposed by the brilliant but very euro centric Indologist Max Weber) was defended very vigorously both through gate keeping and politicisation of any attenpt to challenge it, despite overwhelming evidence regarding a very gradual introduction of what is thought to be proto-hindu tribes Y chromosome in India(over 1000 years).
The Indic Right isn't much better as they subscribe to Out of India theory despite bery little arguments in support of it, though not many take them seriously. Currently the accepted view is Aryan Migration theory.
The fact that much of the archaelogical evidence that could have helped has been destroyed in over 500 years of Islamic invasion of India.
fauji
1yr ago
Nolan's Oppenheimer released this weekend, and I wanted to use this opportunity to both post an excellent paper about Bhagavad Gita's influence on the man and a short introduction to Hinduism to illustrate just how different it is from Abrahamic religions.
Hinduism is an umbrella term for a group of philosophical schools which is practised by people living east of the Indus River (the word Hindu is derived from the root word Sindhu, which was the Sanskrit name for the river). What is commonly understood as Hinduism in the west today (and India to a large extent) is the most popular school, called Advaita Vedanta (a monist philosophy that champions polytheism whose metaphysical view is panpsychist). Unlike Abrahamic religions, it is very difficult to define who a Hindu is, as the schools itself have very varied philosophies. In all, there are 10 major schools of philosophies, consisting of varied views from hedonistic atheism to monotheistic theism, with both dualist and monist views (there is also btw dualistic non-dualism). To quote the Supreme Court of India-
Unlike other religions in the World, the Hindu religion does not claim any one Prophet, it does not worship any one God, it does not believe in any one philosophic concept, it does not follow any one act of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not satisfy the traditional features of a religion or creed. It is a way of life and nothing more.
The diversity in schools and inherent intentional contradictions even in a singular school makes it difficult to distil an understanding to a western audience makes it difficult to explain Hinduism to someone who isn't brought up in the culture. So I will focus on explaining the concepts of Dharma, Samsara, Karma and Moksha, which are mostly (always an exception) common to the different philosophical schools.
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Dharma - Ask any modern Hindu on what does Dharma mean, and you would almost always get the answer as religion, despite this word only recently taken on that meaning and despite being far removed from the real meaning. The fact that describing its actual meaning is also difficult because it is so tied to the culture hasn't contributed in correcting this error in the mind of modern Hindu. Dharma is tied to an inherent cosmological order called Rta, and is the behaviour that is in accordance with it. It has been translated as duty, law, virtue or an obligation towards the world, and though they come close, I feel none of them describe the essence of it. A better way to understand is "what is right" on an individual and contextual level. What that means is there is no universally prescribed set of behaviours for a person to be Dharmic. A person's Dharma depends on a wide variety of factors depending on but not limited to their personality, their background, the stage of life (ashram) they are in and can be in active conflict with another person's Dharma. The principle texts even are full of contradictions regarding it. For example, Mahabharata, the epic poem of which Bhagavad Gita is a part of, is littered with multiple characters arguing "Ahimsa parmo dharma" or "non-violence is the highest dharma" despite the Mahabharata being a story about war. Even the main antagonist of the Mahabharata, Dhuryodhana, routinely uses what the characters exclaim as Dharmic to do acts which are Adharmic (opposite of Dharma).
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Samsara - Literally meaning the world, it is philosophically used to describe the wandering aimless journey of the soul (Atman) through cycles of birth and death, multiple lives as multiple beings through the universe. Tied very closely to the theory of Karma (more on that later), the samsara is the fundamental condition of living beings who experience pleasure, pain, joy, sadness tied to the material world. The conditions a person gets born in and the things a person experiences varies in different life, but the one thing that is certain is suffering (will cover this point more in the next section).
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Karma - Commonly Karma is thought to mean as "what goes around, comes around", though it literally means "action". It's the theory of Karma that means your good deeds have good effects, and bad deeds have bad effects. If you do a good Karma you accumulate merit or Punya, conversely bad Karma begets you demerit or Paap. Mind you, Karma also takes in account the intention behind the action rather than the action itself. During multiple lifetimes, your Punya and Paap either gets you appropriate circumstances or you go to Swarga (heaven) or Narka (Hell). The heaven and hell in Hinduism differs from Abrahamic religions' concept of it in two ways. First there is no required belief you need to hold to get into there, even if you believe in a flying spaghetti monster if you live a Dharmic life you get into Swarga and even the fervent believers living an Adharmic life will get into hell. Second, it is not eternal, eventually your accumulated Paap or Punya will get exhausted, and you return to Samsara and the cycle of reincarnation again. This cycle of reincarnation is the real jail, you take birth, you suffer, you find momentary joy, suffer some more, again and again and again. Maybe in some birth you finally get Dharma, you do good deeds, and that reflects in your current or the other life, but take another birth and all the understanding is lost, and you start with scratch again. Samsara is eternally changing and living in Samsara means you will get attached, maybe to pleasures, maybe to people or to life. It is certain that things will end, or you would lose them and that will cause you suffering.
