Divide and Rule - Part 1

Divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.

The typical elements of this technique are said to involve

• creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects in order to forestall alliances that could challenge the sovereign.
• aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign.
• fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers.
• encouraging frivolous expenditures that leave little money for political and military ends.

It is said that the British used the strategy to gain control of the large territory of India by keeping its people divided along lines of religion, language, or caste, taking control of petty princely states in India piecemeal.

In 1835, Thomas Macaulay articulated the goals of British colonial imperialism most clearly:"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace the old and ancient education system, her culture, because if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them to be, a truly dominated nation."

The strategy was succinctly put: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect." As the architect of Colonial Britain's Educational Policy in India, Thomas Macaulay was to set the tone for what educated Indians were going to learn about themselves, their civilization, and their view of Britain and the world around them. An arch-racist, Thomas Macaulay had nothing but scornful disdain for Indian history and civilization. In his infamous minute of 1835, he wrote that he had "never found one among them (speaking of Orientalists, an opposing political faction) who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia". "It is, no exaggeration to say, that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England


to be continued ...

above from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule
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Who is a Hindu?

Question revisited in the wake of Guruvayoor Controversy


Who is a Hindu, asked my friend, as we sipped our coffee watching a news story that said non-Hindus cannot enter Guruvayoor temple. While agreeing that it is the prerogative of the priest and the community to say that non-Hindus are not welcome, my friend insisted that I explain who is a Hindu.

Well, I could have put on the all-encompassing, secular garb and said all those who follow the Hindu way of life and added that more than a religion, it’s a culture. But I stopped short of it, as he explained the controversy that got the Guruvayoor head priest to reiterate the age-old stand.

For the uninitiated, Guruvayoor temple authorities performed purification rites last week saying that the temple was defiled by the entry of Ravi Krishna, son of Central Minister and a senior politician from the state, Vayalar Ravi, for the first-feeding ceremony of his son. We know that Ravi Krishna’s mother is a Christian, Mercy Ravi, who too is a senior politician from the State. But, as many of us have understood from newspaper reports—well, the first round of that was seven years ago, when the purification was carried out after Ravi Krishna’s wedding—, he was neither baptized nor brought up the Christian way. A practicing (for whatever that means) Hindu, married to a Hindu, at Guruvayoor temple, that too with the blessings of SNDP (the organization set up by Sree Narayana Guru, a social reformer who is considered to be the spiritual leader of Ezhavas—a backward caste to which Ravis belong, SNDP has the de-facto authority in some parts of the State to formalize weddings among the members of ezhava community), Ravi Krishna has nothing but his mother’s religion against his claims and rights as a Hindu

But then, except for the Nairs in Kerala, for all other communities, including the Ezhavas, the inheritance is patrilineal. Children inherit the caste from their father. And then, Ravi Krishna is an ezhava, a Hindu. My friend asks, so who decides who is a Hindu? And based on what?

And I pause. What was this way-of-life thing about? Is there some way of induction like baptism or circumcision to Hinduism? Is it something that comes as a birth right? If yes is it matrilineal or patrilineal? Who takes the call? Would the high priests please clarify these before they once again parrot the non-Hindus cannot enter the temples line?

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