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THE TIMES OF , 14 AN EPIPHANY OF IDEAS TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2017

A thought for today For a successful revolution it is not Gobar Gas And Hot Air enough that there is discontent BR AMBEDKAR China far surpasses India in biogas plants, exposing hypocrisy of gau rakshaks

Arunabh Ghosh and Rudolf Wagner ted both humans and pigs. The spread of New Generation biogas digesters ensured a much cleaner and sanitary handling of waste as the process killed more than 90% of the parasite eggs. The result was a substantial politics is being reshaped by young leaders improvement in rural health, lower medi- like Chandrashekhar Azad and Jignesh Mevani cal expenses and improved productivity. In the wake of Patel and Moulik’s trip to t’s more than the story of victimhood. Caste discrimination ne would wonder, how the China, a biogas promotion programmewas remains an everyday reality for many of them but are also “ Chinese were able to install initiated in India in 1981. A 2015 paper by more assertive and organised than ever before. Green shoots of a about seven million biogas Shiv Kumar Lohan and others offers I plants in about four years.” numbers for the changes since. By 1990 new generation of leadership are rising. On Sunday thousands of So Obegan Khadi and Village Industries India had 1.23 million biogas plants. This Dalit activists from different states like Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Commission director Jashbhai J Patel’s number grew to 4.54 million by 2012. The Punjab and UP gathered at Jantar Mantar in the capital, to express remarks at the conclusion of a tour of corresponding Chinese numbers were 27 solidarity with Bhim Army and its chief Chandrashekhar Azad, China in 1980. His rueful tone was justified. million biogas plants built. implicated by UP police in the Saharanpur caste violence case. Dalit In that same report, economist TK Moulik And even though an Indian Biogas thinker Chandrabhan Prasad described the event in terms of a explained that India had been among the Association has been set up in the past few pioneers in biogas technology but it years to further promote the adoption of new Dalit politics, where identity is being asserted with symbols had taken the Chinese a mere decade to biogas, recent estimates indicate that such like Royal Enfield bikes and the title ‘the great chamar’. overtake her. expansion proceeds in slipshod fashion. On May 5 the caste clash in Saharanpur’s Shabbirpur village More than 30 years of experience in Last year, The Economic Times reported saw a Thakur man killed and Dalit houses set ablaze. BSP chief developing and implementing a gobar gas that of the 1,10,000 biogas plants to be set up Mayawati immediately pointed to digester programme coupled with favour- in 2015-16, only 47,490 had been installed. this as evidence that improving able climate and the world’s largest cattle Why should any of this matter? It population (then estimated at 240 million matters because the wide scale promotion rowe law and order is not BJP’s cup of tea. heads; 3.5 times that of China) had of biogas, in which gobar would play a But the Jantar Mantar gathering

produced a mere 70,000 digesters, one in Chad C central role, can bring many attendant underlined how it was not BSP but five of which was no longer operational. benefits, not least the safe and productive Bhim Army which mounted a strongly Patel and Moulik’s visit to China was companies set up in recent years to prove disposal of human and other agricultural part of a trilateral Germany-China- and market the health benefits of cow refuse. Incentives to build toilets to collect sustained Dalit response. Also in In the name of the cow an attendance was Jignesh Mevani, who India exchange coordinated by the dung and cow urine are but one example. such manure could by itself improve Bremen Overseas Research and Patel and Moulik’s impressions of extremist view is being foisted. health in a countryside where gastrointes- led the Dalit protests in after Development Association (BORDA). biogas development work in 1970s China tinal diseases remain a major challenge. the Una flogging by cow vigilantes. Among BORDA’s missions was to facilitate therefore remain just as relevant today, This view has little to do with It also matters because it might help He too makes the case that even as “technical cooperation among develop- when fanciful justifications continue to cows and everything to do with more of us recognise that in the name of anger has risen in the community, its established netas like ing countries” by organising studies of trump simple solutions. Unlike in India, singling out ‘enemies’ the cow an extremist view is being foisted Mayawati, Ram Vilas Paswan and Ramdas Athawale have failed to technologies adapted to their needs and where the biogas development pro- upon the vast majority of India’s Hindus provide it meaningful political representation. potential, and to disseminate the results. gramme was elite in both its initiative and while the lamp significantly expanded and upon all of India’s minorities. This Biogas digesters were precisely such a composition, the Chinese process was far the work-day and improved educational view has little to do with cows and every- In Saharanpur it is Bhim Army that has built a case that