THE URGENCY FOR “SELF ENQUIRY” IN INDIA
For creating Awareness in Individual
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The need for realizing own identity for oneself first..in a secular state India secondly and the world, nay, the universe thirdly.. ~~~~~~
Secularism has two distinct meanings.
1. It asserts the freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, within a state that is neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions.
2. It refers to a belief that human activities and decisions should be based on evidence and fact, and not superstitious beliefs, however devoutly held, and that policy should be free from religious domination. For example, a society deciding whether to promote condom use might consider the issues of disease prevention, family planning, and women's rights. A secularist would argue that such issues are relevant to public policy-making, whereas Biblical interpretation or church doctrine should not be considered and are irrelevant.
We are all not secular. But trying to be secular. (Ref: yahoo India Answers)
The articles below, needless to say, will give the readers an in depth view of the population in India, a conglomeration of the religions and cast systems prevalent in the country each with its own philosophy, beliefs and ritualistic ways of leaving.
Of course, it is a matter of evolution we can say for the crude to be refined in good time but then the evolution has brought us to a point where human awareness has started shining in the form of a Govt. and intelligent ways of controlling a large conglomeration of systems and beliefs and leading them towards the goal in life, meaning and purpose, a govt. capable of pointing out what is necessary and what is not for the society which way to go and which way not. For this to be effective it has to be a repository of awareness itself capable of instilling much awareness into the minds of the sheep it is shepherding.
But what is Awareness then? What is its source?
Let us pause for a moment here before we go into the structure of HUMAN AWARENESS as it is possible that a negative thought may immediately arise in many as to its existence due to ignorance and lack of proper guidance towards that area.
All of us have faith in our personal gods or philosophies and their guidance in our daily life. We are well AWARE of this fact that it gives us utmost confidence to be with our personal gods and philosophies from which we draw confidence and strength.
How come this AWARENESS? It has come from our faiths truly. We have innumerable faiths here to point out here but then they have all created just one kind of AWARENESS only in man. It is intelligence, knowing capacity, to be very simple, of everything under the sun, nay, in the Universe.
If we pile up all the writings on all the scriptures of all the religions and beliefs and faiths it may look like a hill made up of books alone.
If this is true why hate rises in man instead of love which is the basis of life itself? We find understanding as well as misunderstandings. Awareness and lack of awareness intermingled in the society every where.
Hence it has become a top priority matter that awareness on awareness has to be created in the masses, in every nook and corner of our nation and the world.
Now we come to the structure of Awareness. To put it in a nut shell or to begin with:
Awareness is knowledge; it is intelligence; it is memory; it is ones own identity…
The word Cow when read or heard as sound opens up the knowledge or truth about the Cow; until then this knowledge was not there; one becomes aware of the existence of Cow.
The very word Awareness when read or heard as sound makes us think about it and we know that we are awake or knowing.
Human awareness can accommodate the entire universe when guided or pointed out properly. But as all of us know there are hurdles created by a multitude of divisions in all walks of human life which can be overcome by spreading the message of Awareness or creating more and more Awareness in all the sections of the society from a neutral point of view and attitude to be accepted and understood by one and all.
In the wake of time many repositories of Awareness in human form according to the need of the time in the History existed and their guidance have crossed the time barriers to enlighten the human masses still and also will do unto eternity. But then the methods adopted by them in spreading awareness underwent changes in the passage of time when communication became more and more sophisticated.
Naturally the tom toms have become obsoletes; the minds have expanded taking in more and more lessons on awareness and we are here and now where we know the space and time are twins born in the Heart and the Heart loops the human body inside out and becomes the identity itself to an individual and the body waits to disintegrate into the five natural elements.
In the wake of innumerable ways of creating Awareness to individual and from the point of view of a shepherd or a mighty learned leader who is a repository of Awareness himself/herself/themselves and with qualities to rule, guide and lead masses to life’s goal purpose and meaning the Govt.of India, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, after a scrutiny of many simple and neutral ways of education acceptable to any citizen due to its direct approach to human problems and solutions, have recommended the Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi known as “SELF ENQUIRY” (WHO AM I ? to be officially recognized as a Human Resources Development concept especially due to its secular nature, neutral attitudes, and simple methods that can be understood by a layman to a king and put to practice in daily life. This leads to the truth that own identity is the ever shining Awareness only and not the body and that awareness and body goes hand in hand when meaning is achieved by the individual.
The Govt. of India also released a postal stamp of Ramana Maharshi in due course.
