The Dasyu-Dāsa dynamic vs. "class struggle" theory

What is the relationship between conflict and service? Anything on social justice and political transformation in the Vedas (supposedly accused of feudal casteism)? Actually I think understanding the injustices of politics, economics and ideology/religion as a Dasyu-Dāsa dynamic from all angles is far more enlightening as a theory than the demagoguery of half-baked "class struggle" semantics found in Marxist historiography. The former offers an insight, the latter only incites. The former is a truer observation and is psychological, the latter is opportunistic and based on justified thought conceived in an unstable condition.

There is a prominent sentiment in the Veda that calls upon the divinity Indra, Thunder-wielder, for help in liquidating those corrupt crackpots who play power games solely on the strength of being high-born, exclusive esoteric mystics, saviors from an oppressive foe, charismatics, fortuitous chosen races, and whatnot, and who instigate or mobilize large numbers of brainwashed orcs to wield political power:

Rg Veda 6.42.04:
अस्मा अस्मा इदन्धसोSध्वर्यो प्र भरा सुतम् ।
कुवित्समस्य जेन्यस्य शर्धतोSभिशस्तेरवस्परत् ॥

"To him, Adhvaryu! yea, to him give offerings of the juice expressed.
Will he not keep us safely from the spiteful curse of each presumptuous high-born foe?"

Rg Veda 6.19.12:
जनं वज्रिन्महि चिन्मन्यमानमेभ्यो नृभ्यो रन्धया येष्वस्मि ।
अधा हि त्वा पृथिव्यां शूरसातौ हवामहे तनये गोष्वप्सु ॥

"Give up the people who are high and haughty to these men and to me, O Thunder-wielder!
Therefore upon the earth do we invoke thee, where heroes win, for sons and kine and waters."

This "high-born" foe is apparently the "Dasyu", who often lead the "Dāsas". A friend explained: The problem starts with development of personality-cults, whether in the form of deities or their spokespersons on earth. Elite sense of entitlement to power, but marginalization within the elite, leads to search for mobilization outside the elites. Once the non-elite has been mobilized to destroy intra-elite competitors, the new-power goes back to older elite drives. This is when personality cult develops - and a new elite base forms, often accompanied by sequential purges to reduce the number of competitors for power, and a coterie reinforces the personality cult. Net result - a society of "dāsas" under an elite super-personality. A slave society in more ways than one.

[Later in the Pauranic shift of Indian civilization, Indra is humiliated and sidelined, especially in the Vaishnava tradition which is historically associated with a birth-based, feudalistic, agrarian, hierarchical caste order. I wondered whether this change in Indra's popular image has anything to do with changing sociological circumstances or necessities of the time, but I am not qualified to comment on it.]

But "dāsa" in the Veda doesn't always mean the enemy, though it most often refers to an enemy. Yet, its greatest heroes also have "dāsa" in their names. The central Bhārata protagonist of the War of Ten Kings is called Sudās, and his illustrious father is called Divodāsa. The Vedic root "dās" (दास्) is understood by most to have the sense of "being used up" or "to yield up". A friend explained: "Dāsa" has a self-deprecating connotation when used in a proper name. But original usage for 'dāsa' is not as a collective noun meaning captive slave who provides service. It's originally used for enemies in Rg Veda. Even the root of this verbal noun is 'dāsati' which is used in the sense of destroy/assail/attack. The verb used in RgVeda for captive or fettered is gṛbhīta; and it's never used for 'dāsa'.

He adds: Leave alone the question of religious sanction for slavery; even if someone were to use secondary texts to assert slavery as a mainstream institution in Vedic India, the burden of proof is on them to corroborate it with actual archaeological evidence. Just compare the pictorial evidence of slavery in Pompeii for instance; evidence in Egypt; Scythian slave trade. There is just no comparison in India. Since Vedic India did not have monumental construction; instead it had strict rules for food and ritual and other spiritual disciplines, what could these hypothetical slaves do for the owners?

In Vedic spirituality, there seems to have been a warning against associating any permanent material property with a so-called divine significance. No grandiose stupas, temples, mosques, cathedrals. Even the custom altar for the Fire ritual was itself burned down after the exercise was completed. Ritual was drilled and performed as a sensory training routine and an interpersonal objective process. Thus, the spiritual foci of Vedic civilization were logical and honest, and not meant to be based on ways and means of priest-craft, politics, and mass hypnotism.