the technology. One of us (Wagner) was the more adapted to village-level knowhow levels by making it easier for parents to thing to do with singling out ‘enemies’ and UP administration is acting in a partisan manner against Dalits. sinologist on the project. He prepared and resources. So, while Indian scientists read and children to study after dark. making people turn on one another. Countering this argument demands good police work but that’s the group’s visit through an analysis of strove to build a technologically efficient At the same time, biogas use reduced And so, the goal is to use those things not possible as long as vacancies in the state police stand at a Chinese biogas handbooks for village biogas plant, the Chinese worked with the the pressure on local wood resources that distinguish us – religion, caste, diet, whopping 50%. Chief minister has said that his technicians, and focussed during the materials they had, adjusted to the capabi- while the digesters transformed agri- clothing, the list goes on – to divide us. administration’s main priority is to establish rule of law in the trip on the political and social para- lities of their farmers, and built one hund- cultural refuse (stalks, leaves, human The cow is merely a pawn. After all, if meters of biogas use in China. red times the number of biogas digesters. and animal excrements) into a bug-free the safety of cows and their ability to state. So he must make sure police vacancies are filled on an urgent Viewed against the contemporary And they gradually improved their nitrogen-rich manure for use in agricul- contribute to human welfare were truly basis. Even more importantly UP police must act, and be allowed to Hindu right’s malicious violence against technical quality as incomes and technical ture. These incentives, in turn, spurred a concern for the gau rakshaks, then act, as an effective force. fellow Indians in the name of ‘gau raksha’, capabilities rose. The benefits of such an the development of toilets, collection of should we not have heard more about The quota politics that has traditionally been deployed to this nearly 40-year-old Sino-Indo-German adapted approach were manifold. At the refuse, and animal husbandry. biogas and other demonstrably viable appease identity mobilisations will no longer suffice, because the collaboration is a sobering reminder that level of the individual household, they Moreover, customary handling of and beneficial technologies instead? pie is already split thin and such politics will only enhance caste we continue to miss our own potential provided gas at no cost that could be used human waste and pig dung in China had Arunabh Ghosh is Assistant Professor of while promoting obscure science through for cooking and lighting a lamp. This resulted in widespread incidence of frictions. It is necessary to move political debate beyond the modern Chinese history at Harvard University. blind and uncritical reverence for an freed women from other daily chores intestinal parasitic diseases such as Rudolf Wagner is Professor of Chinese studies assertion of caste identities. To this end, in addition to ensuring animal. The various institutes and such as collecting fuel and stoking a fire, schistosomiasis (bilharzia), which affec- at Heidelberg University rule of law, it is imperative to improve education delivery and grow the number of private sector jobs in the formal economy. Is One Belt, One Road the Chinese ashwamedha? Temperate Note How China’s mythology influences its politics Trump’s speech in Riyadh nails Devdutt Pattanaik whose people are best kept out using two ways. Firstly, it embodies luan, chaos. projects such as the Great Wall of China. This chaos threatens the Chinese sense of terrorism, but fumbles on Iran As Western hegemony By contrast, time (kala) plays a key order. This makes India a perpetual threat. wanes in the global role in Hindu mythology. Buddhism, It makes the Chinese leadership nervous. n a significant departure from his campaign rhetoric, US village, China envisions Jainism and Hinduism speak of a world Secondly, India is Sukhavati, the Western President Donald Trump delivered a key speech delinking Islam the One Belt, One Road that has no beginning (anadi), no end Paradise in Chinese Buddhism, source of Ifrom terrorism and urged leaders of more than 50 Muslim-majority (OBOR) project. India (ananta) and is always impermanent great spiritual wisdom. It speaks about countries gathered in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to drive out withdraws from it. (anitya). Indian mythologies speak of transcending materialism to be free of extremism from their lands. Trump rode to the White House on the What makes cultures do what they do? great universal emperors (chakra-varti) suffering, an idea that invalidates the back of strident anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric; it is there- The answer perhaps lies in their mytho- but these are more conceptual than promise of the material philosophies, be logies, which map the culture’s mind. historical. India thrives in dynamic it communism or capitalism. fore welcome that he struck a conciliatory note in Riyadh. Using state- At the heart of Chinese mythology is diversity, with multiple kingdoms that Until the arrival of the Europeans, ments such as “95% of victims of terror attacks are themselves belief in the