A three day international convention on “Principles and practice of Self Enquiry” was organized by the central Govt. in Bangalore under the auspices of the RAMANA MAHARSI CENTRE FOR LEARNING, BANGALORE way back where representatives of Ramana Maharshi Centres from all over the world participated and expressed their interest in Self Enquiry as a method for creating Awareness in all the world powers of the modern age.
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The three most populous countries in the world, China (1.34 billion), India (1.21 billion) and USA (308.7 million) together constitutes more than 40% of the total population of the world.
Let us look at the Census of India 2001 figures which give us an idea on the vast net works of religions in India which have been responsible for creating Awareness among their groups.
MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner , India
Source : Religion, Census of India 2001
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Religion returns in Indian census provide a wonderful kaleidoscope of the country s rich social composition, as many religions have originated in the country and few religions of foreign origin have also flourished here. India has the distinction of being the land from where important religions namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism have originated at the same time the country is home to several indigenous faiths tribal religions which have survived the influence of major religions for centuries and are holding the ground firmly Regional con-existence of diverse religious groups in the country makes it really unique and the epithet unity in diversity is brought out clearly in the Indian Census.
Ever since its inception, the Census of India has been collecting and publishing information about the religious affiliations as expressed by the people of India. In fact, population census has the rate distinction of being the only instrument that collets the information son this diverse and important characteristic of the Indian population.
TABLE 21: DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION BY RELIGION
Religion | Number | % |
All religious communities | 1,028,610,328 | 100.0 |
Hindus | 827,578,868 | 80.5 |
Muslims | 138,188,240 | 13.4 |
Christians | 24,080,016 | 2.3 |
Sikhs | 19,215,730 | 1.9 |
Buddhists | 7,955,207 | 0.8 |
Jains | 4,225,053 | 0.4 |
Others | 6,639,626 | 0.6 |
Religion not stated | 727,588 | 0.1 |
Source : Religion, Census of India 2001 |
At the census 2001, out of 1028 million population, little over 827 million (80.5%) have returned themselves as followers of Hindu religion, 138 million (13.4%) as Muslims or the followers of Islam, 24 million (2.3%) as Christians, 19 million (1.9%) as Sikh, 8 million (0.80%) as Buddhists and 4 million (0.4%) are Jain. In addition, over 6 million have reported professing other religions and faiths including tribal religions, different from six main religions. Hinduism is professed by the majority of population in India. The Hindus are most numerous in 27 states/Uts except in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab. The Muslims professing Islam are in majority in Lakshadweep and Jammu & Kashmir. The percentage of Muslims is sizeable in Assam (30.9%), West Bengal (25.2%), Kerala (24.7%), Uttar Pradesh (18.5%) and Bihar (16.5%). Christianity has emerged as the major religion in three North-eastern states, namely, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Meghalaya. Among other states/Uts, Manipur (34.0%), Goa (26.7%), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (21.7%), Kerala (19.0%), and Arunachal Pradesh (18.7%) have considerable percentage of Christian population to the total population of the State/UT. Punjab is the stronghold of Sikhism. The Sikh population of Punjab accounts for more than 75 % of the total Sikh population in the country. Chandigarh (16.1%), Haryana (5.5%), Delhi (4.0%), Uttaranchal (2.5%) and Jammu & Kashmir (2.0%) are other important States/Uts having Sikh population. These six states/Uts together account for nearly 90 percent Sikh population in the country. The largest concentration of Buddhism is in Maharashtra (58.3%), where (73.4%) of the total Buddhists in India reside. Karnataka (3.9 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (3.0 lakh), west Bengal (2.4 lakh) and Madhya Pradesh (2.0 lakh) are other states having large Buddhist population. Sikkim (28.1%), Arunachal Pradesh (13.0%) and Mizoram (7.9 %) have emerged as top three states in terms of having maximum percentage of Buddhist population.
Maharashtra, Rajsthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have reported major Jain population. These states/Uts together account for nearly 90 percent of the total Jain population in the country. The percentage of Jain population to the total population is maximum in Maharastra (1.3%), Rajsthan (1.2%), Delhi (1.1%) and Gujrat (1.0%). Elsewhere in the country their proportion in negligible. |
THE INDEPENDENT -- Asia
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India in uproar over decision to include caste in national census Critics say traditional distinctions of class have no place in a would-be global power
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi Friday, 14 May 2010
AP
(A Dalit, or 'untouchable,' family in the heavily populated state of Uttar Pradesh)
"The fight against caste is best fought when we know the enemy. Caste For the first time since the days of the British Raj, officials in India are to ask people their caste as part of the national census, the biggest of its kind in the world. It is a move that has triggered intense controversy about a painful, vexing subject that the country cannot leave behind.Having initially chosen not to include caste, the Indian government apparently gave in to demands from opposition parties and decided that, for the first time since 1931, census officials would ask respondents to say what traditional Hindu grouping they belong to.
