Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

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Is the Scottish Nationalist Party inherently racist?

November 13, 2015

The natural corollary for any “nationalist” party is a discrimination against “non-nationals”. In fact it is very difficult to be a “nationalist” without also being xenophobic. In many countries in Europe the nationalist parties are very often also anti-immigrant and inherently racist to varying degrees. Nationalist, racist parties are usually on the far-right and often have a Nazi or a neo-Nazi past

Ruth Wodak …… divided these parties into four groups: “parties [that] gain support via an ambivalent relationship with fascist and Nazi pasts” (e.g., in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and France), parties that “focus primarily on a perceived threat from Islam” (e.g., in the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland), parties that “restrict their propaganda to a perceived threat to their national identities from ethnic minorities” (e.g., in Hungary, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and parties that “endorse a fundamentalist Christian conservative-reactionary agenda” (e.g., in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria)

Occasionally the nationalists come from the far-left as with Syriza in Greece or the far-left parties in Portugal. The Scottish Nationalist Party is about as far left as you can get without being just another Communist Party. But it is now becoming clear that the SNP also has a nucleus of not only xenophobic but also anti-semitic views. In the latest instance the party and the party leader have had to apologise abjectly for one of their member’s “grotesque” anti-semitic views.

Daily Mail: A Scottish Nationalist MSP was at the centre of a race-hate storm last night after sharing an anti-Semitic image online which was compared to the ‘very worst of Nazi propaganda’. Sandra White made a humiliating apology to a Jewish group which condemned the ‘bizarre and hateful’ image she circulated to her thousands of followers on social media website Twitter.

But campaigners said that she should be disciplined for ‘retweeting’ the disturbing cartoon. A petition, which had 500 supporters last night, was launched by campaigners calling on the Glasgow Kelvin MSP to quit. ………. As the row intensified last night, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon apologised to the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (ScoJec) for the ‘abhorrent’ post, which Mrs White insisted she had accidentally retweeted.

That this is not an isolated incident is apparent from the recent headlines:

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Sweden Democrats trying to terrorise asylum seekers – on behalf of the “people of Sweden”

November 10, 2015

The Sweden Democrats are trying to strike new terrors into refugees and asylum seekers currently on Lesbos, and thus prevent them from coming to Sweden. To this end they have been distributing a flyer in the name of “the people of Sweden”.

Sweden Democrat's flyer image Expressen

Sweden Democrat’s flyer – image Expressen

The whole thing has been written in, presumably Word and a font size of 14 for the body text and has then been right-justified. In their great wisdom the Sweden Democrats seem to think that this will be more readable for those used to reading from right to left. They seem not to have realised that reading a right-justified document, but from left to right is particularly stupid. I suppose it was beyond their limited capacity to translate their welcoming messages into Arabic (right-justified and then read right to left).

Sweden Democrat supporters have already set fire to some 60+ buildings ear-marked for housing the refugees. And now only the tents are left.

NO MONEY
NO JOBS
NO HOMES

You might have heard positive things about our country and the Swedish people. That we are friendly, generous and hardworking. This might be true, but our society is falling apart. 

Our wealth is gone. We have to borrow money to provide education and basic health care for our citizens. Due to decades of mass immigration our previously safe country is not safe anymore. Not only do we have a very high number of shootings and gang related violence, where grenade attacks in public spaces are no longer surprising, but Sweden now also demonstrates the second highest number of rape reports in the entire world.

Sweden is temporarily helping those who flee war and terror, but we can currently only offer tents and camp beds. And you will eventually be sent back home.

Sweden is a modern Western country. Here women and men are equal. Forced marriages and polygamy will never be accepted. Halal slaughter, wearing niqab or burqa in public places will be forbidden in our country.

Sweden Democrats               SD-Women      The People of Sweden

There are many things about Swedish policy I don’t like. It makes no sense to me that temporary residence is not granted first before permanent residency. It makes no sense either that the homage to “multi-culturalism” (rather than to mono-cultural, multi-ethnicity) has effectively forced immigrants not to integrate. It makes no sense that highly qualified and skilled newcomers are not made proper use of.