Mandate of Heaven. The rise and fall from Mauryas to Guptas to Buddhism was the only foreign idea that Muslims”, Trump highlighted the challenges the world faces from Emperor of China has been given the Vakatakas to Rashtrakutas to Kadambas has had a dramatic impact on Chinese terrorism. But he also made it unequivocally clear that Muslim divine authority to mirror heavenly to Gangas to Pallavas to Pandyas to history. Since then, China watches with countries have to take the lead in fighting the radicalism within. order on earth. If the emperor fails to do Cholas to Nayakas to Mughals to British. trepidation the rising tide of Christian This is welcome as Trump seems to be so, he can be replaced. A successful There is no Beijing equivalent in evangelism in South Korea and Singapore, revolution marks the shifting of this Hindu mythology, though Delhi is often and Islam on its Western borders, and the veering to a pragmatic and rational position mandate from one king to another. projected as such in post-Independence hurricane of technology coming from the that distinguishes between Islamist terrorism Although communism sees itself as textbooks. India, known in Buddhist, In Chinese worldview, India is West. The Chinese way is eroding, unless and the Islamic faith. At the same time, Muslim rational, and so anti-religion and anti- Jain and Hindu texts as Jambu-dvipa or seen in two ways. Firstly, it the Emperor takes charge. Hence, OBOR. countries must realise that the virus of mythology, the communist revolution Bharata-varsha or Arya-varta, is bound Is OBOR the Chinese equivalent of extremism has incubated in their societies and under Mao Zedong effectively marked not by politics but by religion; it has been embodies luan, chaos. Secondly, the ashwamedha, the Vedic ritual by Islamist terrorism born from this is wreaking the shift in the Mandate of Heaven from united not by empires but by pilgrim India is Sukhavati, source of which a king established his authority the old order to the new. The rise of routes, an idea that perplexes modern and sovereignty? Is India reacting like havoc on the world. Trump did well to name China into an economic powerhouse historians who try very hard to prove great spiritual wisdom the insecure Indra, king of the sky? Or India as a victim of terrorism even as Pakistani under Deng Xiaoping also indicates yet India is a creation of the British. are we choosing the hermit’s isolation PM Nawaz Sharif sat in the audience. another shift in the Mandate of Heaven. In Chinese mythology, there is author- of harmony and flow. over the householder’s pragmatism? Is But where Trump fumbled was in calling for isolating Iran for The current leadership in China is now ity and bureaucracy in heaven too. The Essentially, the tone is highly material- maya (delusion) at play as we indulge supporting terrorism within a few days of its re-electing reformist expanding its Pax Sinica. gods enable the living to be successful, istic and worldly in contrast to the other- our inflated sense of importance? President Hassan Rouhani. This overlooks that Iran itself is in the Geography plays a key role in Chinese and successful mortals such as emperors, worldly nature of Indian mythologies, The Chinese classic, Sun Tzu’s Art of mythology. At the centre is the Forbidden military commanders and noblemen take where the psychological matters more War, is about winning while Krishna’s crosshairs of Sunni Islamist terror groups. Trump has struck an City (Beijing) around which is China the position of immortal gods. The highly than the physical. Jain, Buddhist and Bhagavad Gita is about union with the innovative foreign policy position by arguing for co-operation with and around which is the peripheral formal, hierarchical and socially-respon- Hindu mythologies place great value on divine. Very different goals. Something Russia when Washington finds it difficult to live down its Cold War nations who look towards China for sible Confucianism, with its great regard yoga, the un-crumpling of the mind we need to meditate on. legacy. It’s disappointing, therefore, that Trump should accede to guidance to create heavenly order on for authority, is balanced by the more crumpled by hunger and fear. The writer ponders the modern meaning another Cold War legacy by taking sides in the Saudi-Iranian sectarian earth. Beyond are the lands of chaos, mystical and occult Taoism, that speaks In Chinese worldview, India is seen in of myths rivalry that is at the heart of conflicts in the region. It would havebeen much better to build bridges between Riyadh and Tehran. dilbert Sacredspace Who is Powerful? You come from commitment or complaint? You have to decide Designed by college boys that. Invariably we find people Triple talaq is exactly how immature men who are powerful are those who operate from will end any relationship – unreasonably commitment. And those who Radhika Vaz are powerless, always operate from complaint. Triple talaq. Two words more loaded than me at happy hour. Should it stay or should it go? Everyone has an opinion about it Swami Sukhabodhananda and here is mine. I say don’t do away with triple talaq, instead do away with marriage. Think about this – if we didn’t have marriage we wouldn’t have child marriage, forced marriage, bride beatings, dowry harassment, bride burnings and we most certainly would not have