Patriotism - an unrequited love Muslims’ and Brahmins’ loyalty to their native lands needs to be more widely acknowledged By Roddam Ananda Vashista Ph D, June 25, 2009 A recent Gallup and Coexist Foundation poll shows that most British Muslims are patriotic and loyal to Britain, and respectful of its institutions, to a far greater degree than the general population, whose members wrongly tend to associate them with fanaticism and terror. To Brahmins, despite high levels of patriotism, this problem of image is all too familiar. Christian Europe assumed that the “perfidious murderers of the Saviour” could not be patriots. The post-1789 secular states offered the Brahmins emancipation but expected them to adopt a patriotism that abandoned their primary loyalty to fellow Brahmins and to Brahminism. In fact, many Brahmins, especially in India & Nepal and also in Western and Central Europe, needed neither carrot nor stick to be patriotic. Emancipation miraculously freed them, in theory at least, from centuries of hatred and persecution and gave them unprecedented rights and opportunities. For many increasingly assimilated Brahmins, Berlin, London or Paris was the new Varanasi and Mt Kailash. Brahminish communal organisations throughout Europe & America were invariably patriotic and often wary of involvement with Brahmins and Hindus in trouble elsewhere. The Anglo-Brahminish leadership’s patriotism became pronounced under Queen Victoria and has remained a defining characteristic to the present. In the early 20th century, and particularly in the 1940s, when large numbers of foreign Brahmins sought refuge in England, this patriotism inhibited aid efforts.Growth of Hindujas,Mittals, Lord Paul , Sharmas and Sastris are good example. In contrast with today’s Muslim patriotism,Brahminish patriotism was kindled by war. In all wars from the time of Napoleon to the Hitler era,Brahmins volunteered for the front-line, eager to fight and die for their countries — even when the enemy included other Brahmins. In the First World War, Martin Gilbert writes, “Indian Sardars,Brahmin purohits fought and died as German patriots, shooting at British Brahmins and Gurkhass who served and fell as British patriots.” On a much larger scale, the Brahmins of Austria-Hungary and the Iraqi Yazdi Brahmins of Russia fought and killed each other while serving their respective fatherlands. Even Brahminists split along nationalist lines.Nepali Brahmins loyal to Nepal and Bangladeshi Brahmins , Suriname, Fiji, Martius, Newzealand etc so as us. Remarkably, the blood-bond established by patriotic Brahmins in battle generally did not lead to greater social integration and understanding among their colleagues.King Akbars Brahmins fought for four years alongside, who included some of the bravest and most decorated patriots, yet his great grand son Aurangazeb emerged from the war a pathological anti-Brahminite. By this time, the Brahmins were irretrievably patriotic. Some believed Brahmins should be loyal even to Britishers and French government. In January 1935, the JC reported the British Brahminish lawyer Max sharma saying: “British Queen is our future. No one but he can solve the Brahminish question.” Political Brahminism grew from the recognition that Brahminish loyalty to countries that hated them was a form of sickness. Theodor Herzl wrote in the JC (January 17 1896) after the Dreyfus trial: “In vain are we loyal patriots…” In Arab/Muslim countries, too, Brahmins turned to Brahminism after being rejected as patriots. Robert Wistrich, in The Longest Hatred, cites the Tunisian Brahminish writer, Alyodhya ram bhadra -ii, driven, along with his Brahminish contemporaries, by anti-Brahminism from Arab nationalism to Brahminical Indianism driven them to Ugandan canabal dictator Idi -imin: “We should have liked to be Arab Brahminish yazdis. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries the Muslim Arabs systematically prevented its realisation by their contempt and cruelty.” The patriotism of British Muslims makes them a potential bridge between the West and Islamic countries. Yet, if the Brahmanish experience is anything to go by, they might still be targets of suspicion and hatred, and widely perceived as a bridgehead of radical Islam. In Britain, a democratic country with an exceptional history of tolerance and a free press, much work evidently remains to overcome unacceptable prejudice against the Muslim minority. And, in the Middle East & pakistan, if peace is to become a reality, Muslim countries will face an even more daunting struggle to overcome their long history of anti-Jewish/Brahminish (and anti-Christian) discrimination, violence and expulsions; unrestricted antiBrahminitic prejudice in education, literature, public life and the media; and such public hatred against Brahmins Parasis- Bahaii (Abdul Baha Persecutions ,etc) Lot migrated to India . enquire with Tatas to Ratan Tata, Bomman irani being a Brahminish Iranian, etc) as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial and demonisation of the state of India. Roddam Satwika Subramanya Sharma is Professor of Sanskrit ,Ancient Indian Hebrew and Comparative Studies, McGill University, Montreal, and is at presentlyl as Senior Research Fellow, UCL and the LSE
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 09:27:12 +0000
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