But the Sweden Democrats have neither the intelligence nor the authority to speak for me.

 

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Corbyn’s 8º genuflection for Remembrance Day

November 9, 2015

I can’t help comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Michael Foot and finding Corbyn a pale imitation. Foot caused the Labour Party to split and his 1983 election manifesto was called the “longest suicide note in history”. Foot lost the election in a landslide. Corbyn is now attempting to follow that route. If his acolytes succeed in removing some of the more centrist Labour MP’s, I suppose new, new, Labour could split again. It will be interesting to see if Labour keeps him for the next election and by how much he can lose. Especially since Corbyn is not of the calibre that Foot was. Foot wins in intellect, in charm, in leadership qualities (however misguided the direction), in rhetoric and above all in having some class. Compared to Foot, Corbyn seems almost boorish.

An Army general has just pointed out that committing not to use your most potent weapon, if it was ever needed, was not a very sound defence strategy or policy. Corbyn is enraged at this incursion of military servants into his politics.

His latest debacle is his reluctant attendance at the the Remembrance Day ceremonies. He did wear a poppy after threatening not to, but the depth of his unwilling genuflection is now causing comment. As I was once instructed in Japan, the Emperor commanded 60º, ancestors about 45º and the CEO got 30º.  I would have expected honourable dead soldiers of the Great War would have been worth at least 30º. Corbyn managed about 8º.

A very stiff neck indeed.

Corbyn 8 degrees

Corbyn’s 8 degree genuflection – original photo from daily mail

 

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Greenpeace endangers national economic security and is deregistered in India

November 7, 2015

Greenpeace has been deregistered in India and has 30 days to shut down. They intend to challenge the deregistration in court. But their brand of eco-fascism (“we know best what is good for you”) is a luxury that India can ill afford. When per capita energy consumption in India is just one tenth of that in Europe, and one fifteenth of that in US, Greenpeace’s attempts to block coal and nuclear power in India is unconscionable.

Greenpeace in India just reflects the views and values of its foreign membership. Most of this membership is from developed countries and represents the do-gooding, self-righteous attitudes of  a comfortable, energy-guzzling middle class. In Europe, these members are often from the hard-left who, after the fall of communism, have found themselves politically homeless. They have become a political lobby group hiding under the cloak of being a welfare organisation. They not only believe they “know best what is good for others”, they also want to impose that on others. In the developing world, Greenpeace are as “colonialist” as the empire builders of the 19th century and try to impose their values and their solutions by legal and extra-legal means. In India this colonialist attitude showed up with their local “rajahs” acting as feudal lords believing they had the right of droit de seigneur. In nearly every developing country their campaigns are opposed to development projects.

In India their efforts to show that solar energy could be an alternative to coal back-fired badly. They sponsored a solar pv installation at a village in Bihar but only ended up promoting coal power. The villagers now refer to coal power as “real power” and solar power as “fake power”.

Scientific American: Over three months, engineers set up 70 kilowatts of photovoltaic cells on the rooftop of public buildings scattered throughout the village. They installed 224 batteries to store the energy. …. All told, the installation cost 2.7 crore rupees ($407,050). ……

The day the power came was one of celebration. …. Then, the wealthy families plugged in energy-inefficient televisions and refrigerators. With the power suddenly facing heavy demand, the batteries drained within hours.

The microgrid operators scrambled to fix the mess. The village electrification committee decided to restrict electricity supply to five hours at nighttime. Greenpeace put up posters telling people not to use energy-hungry appliances such as rice cookers, electric water heaters, irons, space heaters and air coolers. ….. One month after the rollout, Greenpeace invited Bihar’s former chief minister, Nitish Kumar, to inaugurate the solar village. ……. One week later, trucks rolled in and set up a 100-kW transformer in town, connecting Dharnai to the grid. ….. Power is now free for Kumar and his neighbors who are below the poverty line. Others pay 3 rupees per kilowatt-hour of electricity. As of July, villagers were getting electricity day and night, …….

