Civil Services Mains 2020 Results: In or Out ? Way ahead, gratitude and Pain

RfAd2021said

@Neyawn Wow ! Could you please tell as to how to access the old threads from 2013-14-15 etc.. some of them were pure gold !

Celebornsaid

@KratosOfPUBG Bro, first of all, sorry if you felt hurt by the backlash. The intention of the people here is not to bring you down. It's to help you see things differently. Sometimes, however, we become so zealous for the cause that we forget to speak calmly and appropriately. Once again I hope you're not too offended by the words used here. 

Coming to your arguments, let me try to address them as best as I can. Your initial argument was how intellectuals in India seem to attack Hinduism but not other religions. You are partially right. The reason this perception exists is because most intellectuals you might know of are themselves Hindus. They point out the flaws of Hinduism because (1) they have grown up fully immersed in the culture and know the strengths and weaknesses and (2) they have the moral authority to do so. I'm a Christian. When I have debates with my friends I can easily point out mistakes and flaws by the church. But I hesitate to talk about Hinduism or Islam in the same manner since I don't have the moral authority. Something similar is happening here among the Hindu intellectuals.

In the same vein, there are prominent Muslim intellectuals who constantly point out the weaknesses and ills of Muslims. There's an organisation - Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy - comprising of prominent intellectuals. There are intellectuals like Ghazala Wahab who address traditional Muslims to embrace modernity. 

My point is that there are intellectuals on all sides who point out ills in their communities. You can't expect them to as vehemently try to reform other communities as well. If PBM's words caused so much of a stir here, imagine if someone like Salman Rushdie had said the exact same thing. 

Now coming to your other statements, they are problematic not because they are false but because they are selectively true. They are generalizations of specific incidents extrapolated to paint an entire community a certain way. Hitler used half truths and generalizations to make an entire country antagonistic to Jews so much so that the Holocaust was normalised. The world wants to avoid something similarly terrible from happening ever again. That's why the minorities require special protection - from harmful actions as well as words that may end up justifying these actions in the future. That's why people here immediately rushed to condemn these statements. 

Also, I urge you to really get to know someone from the other communities. You'll notice how similar they are to you. How human they are. One of my best friends is a Muslim. That person singlehandedly helped me see an entire community in a different light. When you form such bonds you stop seeing someone else as the 'other'. You start seeing them as one of your own. At the end of the day, isn't that the goal? Aren't we all Indians? Aren't we all humans? 

Finally a word to my fellow forumites. Attack the ideas. Not the persons. Please try to engage in meaningful dialogue. There are genuine issues. They must be talked through. That's how we all learn. 

rootsaid

Please avoid discussions on political and religious issues, even if they are important on this platform.

Please go thorugh this

https://support.forumias.com/forumias-community/

Also, this.

necromancersaid

@Ajatashatru are they not taking them because of being rich? Or working in a private sector? No. 

Because in the cases I mentioned, it’s not just them. They’re not doing it as an independent decision but because they’ve been misled by a religious figure. A religious figure that is also heard and followed by many others. 

Why bring up such a stupid point?

D503said

lol i used to think this is how root and neyawn perform their repective roles

KratosOfPUBGsaid

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D503said

Duryodhansaid

D503said

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D503said

KratosOfPUBGsaid

nerdfightersaid

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nerdfightersaid

Something Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in 2003.

I was going to write something but i found this online. 

https://www.opindia.com/2020/08/american-astronomer-carl-sagan-hindu-cosmology-cosmos-universe/amp/

At the very onset, Carl cited the ancient Hindu sacred text of Rigveda and conceded, “The most sophisticated cosmological ideas came from Asia and particularly from India. Here, there is a tradition of sceptical questioning and unselfconscious humility before the great cosmic mysteries.”

There is also a YouTube video of him saying this.

I'd say Carl Sagan trumps PBM.

There is no trumping. Both are correct. Competition thodi na hai. PBM is talking about one thing, Sagan about other.

Nah. He's just doing it because trashing majority religion is the "intellectual" thing to do. Just like people trash popular movies and praise boring ones like citizen kane on various internet forums to appear to be movie connoisseurs. No matter what anyone says Space Odyssey is not better than Infinity War.