divorce. Contributing To The Civilisation-Building Process See the problem is that both marriage and triple talaq are man-made, design- ed by men to serve themselves. Think about this – the average Indian marriage A Baha’i Approach the fruit of a dynamic coherence between grounds together in an environment family unit that lead to material and requires a strict division of labour. He goes to work, which can mean anything the material and spiritual requirements of which, devoid of the constant threat of spiritual prosperity without instilling in from having a job to marginal employment (aka dad’s business) to being aha’is across the globe, are striving to life, will recede out of reach as long as conflict and distinguished by its devotional the rising generations feelings of estrange- outright jobless. Regardless of his contribution his wife has to do all the house- promote the principle of the oneness consumerism continues to act as opium to character, encourages them to put aside ment towards an illusory “other” or nurtu- work, look after the in-laws, have sex whenever he wants, produce as many Bof humankind and the convictions the human soul. the divisive ways of a partisan mindset, ring any instinct to exploit those relegated children as she can with zero maternity leave (because housework must go on), underpinning it: that the rational soul has That justice, as a faculty of the soul, fosters higher degrees of unity of thought to this category? How to make it possible and she has to do all this with a smile on her lips or her performance review no gender, race, ethnicity or class, a fact enables the individual to distinguish truth and action, and elicits wholehearted for decision making to benefit from a won’t go well. And because she gave up working outside the house so that renders intolerable all forms of from falsehood and guides the participation? diversity of perspectives through a consult- she could work inside the house she is at her husband’s mercy. prejudice, not the least of which are those investigation of reality; that, How to administer the affairs ative process which, understood as the As for triple talaq i actually think it was designed by college boys that prevent women from fulfilling their when appropriately brought to of a community in which there is collective investigation of reality, promotes because that is exactly how immature men will end any relationship – potential. That the root cause of prejudice bear on social issues, justice is no ruling class with priestly detachment from personal views, gives due unreasonably. Of course this is not the purview of Muslims, although you guys is ignorance, which can be overcome the single most important in- functions that can lay claim to importance to valid empirical information, have carved yourselves a wee bit of a niche here. All that said, based on my through educational processes, ensuring strument for the establishment of distinction or privilege; how to does not raise mere opinion to the status Twitter research the angriest critics of triple talaq besides the feminists tend education does not become the property of unity; that work performed in the enable people to break free from of fact or define truth as the compromise to be middle-aged, divorced, Hindu men who would have much rather screamed a privileged few. spirit of service to one’s fellow the confines of passivity and the between opposing interest groups? talaq three times in their wives’ faces. These guys are upset that they had to deal That science and religion are two human beings is a form of prayer, chains of oppression in order to To explore questions such as these with the law, that they have to pay alimony, and most of all that some other guys complementary systems of knowledge and a means of worshipping God. the engage in activities conducive to and the many others certain to arise, the are getting away with it. practice by which human beings come to The Baha’i community is their spiritual, social and intellec- Baha’i community has adopted a mode of And this is why triple talaq must go (OK so i changed my mind). In a culture understand the world around them and dedicated to the long-term process speaking tual development; how to help operation characterised by action, reflec- that is skewed to giving men a better deal the fact is they will act like college through which civilisation advances; that of learning that this task entails, tree youth navigate through a crucial tion, consultation and study – study which boys if they aren’t being watched. Men are clearly not hard wired to do the right religion without science soon degenerates an enterprise in which increasing stage of their lives and become empowered involves not only constant reference to the thing by their women and so the law has to make them do it. Here is hoping it into superstition and fanaticism, while numbers from all walks of life, from every to direct their energies towards the writings of the Faith but also the scientific will. And once we sort this out we can come back to banning marriage. science without religion becomes the tool human group, are invited to take part. advancement of civilisation? analysis of patterns unfolding. The writer is a comedian of crude materialism; that true prosperity, How to bring people of different back- How to create dynamics within the (Baha’i Office of Public Affairs)