Meanwhile, enrollment in the solar program has fallen to 120 households, down from 380 at the start ……..At present, solar power in Dharnai costs at least three times as much as grid power. It can support only expensive energy-efficient appliances, such as CFL bulbs. A CFL bulb in India costs 700 rupees ($10), while an incandescent bulb costs 10 rupees (15 cents).

Now Greenpeace India has lost its registration, on the surface for violating financial regulations applying to NGO’s with foreign funding, but more fundamentally, for being anti-development and a threat to the economic security of the country.

NDTV: India has cancelled Greenpeace International’s license to operate and gave the group 30 days to close down, citing financial fraud and falsification of data, …… Last year, the government withdrew permission to Greenpeace to receive foreign funding, saying the money was used to block industrial projects.

Under the latest order issued by authorities in Tamil Nadu where Greenpeace is registered, the government said it had found that the organisation had violated the provisions of law by engaging in fraudulent dealings. ……. A government official confirmed that the closure order had been issued on Wednesday but did not elaborate.

In recent months the federal government has toughened rules governing charities and cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 groups for failing to declare details of overseas donations.

In India, Greenpeace has blindly opposed almost every project concerned with coal mining, coal power plants, nuclear power plants, GMO crops, forest clearing, and even building of dams. They have opposed India’s tea exports in the name of supporting plantation workers. They have openly supported candidates from a particular political party (AAP). They have tried to influence elections. Agitation has been the name of their game and foreign support has been brought in to manage conflicts that they initiate. The government’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) has estimated that Greenpeace India’s activities depress growth by 2 -3%.

The New Indian Express:

Months before Tamil Nadu’s crackdown on Greenpeace, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in September had cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of Greenpeace India. It was alleged that the NGO misused foreign funding for political activities which prejudicially affected the country’s public and economic interests.

The Home Ministry Dossier on ‘Greenpeace Activities’ with Express said that NGO was found violating the FCRA by engaging in political activities to influence and lobby for the formulation of policies of its liking. “Not only Greenpeace activists are involved in agitation, they also invited foreign activists like Emma Rachel Tranquility Gibson (UK national) for handling conflict / team dynamics, prioritisation and difficult decisions and her given task was ‘Election Project’as mentioned in the terms of reference of her job,” the MHA dossier said ……..

The financial irregularities are concerned mainly with hiding the use that foreign funds are put to:

An on-site inspection of the NGO’s accounts and records conducted on September 24 to September 27, 2014 found that Greenpeace first transferred foreign contribution received in FCRA designated bank account to FCRA utilisation account and from there to five other bank accounts without informing the authority concerned.  The NGO also shifted its office and activities from Chennai to Bengaluru without approval /intimation of the Ministry. It claimed that Greenpeace was also involved in international negative campaign against India’s most popular tea brands to reduce India’s export by publicising questionable forensic tests in an undisclosed foreign lab.

“ On October 27-28, 2013, Greenpeace India also invited a 10-member team of international activists (1 US and 9 Bangladesh nationals, nine being on tourist visa) to visit three coal block locations, Waidhan and Mudwani (Baiga Basti) in district Singrauli and Amelia to conduct an environmental study on coal blocks allocated to power plants in the district. The team also attended a meeting organised by a NTPC plant employee, Shyam Kishore……all the payments in respect of boarding and lodging were made by Greenpeace India.”