Hinduism is the most chilled out religion of all. Whatever PBM said, Hindus don't actually care about that. He's making it sound like Hindus  have an identity crisis.

While it saddens me to say that more than half the Hindu population rotate thalis with flaming stuff asking for money and other things. There's also the spiritual part, philosophical part, Yoga and Meditation. Upanishads for instance, don't say "this is absolute" unlike others, they encourage you to be free thinkers and use logic. Unfortunately this makes the spiritual texts less palatable to most people. It's a bit difficult to write what they say in just one comment and I'm too tired to write long coherent paragraphs. 

Basically Hinduism is not one particular religion but many beliefs and philosophies combined. It's accepting of everyone. You already know that.

the identity crisis is real and i think the it stems from the transitional state of our country where we have adopted a modern secular democratic republic but feudalistic beliefs of the past are still lurking in our minds. We have yet not come to terms with the revolution unleashed by the constitution by giving equal citizenship in a country divided along caste and class,equal rights where graded privileges prevailed. And these things come out in the form of someone getting thrashed for keeping a moustache, or women getting murdered in name of honor, or when people trust pesudo science peddlers over vaccines. May be for a privileged person Hinduism may be the most chilled out thing, but for a large part the lived reality has been that of oppression, while woke people and hippies can bask in its spiritual part, intercaste marriages are still a paltry 6%. So dont try to whitewash and hide the dark underbelly of Hinduism. There are a lot of things in it that have never been as salient as in present times like yoga and meditation, but to have absolute opinions like its the greatest the bestest is dishonesty and self-delusion.

Change is the only constant ,but every society resist changes . It doesn't mean they are having an identity crisis. Americans are yet to come at terms with their constitution .Ex- racial violence . See what is happening in France or even in whole of Europe for that matter ,related to Muslims. Muslims everywhere feel insecure and oppose modern ideas . Do you think they all r having an identity crisis?

In fact, we all know how Hindu society has always accepted modern and revolutionary ideas, be it buddhism -jainism during 6th c bc , bhakti movement during medieval times or 19th c  socio-religious reform movements. 

Even today ,Hindus are accepting modern ideas at their own pace, generation by generation .The problem is intellectual hypocrites like Pbm  want Hindus to be ashamed of their religion ,just because it has some big problems. They r still having a Sepoy like mindset .  It is not Hindus who r having an identity crisis but people like pbm. 

Yes west is also having a crisis of identity due to multiculturalism. you can find umpteen articles on it. The white blue color americans in particular are having doubt on their ability to fulfill their expected family and community roles, globaliazation has eroded their sense of identity. There has been an epidemic of suicides in usa. It is this identity crisis that propelled Trump to power.

But these are post modern societies and their problems are different from ours. We have our first identity crisis when a debate on reservation starts, later on it happens when we choose our life partners, when we have to send our duaghter and sisters to work so on. suddenly from growing up as hindus we become xyz caste.

Most of our intellectuals borrow ideas from west and try to analyse indian society through those lenses. I dont see how that is problematic. Do we want to put an end to any scrutiny of our religion . Here is nietzsche praising manusrmiti and bashing bible. Intellectuals ka kaam hai ye, this how social evolution happens , if we assume our system is perfect how will new ideas be born. 

Nobody is assuming that our system is perfect. But it isn't facing identify crisis either. If resisting to change amounts to having an identify crisis to u ,then whole world is having a perpetual identify crisis.

And pbm isn't scrutinizing our regressive practices or comparing with west . He is just stereotyping Hinduism ,just like Christian missionaries did during the British rule. This is what swami Vivekananda said about Christian missionaries's schools during that time---

"The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all his sacred books are lies." 

When ram mohan Roy sought to reform our religion nd society,he also pointed towards evils of Christianity lest people start feeling ashamed of their own  religion.He pointed out evils of other religions as well.Similarly gandhi.

 Scrutinizing is a mean to reform our society. But for people like pbm it is either an end in itself or a mean to support his political masters.

All these social evils that u mentioned r widespread in other religions as well ,in India as well as whole of subcontinent. Even casteism. 

