India – God-driven or God-forsaken?

The words “God Lives in India” have been bandied about by numerous people, always referring to Sathya Sai Baba (who has proclaimed himself as God, Deity of All Deities). It is a film title, a song title, a book title and so on. Sai Baba has stated that God never incarnates as the Full Avatar anywhere else but in India and then only after many thousands of years, and now he has come as a triple incarnation in this disastrous Kali Age so as to save humanity. The implication – drawn firmly by Sathya Sai Baba himself, is that India is the only world culture to which God would deign to ‘descend’ because it is the ‘most spiritual’ and is the only country in which all genuine and full incarnations of God have ever incarnated (from Vishnu on through Krishna, Rama etc. etc.).

This kind of ‘God claim’ may make many Indians – even its lowly peasants – proud of their country – which possibility is not ignored by vote-hungry politicians and their supporters. It also underpins the absurd extreme nationalism of the Indian rulers, as witnessed in the utterly childish daily face-offs supported by the authorities for decades at the border vis-a-vis Pakistan, just for a start. Meanwhile, much of the callous and grasping ruling class are content to allow huge parts of all cities to be vast and growing slums, and the dwellers are treated by police and the law if they had no rights (which is often the case legally). Consequently, the mafias are often their only remaining line of defense against summary eviction.

In support of a rising New India, with genuine equality rather than bogus spirituality!I write this blog not least in support of the majority population of India, that is, the dispossessed majority of over 600 million of its inhabitants who lack social justice and even have no real equality before the law, being entrapped within a corrupt system, – and I do NOT to support the many corrupted and self-seeking ruling politicians and privileged castes. That India is a land of “the direst calamities” is a fact pointed out even by Sathya Sai Baba (from his insulated luxury fortress-palaces and the benefits of his money-laden tax-free Sathya Sai Central Trust). Sathya Sai Baba’s still far too neglected ‘backyard’ is a ‘flawed democracy’ (as a ‘Times’ of India editorial names it – see here) from which Sai Baba recently stated that he is minded to travel on tour abroad, breaking his oft-repeated promise to clean things up in India before setting foot anywhere else! Such are most of the promises he makes and the otherworldly and moralistic ‘spirituality’ he mostly promotes!

Is [traditional] India a spiritual country?
Judging by the state of human rights and its decadent social practices, corrupt political decision-making and huge injustices and inequalities, India is not a spiritual country at all. It is also plagued by the old guard’s vast militaristic spending, far from Gandhi’s peaceful ideals.  ‘Spirituality’ is meaningless it it is not practiced in daily living and embedded in a society’s practices and practical values in real life. India is rather an overwhelmingly religiously superstitious country in which the goodwill and relative ignorance and powerlessness of the lowly is exploited to the extreme though widespread political and business corruption. This is part of India’s traditional caste-ridden way of life! The violent and consistent suppression of minorities, Muslims, Dalits, indigenous native populations, hiras, bonded labourers, and many other minorities is sustained by callous impassivity and top-down corruption in much of the police, judiciary and governing bodies. Indian leaders, in the main (with a minority of honourable and courageous exceptions), have the most hardened consciences towards the gigantic number of poor and suffering and their crying needs (over 40% being officially regarded by UNO as living below the poverty line). The gap between India’s rich and poor is mind-boggling!

As to ‘spirituality’, while India’s millions are worshipful and passive, this is also a land of frequent communal carnage (eg. Hindus vs. Muslims) and bomb blasts galore, massive female infanticide, religious killings (of Christians), extreme beggary, horrific mutilations of babies to make them into beggars (as ‘rat children’, ‘spidermen’, diverse amputees) major human organ theft, literal ‘witch-hunts’ and black magic killings, physical and sexual child abuse on a massive scale, millions of children labouring under dreadful condition, and enormous health problems, utter discrimination against widows and many more ills that no truly democratic country wouldcountenance. The seriousness is still very widely denied by Indian politicians, despite many and constant international studies and warnings. Even worse, most of the sufferers are treated as total outcasts by most Indian communities (AIDs, lepers. polio sufferers and many other diseases largely eradicated elsewhere), not least because of the heartless ideas so widely held there about divine retribution as ‘karma’ for sins in past lives. Above all, Sathya Sai Baba has never confronted any of these issues or spoken up to defend the victims or attack the perpetrators!