Timeline 

  • April 9, 2015: Centre freezes Greenpeace India’s seven bank accounts over FCRA violation
  • May 5: Greenpeace India’s executive director Samit Aich tells staffers that they have one month left to fight; face imminent shut down
  •  May 27: Delhi HC allows Greenpeace to utilise two accounts for collecting donations
  • May 28: District Registrar, Chennai, sends notice on inspection of Greenpeace India office in Chennai by Sub-Registrar (Chit & Society)
  • June 3: Sub-Registrar (Chit & Society) inspects Greenpeace office
  • June 16: Showcause notice sent by District Registrar on several irregularities and violations found during inspection
  • August 4: HC directs District Registrar to allow petitioner to peruse documents that RoS based its allegations on
  • October 5: Greenpeace sends extensive rebuttal through its counsel
  • November 4: District Registrar passes order cancelling Greenpeace India’s registration

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Trend reversal and sharp increase of mortality of 45-54 year old, US white population

November 3, 2015

A new paper by Nobel winner Angus Deaton and his wife Anne Case points out a trend reversal and a sharp increase of mortality rates among 45-54 year old, non-Hispanic whites in the US between 1999 and 2013. This is highest among the less educated, less well-off population. It is the reversal of a previous trend and that is both perplexing and a little alarming. It suggests a deeper social malaise prevalent in this group.

A rather deadly – and morbid – case of “White Flight”.

Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century, PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1518393112

All-cause mortality, ages 45–54 for US White non-Hispanics (USW), US Hispanics (USH), and six comparison countries: France (FRA), Germany (GER), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada (CAN), Australia (AUS), and Sweden (SWE) Case & Deaton

All-cause mortality, ages 45–54 for US White non-Hispanics (USW), US Hispanics (USH), and six comparison countries: France (FRA), Germany (GER), the United Kingdom (UK), Canada (CAN), Australia (AUS), and Sweden (SWE)  – Case & Deaton

Abstract

This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall. This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases.

The sharpest increase has been in “poisonings” which is essentially the use of drugs (including pain related opiates) and alcohol.

Mortality by cause, white non-Hispanics ages 45–54.

Mortality by cause, white non-Hispanics ages 45–54.

American Prospect comments:

Case and Deaton’s data indicate that the white midlife mortality reversal was due almost entirely to increased deaths among those with a high school degree or less. Mortality rates in that group rose by 134 per 100,000 between 1999 and 2013, while there was little change among those with some college, and death rates fell by 57 per 100,000 for those with a college degree or more.

Death rates from suicide and poisonings such as drug overdoses increased among middle-aged whites at all socioeconomic levels (as measured by education). But the increases were largest among those with the least education and more than sufficient in that group to wipe out progress in reducing other causes of death. Deaths from diabetes rose slightly but did not account for a significant part of the white midlife mortality reversal.

  ……. Among blacks, midlife mortality has been higher than among whites. But over the period 1999-2013, according to Case and Deaton, midlife mortality declined by more than 200 per 100,000 for blacks while it was rising for whites. As a result, the ratio of black to white mortality rates dropped from 2.09 in 1999 to 1.40 in 2013. Contrary to what many Americans may still believe, drug overdoses are no longer concentrated among minorities; in fact, among the 45-54 age group, drug-related deaths are now higher among whites. …..

American Prospect goes on to suggest that this might be a loss of hope among the white, middle-aged, less educated population, which is part of the malaise which is showing up politically as support for Trump and Carson.

The declining health of middle-aged white Americans may also shed light on the intensity of the political reaction taking place on the right today. The role of suicide, drugs, and alcohol in the white midlife mortality reversal is a signal of heightened desperation among a population in measurable decline. ……  The phenomenon Case and Deaton have identified suggests a dire collapse of hope, and that same collapse may be propelling support for more radical political change. Much of that support is now going to Republican candidates, notably Donald Trump. Whether Democrats can compete effectively for that support on the basis of substantive economic and social policies will crucially affect the country’s political future.

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Senility at the GOP: A pity and a shame

October 29, 2015

I only watched some extracts of last night’s “debate”.

It was badly organised (CNBC) and the moderators were not very good. (Couldn’t organise a p***up in a brewery). But even so they were better than a sorry bunch of “candidates”. There wasn’t much shock and awe here. For the Republicans, it was a pity and a shame. The sad part for the Republicans is that – based on the “debate” – one of this pitiful bunch is going to be their flag-bearer and their candidate for President.

