Why always look in the past, we should also sing glories of our own generation

I often see many people glorifying distant past achievements of their ancestors, singing their praise, telling everyone how in the past their culture or civilization was rich, dominant, or superior to the rest of the world. Nothing wrong with feeling proud of our ancestors and taking inspiration from their achievements but this does not mean not giving any credit to recent achievements and breakthroughs. I hear in India all the time people singing glories from the past but are not willing to appreciate the present situation. I feel proud of many achievements of my ancestors in India, no doubt it was remarkable that they achieved so much with such limited resources and techniques, but at the same time, I am equally proud of the achievements of the present generation. Spectacular achievements in the field of science and technology, a revolution in the area of communication and medical care, progress in the area of gender equality, abolishment of slavery, all are recent phenomena. Most of these things happened within the last 100 years or so and I am really proud of all these achievements. They are equally important and great in every respect compared to any past achievements.

Actually, our generation has achieved tremendous progress in many areas. Revolution in the area of communication technology is just phenomenal, the world was never better connected than now. The amazing phenomenon called the internet has completely changed our lives is a recent invention Many path-breaking discoveries in the area of drug discovery have increased average life expectancy across the world. Recent progress in the area of gender equality is also impressive. Our ancestors didn't think about many of these problems for so many different reasons but we not only diagnosed these problems but are working hard towards resolving them. Let me also say that I am not trying here to claim that recent generations have solved all existing problems. No, that's not the case. Still, many problems need solutions, and work is still in progress. I am also not trying here to compare our ancestors with us, it would be very unfair to do this but whenever someone says that our ancestors were much better than us or they were much more developed, or superior I feel surprised by their attitude and ignorance. I fail to understand the logic or rationale behind this statement. I wonder on what basis people say this? If people say this because of the perceived moral degradation of society then also it doesn't make any sense. The current world is much better as far as morality is concerned compared to any ers of the past. In the past, there used to be wars, people used to discriminate, slavery was very common, people used to kill each other just because they belonged to different tribes or faiths, polygamy, and polyandry were common in many societies, there used to be barbaric punishment for crimes like stealing or lying or adultery, and the situation of women was not better than what it is today. So, I don't know on what basis people claim that our society was much better in the past compared to today. Rather, as a society we are much better today. At least there is democracy in most of the countries, democracies didn't exist in most parts of the wold just a few centuries ago.

The point I am trying to make is that there is no point in comparing two different eras against each other. Both have their own success stories and failures, and we can draw inspiration from them whenever we want. The discovery of gravity is as important as the discovery of zero and traditional medicine was as important for our ancestors as modern medicine is to us. There is no point in comparison, it's useless and a waste of time. We also don't have to always look back at our ancestors to draw inspiration we have enough examples from our own generation which can inspire us to do good work and achieve new heights in every field.  

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Were Our Ancient Ancestors Scientifically Advanced?
2. Signs in the Sky: The Irrationality of Astrology
3. Fraudulent Use of Obsolete Vaastushastra

Why I still use my last name

Recently, I was sharing my views in a Facebook discussion related to the caste system in India. I don't support this system and believe that it is a totally flawed and unfair system. It should be banished as soon as possible because it divides people based on their birth. During the discussion, one person who was trying to justify this system using the usual arguments like the original system was flawless and people messed it up, caste is not decided by birth, said that even though some of us are against this system we all still proudly use our surnames (or last names). He also claimed that the reason we still use it is we all feel proud to associate ourselves with the glory of our last name. While many are really proud of their caste and like to flaunt it as some sort of achievement, I am not one of them. Normally, the last name or surname in India indicates so many things (like place of origin, profession of ancestors, caste or office of authority, etc.). Mostly they indicateUnfortunately, in India the last names are used to find the caste of a person. Most people who like to flaunt their last name belong to those so-called upper castes. 

Now some people might think that I am against the use of last names/surnames because they indicate a person's caste. No, not at all, rather, I come from a state in India (Maharashtra) which I think has the largest variety of surnames, some of them are really unique and funny. Nothing wrong with any names, after all, what's there in the name, but its association with a particular caste is the problem. 

