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December     Last updated: December 23 : 7:00 p.m.

India That Is Bharat
Satiricus

Of mice and men

THE simple soul that Satiricus is, he now finds this business of being a Hindu getting a little too complex for him. He is a proud Hindu, and all his communal life he has been happily declaring : “Garv se kaho hum Hindu mouse hai!” So he really resents this French fellow Francois Gautier treating us mice as men, telling us what a glorious history we have had, and then taking us to task for what he thinks is now wrong with us. Take his recent Indian Express piece titled “Hindus : majority yet minority”. He begins with history, which, after all, is his story, which no secularist in his senses would buy. He calls Sanskrit the “mother of all languages”. Well, now, Satiricus supposes that this Frenchman knows French well enough, but is he sure he knows English well enough to call it a daughter of Sanskrit? Were he to open the Indian edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, he would find himself in the ignoble company of ignoramuses like Satiricus for making such a communal claim. Even with his poor knowledge of Sanskrit and poorer knowledge of English Satiricus could identify literally hundreds of English words which have a Sanskrit origin, but about which the Dictionary has not a word to say. What is still more shocking, his polymathic friend Dr N.R. Waradpande is actually compiling a dictionary of Sanskrit-based English words, which would easily contain 5000 to 10,000 words! Fortunatley enough, Waradpande is a Hindu intellectual, so he can be dismissed as a dunce as disdainfully as Satiricus.

Unfortunately the secular and verbose intellectuals' verbal problems don't end there, because according to linguist Dr. Raghuvira Webster's 18-volume dictionary—the world's biggest English-language dictionary—gives 40,000 words that have been described as “akin to Sanskrit”. This is terrible. Should lexicography sink so low? To Satiricus' mind the only explanation for this damnable dictionary can be that Webster must be a secret Sanghwala. Anyway this French Sanghwala proceeds from one absurdity to another, and claims that Hindu philosophy is the “foundation” of Greek mythology and Celtic lore, which represent “all European culture”. This is a really ridiculous RSS rant. The Greeks may have borrowed Sanskrit ‘sharkara’ for the Greek ‘sakharom’ to mean sugar, and the Sanskrit ‘heli’ for the Greek ‘helios’ to mean the sun, they may even have believed in the Hindu tenet of transmigration of the soul, but would not Max Muller's soul be shocked to see that the Greeks were Hinduised, and they in turn Hinduised Europe? As for Celtic love, it is only communal so-called scholars like Shrikant Talageri who can write big books against the Aryan invasion of Dravidian India and give details of how the Druhyu people, who fought in the Rigvedic battle called Daashrajnya and were defeated, later migrated to the North-West, where their King Gandhaar established the Kingdom of Gaandhaar, and from there proceeded to Asia Minor and even to Europe right up to England, where, over the millenniums, the Druhyus became Druids, the Druids became Celts, and finally the Celts became Englishmen.

This, if the RSS (including its French swayamsevak) is to be believed, is the history of India that was Bharat. And from here onwards Gautier makes the great mistake of going in for a man-to-man talk with us Hindus instead of a man-to-mouse one. He forgets that India that was Bharat and India that is Bharat are two different countries, and consequently he is unreasonable enough to expect from us some manly talk instead of a mousely squeak. He tells us we have the potential to become Asia's “emerging superpower of the 21st century”, but we “lack confidence” and “are respected neither at home nor abroad”. Forgive me, Monsieur, but Satiricus must tell you that you are talking through your French hat. In the first place who on earth told you we want to emerge as a superpower? If Satiricus is not wrong (—and he could be) it was Advani who once said we don't want to be a superpower but just a big power. It is another matter that this dimwit could never understand what was wrong with wanting to be a superpower. Secondly what is this confidence business? What confidence does a mouse need? In fact now that we have become reformed and globalised mice, we are confident of getting more and more imported cheese, and should that not be enough? In the considered opinion of Satiricus, so long as we were Hindus we were as poor as a church mouse, but now that we have embraced secularism we are going to become as rich as a church mouse. And thirdly this respect racket.

If we call ourselves Hindus whoever heard of Hindus being respected in Hindusthan? And if we call ourselves Indians why should we get respect when we don't want it? No, Monsieur, we Indians don't want imported respect, we want cereals imported from America, Scotch imported from Scotland, cheap toys imported from China, and may be defective old cars imported from Japan or Korea or whatever. This French national further feels we don't take pride in our nationality, that we don't act like a nation. For instance, he says that Muslims in France are “bluntly” told to be Frenchmen first and Muslims afterwards, and asks, “would that be possible in India?” To that question Satiricus has a simple answer—It would not be, because it should not be. If India were a nation, where would our precious pluralism be? India, my dear French fellow, is a bagful of nations, and the number of these nations would depend upon how big your bag is. Finally this French crypto-Hindu says the trouble with Hindus is that in spite of being a majority of 85 per cent of the Indian population, they are a “psychological minority” and a “moral minority”. Satiricus thinks nothing could be wronger than this three-in-one French fallacy. In the first place between psychology and secularism the latter is the state religion, so naturally Hinduism-cum-communalism is a minor minority cult. Seconldy Hindus are a moral minority because morals are not material, and materials are today's major concern. And lastly this 85 per cent figure has a fatal flaw. The fact is that Gautier's 100 per cent include 85 per cent mice and 15 per cent, men. Men need psychology and morality and nationality. In short men need manliness. Mice need only cheese.