There wasn’t much entertainment either. Trump’s clown make-up needs refreshing. Jeb Bush was convinced he was going to lose. Ben Carson said nothing of any import as usual – probably intentionally. Carly Fiorina demonstrated she was a one-debate woman. The establishment figures were the two sitting Senators, Rubio and Cruz, and maybe the GOP will back them as those most likely to stop a Trump or Carson bid. They were possibly the least worst of a pretty awful bunch.

Are these really the best that the Republicans can come up with?

The Grand Old Party is showing signs of senility.

 

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Maybe immigration increases because of the anti-immigration parties

October 28, 2015

It is normally thought the rise in support for the Sweden Democrats (a right-wing, one-issue, anti-immigration party) is a consequence of high immigration rates.

I am not so sure about cause and effect here.

You can just as well argue that the increase of SD support causes a reaction such that the very thing they oppose is enhanced.

What is certainly true is that immigration has increased sharply ever since the SD came into parliament in 2010 with 20 seats. In 2014 they won 49 seats and became the 3rd largest party in parliament. They have been pushing their single-issue for the last 26 years but have only achieved the opposite of what they set out to do. Even in the UK the rise of UKIP coincides with an increase of immigration.

So, paradoxically, it may be that immigration increases because of the backlash reaction to the anti-immigrant parties themselves.

Sweden Democrat support and immigration numbers

Sweden Democrat support and immigration numbers

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French Mathematical Society “Battle against global warming an absurd,costly and pointless crusade”

October 27, 2015

The French Society of Mathematical Calculation (Société de Calcul Mathématique SA) has released a white paper entitled

The battle against global warming: an absurd,costly and pointless crusade

French Mathematical Calculation Society White Paper

The crusade is absurd

There is not a single fact, figure or observation that leads us to conclude that the world‘s climate is in any way disturbed‘. It is variable, as it has always been, but rather less so now than during certain periods or geological eras. Modern methods are far from being able to accurately measure the planet‘s global temperature even today, so measurements made 50 or 100 years ago are even less reliable. Concentrations of CO2 vary, as they always have done; the figures that are being released are biased and dishonest. Rising sea levels are a normal phenomenon linked to upthrust buoyancy; they are nothing to do with so-called global warming. As for extreme weather events – they are no more frequent now than they have been in the past. We ourselves have processed the raw data on hurricanes. We are being told that ‗a temperature increase of more than 2ºC by comparison with the beginning of the industrial age would have dramatic consequences, and absolutely has to be prevented‘. When they hear this, people worry: hasn‘t there already been an increase of 1.9ºC? Actually, no: the figures for the period 1995-2015 show an upward trend of about 1ºC every hundred years! Of course, these figures, which contradict public policies, are never brought to public attention. 

…..

We are not in a position to question the composition of the IPPC, or its legitimacy and policy decisions, and we shall not do so. However, as mathematicians, we have every right to respond to the following question: if the IPPC‘s work were to be submitted for publication in a reputable scientific journal, would it be accepted? This decision is the task of a referee, in a procedure that is common practice in the sciences. The answer is very simple: no sensible, high-quality journal would publish the IPPC‘s work. The IPPC‘s conclusions go against observed facts; the figures used are deliberately chosen to support its conclusions (with no regard for the most basic scientific honesty), and the natural variability of phenomena is passed over without comment. The IPPC‘s report fails to respect the fundamental rules of scientific research and could not be published in any review with a reading panel.

Of course these mathematicians could not possibly be part of the great 97%.

The 97% reminds me of how we used to present “market share” when we were looking to increase the marketing budget. Whenever necessary we could always show that we had 100% market share for the machines we had sold, or that we had virtually zero market share of a market defined sufficiently wide. And any number in-between was a simple matter of defining the market.

Thus, 97% of those who believe in man-made global warming, believe in man-made global warming

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Female Bishop of Gloucester wants to neuter God

October 27, 2015

Since God is made in the image that man (or woman) decides, I suppose it does not really matter.