So it is not fair when people like pbm mock Hinduism nd deliberately leave out other religions, even when Hinduism is gradually accepting modern ideas . Intellectuals surely take a society in  forward direction but intellectual hypocrites don't.

My original response was about 2 things - identity crisis pe my personal opinion, and glorification of hinduism as something perfect. I agree with you perfectly when you say hinduism is changin gradually. I never contested that. My point is that we are still in a state of flux and during this period of change our multiple identities may come under stress and conflict with eash other leading to identity crisis.

I don’t know if pbm is a hypocrite or stooge of some political masters, that is not what I want to talk about besides uske article mujhe toh smjh nhi aate. My only defence for him was the defence of intellectual freedom to question , probe , scrutinise societal issues, religion etc

Your issue seems to be dont criticise x unless you criticise y and z as well. If that is how we are supposed to proceed then i am never saying rajma chawal sucks unless i also say chole chawal and dal chawal are also not perfect 😂

If you or pbm will try to portray my religion in bad light just because it has some problems,I have every right to compare my religion with other religions on that basis. 

When Hindus vote as a group,pbm will cry why Hindus r getting polarised but When Muslims vote as a group,he will term it as victory of secularism. 

People like him will cry about how sanskritisation of tribals is happening ,but will not utter a word when missionaries convert the poor tribals en masse , using their rice bag tactics. 

So in above cases ,his focus is not on polarization or preserving tribal identify,rather on how to criticize Hindus . 

Religion is not rajma chawal ,it is a way of life for us . For u maybe,it is just another commodity like shirt or rajma chawal🤣🤣,that is why u r having an identity crisis perhaps .

You have every right to criticise x ,y or z but if they are living together in a society ,you can't play pick nd choose.

do compare , but be cautious to benchmark with the best not the worst aspects, otherwise it may lead to complacency, stagnation and rigidities like the ones that had come to characterise hinduism during medieval period like caste, superstition, obscurantism.

And this double attitude of labelling groups in not exclusive to hindu- muslim debate, you see the same hypocrisy when backwards vote for any party in group and  its called vote bank politics, while when 80% members of an upper caste vote for a party its called vikas.

And you can always pick and choose if one group is so dominant that When you think about india the pictire that comes to mind is not of a christian going to church but that do hindu playing holi diwali.

80%of higher caste people voting for a lowet caste PM alone should tell you something.

Caste, superstition and other backwardness should be addressed for all the religions equally and immediately. But "intellectualism" in India is interpreted as trashing Hinduism. Putting down Hindus and then keep kicking them. This practice in itself is equally backwards and medieval.

If you want to call yourself intellectual, you should be able to address all the backwardness in society without sounding like a biased elitist.

Ambedkar did it, why can't modern day wannabe intellectuals.

KratosOfPUBGsaid

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D503said

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KratosOfPUBGsaid

D503said

Duryodhansaid

D503said

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Duryodhansaid

D503said

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Duryodhansaid

D503said

KratosOfPUBGsaid

nerdfightersaid

KratosOfPUBGsaid

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nerdfightersaid

Something Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in 2003.

I was going to write something but i found this online. 

https://www.opindia.com/2020/08/american-astronomer-carl-sagan-hindu-cosmology-cosmos-universe/amp/

At the very onset, Carl cited the ancient Hindu sacred text of Rigveda and conceded, “The most sophisticated cosmological ideas came from Asia and particularly from India. Here, there is a tradition of sceptical questioning and unselfconscious humility before the great cosmic mysteries.”

There is also a YouTube video of him saying this.

I'd say Carl Sagan trumps PBM.

There is no trumping. Both are correct. Competition thodi na hai. PBM is talking about one thing, Sagan about other.

Nah. He's just doing it because trashing majority religion is the "intellectual" thing to do. Just like people trash popular movies and praise boring ones like citizen kane on various internet forums to appear to be movie connoisseurs. No matter what anyone says Space Odyssey is not better than Infinity War.

Hinduism is the most chilled out religion of all. Whatever PBM said, Hindus don't actually care about that. He's making it sound like Hindus  have an identity crisis.