The Vedic foci were not merely elevationist, nor mainly salvationist, but rather noetic - i.e., it has components for regressive, progressive, linear and cyclical motion on the Time line, and is therefore able to be holistic in its understanding and holographic in it mental map and imagination. This is different from those spiritual/ideological cultures or cults (religious or Marxist, etc.) built around just an elevationist-salvationist dipole. The political dynamics of Vedic civlization was meant to be a discourse around holistic civilizational purpose rather than solely around economic gain, or social stability, or annihilation in a metaphysical ideal.

But how would one connect the transformation of the root dās'  meaning from "destroy/assail" to "servant", especially when humble servitude is different from humiliating, forced slavery? My sense is that dās has the sense of 'to punish' or 'to use up'. Just like in English one can say, 'to punish a jar of whiskey'. So then dās could mean either to destroy something by force, or to use it up in willing service. So "Divodāsa" would mean 'one who is used up in service by the divinities'. After all, this body is wasted by Time anyways, better to offer it to be used up in conscious service by the divinities, for the sake of Divine Civilization.

What one feels one cannot "have" (possess with satisfaction), one must make better use of. What one feels one is unable to even use freely, one must first be made able to waste. The perspective of knowledge is that there is no scarcity of bodies (or material) - though Life is precious. The perspective of Ignorance is that all economics is based on scarcity and that in turn influences psychology.

My friend corroborates: I agree with you. Turns out dāsa' isn't the only word with this dual meaning. Even the word 'aryaḥ' (plural) and 'ariḥ' (singular) are often used in two ways:
- devout or suppliant when used for oneself before Gods
- then in some verses as a generic collective for enemies.

E.g., Rg Veda 8.48.8: ... mā no aryo anukāmaṃ parādāḥ
Addressed to Indu: "Give us not to our enemy's will/wish."

Rg Veda 2.12.6 ... so aryaḥ puṣtīrvija ivā mināti
"He (Indra) diminishes the possessions of the enemy like (a gambler) reduces the stake."

Now that's interesting. Usage of "ariḥ" as enemy is common, but I don't often come across it used for devotee!

Coming back to the point - So "dāsa" can be good or bad. How so? It depends on who/what is being served, or rather who or what is using up one's resources and body. If the Dasyu is your master, then surely it is a negative term in the Veda. If the Devas are one's beloved, then it is positive. (See also a previous post on this blog: "Human command potentials and roles in Civilization".) So every mobilization, religious or not, has a particular context and an undercurrent that deserves attention. One cannot draw a false moral equivalence.

Given that in its Vedic fundamentals, Hinduism has a clear antipathy to the Dasyu-Dāsa dynamic, it is strange that one finds so many manifestations of this dynamic that crept into Hindu civilization over the last 14 centuries. Something went rotten at the political heart of the civilization, some ethical Condition was mis-handled, something was displaced, first subtly from within, and later overtly and brutally under foreign occupations. It has been a long and humiliating 14 century exile, but one which has its treasures of devotion, purpose, identity, learning and being able to discriminate good from evil.

Some more on these fundamentals:
- Agniveer: Vedas and Dāsa.
- Agniveer: Vedas and Dasyu in Hinduism.

Lastly, as tiresome as it is, one can't put the pen down without a note about the spurious "Aryan-Dravidian" Apartheid race theories used by European colonial historians to misinterpret the Veda. "Dāsa" doesn't mean a "Dravidian" race. In fact, the heroic King Sudās calls several of his enemies "dāsa", including those who are "Arya". Arya was a cultural term. Thus, the large coalition of enemy nations ranged against our Sudas were depicted as an army of Dāsas lead by Dasyus, and they included some clans that were Arya and some that weren't. Whereas Sudās' own allies included Arya and non-Arya too. The Veda is far too complex and subtle for the tendentious interpretations of baser motivations to fly too far for too long.

...aaand the necessary disclaimer - All this is assuming one can reasonably assign Sanskrit meanings to the sonic data stream of the Veda - in itself a highly creative and speculative exercise based on cognitive states and scientific observation, as well as the strictest grammatical analysis of sound patterns. In one sense one can say that the poor speculative Vedic derivations of older colonial Western Indologists and Indian Marxists is also valid, as a reflection of their own metacognitions on life and the world and its interpersonal semantics.

Thus again, understanding the Dasyu-Dāsa dynamic from all angles is far more enlightening as a theory than the incitement of half-arse "class struggle" semantics found in Marxist historiography. This Marxist narrative is used by all manner of inimical forces in India today, to attack the core. (See a previous blogpost on this: "Psychohistory vs. Dumb Dialectics".) In India, the field of work associated with the political Left is ripe for an injection of better ideologies, and the emergence of a genuine "Hindutva" Left is much needed.