For most of us, our name is decided by our parents, and before we know anything about caste or religion that name is printed on all our official documents. Changing our first or last name is not an easy thing. Also, this is just a technical point, one can change the name if one wants. For most Indians, my last name is an easy giveaway to know which caste I belong to, so it's obvious to ask, why I still carry on that tag which represents the system in which I don't believe and don't have any respect. A valid question to ask. Actually, at one point, I thought of removing it, but it's a very complicated process and this can't be an excuse. I also thought what purpose will it serve? I didn't get find any satisfactory reason to get rid of it and that's the reason I still have it. Our identities should not be slaves of our names, I feel my identity will remain the same irrespective of my first name or last name. My last name also acts as a reminder for me, a reminder of the horrible past where this system that offers this unique identity to that name allowed the exploitation of millions of people in the name of caste. So, even though I don't believe in that system, my last name reminds me of that system which still exists and is practiced. I am waiting for the day when the name will cease to have any superior or inferior community status tag associated with it.

Believe it or not, many people still love to talk proudly about their caste and glorify it. There is no surprise that most of these people belong to either Brahmin, warrior (Kshatriya), or vaishya (business class) castes, the so-called top three varnas of the caste system. These three castes are guilty of exploiting castes belonging to the fourth varna, shudra. Shudras (all lower castes including untouchables) were exploited by all other varnas for centuries because of this caste system. They were treated worse than animals (cattle were treated better than them). So, I wonder how can one be proud of a name tag associated with the caste that allowed horrible things to happen for centuries. Not only did people from the upper castes allow it to happen, but they were also actively involved in it, and when Shudras protested against this injustice these so-called upper castes tried their best to crush their protest and preserve this system which gave them an unfair advantage. Fortunately, untouchability doesn't exist in India anymore, at least not in its original form, but the caste system is still present. It plays a very important role in politics and marriages. There were many attempts to eradicate it but it is so deeply rooted in people's minds that they are not willing to let it go.

My last name acts as a good reminder for me that we still need to fight against this system which still exists and divides people based on their birth. For me, the name doesn't have any special meaning.  There is nothing special about my name, I need to give that name a unique identity, and I refuse to associate with any identity that name offers me without my consent and approval. As far as my kids are concerned it's entirely up to them if they want to carry this last name or not. They were not aware of the meaning of this name until I explained it to them, this is because they live in a country where this name doesn't have any obvious meaning. It doesn't suggest or indicate anything to people around except, obviously for Indians. So, my kids are quite neutral about their last name, which is the way it should be. But that's not the case with me, because I know what it means, even though that meaning is not important or has any significance to me, I know very well what it means, and what it indicates. So, it's my conscious decision to keep that name. It is in one way a reminder for me of all autocracies committed against those innocent people in the name of caste.

I wait for the day when my last name will cease to have any association with any caste, they will be like just any other name which is totally personal, not social. People will offer an identity to their names, and the name won't differentiate people based on their birth, the same way a skin color should not decide a person's social status but their own work and efforts decide it. Hopefully, in the near future, names will mean nothing and will not indicate any caste and categorize people. It may or may not happen in my lifetime but I believe I must try to eradicate this system, my fight will continue as long as people know which caste my last name belongs. I want it to become a caste-neutral name, and people like me can do that. Casteism, racism, gender discrimination, or any type of discrimination are social evils, and we all need to take efforts to eradicate them from society as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism)

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

It is better to live in present

"Better to live in present than glorify past which is never going to repeat itself." I read these lines in one of the comments to the article where the author wrote a post glorifying the Indian past thousands of years ago where women had equal status to men and contributed to all aspects of society's development. I always come across many posts that talk about our glorious culture, especially, a time in history when India was considered the wealthiest nation of that time (financially and intellectually). There are many things from our past that we all should be proud of but at the same time, there are many things that need introspection and honest analysis. Many people try to defend age old caste system and try to show how it was designed with good intentions but it's the people who messed it up. They are not ready to accept that the system itself had some flaws that allowed this type of exploitation. Some even regret that the era where women had very specific roles such as looking after the home, serving the men, and producing kids, is being threatened by feminist movements. I think readers must have understood what I am talking about here.