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Moksha - If you are destined to suffer why accumulate good Karma in the first place, doesn't it seem all too pointless to just continue again and again. Hence, the highest goal in Hinduism isn't to accumulate good deeds, but to escape this cycle of reincarnation or attain Moksha. What the nature of it is and how to achieve it varies from school to school. Moksha is often equated to enlightenment and nirvana. In one school, it is described as a cessation of desire (Buddhism) in another removal of Ahamkara(a false ego created by oneself) or yet understanding your being. In Bhagavad Gita, the path to attain Moksha is said to lie in the 4 Yogas namely, Karma Yoga (acting without any attachment to the result of your actions), Jnana Yoga (pronounced as gyan meaning knowledge, it means understanding the nature of reality through knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (surrendering your ego and self to a deity) and Raja Yoga (introspection and understanding oneself using meditation).
This a very incomplete and limited explanation of the concepts which are vast and have a diverse set of views between different sects of Hinduism, so take that with a grain of salt.
PS- I have used a lot of words from Sanskrit and a lot of these words aren't pronounced as they are spelt(in many of them the a is silent) in latin script, so here's a list of how you would pronounce some of these words- Gita - Geet Advaita - Advait Vedanta - Vedant Swarga - Swarg Narka - Narka Karma - Karm Yoga - Yog Rta - Tr Samsara - Sansaar Moksha - Moksh Ahamkara - Ahankar(n is silent)
However, I don't see most of your comment as conflicting with the parent's claims since most of the startups you mentioned are clearly copying Western innovation.
I would disagree, for an idea to be considered an innovation it has to be novel enough to be not be thought of independently by different people. For example, the idea of having to selling your goods online and getting it delivered is a clear logical conclusion of the thought process of how to make money online. It doesn't take a counter-intuitive thought process to arrive at the conclusion that the convenience of ordering at the comfort of your home is something people would find valuable and sure enough there were multiple competing companies in 90s striving to be that company. The innovation was how to pull it off, only Amazon and EBay were the only ones who could and that too with drastically different approach. In hindsight we now know that the Amazon's strategy of being the seller rather than auctioning products of ebay was the one that made a robust ecosystem of online marketplace. Even with that approach there were plenty of companies that were using the same approach yet amazon won. Amazon's bet that focusing solely on books in the start since they were non-perishable and easy to ship, was the core insight that helped it outperform the competition. This innovation was in turn copied by Flipkart in its own quest for growth in India, and that I believe is a clear example of copying Western Innovation.
The idea of food delivery is similarly not novel enough to be called an innovation. The idea that aggregating restaurants and then providing them logistical support to get their food delivered to customers willing to pay for it is not an innovation in itself. Infact all the different food delivery companies were founded in 1-2 years of each others with an unproven market model. Its the execution and the companies solutions to problems that arise with a complex logistical network to ensure speedy delivery of food is the innovation here. Doordash and Swiggy/Zomato operate in radically different environments, and at the same time their solutions to their own market specific problems are so divergent that you cannot say that Swiggy copied Doordash and vice versa. So I disagree with the proposition that these are not innovation in their own right but copying western ones.
Another good example would be Myntra. Though selling clothes online has been around since 2 decades, Myntra's approach to the complex problem of sizing issue, search-ability, options etc is an innovation that is entirely unique to it, and the fact that Amazon despite its dominance in the online retail market hasn't been able to crack the fashion segment is a testament of how innovative Myntra's value chain is. Innovation here isn't the idea that we can order clothes online but the how easy Myntra makes it for us to buy clothes by providing good estimate of the fit of any product, simple return procedure, the ability to search for clothes that someone was wearing just by uploading their pics. You cannot juyt equate an idea as innovation.
fauji
1yr ago
Though I would admit in proportion to the talent the amount of truly game changing companies is fewer, I would argue that there is much happening in Indian It. The reason why there is an impression that there is not much happening is due to not much mainstream attention being paid to it.
Food delivery companies are thriving here despite the Indian market not being mature enough for that segment(Indians prefer home cooked food more). Swiggy and Zomato both have order volumes comparable to Doordash despite being limited to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. A lot of people in Tier 1 cities prefer ordering food online, all 3 times rather than cooking food or going out. The delivery time and price is also reasonable. The effect has been so massive that many brands have been created focusing on catering to online food delivery market, with entire buildings dedicated to cloud kitchens coming up. Both of them also made forays into the grocery delivery business promising delivery in 10-15 minutes. The reason why it is not on radar in the US is compared to doordash the revenue is significantly smaller(average order price is $5 here since food is cheaper here).
