About Indians, by Herodotus

When we are eager to block films even for an unsuitable name, how can we accept the following extract from the history by Herodotus, where Indians can be seen in extremely poor light? Like practicing cannibalism?

"..whenever any of their tribe falls ill, whether it be a woman or a man, if a man then the men who are his nearest associates put him to death, saying that he is wasting away with the disease and his flesh is being spoilt for them:  and meanwhile he denies stoutly and says that he is not ill, but they do not agree with him; and after they have killed him they feast upon his flesh: but if it be a woman who falls ill, the women who are her greatest intimates do to her in the same manner as the men do in the other case. For in fact even if a man has come to old age they slay him and feast upon him; but very few of them come to be reckoned as old, for they kill every one who falls into sickness, before he reaches old age."

"..they neither kill any living thing nor do they sow any crops nor is it their custom to possess houses; but they feed on herbs, and they have a grain of the size of millet, in a sheath, which grows of itself from the ground; this they gather and boil with the sheath, and make it their food: and whenever any of them falls into sickness, he goes to the desert country and lies there, and none of them pay any attention either to one who is dead or to one who is sick."

"The sexual intercourse of all these Indians of whom I have spoken is open like that of cattle."

..in New Bottle?

Book Review: The Exploration of the World

'The Exploration of the World' by Jules Verne describes all the explorations made in past ages, but also all the new discoveries which have of late years have greatly interested the scientific world. That is, from about 500 BC to about 1600 AD. Chapter I talks about the celebrated Travelers Before the Christian Era - Hanno, Herodotus, etc. It begins with the story of the first traveler of whom we have any account in history, Hanno, and Herodotus, who visited places like Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Babylon, Persia, India, etc. describing each journey with its high points. 

For example, Herodotus mentions about the population of India, that it is larger than that of any other country, and he divided it into two classes, the first having settled habitations, the second leading a nomadic life. "Those who lived in the eastern part of the country killed their sick and aged people, and ate them." He also mentions about attempts to circumnavigate Africa, a most hazardous one of which was made in B.C. 146, by Eudoxus of Cyzicus, a geographer. After many such adventures of the ancient days, Chapter II describes the celebrated Travelers From the First to the Ninth Century - like Pausanias, Fa-hian, Soleyman, etc. There is mention of the travels of Fa–Hian and the society, he saw. Whose observations of India, which he calls "a happy kingdom, where the inhabitants are good and honest, needing neither laws nor magistrates, and indebted to none for their support; without markets or wine merchants, and living happily, with plenty of all that they required, where the temperature was neither hot nor cold," reminded me of my history class. Says he, "This happy kingdom was India" The book also have extensive descriptions of other explorers, like those who visited Palestine during the first centuries of Christianity. Chapter IV is dedicated to Marco Polo, who during 1253-1324 took many a journey.

Thereafter, the book describes great and not so great feats undertaken by many, John and Sebastian Cabot, father-son duo, taking the lead. Says Sebastian Cabot, in a narrative preserved by Ramusio, "a great desire and a kind of ardor in my heart to do myself also something famous, and knowing by examining the globe, that if I sailed by the west wind I should reach India more rapidly, I at once made my project known to His Majesty, King Henry VII, who was much satisfied with it".  1493, John and Sebastian Cabot prepared the expedition at their own expense, and set out at the beginning of the year 1494, with the idea of reaching Cathay, and finally the Indies. Discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, with the Anglo–Russian Company did many expeditions, a notable one here being about the Land of the Seven Cities, or Brazil.

From the period of the taking of Malacca by Albuquerque, as the book says, the Portuguese conceived that a new world extended to the south of Asia. Their ideas were soon shared by the Spaniards, and henceforward a series of voyages were made on the Pacific Ocean, to search for a southern continent, of which, the existence appeared geographically necessary to counterbalance the immense extent of the lands already known. 

To conclude, as the author puts it succinctly, "if all the travelers of whom we have just spoken are not strictly speaking discoverers, even if they did not explore countries unknown before, they all have, in various degrees and according to their ability or their studies, the merit of having rendered the countries which they visited better known."

This book is too interesting. There is mention of old cities of India and the world, and of known and unknown facets of the good old world. These and many other things in this book can add to what we already know about our history. I wonder why I have never come across a commentary of these early views, like that of the living style of people of the countries described. I also liked the reason, the author mentions, for many of the expeditions into far pacific; to investigate into how, the globe balances itself!

I have never come across these ideas in any of the later books. The world, it seems have taken a conscious decision to overlook these observations.

Book Review: Gandhi: Racist or Revolutionary?

Gandhi: Racist or Revolutionary? by Pieter Friedrich is a book attempting to portray Mahatma Gandhi as an individual undeserving of the epithets, he is showered with. To justify this, the author has plucked a few paragraphs from some of his writings as well as those of a few contemporaries. Given the scanty nature of the chosen letters and anecdotes from a huge collection, the author has put his point well. I mean he has shown only those references that are quite relevant to his view.

But the books available on Gandhi shows a very different man. I have had the opportunity to go through Gandhi's collected works, as well as a few biographies like the one penned by his foster son. True, I did find a few paragraphs, among many thousands dealing with a wide variety of issues, show such a narrow viewpoint. But those were quite far and few, and mostly pertaining to Mahatma's early years. Also, there are far too many places in later writings, where, what is visible is a totally different outlook, especially on issues like caste. True, he was a vehement opponent of reservation. His writing is very clear on this subject, he wanted the Hindu society to amalgamate 'Harijans'. (For this, he had also made some suggestions that was widely resented.)