But there is something quite delicious about the female Bishop of Gloucester wanting, not to make God female, but to neuter Him/She/It. Now if God did have a gender, He (and any Goddesses He might have) could be a little upset.

At least as a Him or a Her, 50% of the world could be in His or Her image. But as an It, there would be very few. I suppose all references by Jesus to his Father in the Bible could be easily edited to be about his genderless Parent.

The Independent:

The Church of England should stop using male pronouns when referring to God in order to counter the erroneous belief that the Almighty has a gender, the first female bishop to sit in the House of Lords has said.

The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Rachel Treweek, the Church’s most senior clergywoman, was being introduced to the Upper House today as one of Parliament’s 26 Lords Spiritual. 

Speaking before the event, the bishop raised the issue of God’s gender, saying: “We’re told that God created human beings in God’s likeness… If I am made in the image of God, then God is not to be seen as male. God is God.”

Instead of using either “He” or “She” to describe God, Bishop Treweek said she  prefers simply to use the word “God”. 

Of course the Bishop of Gloucester was only trying to establish a modicum of feminist credentials, though she stopped short of claiming that gender was obsolete:

“If it means I believe that men and women were created by God as equal but different, then yes I’m a feminist. But if it means women wanting to be men – and sometimes that’s a slight feeling of being loud and domineering – then I would reject that.”

Hinduism took care of this by having available a half-male, half-female God, Ardhanarisvara.

Whenever the priests of some religion determine the nature of their God, it’s a little bit like a bunch of manufactured robots deciding, among themselves, that they were not man-made but woman-made. And it becomes really stupid (or intelligent depending upon your point of view) when robots who think they are man-made go to war against robots who think they are woman-made.

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Hindus were eating beef for much longer than they haven’t been

October 26, 2015

For Hinduism, the cow is not an object of worship (it attracts no gods or goddesses) but it has become both a symbol (of what exactly?) and a taboo. In any urban environment, cows in India provide ready examples of how ill-fed and ill-nurtured they actually are. My grandmother was a strict – but quite normal – vegetarian (no fish, meat or eggs). Unlike the Jains she had no problem with dairy products or root vegetables or honey. I once tried to convince her that beef, coming from complete herbivores, was “more fundamentally vegetarian” than poultry, who were known to relish worms and insects when they were available. She was not amused. (She was not amused either by my arguments that whiskey was strictly vegetarian).

In the current political circus in India where all the ardent, self-styled Hindu fanatics (BJP, Shiv Sena, RSS, VHP ….) are castigating the eating of beef and all beef-eaters, they are attempting to rewrite a history which they conveniently forget. They have gone so far – and have fallen as low – as to justify the lynching of a Muslim for slaughtering and eating a cow.

Eating of beef only began to be discouraged when the Brahmins became significant land-owners and cattle-owners from about 500- 600 CE. The “general” ban on the killing of cows and the eating of beef by Hindus only goes back to about 1200 CE. Taking the roots of Hinduism as having first germinated at the time of the Indus-Saraswati Valley Civilisation, that would have been about 3,000 BCE (5,000 years ago). Which of course means that Hindus were eating beef for some 4,200 years while they have abstained from the practice for only about 800 years. As the practice of eating beef declined, cow-slaughter for religious sacrifice was increasingly restricted to very special and rare events. Inevitably the resulting beef was insufficient for all the multitude and so was reserved for just the most important Brahmins present. So the Brahmins were probably the last of the castes to give up the practice. Others couldn’t afford it anyway.

Holy Cow

Back in 2001, Professor D N Jha published “the best-kept secret in Indian history — the beef-eating habits of ancient Hindus, Buddhists and even early Jains” in his book Holy Cow—Beef in Indian Dietary Conditions. His scholarly work is probably the most definitive work ever on the subject. It is not available in India of course. A civil court in Hyderabad banned it. Some Government Ministers (BJP, who else) demanded ritualised book burnings. He was threatened and had to have police protection for a while. It was reprinted as the The Myth of the Holy Cow and can still be obtained – with some difficulty – outside India.