On the other side in the telecom, Jio's massive disruption of Indian market resulted in 90% decrease in price of mobile data in a year. In addition to that the number of Telecom providers from 10 to 3, which as things seems like while become a duopoly of Jio and Bharati Airtel. The reason why that is not in mainstream media may be because the story isn't sexy or appealing enough. Jio instead of being a scrappy startup was instead a pet project of the richest man in Asia, Mukesh Ambani.
But by far the biggest innovation in the Indian market is the Unified Payment Interface or UPI. UPI is a payment system which enables easy transaction directly to and from the bank account. Almost all banks support it, payment is as simple as just adding the amount and inputting a 4-6 digit code and bam its done. And oh boy has this has been adopted. From rural to urban, the rich, the poor, the startups or street hawkers, millennial, boomers you name it. Adoptions has been in every single strata. The ease of use, wide acceptance from merchants and integrations it has become defacto mode of payment. Hell, I don't even carry a wallet nowadays. Created by a government funded organization called NPCI that lended it a lot of credibility and has a lot of apps dedicated to implementing the system, though the most dominant are Google Pay and PhonePe.
There are a lot of other companies that I can go on and on about like Myntra dominating the fashion segment that has even Amazon stumped, Zerodha a robinhood like app which thrived using despite no advertising or VC funding, CRED's unique business model of targeting just the top 1% for credit.
India has its own challenges, VCs are more risk averse so getting funding for an unproved idea is significantly harder, once invested the growth at all costs mindset kills a lot of interesting startups in its infancy, even talented Indians aspire for stable jobs rather than entrepreneurship(courtesy a millennia of turbulence) though all of it is slowly changing.
I have been following the misadventures of Justin Trudeau in International Diplomacy for quite some years and let me just say I view anything that comes out of his mouth with deep skepticism when it concerns other countries. Trudeau has a pattern of using the international stage for domestic politics. That in itself is not a bad thing but the sheer cluelessness that he conducts himself in the International arena is exasperating.
His previous India trip was a shinning example, his sole focus in the trip seemed like courting the Sikh vote in Canada rather than actual diplomacy. Over the top costumes(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43151115), dance numbers(https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vk5RMHFXfxw) and the latest tourist destinations(https://zeenews.india.com/india/golden-temple-to-iim-ahmedabad-here-is-visiting-canadian-pm-justin-trudeaus-full-itinerary-2081984.html). If that wasn't enough, the fact that the official Canadian delegation included a convicted Khalistani Terrorist who attempted murder of an Indian minister back in 1986(https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/khalistani-terrorist-jaspal-atwal-photographed-with-justin-trudeau-s-wife-at-mumbai-event-1175102-2018-02-22). You just can't make this shit up. So disastrous was this trip that even the most left leaning mainstream journalist, the kind of global elite who you would expect going gaga over the Liberal darling Trudeau, asserts that the whole thing was a cringefest(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/22/trudeaus-india-trip-is-a-total-disaster-and-he-has-himself-to-blame/).
Even the recent G20 was a disaster for Trudeau. No bilateral meets with any country, in total 4 brief meetings with heads of state and not even a single photo-op for any announcement that concerned his agenda(climate change, Bio-Fuels Alliance). The meeting with Modi was the worst, as he apparently "scolded" the poor Canadian(https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/aircraft-glitch-delays-canada-pm-trudeaus-departure-india-2023-09-10/). It seems like the Canadian PM isn't taken seriously on an international stage, not just by India but other countries too and with good reason. He has a long history of engaging in diplomatic behavior that alienates him from other heads of state(https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics/peter-navarro-justin-trudeau/index.html, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/16/xi-trudeau-canada-china-g20, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/18/canada-loses-bid-un-security-council-seat-justin-trudeau, https://financialpost.com/news/economy/forget-donald-trump-justin-trudeau-is-now-the-biggest-obstacle-to-pacific-trade-deal, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-10/tpp-talks-stall-after-justin-trudeau-canada-fails-to-show-up/9140250).
Certainly I agree if India was behind such an action on foreign soil that is as serious as it gets, but claiming India is picking a fight with Canada is an overstatement. Trudeau has long courted the Khalistani vote and that alone makes the Indian government nervous. Adding more fuel to it he even allowed a referendum to be conducted in Canada on a demand for separate state in India, allowed a float glorifying the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and lets them fund the Khalistani activities in India through Canada.
Now I am certainly biased in my views against Khalistan as an Indian Citizen, but my point is that India has very legitimate position in current diplomatic tensions.
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