[no1name]

Baba Ramdev's business is an indicator of things to come in India. As India is resurgent, we will see more such mega enterprises which connect to India's ancient Hindu past. In many ways the ancient Indian civilization was much superior to Western civilization. His business is successful because there's a market for it. People are happy to connect with their forgotten past by rejecting the West in a big way.

[sumedh]

> In many ways the ancient Indian civilization was much superior to Western civilization.

Like the caste system and burning of widows?

[dang]

Nationalistic flamewar, which you started here and continued below, is not allowed on HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[no1name]

Hindu metaphysics is much superior to any work done in philosophy in the West. But I suppose it's too difficult for you to understand as all you have done in life is read NYT and watch CNN. When you see Hindus, you see caste and what not. When you see Americans you don't see slavery. That's how your mind has been whitewashed.

[sumedh]

Ah yes the classic finger-pointing excuse.

[no1name]

Better than steamrolling the debate by mentioning 'sati' and 'widow burning'. How'd you feel if to every achievement of Western civilization that you mention I said 'brutal slavery' (which actually finished the African civilization) and 'burning of witches'?

[KozmoNau7]

Slavery in the US ended ~150 years ago and a couple of decades before that in Europe. Similarly, the last known witch trial and execution in Europe was ~200 years ago. And outright witch burnings stopped long before that.

By contrast, witch hunts still happen in India, as well as gang rapes and mutilations, on a level completely unheard of in the west.

And the caste system is still in effect, although not officially.

I trust you've seen the massive protests, and I hope it's a sign that something is being done. Based on reports of political corruption and indifference from the population, unfortunately I don't have much hope for it.

[no1name]

Wow man, I appreciate your persistence. I am yet to hear of a scandal of the scale of Telford and Rotherham in India. I heard that thousands of white young working-class girls were kept in grooming gangs by Pakistani men. It'll be really better for you if you peep in your backyard rather than using italics in a passive-aggressive way to educate me about India. Also, I see no protest about these grooming gangs and in fact Tommy Robinson who was reporting on it was thrown in prison! This is the state of Western world, the harbinger of liberal democracy!!! And I'd really really suggest that you come out of the toxic bubble your media like NYT and CNN and WaPo have put you in. It's really depressing to see that you have taken zero efforts to learn what's actually going on. I guess you should use social media more actively and listen to and talk to people outside your political spectrum to curtail your arrogance and extreme lack of knowledge.

[sumedh]

ok we wont talk about sati and caste system, lets talk about the gang rapes and how females are not treated equally.

I dont understand why you keep bringing western civilization, probably because you think I am a westerner, I am not. So stop the finger pointing.

[KozmoNau7]

>"In many ways the ancient Indian civilization was much superior to Western civilization."

Which ways, specifically? Certainly not health nor longevity.

This rewrite of history to make ancient Hinduism appear much greater is very similar to the history rewrite currently happening in China, to retroactively make Han Chinese appear as a superior and united culture.

[dang]

You've broken the site guidelines in this thread by fueling a wretched nationalistic flamewar, which is way beyond the pale for this site. And you've unfortunately gotten involved in other political/ideological flamewars recently too. We ban accounts that won't stop doing this, so could you please not do it any more? Hacker News is for intellectual curiosity. Those things kill intellectual curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[KozmoNau7]

I'll (try to) stay out of political discussions, then. It's become a way too touchy subject lately.

[no1name]

Westerners did everything to belittle the Eastern civilizations when the West was laying the foundations of its own civilization. So it's very difficult for people who have lived and educated in the West to realize that Eastern civilizations were at the height of glory once. When Indian sages were debating intricate points of philosophy, people in the West were still in caves and lead a tribal existence. Hindu metaphysics is much superior to any other metaphysical system in the world. This informs its science and religion. West has made some gains but what that research is worth will only be known a few centuries from now when history is written. It's easy to be blinded by the current events and lose perspective.

[KozmoNau7]

>"Westerners did everything to belittle the Eastern civilizations when the West was laying the foundations of its own civilization."

That is a very uncharitable view. For centuries, trade flourished between east and west, and there was widespread exchange of both goods and ideas. The racism and distrust of "orientals" or "easterners" didn't come until much later, primarily in the era of colonialism (a seriously black mark on western history, as you know) and it didn't actually put a stop to trade and exchange of ideas.

>"So it's very difficult for people who have lived and educated in the West to realize that Eastern civilizations were at the height of glory once."

Not at all. We are very much aware of the great history of India, China, the Arab world and northern Africa, to name a few key areas where great civilizations of the ancient world flourished. Mostly in broad terms of course, it's hard enough to know every detail of your own history, never mind one that happened halfway around the world.

But similarly, you can say that it's very easy for people who have lived and been educated in the east, to not realize the heights reached by western civilizations. One's own history is much closer, obviously.

>"When Indian sages were debating intricate points of philosophy, people in the West were still in caves and lead a tribal existence."

That is not a very charitable view. In this time period, the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations flourished, and you would hardly call them tribal cave people.

Some people in the west (especially in the colder, harsher northern areas) lived in tribal societies, just as some people in the east did. But to completely ignore the great civilizations around the Mediterranean sea is not a very informed view to take.

>"Hindu metaphysics is much superior to any other metaphysical system in the world."

By which measure? Remember that contemporary western civilizations also had intricate spiritual and philosophical systems.

>"It's easy to be blinded by the current events and lose perspective."

I will contend that it is much easier to be blinded by past glory, and especially a historically "massaged" and "improved" view of ancient history. The danger of having a backwards perspective is that you become blind to current events and the future. We cannot live in the past, and "we were great once, you know" is a dead end, not a way forward.

Personally, I am disturbed by this strong rise of hindu nationalism (and nationalism in general), because we have seen what it can lead to. Massacres, world wars, conquest of "lesser people", widespread oppression, economies set back by decades or even centuries. We should endeavor to never repeat these mistakes.

[no1name]

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[KozmoNau7]

[flagged]

[no1name]

Thanks, I'm not interested in your lecture about Hindu nationalism. You have no idea about what's going on in India. As you say the change in history is coming from historians and critical journos. I agree with you and it's all the more better in that case! You are totally sold off on your media and what your politicians feed you. Of course they have told you the narrative that Western civilization is the best and you judge everything from point of view of what happened in world war 2. But history of Hindus is thousands of years older than a war which they don't care about. Maybe you made some effort to learn that Eastern civilizations were good as well. But you never cared to gain the right perspective because you revel in your civilizational glory or maybe you just don't care. But Indians and Hindus do care. Indians don't just care for their societal traditions, they also care for their philosophical tradition, which was obviously most supreme. You won't understand as Westerners have barely any tradition to look back to. All you folks want is to go back to 1950s or something, which is nothing but hilarious. Indians have millenniums of tradition behind them, which is something.