Already a lot of grassroots work is being done. K.N. Govindacharya, after he withdrew from the BJP and took a sabbatical, has been involved in a certain direction which is noteworthy. Per Wiki: Today he believes that challenges before the nation have to be confronted on three fronts - creative, intellectual and agitational. Therefore, he founded three organizations to fight on the following fronts:

1. Bharat Vikas Sangam: This is a working for needed model of economic development directed towards swadeshi and decentralisation.
2. Kautilya Shodh Sansthan: This is a research organisation working in the civilization context of Bharat.
3. Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan: This organisation opposes the anti people and anti nature policies of the governments without having any political aspiration of its own.

One hopes such efforts proliferate. There are a lot of sincere individuals doing grassroots work to relieve social and economic injustices, but they are often duped into swallowing the narrative woven by well-funded NGOs and their ideological networks that are frankly ignorant or actively inimical to India's civilizational interests. Therefore, ideological creativity and better networking are essential. Vedic textual memes such as the Dasyu-Dāsa dynamic offer a more mature narrative for the benefit of all.

Here is an elaborate sculpture at Thailand's Bangkok International Airport, depicting the churning of the Milk Ocean by the tug of war between the Devas and the Asuras. [Would funding such a public cultural artifact be possible for the Government of India? Or is only a photo of the Taj Mahal "secular" enough to be included in all its cultural advertisements?]

Can Hindutva do Yoga?

What is "Hindutva", where is it coming from? How has it changed colours and manifested different tendencies along the way, and where is it going? Is it a reactionary threat from a bruised past, or could it be an opening to a new future for India as an all-inclusive civilization? There is some polarization and imbalance in Indian politics today around these questions.

समत्वं योग उच्यते । "Balance or evenness is called Yoga."
So goes the famous phrase from the Bhagavad Gita (2.48). In practical terms, it is the intelligence to correct an imbalance or unevenness that resulted from the effort to stretch one's concept of Self. It is a technique to correct problems in a way that is safe and also beneficial.

Its a given that an individual, society, civilization and humanity is continuously exploring new frontiers of information, exterior and interior to its sense of self. In this exploration, the individual or society stretches itself beyond familiar limits, or is stretched by circumstances it gets itself into. So an understanding of the territory is helpful, and a technique is needed to regain balance or reach new stable ground.

A map would give one an understanding of the territory. If one finds oneself on new or dangerous ground, one can use the map to decide on a course. Perhaps one could retreat to the safety of old familiar ground. But that would not be beneficial if newer ground can be discovered after, say, fording a river or climbing a plateau.

Of course it goes without saying that "the map is not the territory", in the famous words of Count Alfred Korzybski in his dissertation, Science and Sanity. But even more interestingly, one could say that "the map is part of the territory", as far as human consciousness goes! Therefore, even more than the biophysical environment, cultural "mind-maps" (mathematically analyzed) are important for intrapersonal and political preferences. That then goes back into reshaping the environment and world we live in.

So as the individual or a social or political movement evolves or devolves, it may manifest several tendencies. Some of these tendencies may enhance survival, others are counter-survival, and still others simply vain indulgences. Even among these, some tendencies may be more pro-survival than others, or some may be less damaging than others.

Importantly, some tendencies that seem risky or retrogressive may be just what is needed to be able to find new ground, and therefore must be undertaken - with a vision. Whereas other over-cautious obsessions may hold the individual or society back, and keep one chained to old and familiar burdens and enemies that continue to slowly feed on one's soul.

Which tendencies should one support in adjusting to - and proactively reshaping - the political environment? Which tendencies to restrain? Which tendencies can compensate for the risks of other tendencies?

I found a good table that maps various tendencies from different angles of vision, and puts them on a grade-scale, along an axis of optimal balance:

Source: The Order Of Time website.

My observation is that, down each column, the ideological tendency one step before balance also acts like an inflection point. We can call it the Penultimate step. At this point, there is a tendency to ripple right back in a sort of reverse peristaltic movement, back to the tendency one step after the balance point. We can call this the Intrapersonal Limit point, for it is the logical conclusion of the drive, taken independently of all other drives with one's body as the reference point. This reverse peristaltic movement vomits all the discontents of the system before a rebuilding can begin. So from this Limit point, one then cycles down through all the other steps, including the Penultimate step, and then one comes out the other side and actually reaches the balance. However -- if one does not have that enlightening cognition on the self and life in the Penultimate step during the first iteration, then one can fall over into excess - one falls into an unenlightened mode of the Intrapersonal Limit!