While it saddens me to say that more than half the Hindu population rotate thalis with flaming stuff asking for money and other things. There's also the spiritual part, philosophical part, Yoga and Meditation. Upanishads for instance, don't say "this is absolute" unlike others, they encourage you to be free thinkers and use logic. Unfortunately this makes the spiritual texts less palatable to most people. It's a bit difficult to write what they say in just one comment and I'm too tired to write long coherent paragraphs. 

Basically Hinduism is not one particular religion but many beliefs and philosophies combined. It's accepting of everyone. You already know that.

the identity crisis is real and i think the it stems from the transitional state of our country where we have adopted a modern secular democratic republic but feudalistic beliefs of the past are still lurking in our minds. We have yet not come to terms with the revolution unleashed by the constitution by giving equal citizenship in a country divided along caste and class,equal rights where graded privileges prevailed. And these things come out in the form of someone getting thrashed for keeping a moustache, or women getting murdered in name of honor, or when people trust pesudo science peddlers over vaccines. May be for a privileged person Hinduism may be the most chilled out thing, but for a large part the lived reality has been that of oppression, while woke people and hippies can bask in its spiritual part, intercaste marriages are still a paltry 6%. So dont try to whitewash and hide the dark underbelly of Hinduism. There are a lot of things in it that have never been as salient as in present times like yoga and meditation, but to have absolute opinions like its the greatest the bestest is dishonesty and self-delusion.

Change is the only constant ,but every society resist changes . It doesn't mean they are having an identity crisis. Americans are yet to come at terms with their constitution .Ex- racial violence . See what is happening in France or even in whole of Europe for that matter ,related to Muslims. Muslims everywhere feel insecure and oppose modern ideas . Do you think they all r having an identity crisis?

In fact, we all know how Hindu society has always accepted modern and revolutionary ideas, be it buddhism -jainism during 6th c bc , bhakti movement during medieval times or 19th c  socio-religious reform movements. 

Even today ,Hindus are accepting modern ideas at their own pace, generation by generation .The problem is intellectual hypocrites like Pbm  want Hindus to be ashamed of their religion ,just because it has some big problems. They r still having a Sepoy like mindset .  It is not Hindus who r having an identity crisis but people like pbm. 

Yes west is also having a crisis of identity due to multiculturalism. you can find umpteen articles on it. The white blue color americans in particular are having doubt on their ability to fulfill their expected family and community roles, globaliazation has eroded their sense of identity. There has been an epidemic of suicides in usa. It is this identity crisis that propelled Trump to power.

But these are post modern societies and their problems are different from ours. We have our first identity crisis when a debate on reservation starts, later on it happens when we choose our life partners, when we have to send our duaghter and sisters to work so on. suddenly from growing up as hindus we become xyz caste.

Most of our intellectuals borrow ideas from west and try to analyse indian society through those lenses. I dont see how that is problematic. Do we want to put an end to any scrutiny of our religion . Here is nietzsche praising manusrmiti and bashing bible. Intellectuals ka kaam hai ye, this how social evolution happens , if we assume our system is perfect how will new ideas be born. 

Nobody is assuming that our system is perfect. But it isn't facing identify crisis either. If resisting to change amounts to having an identify crisis to u ,then whole world is having a perpetual identify crisis.

And pbm isn't scrutinizing our regressive practices or comparing with west . He is just stereotyping Hinduism ,just like Christian missionaries did during the British rule. This is what swami Vivekananda said about Christian missionaries's schools during that time---

"The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all his sacred books are lies." 

When ram mohan Roy sought to reform our religion nd society,he also pointed towards evils of Christianity lest people start feeling ashamed of their own  religion.He pointed out evils of other religions as well.Similarly gandhi.

 Scrutinizing is a mean to reform our society. But for people like pbm it is either an end in itself or a mean to support his political masters.

All these social evils that u mentioned r widespread in other religions as well ,in India as well as whole of subcontinent. Even casteism. 

So it is not fair when people like pbm mock Hinduism nd deliberately leave out other religions, even when Hinduism is gradually accepting modern ideas . Intellectuals surely take a society in  forward direction but intellectual hypocrites don't.