The decision has sparked fierce debate. Defenders of the move say it will provide up-to-date information about the size and needs of various groups that will be vital for providing grants and reserved jobs and college places for those at the bottom of the caste ladder.
Others are equally adamant that caste should have no place in a country seeking to throw off the shackles of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy and looking to assume a position as a leading world power.
Among those who have strongly criticised the decision is Amitabh Bachchan, the near-legendary Bollywood actor considered the elder statesman of Hindi movies.
Writing on his blog, Mr Bachchan said that when census officials arrived at his house in Mumbai, he told them that his caste was "Indian".
"My father never believed in caste and neither do any of us," he added. "He married a Sikh, I married a Bengali, my brother a Sindhi, my daughter a Punjabi, my son a Mangalorean... in his autobiography he had [said] future generations of his family should marry into different parts of the country."
In traditional Hinduism there were four main castes and hundreds of sub-groups. In addition there were the "untouchables", who were considered to have no place in society and who are now more usually called Dalits.
For centuries, what job a person did, where they lived, what food they ate and where they were cremated depended largely on their caste. One of those who sought to reform the system was the independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, who, along with social campaigners such as Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, argued that caste had no place.
As India has developed, and as more people have moved to the cities, the rigid caste restrictions have loosened slightly. Yet although discrimination on the basis of caste is banned by the constitution, for hundreds of millions of people caste remains a defining, and often debilitating, label. Even now, English-language weekend papers carry pages of adverts for arranged marriages, all categorised under various castes. And a number of online sites cater exclusively to one caste. Caste also remains hugely important in the world of business and finance. A recent study by the Indian economist Sukhdeo Thorat and Princeton University sociologist Katherine Newman found that having a low-caste surname significantly cut the chances of winning a job interview. Caste can have deadly repercussions. Parts of northern India are blighted by so-called "honour killings", incidents in which a young woman is murdered by members of her family for having an affair, or eloping, with a man from the "wrong" caste or clan. In one recent high-profile case, police in Jharkhand arrested the mother of a young female journalist, Nirupama Pathak, who was found smothered to death. The middle-class family, who were opposed to Ms Pathak's planned marriage to a lower-caste man, say she committed suicide. However, her boyfriend claims she was murdered. The young woman's father, a bank manager, told local reporters: "We were trying to convince her to marry within our own caste. That does not mean we killed her."
Despite its purported wish to move away from caste, India has repeatedly opposed including caste in UN guidelines against discrimination. It insists that it is an internal matter for India. At the same time, caste has increasingly become an important means of organising politically. Kumari Mayawati, the so-called Dalit Queen who heads the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), has four times ridden to the position of chief minister of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, with the support of its poorest and most downtrodden people. Those who want to include caste in the census say the data gathered can be used to help those in need. Writing in the Hindustan Times Sagarika Ghose, a senior broadcaster, said: is an immutable, invisible and overwhelming reality in our daily lives.
"If we continue to act as if caste does not exist, or deny its existence, we would be failing to do battle with one of the most urgent social inequalities of our time."
Some Dalits fighting for empowerment also believe the information will help, especially if is made publicly available. Pushpa Salaria, head of the Dalit Rights Protection Forum, said: "If we have a census which is centralised then we can have information about weaker sections and minority groups. It will help us know the majority of our country."
* The caste system has existed for more than 3,000 years in India. In traditional Hinduism, there are four main castes. * At the top are the Brahmins, the teachers and priests. Next come the Kshatriyas, who are soldiers and administrators. The Vaishyas make up the trading class. The final group is the Sudras, the farming and peasant class.
* In addition there were those considered outside of society and "untouchable" and who are now more usually called Dalits, or in Indian law, "scheduled castes".
* Dalits face routine discrimination with a crime committed against a member of the group every 20 minutes, according to the Dalit Solidarity Network-UK, citing government figures.
* However, the group said this was likely to be a only a fraction of actual incidents since many Dalits did not lodge cases for fear of reprisals.