Example 1: The "cultism" phase under the column "religion" is an inflection point. If in the course of life one has drifted into a religious or political cult ideology, and then has certain cognitions, it can lead to greater maturity. Then one tends to start over, first from a self-pampering "royal" enjoyment of what one has of life or can reach for. Then one moves into re-examining the "fundamentals" (but with a new vision this time). Then cycles through "traditionalism", and learn to integrate it into a "holistic" life. Again at the penultimate step, there is a re-entry into the deeply personal imago of the "cult" cocoon (but with purpose and vision this time), until one comes out from it into "balance". However, if one does not have a metacognition in the cult phase the first time round itself, then one is likely to fall over into excess, in the form of the "religious royalty cultish dead-end", and its worshiping devotees. Either one becomes the guru maharaj, or one of the acolytes.

This can be applied to any column. Also, perhaps more than one iteration may be required between the Penultimate step and the Limit, so that one gains all the necessary cognitions before one emerges into the point of balance on a new plane. Lastly, to get a comprehensive view of any religious, political or social ideology, one could map out its position along all columns and then put it on a grade-scale in comparison to other ideologies or cultures.

For the purposes of this blog entry, some brief thoughts about the column "politics":
(1) The "populism" phase under politics is the Penultimate inflection point. At a point when a tendency gains popularity (e.g. at a punctuated equilibrium in a society's evolution), then cults form and there is a tendency to gravitate to a "formal" ideology that best encapsulates the desires associated with this tendency.
(2) Next, there is likely to be the emergence of a "strong leader"  or more preferably a tight leadership core that consolidates the ideological movement and fleshes it out -- especially by wisely encompassing opposing but complementary points of view -- then captures the commanding heights of political power, and begins changes in all limbs of the establishment - political, educational, economic, cultural.
(3) From there a dynamic society should move into a new nationalism that is not centered on a particular personality or its dynastic succession, but on a national purpose linked with its civilization's worldview, to grow stronger economically and healthier socially.
(4) From there it would move into an isolationist phase, to consolidate its gains and capitalize on them, feed itself and grow strong in order to project power internationally.
(5) From there the society would re-enter a populist phase, where there is a widespread will aligned with the national purpose conceived earlier, and a widespread implementation of the promised benefits conceived in the populist phase the first time round.
(6) Once these benefits are received at the popular level, there should emerge a general recognition of its limits, and a national cognition of a new plane of existence that involves balance.
(7) However, if there is no proper cognition the first time round in the "populist" phase, then no good "formalism" comes from it, or rather an intellectually mediocre ideology rides the tide and leads to a chronic excess in the "formalism" step, of legalistic ideological affiliation and repeated purges of people who cannot continually swear by that ideology.

I think its easy to see that in movements where this has not played out, there has been a stalling of the iteration, and ultimately it leads to greater and greater tension and conflict - either internal, or with other societies - or simply stagnation.

In step (1) from above, movements that generated a more elegant, agile and intellectually superior formalism and ideology thrive longer. The US constitution is one example. The basic credo of Islamism is also pretty agile and rugged -- though at a rather different level of the psycho-physical mind than the US constitution. The Shi'a conversion of Iran is another case in point - where several Sufi cults were already closet Shi'a and Persian nationalist. Shah Esma'il was himself influenced by one such sect and he emerged as the strong leader in step (2) and lead the Safavi takeover. The Indian constitution is also a very comprehensive document, but the dead weight of several provisions in it need to be done away with as their intended goals are met as per the Preamble. Religious and caste privileges and freedoms to politically organize on those lines and so forth are meant to create a unified nation as clearly stated in the Preamble. They were never intended to become permanent entitlements for the purpose of more and more vicious politics.

Then in step (2) one observes that certain movements found a core leadership that consolidated that formalized ideology, debated it within their own core and found themselves cordially on both sides of the aisle. Again the US is a good example with its founding fathers fleshing out their thoughts on democracy and the Publius papers, and occupying both sides of the aisle. Whereas other movements that were not able to maturely encompass two opposing viewpoints have run into historic problems. Islamism still suffers from the Shi'a-Sunni schism that has lead to chronic blood-letting for fourteen centuries. Does Hindutva have the philosophical caliber to speak from opposing viewpoints? Can Hindutva be all-encompassing? Is there even a credible Hindutva Left at this point, or is there likely to be one in the near future? Obviously, the Gujarat model of development cannot be replicated in all states and regions.

