Desai questions 'suitability' of Gita in modern India

[KS]

Desai questions 'suitability' of Gita in modern India

Professor Emeritus of London School of Economics Lord Meghnad Desai on Wednesday said the Bhagavad Gita was not "a suitable text for modern India".

"Why are we respecting the text uncritically, which has so many flaws?" he asked while delivering a lecture on "The Bhagavad Gita: A secular inquiry into A sacred text" at AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies.

He said: "The Bhagavad Gita has many flaws and certain questions should be raised by us. My purpose is to analyse and deconstruct the text. I am trying to read the Bhagavad Gita as a secular text and not as a sacred text. I am putting certain questions to the authorship though multiple authors are there."

Desai added that there are certain elements in the text of the Bhagavad Gita which are not suitable in modern India.

The Professor Emeritus said: "In the text, it has been asked to do karma without thinking about the consequences. How can it be said that we should not think about the consequences? Whatever we do affects others too. For example, if I start drinking and then driving without thinking about the consequences, I might kill many people on the road."

He added: "If I do that, I might have to go for psychological examination. It is not possible that we go on thinking just about doing karma without thinking about others. How can we think only about ourselves and not others and go on killing people."Desai said the people should think about the consequences so that we do not harm others by our actions.

At the lecture organised by Nalanda University,he also talked about women and observed that women had not been mentioned in the text anywhere.

He said: "Women have not been mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita anywhere. It is just two shlokas where they have been mentioned. One among the two is that mentioned in 9.32 (chapter 9, verse 32) that is mam hi partha vyapasritya ye 'pi syuh papa-yonayah striyo vaisyas tatha sudras te 'pi yanti param gatim. The translation for this is ' son of Pritha, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth, women, vaishyas [merchants] and shudras [workers] can attain the supreme destination.' This is again to be thought about."

Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician.

Hetukar Jha, the head of the department of sociology, Patna University, chaired the event. The officer on special duty (academic affairs and university development), Nalanda University, was also present on the occasion. Asian Development Research Institute founder member Shaibal Gupta and Gopa Sabharwal, the vice-chancellor of Nalanda University, were also present at the event.

 

[A chauhan]

..The Professor Emeritus said: "In the text, it has been asked to do karma without thinking about the consequences. How can it be said that we should not think about the consequences? Whatever we do affects others too. For example, if I start drinking and then driving without thinking about the consequences, I might kill many people on the road."...

Desai questions 'suitability' of Gita in modern India

And I thought that God gave us intellect !

 

[Sunder singh]

it seem every flop just want to become hit guy popular guy by just
1 questioning Geeta relivance
2 By insulting hindus
3 By make nacked pics of Godesses
etc etc

unfortunately it works

 

[parijataka]

I am trying to read the Bhagavad Gita as a secular text and not as a sacred text.

I dont know what will happen if someone tries to read the Bible or Kuran as a secular text!

 

[blank_quest]

Lord Meghnad Desai on Wednesday said the Bhagavad Gita was not "a suitable text for modern India".

Implies as a whole!

Desai added that there are certain elements in the text of the Bhagavad Gita which are not suitable in modern India.

Implies certain elements unsuitable for Modern India!

what he is reading is Baised, and am sure! Like him there are many uncritical minds who have gained fame.

There is no single interpretation of Bhagawad Gita
Swami A

But the interpretation of Sri Sankaracarya differs from the interpretations of the Vaisnava acaryas headed by Sri Ramanujacarya and Madhvacarya. There are innumerable interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita in the market, and it is certainly a puzzling business to select which of the various interpretations shall be accepted as bona fide and which of them shall be rejected as mala fide.

This ----ing dude has no idea what he is talking about..
any one who has read six schools of Indian philosophy knows what am talking about!!
Sri Sankaracarya --> Non-Dualistic interpretation
Sri Ramanujacarya -->> Dualistic interpretation..
and so on .....

This is the awareness of a common Hindu who is scared about any bullshit article from Lords in England.

 

[Ray]

Religion itself in a genuinely secular country is not suitable.

Religion is, in itself, the fountainhead of being communal!

 

[Ray]

Who is this Megnad Desai?

The same chap from the UK who is our Prime Time TV celebrity with that Weaver Bird nest hair?

 

[Sunder singh]

^^ ha ha ha thanks ray for pic and comparison strange hair style now 100% agree he has some psycho problem to look orvbehave strange

 

[chase]

"I am just wondering that if he reads the Bible or Koran or the New testament or Old Testament from a 'secular' perspective then these texts would be immediately declared as hate speech and banned in any sane civilized world.The god of the old testament is a bigot and a rapist,the new testament and all the abrahmic religions are based on the old testament.

 

[maomao]

Don't we have our own brains to interpret any religious text? Do we need Dumbos like desais to guide us?

Have Hinduism ever put any compulsion regarding reading of Gita - like islam and Quaran? How many of you have actually read Gita?

I'm proud that there is no compulsion in Hinduism unlike Islam! (I know some genius may post an abrogated verse from quran regarding 'no compulsion of religion' bring it on)!

 

[Phenom]

The great thing about Hinduism is that you are allowed to criticize the religion and find fault in it.

If you look back, Hindus have always been critical about their religion and if there is any problem in it then we fix it, several reformist movements have done this in the past. And this process has kept Hinduism relevant through the millennia.

We can argue against the points he is making, rather than argue against his right to make them.

 

[Ray]

No one is curbing his right to do what he wants with his religion.

But what I like is that there is no 'fatwas' being delivered that makes him go into hiding!