One more thing that is very common among some Indians is, that whenever they see some novel invention (let it be anything, starting from the discovery of gravity, the earth's shape, or the discovery of Higgs Boson) they always like to go back, find some related reference mostly from some ancient Vedic text or quote by some ancient personality or mythological story and claim that Indians were the first to think or know about that invention. These people fail to appreciate or give full credit to people who discovered these things on their own and introduced those concepts to the modern world. Many scientists work very hard to develop these ideas into something very relevant and applicable concepts in the modern world. It's not wrong to feel proud about the glorious past or study scriptures to get some clue but using these things to dilute the impact of others' hard work and independent discoveries is very wrong. Somehow all these things make me feel like we Indians are too much in love with our so-called glorious past and want to ignore the present situation of our country (which is not so glorious). One simple question we need to ask ourselves is, if we were first to discover all these things then why did we fail to develop them? Who stopped us from sharing it with the rest of the world?

We still mention proudly about Universities at Nalanda, Takshila, and Nagarjunkonda and how people from all over the world used to come to study in them, but we fail to acknowledge that we are responsible for their destruction and failed to rebuild them and reestablish their original glory. We Indians talk all the time about how these things got destroyed but don't want to talk about why we failed to rebuild these things. We proudly mention Ayurveda but at the same time don't want to accept that we failed to capitalize on the early head start given to us by our ancestors in many fields (like maths, medicine, astrology, etc.). For example, in Ayurveda, a vast knowledge about various diseases and herbal medicines was accumulated but nothing was standardized or developed in a reliable medical knowledge. Even though astronomy was well developed, and we knew about many stars and their properties, developed various mathematical theorems and equations but nothing beyond that, this was not translated into any radical discoveries like airplanes or trains. We didn't bother to continue the process of knowledge generation and propagation and lost the advantage. The truth today is that till now we haven't contributed any new medicine in modern-day drug therapy that can be accepted all over the world, we even failed to standardize our traditional medicine system so that it can produce medicines with reliable quality and reproducible results. Research and development is not our priority even today. We need to buy many sophisticated instruments and technologies from other countries, most of these countries are way ahead of us in many ways and we are not even trying to catch up with them. We even are not in a race, not because we can't run but because we don't want to run.

Somehow we proudly want to take credit for all the good things that our ancestors did in the past but completely reject or blame foreign invaders for the bad things (including casteism, religious riots, superstitions, etc.). These bad things happened in the same society and our ancestors were very much part of it. It is a very common habit to blame everything on foreign invaders. They all came from outside and messed up our wonderful system and culture. We were so good, so intelligent, so brave and so honest but we still got duped by some foreigners who came in small groups and destroyed our whole system. If we were so superior and intelligent then how did invaders manage to fool us? Why did we lose battles with them even though they were smaller in numbers? We take the easier path to blame them for everything but don't accept that we also were equally responsible for this downfall which pushed our society into the current mess.

A glorious past is always a nice thing to have and it can teach us a lot but only if we want to learn from it. We should be definitely proud of it but mentioning it again and again just to show off and take away (or dilute) others' achievements may make us happy temporarily but it's a useless exercise. If we are not willing to make any serious efforts to reach that level again then it doesn't matter how glorious was that past. If we develop a habit of living in the past then we may not be able to fully understand and recognize the challenges of the present and won't be ready to face the problems of the future. Presently our society in India is in a total mess, our political system sucks, the bureaucracy is heavily corrupted, and we have a pathetic medical infrastructure. We are going to face a lot of social, environmental, and economic challenges if we continue like this. Living in a glorious past is not going to help us in any way. We need to look at the present situation and tackle all these problems right now before they go out of our reach and become the reason for our dark future.

It always pays off to live in the present by getting all possible clues and lessons from the past. But if we refuse to accept the present situation and just keep on singing songs about past glories then we all know what will be our future. So, let's accept that currently there are many problems that we need to solve and also accept that these problems are mostly created by us, so it's our responsibility to find answers. I believe if we change our attitude then it won't be difficult to fight with these issues and work towards finding possible solutions, but the big question is are we willing to change our attitude? This is the question I want every Indian should ask today.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

Links:
1. Were Our Ancient Ancestors Scientifically Advanced?