Next, in step (3) a new nationalism is given shape, as a collective aspiration and there is economic growth and removal of social evils. I think the USSR and to some extent the PRC had a good phase in this aspect, but because of a philosophically immature formalistic ideology and equally immature core leadership formative phases, they had/have problems. The US continued its colonial momentum and occupied the entire continent from coast to coast, practically finishing off the native races. Thereafter, its engagement with Japan and opening up the Far East is noteworthy, as is its competition with Hispanic and other colonial powers. In India there is a lot of confusion on this step -- about what exactly this national aspiration really is! At best, the only pride that has been inculcated revolves around the fact that India is more sane and morally superior to its neighbors, some of whom we have engaged with in war successfully.

Next, in point (4), the US went through an isolationist phase of consolidation. India has been Non-Aligned, and perhaps this may continue in the near future. It becomes nonsensical without a vigorous growth trajectory and future purpose. So this must go along with an upsurge in economic growth. China has used this step to compensate for its weaknesses in previous steps, and is surviving and doing better than India in many ways, even though India is stronger on some of the earlier steps.

In point (5), we see that many of the promised benefits in the US were realized at a popular level, in terms of standards of living and the American Dream. At this point the US is in step (6), and it remains to be seen whether the nation as a whole can have a cognition of the limitations of the current materialistic understanding of the "pursuit of happiness", and an agreement on a more balanced spiritual understanding of the term - a sane spirituality that avoids the pitfall of Christian fundamentalism or its theological quirks. If this cognition does not dawn on the nation, then as part of step (7) it will continue to get into deeper conflict in the world as it competes for energy resources or in Crusader terms, and there will be greater tensions outside as well as a widening income disparity within.

India is still in the early steps, but at a crucial juncture here. Clearly, future growth and direction is slacking, and it is because there is confusion about the national sense of purpose. The intent expressed in the Preamble has been betrayed by the Congress and the caste and communal political discourse it created. Its own leadership core has degenerated into a dynastic sycophancy. Hindutva has potential and some of its leaders are promising, but it remains to be seen if a mature and intellectually superior ideology can emerge and encompass both sides of the aisle. I believe the emergence of a credible Hindutva Left would be a sure sign of things changing, and notably stalwarts like K.N. Govindacharya walked out of the BJP over a decade ago and started work on this in earnest. Perhaps the cult of Hindutva needs to be revisited and certain cognitions to be gained.

Psychohistory vs. Dumb Dialectics

In the Itihasas and Puranas of India, history is treated in a way that befuddled Western historians 200 years ago. The time-linear historical vector was only one thread, which was woven into an epic narrative, which in turn had its origins in a faraway but all-illuminating mythos. Western historians like Max Mueller initially rubbished this as fecund imagination not fit for historical data - after all, he pointed out, its absurd that they speak of an ancient history stretching far earlier than 5000 years (when the world was created according to authentic Biblical scholars)! That's become a joke now, but little has been done to re-evaluate this civilization's heritage from its own point of observation. Further, this innovative treatment of history is not an eccentricity unique to India. The great Persian poet and historian Ferdowsi, author of the epic Shahnameh, also speaks of these three threads: tareekh - time-linear historical events, hamaaseh - the epic heroic narrative between good and evil), and the asaateer - the mythological legends that encapsulate the collective psychological source of his civilization. This mythology sits on the horizon of conscious memory and time immemorial. Taken together, they help the civilization evolve by carrying forward the lessons of historical experience while maintaining its own essence and integrity, its soul.

Psychohistory is a modern discipline that attempts to study the psychodynamics behind historical patterns, past and present. Using the insights of process philosophy and psychotherapy, along with the research methods of sociology, anthropology and ethnology, it tries to understand the emotional origin of the behavior and choices made by social and political groups and nations as they happened in the actual context of their own times and places. A special angle of analysis is interpersonal relations according to the culture of that time, place and technological environment. Gender relationships and social divisions are re-organized differently based on the technological and cultural horizons in which society has to survive and operate most efficiently.