You are right, Hinduism is a jolly old Club!

Do as you like and damn the world. That's what I find is real invigorating!

And even if chaps out here go hammer and tongs, Dinky Desai will still publish what he wants and will not have Special Branch police and Safe houses to protect him because some religious nut has given a fatwa on his head!

Whoopee!

Let us not give the example of Islam alone, please.

Mizoram, the Christian State of India, has given a 'fatwa' that none can play football on Sunday!

Abrahamic religions take religion very seriously and not merely as a chit chat club!

Don't you think that is a right way to go?

 

[Agnostic_Indian]

"I am just wondering that if he reads the Bible or Koran or the New testament or Old Testament from a 'secular' perspective then these texts would be immediately declared as hate speech and banned in any sane civilized world.The god of the old testament is a bigot and a rapist,the new testament and all the abrahmic religions are based on the old testament.

You are right..every religious text contains such parts which will not make sense or un ethical to follow in a modern society..so what we do ? we would take the good things , leave the bad parts or interpret that parts in a way which looks nice, and if nothing can be done to some parts we just ignore it.
but some people are adamant on following what is written literally with out looking the contest, period , culture of society when these words were written and that is the cause of all the trouble we see in the name of religion.

 

[Agnostic_Indian]

The great thing about Hinduism is that you are allowed to criticize the religion and find fault in it.

If you look back, Hindus have always been critical about their religion and if there is any problem in it then we fix it, several reformist movements have done this in the past. And this process has kept Hinduism relevant through the millennia.

We can argue against the points he is making, rather than argue against his right to make them.

yes Hindus were always critical about the religion but the reforms were not as smooth as you would like to think, there were always resistance from the orthodox, and will remain in the future also..as society progress what is considered good practice , ritual, today will be questioned tomorrow and there will be two groups, one for and other against the change..it's a continuous process.

second thing absence of a teacher, it can be a good thing as well as a bad thing because with out proper guidance one may interpret the words wrongly. So a good guru is always advisable IMO and I think place / concept ,of guru was always there.

 

[maomao]

No one is curbing his right to do what he wants with his religion.

But what I like is that there is no 'fatwas' being delivered that makes him go into hiding!

You are right, Hinduism is a jolly old Club!

Do as you like and damn the world. That's what I find is real invigorating!

And even if chaps out here go hammer and tongs, Dinky Desai will still publish what he wants and will not have Special Branch police and Safe houses to protect him because some religious nut has given a fatwa on his head!

Whoopee!

Let us not give the example of Islam alone, please.

Mizoram, the Christian State of India, has given a 'fatwa' that none can play football on Sunday!

Abrahamic religions take religion very seriously and not merely as a chit chat club!

Don't you think that is a right way to go?

Sirji,

I completely agree with you; however, how many times have these Christian Fatwas being implemented in Totality? Have you ever seen Xians Rioting, looting and plundering because a Padre said them to do so? How many times have Xians especially Indian xians killed, maimed or beheaded anyone who said something against their religion? How many times have we seen xians destroy public property and inflicting injuries on police? Everywhere they kind of live in peace and I'm talking about religious Xians !!


P.S: Let me tell you xians will play football in Mizoram and show middle finger to the church and its padres unlike in the case of islamic fatwas!!

 

[spikey360]

Gita has been around for thousands of years since it was written. There is no point divulging the actual source and the age of that knowledge in a thread like this of a defence forum.

Sanatan Dharma has prevailed despite the kind of people like Meghnad Desai. If humankind is just a blink in the annals of time, think how insignificant one person like Meghnad Desai is.

 

[Zebra]

Gita has been around for thousands of years since it was written. There is no point divulging the actual source and the age of that knowledge in a thread like this of a defence forum.

Sanatan Dharma has prevailed despite the kind of people like Meghnad Desai. If humankind is just a blink in the annals of time, think how insignificant one person like Meghnad Desai is.

Little more than 5000 years.

There are two different Gita books available.

1) Shrimad Bhagavad Geeta.

Which covers all the three different ways (Karma yoga, Gyan yoga and Bhakti yoga) so that one can reach to the lord.

2) Uddhava Gita.

Which covers mainly Gyan yoga only.

One can find it at the Eleventh Canto of the Bhagavata Purana, chapters six to twenty-nine.

They both were spoken by Lord Krishna to Arjun and Uddhava, one of his best friends and relatives.

 

[chase]

^^

Not many people know it but there is another gita Ashtavakra gita Ashtavakra Gita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ashtavakra Gita (Sanskrit in Devanagari: अष्टावक्रगीता; IAST: aṣṭāvakragītā)[1] or the Song of Ashtavakra is a classical Advaita Vedanta scripture. Based on the language structure, this Vedic scripture is also known as Ashtavakra Samhita, and it is dated to be around 1100 BCE to 800 BCE based on the composition style of the Sanskrit language[2]. The Ashtavakra Samhita documents a dialogue between the Perfect Master Ashtavakra and Janaka, the King of Mithila.[3]

 

[KS]

The great thing about Hinduism is that you are allowed to criticize the religion and find fault in it.

If you look back, Hindus have always been critical about their religion and if there is any problem in it then we fix it, several reformist movements have done this in the past. And this process has kept Hinduism relevant through the millennia.

We can argue against the points he is making, rather than argue against his right to make them.

Welcome back brother.

 

[KS]

P.S: Let me tell you xians will play football in Mizoram and show middle finger to the church and its padres unlike in the case of islamic fatwas!!

That means you have not seen the fanaticism of the new converts...