There were a few favourable reviews in 2001 and 2002 but generally his book was ignored by academia and kept hidden for fear of “hurting Hindu sensibilities” or of other reprisals. The Indian academic establishment is not known for its political bravery. Their views are incredibly supple and bend with whichever political wind is blowing strongest. Many of the reviews are still available on the internet but many from that time have been removed. Jha retired in 2007. Jha was a socialist and that has also been used as a stick to criticise his views on communalism and the BJP’s saffronisation program. But it seems to me that his arguments are generally correct on the subject of beef in Hindu history  As Outlook reported in 2002

“Old and tired out” Jha may call himself, but there’s something irrepressible about him. Bans and fatwas haven’t stopped him from beginning work on his next book. “It will be called,” says Jha with deadpan face, “Adulterous Gods and their Inebriated Women”.

A few quotes from his final chapter:

“Although Manu (200Bc – 200 AD) extols the virtue of ahimsa, he provides a list of creatures whose flesh was edible. He exempts the camel from being killed for food but does not grant this privilege to the cow.”

“The Mahabharata also makes a laudatory reference to the king Rantideva in whose kitchen, 2000 cows were butchered each day …. being distributed among the brahmanas.”

“Sita assures the Yamuna .. that she would worship the river with a 1000 cows and a hundred jars of wine when Rama accomplishes his vow.”

Reviews:

  1. The Hindu – Beef eating: strangulating history
  2. Outlook – A Brahmin’s Cow Tales
  3. The Guardian – One man’s beef …..

A few days ago the Wall Street Journal conducted an email interview with DN Jha.

The killing of an Indian Muslim man allegedly lynched last month by a Hindu mob who suspected him of having slaughtered and eaten a cow, has refocused attention on attitudes toward the animal in a constitutionally secular country with a Hindu majority.

Historian Dwijendra Narayan Jha, who has drawn fire from Hindu nationalists for writing that Hinduism hasn’t always regarded beef-eating as an offense, said the recent cow-related violence was part of a “dangerous trend of increasing intolerance  in the country.”

The former Delhi University professor, who is now retired, says he received death threats after the publication of a 2001 book about beef in Indians’ dietary traditions and based on ancient texts, “The Myth of the Holy Cow. 

In an email interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Jha discussed the emergence of the cow as a sacred animal and the politics of meat among conservative Hindus.

Mr. Jha: It was only in the early Christian centuries, around the middle of the first millennium A.D., that the Brahminical texts began to discourage and even disapprove of cow slaughter.

This change of attitude can be understood against the general background of the transformation of the rural society in post -Mauryan centuries, especially from around the middle of the first millennium A.D., which ushered in a phase of unprecedented agrarian expansion.  Brahmins emerged as  a feudal land owning class and, unlike in the earlier period, became more and more involved in agriculture. This led to the recognition of the pivotal role of animal husbandry, and the disapproval of killing of cattle by the Brahmins. All this is encapsulated in the concept of kali age in which many age-old  practices came to be  forbidden.  

WSJ: Is eating cow meat incompatible with Hinduism today?

Mr. Jha: There is substantial evidence in ancient Indian texts which testify to the prevalence of the practice of beef eating for many centuries in ancient India. The practice gradually disappeared in those regions, which are now called the “cow belt.” But it has continued in many other parts of the country, especially Kerala and north eastern states. In Kerala, 72 communities eat beef and many of them are Hindus. So, I would not say that beef eating is incompatible with Hinduism. But, at the same time there are many Hindus who would not even touch beef or even meat or fish.

What may be unacceptable to one set of Hindus may be acceptable to another. …..

The discouragement of cow-slaughter and the eating of beef was essentially an economic necessity of the time and had little to do with religion then. It came in when the value of a living cow far exceeded the value of a dead one, and when the wealth of the Brahmins was counted in cows. What easier way of maintaining their wealth than by introducing a regulation beneficial to themselves and justifying it on the grounds of the religion that they were the custodians of?

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