Psychohistory is fairly common sense, and is important because all too often we wrongly superimpose present day values onto a past circumstance and make an emotional judgment about it. A poetic observation that evoked religious awe in geocentric minds in millenniums past may prompt a supercilious wisecrack in classrooms today - but that would be a willful failure to appreciate the context and therefore the substance and validity of that work emerging on a different horizon. Its similar in the case of interpersonal and social relations in different eras and climes. A hierarchical social division that served well and harmoniously in feudal-agricultural times will certainly become unjust if it persists beyond its usefulness into the present day and age, but that doesn't mean it had the same effect in that earlier age.

Needless to say, one's Point of Observation can make all the difference in one's own affective states, and the cognition and action that can proceed from it. Awareness and education, as well as a general sense of contentment, self-esteem and detachment about life goes a long way into being able to find the optimal Point of Observation in any situation.

The present dispensation in India and the system it has nurtured is not just nationwide but pan-subcontinental and even international in terms of its primary dynamics. Its Point of Observation is not Indocentric. Chacha Nehru uvaacha: "I am an Englishman by education, a Moslem by culture, and a Hindu by accident." Fortunately or unfortunately, he was a child of the times for someone from his background. (Fortunately or unfortunately, other leaders like Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi or Sardar Patel were of a different hue and had a different perspective, though they didn't live to personally steer the Executive happily ever after.)

The current dispensation uses the same political methods that survived from the British colonial machinery and the Islamist powers that went before: extra-national allies, subversive elements, internal wedges and  external buffers to contain any resurgence of the core. Moreover, it tries to ideologically and culturally inoculate the civilizational core against its own essence; sort of 'Bollywood'-izes it. It thrives on perpetuating general poverty while encouraging the formation of rich new oligarchies and interest groups that pledge loyalty. This leads to competition for resources and quotas, amid widening inequality. Its ideological moles then frame a victimhood narrative to deepen the cleft, and its other allies use it to win converts from the core toward the cultural periphery, or towards a subversive movement, or to the outright antithesis.

The typical Communist ideologue (generally mistaken for a 'historian' at all our elite universities) uses a dialectic based on a deeply flawed psychohistory: It takes something that is an oddity or injustice in Present Time context, and superimposes its present sense of absurdity, grievance, or deprivation on history in a way that completely distorts the vastly different circumstances of that historical process. This retrospective distortion magnifies the grievance or ridicule, and makes the "burden of history" too painful to bear. The resentment is then used for push-button politics, mobilization and social engineering. Without a doubt, this social "reformer" is actually the angel of death as far as the civilization is concerned. Since he can't pick up the threads of the past in present time, he cannot help it evolve into the future. He can only try to nullify it as a step to "year zero".

More insidiously, after allowing the body politic to be periodically wracked by violence, the dispensation then encourages a maudlin sentimentality and a wishy washy "synthesis" culture from the thesis and antithesis. What's interesting about these periodic bouts of 'Aman ki Asha' is that it always initiates this "synthesis" by using the cultural preferences, dogmatic core and hackneyed accusations of the periphery and the subversive as the starting point (thesis), with the native core viewpoint (usually a travesty of psychohistory) framed as the flexible, fungible, or downright illogical and unjust 'other' (antithesis).

But this is a devious misapplication of dialectics: It is an epistemological observation that if the human mind is first possessed of an untruth, and is then confronted with a truer piece of data (true to the self), it first rejects it via a process of Othering. Any synthesis subsequently formed is of less truth value than the newly introduced data, though it may be better than the untrue figment that was used as the starting point. Its a positive outcome for the less civilized parasitic horde, but a net negative outcome for the more civilized host nation if it internalizes this "syncretic" culture.

If the ruling dispensation primarily addresses the periphery, the subversive and the outright antithesis of the Dharmic core as the point of departure for the evolution of Indian civilization, what occurs is not evolution but devolution. This social-engineered punctuated equilibrium is a slow death spiral for Indian civilization in stages...wherein the final nails in the coffin will be hammered in by enthusiastic and well-intentioned native deracinates who consider themselves as belonging to the core, but don't know any better.

Perhaps the first task is to reorder the political and educational discourse, and capture the dialectic initiative with a vigorous purva-paksha (clear statement of difference, what we are not). The work of people such as Rajiv Malhotra is very relevant in these times. Along with that, the core Dharmic forces need to create an all-inclusive and all-encompassing responsibility for society that outflanks the periphery and reduces it to an island, that pulls the carpet from under the feet of the subversives, and that defeats the untrue antithesis on the strength of demonstrated evidence.

Some related thoughts in this speech by Swaminathan Gurumoorthy on globalization and India: