Was the Jana Gana Man written in praise of King George V ?

Was the Jana Gana Man written in praise of King George V ? 

(Note: It is not my ontention to blame anyone or ask/ suggest  that the Jana Gana Mana be replaced.) 

There is sometimes a debate around our Indian National Anthem, the Jana Gana Mana . Some people say that Tagore wrote it in praise of King George V of Britain on the occasion of the King's visit to India in Dec, 1911 , the event which is known in history as the Delhi Durbar , and for the which the Gateway of India was erected at Mumbai.

Now I have sung the Jana Gana from childhood and I love the song, but there seems to be some truth in argument that it was written as a song of praise for King George V , rather than as praise for the land that later became India. The lyric was written in 1911 and thus neatly coincides with the Delhi Durbar event. If we look at the words themselves , they read

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India's destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.

The reference to a person (of power) , is rather obvious. “Thou Art” cannot be construed to be Indian nationhood / India /People of India. It must also be remembered that all literary references to India , even in pre-indepencence times are for “Mother India/ Bharat Maata”, and this is not seen in the Jana Gana Man.

Finally take a look at the geographical areas mentioned . They are Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravid (Tamil Nadu) Utkal (Odisha) Banga, Vindhya (MP) , Himachal, Yamuna Ganga (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar) . How and why did Tagore miss JnK, Rajasthan (then known as Rajputana) , Karantaka (then Mysore ) and Kerala ? Now if one looks at the Map of Indian British Empire in 1910, we find that these areas were Independent nations which were under the alliance / political protection of the British but were not considered British territory. ( see Map of India 1910 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/British_Indian_Empire_1909_Imperial_Gazetteer_of_India.jpg

Why is it easy to be a godman in India?

Why is it easy to be a godman in India?


We have so many godmen in India. The other day I asked myself this question.. and of course there is an answer.. all thought up by yours truly. In my opinion there are 6 reasons. Of course the prime mover is the fact that in our culture, and perhaps other cultures as well, people have a need for religion in their lives. They need it and they want it and when they can’t get it from traditional sources, they will get it from godmen.

• Godmen must have a size-able following before they are recognized as godmen. Here they have a bumper opportunity. With India’s 1.1 billion population, no shortage of followers / devotees. If you have a relevant (or even sometimes irrelevant or even no message at all) becoming a godman is easy on India.
• Another reason is that Hinduism is a very unstructured and open religion. If someone is seen as a godman or proclaims to be one, there is no Pope or Ayatollah like figure to question the claim. Also, since popular Hinduism is not mono-theistic (we have Vishnu, Shiva, Ram, Ganesh, Lakshmi and many more), the existence of a godman does not contradict any popular Hindu belief.
• A third reason is that the traditional religious heads, such as the Shankaracharyas of various Mathas/ Mutts are very reclusive. They are hardly seen in public and they do not engage with their followers on any noteworthy scale. They do not point out a moral path or provide spiritual solace to the masses of Hindus in India. In effect they have ceded religious leadership and there is a leadership vacuum ready to be filled by godmen.
• Traditional Hinduism prior to Independence looked down upon dalits and backward classes. They were not allowed to enter temples. Even now the leaders of Hinduism are very aloof, even apathetic, to dalits and backward classes. So people from dalit and backward classes are very willing to align with a godman who promises religious inclusion with social equality.
• To be a godman in India one des not need any special knowledge or scholarship or spiritual ability. Instance are available where people have become revered by doing such odd and ordinary things as not speaking for an year , standing on one foot for a long time or living on a machaan (a raised wooden platform) for a period of time. Even the ones who appear on TV channels have no special ability. One has to only watch one 30 minute episode to see that most of them talk pure nonsense.
• For godmen it is easy to attract urban middle-class women followers because attending a bhajan gathering or a satsang is a socially acceptable and even desirable for a woman in conservative / orthodox families. One of the things that surprises me about the upper caste TV godmen is preponderance of women in their audience. 

Hinduism is a way of life: Origin and growth

Hinduism is a way of life: Origin and growth

(I have used the word shudra in this article to describe a caste in Hinduism. While Hinduism believed that they were low caste, I have no such belief. I use the word only to identify a set of people)

In the earlier posts we have seen that Hinduism is a complex phenomenon and that a majority of India’s “Hindu” tribal populations were not really Hindu till recently.

When we want to examine the origin and growth of Hinduism, specifically historical timelines, we again run into problems because it has no “founder “or prophet. So historian and scholars use the dates of creation of Hinduism’s sacred texts to arrive at the timelines. While there is considerable debate and disagreement among scholars on the exact dates, there is a wide consensus that many of the gods and rituals of present day Hinduism were in evidence by 1000 to 700 BC. There is also an agreement that the area initially covered by people of Hindu faith ranged from the west to present day Pakistan to east till the eastern edge of Bihar. But who were the people who founded Vedic Hinduism and where did they come from? And, during the early days of Hinduism were there people in India who did not follow Hinduism but some other religion.

Hinduism even as known today shares a lot of features with the Zoroastrian religion (which is the religion of Parsis in India). Names of gods, the importance of fire in rituals and even the caste system is common. In addition the principal language of Vedic Hinduism, Sanskrit, has many similarities with the classical language of Zoroastrianism, i.e. the Avestan. (see this interesting link http://www.ancientscripts.com/avestan.html)

Using these similarities , historians have generally agreed that the people who originally developed Vedic Hinduism were not the oldest inhabitants of India. Strong similarities with the ancient religions and languages of Iran and Central Asia compel us to the conclusion that the founders of Vedic Hinduism came from those regions and when the came they carried some of the initial ideas of Hinduism, including the caste system. These ideas were to later develop into Hinduism in India and Zoroastrianism in Iran.

The next logical question is therefore who lived in India BEFORE the Iranians / Central Asian came ? One obvious answer is the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) but it is not a complete answer, because the IVC does not have any sites/ evidence to the east of Rajasthan or to the west of Sindh. It is entirely absent in present day UP, Bihar and Bengal, MP.

Another, less palatable but more probable part of the answer is that it was the ancestors of present day tribals who were the original inhabitants of India. The Vedic Hindus seemed to have done 2 things

• They forced the indigenous people/ tribals to move deeper into the jungles and hills where they remained for the next nearly 3000 years ..i.e. till now as we see in central India. As I have mentioned in an earlier post the tribals in Central India even today do not follow traditional Hinduism.
• Some tribals were “captured” and forced to become shudras in the Vedic Hinduism caste system

Taken together these two statements are very controversial and contentious , but I believe them to be true both from evidence as well as logic.

In the form of evidence we only have to observe the people of today in the shudra caste vs. the other castes. There is a distinct difference in the physiognomy. One set is noticeably darker skinned and has “tribal” facial features than the other. (To be noted I am not for or against a particular skin colour. I am not advocating that fairer skin is better than darker or vice versa).

On the logic side, consider this> The percentage of backward castes/ tribals in Hinduism today is more than 60 percent. Now look back 3000 years. A new religion, Hinduism, is coming in. Would anyone willingly join the religion as a shudra , the lowest strata ? So there is compelling logic to believe that the founders of Vedic Hinduism (often referred as Aryans) forced the indigenous people into joining Hinduism as shudras. While it may sound strange in the context of Hinduism, enslaving of vanquished local people has been seen time and again in history. Vedic Hinduism did more or less the same, except that instead of calling them slaves, they called them shudra.

An associated thought is that not ALL the local people were relegated to shudra status. Either initially or over a period of time some communities moved into other castes. The important point to note here is that it was not individuals who could break out of the caste system, though entire communities could.

Many Hindus today believe that the caste system was a division of labour and a person could move to a higher caste depending on his merit. This alas is not borne out by facts. Or one would have to assume that Indian/ Hindu society in the ancient times was so punitive that it condemned 60% of its people to the lowest strata.

A question will be asked..with its pernicious caste system, how did Hinduism spread so much in India? The answer is simple. It is like launching a new toothpaste in today’s market. The consumption will spread quickly if there is no / very little competition and if the promotional effort is strong. This happened with Hinduism 3000 years ago. There was no competing organized religion and Vedic Hindus were a more organized community with better resources than the local population.

In summary, what is important to note is

• The founders of Vedic Hinduism were not the original inhabitants of the Indo Gangetic plain.
• Vedic Hinduism forced the locals to jungles or captured them as shudras.
• Caste was always determined by birth and not merit.
• The claims made by many Hindus today that Hinduism is the only religion which has not converted people, are false. Hinduism has definitely converted people. The difference is that the people who were converted followed a religion or set of beliefs which did not have a name and about which very little is known today


Many people who read this might label me an anti-Hindu. Nothing is further from the truth. What i have attempted to do, is to answer for myself some of the uncomfortable questions regarding Hinduism using knowledge available in the public domain. Unfortunately, the truth can sometimes be bitter.

I would welcome any differing opinions /comments provided they are backed by logic and fact.

Hinduism: Its not a religion, it’s a way of life Part 2

Hinduism: Its not a religion, it’s a way of life Part 2

So as we have seen Hindusim is considerably more complex than the simple 3 God (Brahma , Vishnu, Mahesh) and 4 Caste system phenomenon that is often presented for public consumption. It has many layers and a limitless scope for discussion and change. The moral teachings come from a large number of sources (Vedas, Puranas , Ramayana etc) and not from a simplified source like the 10 commandments in Christianity. Again, the moral/ ethical teachings are presented through stories, most of which are about the life and times of gods, demi-gods and kings. This multiplicity of sources leads to some degree of contradiction. For instance, to quote the most famous example, Krishna exhorts Arjun to kill people who are his own relatives and kinsmen. While I am not suggesting that Krishna’s message was wrong (in the context he made it) , we do not see this kind “advice” in other religions.