My original response was about 2 things - identity crisis pe my personal opinion, and glorification of hinduism as something perfect. I agree with you perfectly when you say hinduism is changin gradually. I never contested that. My point is that we are still in a state of flux and during this period of change our multiple identities may come under stress and conflict with eash other leading to identity crisis.

I don’t know if pbm is a hypocrite or stooge of some political masters, that is not what I want to talk about besides uske article mujhe toh smjh nhi aate. My only defence for him was the defence of intellectual freedom to question , probe , scrutinise societal issues, religion etc

Your issue seems to be dont criticise x unless you criticise y and z as well. If that is how we are supposed to proceed then i am never saying rajma chawal sucks unless i also say chole chawal and dal chawal are also not perfect 😂

If you or pbm will try to portray my religion in bad light just because it has some problems,I have every right to compare my religion with other religions on that basis. 

When Hindus vote as a group,pbm will cry why Hindus r getting polarised but When Muslims vote as a group,he will term it as victory of secularism. 

People like him will cry about how sanskritisation of tribals is happening ,but will not utter a word when missionaries convert the poor tribals en masse , using their rice bag tactics. 

So in above cases ,his focus is not on polarization or preserving tribal identify,rather on how to criticize Hindus . 

Religion is not rajma chawal ,it is a way of life for us . For u maybe,it is just another commodity like shirt or rajma chawal🤣🤣,that is why u r having an identity crisis perhaps .

You have every right to criticise x ,y or z but if they are living together in a society ,you can't play pick nd choose.

do compare , but be cautious to benchmark with the best not the worst aspects, otherwise it may lead to complacency, stagnation and rigidities like the ones that had come to characterise hinduism during medieval period like caste, superstition, obscurantism.

And this double attitude of labelling groups in not exclusive to hindu- muslim debate, you see the same hypocrisy when backwards vote for any party in group and  its called vote bank politics, while when 80% members of an upper caste vote for a party its called vikas.

And you can always pick and choose if one group is so dominant that When you think about india the pictire that comes to mind is not of a christian going to church but that do hindu playing holi diwali.

80%of higher caste people voting for a lowet caste PM alone should tell you something.

Caste, superstition and other backwardness should be addressed for all the religions equally and immediately. But "intellectualism" in India is interpreted as trashing Hinduism. Putting down Hindus and then keep kicking them. This practice in itself is equally backwards and medieval.

If you want to call yourself intellectual, you should be able to address all the backwardness in society without sounding like a biased elitist.

Ambedkar did it, why can't modern day wannabe intellectuals.

I was hoping to not say this because intolerant intellectual are very intolerant of anything criticizing the religion of peace. Also because a few days back i saw a Muslim auto driver go out of his way to help a hindu Covid+ pregnant lady. I've seen a lot of examples of Muslims being more helpful than Hindus.

You probably live in a mostly Hindu state to think of India as Holi and diwali. But in states like kerala, telangana, TN, UP, Bihar, Assam, WB, etc. The picture of India seems a bit different. Crowded Mosque roads on fridays, sea of skull caps and 4 AM wake up call are the norm.

What I mean to say is that the second largest minority is large enough in most state for their backwardness to be of concern to everyone. What Ambedkar said about them in this book http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/index.html#contents still holds true. They still don't believe in real science, just the stuff taught in madatsas. I'm traveling in a train right now. 6 out of 8 people in the cabin and side are Muslims and only I am wearing a mask. May be RSS taught them pseudo science too. Or may be they still believe in the infallibility of very hard sciences mentioned in that book of theirs. They still torture animals because it's halal. What's to say they won't follow the book and try to turn darul harb into darul islam by waging something mentioned in the same book.

Last time partition happened was because they were 23% and religion was more important to them than nation. It still is more so for the educated people working in private sector and even government.

I'm sorry if it sounds rude but by not acknowledging and addressing the backwardness of largest minority, pseudo intellectuals are further deepening the already deep divisions between the two communities.

THE_MECHANICsaid

Any inputs on World history how to do it ?? Sources ??? And any extras also ??@AzadHindFauz @whatonly @SergioRamos @Villanelle @peterparker @nerdfighter @sjerngal @DHARNA @Patootie any other also welcome ???