The thoughts I expressed through my book, Caste - the Unexplored Territories, in fact has it's origin in Gandhi's views. Not only that nobody has understood the philosophical plane of manifestation of caste, but also all are moving away from learning the truth, by constantly pondering deeper into the 'class' aspect of caste, which effectively dismiss other aspects.

About the other indiscretions mentioned in this book, I think one can see those as some form of idiosyncrasy always associated with those who excel anywhere.

Irrational, again

November 14, 2017 issue of Scientific American tries to  explain the Global Rise of “Dominance” Leadership. Political pundits, commentators and average citizens continue to have trouble accounting for the rise of populist authoritarian leaders across the globe. A common question batted around continues to be how leaders such as Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Nicolás Maduro, Recep Erdogan, and Narendra Modi could become the standard-bearers of democracy for countries like the US, Hungary, Philippines, Venenzuela and Turkey and India.  Much of the writing has concentrated on the west, and specifically the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president.  The suggestions tendered have ranged from a backlash against the first African American president, the rejection of insider fat cats, or a rebuff of Washington policies. But narratives like these fall short of explaining the rise of authoritarian leaders globally, the magazine says.

It tries to study this phenomenon empirically.  Attaining social rank within society, the author says, follows two paths: dominance and prestige. People all over the countries prefer the dominant ones to the ones of prestige, especially in hard times. But, when citizens experience economic uncertainty and its accompanying loss of personal control, when they look to dominant leaders, are they going to be benefited? I doubt. Since, as the study then finds, it is unclear why they would be motivated to reduce the threats that got them into office, once they occupy the seats of power.

I think my theory is being proven right again, the decision to go for this form of leadership need not be a well considered one at all. We are only heading fast, to 'the age of the irrational'.

How do we see the past? And the Present?

Why is it that we diligently examine the many sides of an issue, when it is about the present, and overlook the ambiguities equally well, when it is about the past?

Let me elaborate.

The golden days of our past’ is an expression,

We hear often,

Wherever we make a mention of time,

Beyond recollection

How do we see the past?

Imagine reading the morning newspaper, a couple of centuries from today. Let us say there is a column with the title “Three Hundred Years Ago”, which, on that day carried the news item of people being slaughtered for vague reasons, like ‘looking greedily at a cow’.

What do the readers do?

The first reaction from the readers would have been to label that era, say as cow age, and enumerate various characteristics of the times. Like the popularity of cow-milk, and its products. And, the imaginative use of all types of rejected matter originating from the cow. Also, the proliferation of institutions of rest, relaxation, and recuperation, dedicated exclusively to cows.  Perhaps the presence of paintings and sculptures depicting similar looking creatures would also act as proofs. This period of ancient history could become a favorite area for research, and many scholarly articles would have been adorning the current literature.

Without thinking any further, I can say that the above-mentioned description of the future is quite fitting and is highly probable. The opinion we make these days about the ancient days, especially those extolling the wonders of the glorious past, is not much different from this. To make this point a little more clear, think of the occasions, where we take efforts to pen down something. Primarily, all those occasions are those, where, something did happen out of the ordinary.

(I think it is also generally acknowledged that we are moved, more by unpleasant events than by the pleasant ones, since, all good events lose its shine soon. Thus, even though the future will find much evidence of buildings, roads, dams, and other signs of civilized life, those people are likely to be moved significantly by the traces of extraordinary sights, which are today in abundance. The theory of diminishing marginal utility comes to our aid in understanding and appreciating such phenomena better)

What am I getting at?

Our history weaved from the surviving bits of memorabilia of the past need not point to anything concrete. The inscriptions, documents or other remnants of the past we have succeeded to unearth, which we think of as authoritative sources, could be as misleading as the newspaper that was mentioned above. All that is recorded in various historical documents of the past would only be showing us, the local non-uniformities present in a society, or events and occurences that can be termed as exceptions. Regular, routine affaies of that era would hardly find mention, one may say.

To better understand the above-mentioned imbroglio, let us see what would have been found in the remnants of the present times if examined many years later. And what would have been the conclusion drawn thereafter?

What do we find?

I think the most prominent find would have been the news items, which are widely seen, remarked and repeated. Incidents like Lewinsky affair, demonetisation, certain cartoons, suicidal missions, or various anti-science movements could feature here. Plenty of scandals, ill-treatment of the female sex on a global scale, and other undesirable elements of society would have been proliferating, whatever the form of memorabilia one landed with. When contrasted with the signs of space travel, organ transplant, or sub-atomic journeys, quite a bit puzzled, would have been the reaction from every reader. With such confusion all around, a conclusion that our times was the ‘age of the irrational’, seems to be the most likely result.

Supporting such a find, interesting and incredulous news snippets would fall from the repository of old papers, every moment if they are to pursue the past. Also, the remnants of the statues and buildings of gigantic proportions and the tracks left by various god-men will add to it.

We know how misplaced, such an assessment is going to be. Well, something similar is happening now. Looking at the relics of our past, we are always reaching the conclusion that our ancestors were geniuses. Moreover, we are molding ourselves to see golden tinge in whatever they did. We also overlook the fact that, in that process, we do not mind bringing great harm to ourselves, at least as long as it is harming others more.

What all can this lead to, is anybody's guess.

Why can’t we see the ‘golden tinged’ pieces as nothing but the only things that stood out? Shouldn’t it lead us to the thought that the natural proclivity of those people was to things insignificant (rather, the things that we think as insignificant today), and a few streaks of brilliance took place to hold the future generations enamored?

(I have examined the reasons for this dichotomy, that is, our desire to be rational to the core, when it comes to real things, and our penchant for the irrational, everywhere else.)