Like other old religions, Hinduism also comes with ideas that do not sit well with the modern times. A major problem area is with the caste system . In traditional Hindu thinking prior to Independence, caste was immutable. But at the level of the Indian nation, we have managed to deal with it by giving , at least on paper, in the Constitution, equal rights / opportunity to all Indians and a special status to tribals and lower caste Hindus. At the individual and social level, we see many inter-caste marriages now, and pleasantly, many, though not all, are not opposed by families/ parents.

Women have been treated unfairly by most religions, and Hinduism is no exception. The Manu Smriti, which is the closest to what one can call Hindu Laws, do not give equal status to women (or to lower castes as well) . Here again the Constitution guarantees women equal rights and at the social level also there is an ever-growing acceptance for the equality of women. We see it in the growing presence of women in prominent positions in Politics, Business and Education and almost all spheres of actvity. Mamta Banerji, Mayawati, Jayalailta, Sheela Dikshit and Sushma Swaraj (to quote just a few names) would never have reached where they are, if India had clung to the old and strict ideas of Hindusim.

Interestingly, thus, the lack of a single difficult-to-challenge religious source actually makes Hinduism more open to change and so while Hinduism is a way of life, our own ways of life now help to re-define Hinduism. I am deeply satisfied and encouraged by this adaptive quality of Hindus and Hinduism.

… to be continued

Hinduism: Its not a religion, it’s a way of life

During discussions I occasionally hear this sentence “Hinduism is a way of life “ . It is often said with a sense of pride and to possibly assert that Hinduism is thus superior to religions. So what doe this mean ?

Now if we look at the major religions of the world, Islam, Buddhism , Christainty and Hinduism.. there are at least  couple of things that are unique about Hindusim. Hinduism, unlike the other 3 does not have a single , identified “founder” . In Islam there is Prophet Mohammed, in Chrisitanty there is Jesus and Buddhism has Gautam, but Hinduism does not have anyone similar. We have multiple names of Rishis and Gurus but no one or 2 or even 10 names that can claim to have “authored” Hindusim. Also while Islam has the Quran and Christianity the Bible as the chief and main source of their teachings and faith, Hindusim does not have an equivalent. Instead Hinduism (or more correctly Vedic or Sanatan Dharma) has over 50 texts consisting the Vedas , Puranas and Upanishads and these lay down what a Hindu should and should not do both in ritualistic and ethical terms. Hence the remark “A way of life”. In addition of course we also have the Mahabharat and Ramayana regarded as sacred texts , but again these are legends about good and evil and not really the equivalents of the Bible or Quran

Therefore the absence of a single book/ founder makes Hinduism  different from other religions, and hence the use of the phrase “a way of life” as compared to “religion”. Now whether it makes Hinduism a better or “superior” religion I leave to the readers to decide.

There also also some interesting things about Hinduism which are visible but not noticed by many people. Caste is a strong social driver in Hinduism and popular Hindu belief recognizes 4 castes. But his is mainly in urban communities. Move to rural areas and you come across prominent communities which do not fall within the 4 castes. These are essentially land –owning and farming communities , sometimes described by the word “peasantry”. For example in the north we have the Jats, Bishnois  Patels  and Yadavs and in the south there are the Gowdas, Reddy’s and Patils. These communities form a sizeable chunk of the population and are often economically and politically powerful. Interestingly they are all endogamous (traditionally marrying only within the community) thereby following the “caste system” without actually being a part of the well known 4 tier caste system.

The second interesting aspect of Hinduism in India is the place / status accorded to tribals (known in different parts of India as adivasi, janjati,  girijan, vanvasi, banjara/ vanjara, lambadi, gujar, gujjar ) The census records the number of tribals in India as 10 crores. More than 80% are classified Hindu by the census (in MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Ladakh, Odisha, Andhra Padesh) most of the  remaining are Christian (mainly North Eastern states of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal and  Mizoram) and few have no religious affiliation (Andaman/ Nicobar) . Now interestingly, when the Indian census records a person’s religion, if it is not Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Budhism, Jain or Jew, it is by default recorded as Hindu.  A bulk of the “Hindu” tribals are thus classified.

The question then arises,  are (or were) they really followers of Hinduism ? Till about 50 years back , most “Hindu” tribals did not worship Hindu gods such as Shiva, Ram or Krishna  or Ganesh. They had, in each region, their own gods. In many cases their gods were similar to animist gods. Animals (monkeys , cows, peacocks and cobra) and trees (Pipal, neem, Tulsi)  were, and are,  considered sacred. They did not believe in re-incarnation. Their marriage rituals did not align with Hindusim. For example the Santhals were polygamous and pre-marital sex was common. The contemporary traditional Hindu society itself did not define them in terms of the 4 castes. With the passage of time and spread of communications, many tribals (except in North East) have now started identifying loosely with traditional Hinduism. For sociologists this is an interesting example of cultural assimilation. Many others have converted to Christianity due to efforts or christian missionaries. The lack of a well-defined religion , and only a loose connection with traditional Hinduism made the conversion to Christianity  easier.

..to be continued