Sajjan_Thug

Waheguru Ji Maybe we can add a Gurmukhi only section to the forum.

Waheguru Ji Why are the Afghan people not standing up and protesting the ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs going on. If it was the reversed this would become international news. Once the Sikhs and Hindus are gone all gurdwaras and temples will be destroyed, just like its happening in Pakistan where so many gurdwaras and temples have been destroyed. There was even attack on gurdwara nanakana sahib recently. Why are international organizations silent on ethnic cleansing of hindus and sikhs in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Waheguru Ji Please see this website as it documents that this has been going on for a long time. http://www.aurangzeb.info/search?updated-max=2008-06-04T14:37:00%2B05:30&max-results=200&m=1 Example 35. Destruction of sixty-three Temples at Chittor On Monday, the 22nd February /1st Safar, the Emperor went to see Chittor fort; by his order sixty-three (63) Temples of the place were destroyed.Note:The temple architecture at Chittor had attained a high level of excellence and it suffered an irreparable loss on the occasion of Aurangzeb’s visit to the Fort. A number of these temples were fine specimens of temple architecture, built according to the cannons of Vastu and Shilpa-Shastra, and having exquisite sculptured figures, foliage decorations, decorative motifs, some even dating back to the 8th century, such as the Kalika Mata or Sun Temple. Among the Temples which suffered damage were also those built by Maharana Kumbha, such as Kumbha Shyam Temple.

In yet another shocking incident, a recently discovered Buddha statue was smashed into pieces by local construction workers and a Muslim cleric on Saturday in Pakistan. The relic was discovered while digging the foundation for a house in the Pashtun-dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Mardan district in Pakistan. A video of the act, which has since gone viral on social media, showed the construction workers, along with a Muslim cleric, smashing the Buddha statue using a sledgehammer. They are seen walking over and destroying the life-sized Buddha status while expressing their acrimony against Buddhism, which they consider anti-Islam. According to reports, the statue was destroyed on the order of a local Muslim cleric, who ruled that it is against Islam. ‘Your nikah would cease to exist and you will no more be a believer if the statue isn’t disposed of’, the cleric told the people at the site, who then followed his orders to destroy the priceless relic, which was accidentally discovered in a good condition. Local media quoted Abdul Samad, director of the archaeology and museums, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as saying that he authorities have located the area, where the incident occurred and those involved in vandalism would be held accountable. “We have located the area and we will have those involved arrested soon,” he said. Four people have been arrested in connection with the case. Initially the police were slow to react to the incident. But when the video emerged on social media and a large number of people criticised the action, the police swung into action and made the arrests. Takht Bhai was once the homeland for Buddhism The area from where the relic was discovered is known as the Takht Bhai area, in Mardan district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Takht Bhai is a part of the Gandhara civilisation, where Buddhism thrived until the 8th or 9th centuries when Islam first began to gain sway in the region. Since 1836, when it was first excavated, archaeologists have dug out hundreds of relics made of clay, stucco, and terracotta in the area. Due to its historical and religious significance, it is a popular destination for Buddhist tourists from Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea etc. The Buddhist monastery is included in the World Heritage List. Similar incident in Pakistan Last month, in a similar incident, the ancient Buddhist rock carvings in the Chilas area of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK)’s Gilgit-Baltistan has been desecrated by Islamists, who painted Pakistani flag and slogans on the rock-cut art. According to the reports, the incident came to light when the locals of Gilgit-Baltistan posted images on social media platforms. The Islamists had vandalised the rock carvings by writing Islamic slogans on the rock-art that belonged to 800 AD. https://www.opindia.com/2020/07/buddha-statue-pakistan-discovered-destroyed-smashed-cleric-order/

It won't let me paste the story here. Here is the link. Sikhs have been ethnically cleansed from Afghanistan and no one is raising there voice. https://m.timesofindia.com/india/minor-sikh-girl-who-lost-her-father-in-kabul-gurudwara-attack-kidnapped/articleshow/77038195.cms

Another interview with a missionary who converted tens of thousands of people. He is ex Christian now.

The fourth largest church is in Punjab with 118,000 members. Have any Sants addressed this issue or taksal. https://twitter.com/noconversion/status/1280177967226933248?s=20

Remember Waheguru so much that you forget yourself.

Waheguru Ji His channel needs more exposure he has done a lot of akath katha and uploaded it for our benefit, but the Sangat has not done any thing to spread his videos. He has under 200 subscribers and only couple people watch his videos some don't have any views. We need to be more sportive of these good Gurmukhs.

Waheguru Ji A new 8 week course is starting all you is email and internet and it is free. More information in video. Please spread this video for benefitting the Sangat.

Another youtube channel of Gurmukh who is uploading lot of akath katha

Gurbani anusar Nijj Ghar

Waheguru Ji Seeing there is lack of good advance Gurmat spiritual texts in one place in English, I created this small collection where Naam Abyasees can find many useful insights and have many questions answered on their journey to Waheguru. 1. Forgetting The Way Of Love By Bhai Sewa Singh Ji Tarmala ***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*** Deep spiritual book on Naam Simran and step by step guide on how to meet God by Bhai Sewa Singh Ji Tarmala Download 2. Longing Love For The Truth - Bhai Sewa Singh Tarmala ***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*** Panj Shabd Going across Bhavsagar Going across Trikuti How to merge Truth (Nirankaar) A step by step guide to Waheguru Download 3. Loving longing to be one with the Creator by Bhai Sewa Singh Ji Tarmala In a question and answer format the deepest Gurmat questions are answered: Where is Nirankar? What is Anhad Shabd? What is Dasam Dwar? How to do Simran to overcome Maya? And more... Download pdf 4. Anhad Shabad Dasam Duaar by Bhai Randhir Singh Ji Akhand Kirtan Jatha Gurbani mentions Dasam Duaar (the 10th Door), Anhad Shabad, and Panch Shabad many times. Bhai Sahib in great detail has explained these concepts in the light of Gurmat. Download pdf 5. Unditthi Duniya by Bhai Randhir Singh Akhand Kirtan Jatha A mystical book on the “unseen” world. According to Gurmat. Heaven, hell and Dharam Rai. Life beyond this world. Download pdf 6. Charan Kamal Ki Mouj by Bhai Randhir Singh Akhand Kirtan Jatha This book is about the Charan Kamals of Vaheguru. How do you wash Guru Sahib’s Charan and drink them? This book also talks about inverted Lotus at the navel and how it becomes straight through Naam Abhyaas Download pdf 7. Bandginama by Bhai Raghbir Singh Ji Gives great overview of Simran with many practical tips and advice. Different stages are described and how to overcome illusions that might be faced on the journey to Waheguru. Download pdf 8. Atam Darshan volume 1 by Bhai Sher Singh Ji What is Sahej Awesta? What is Hukham and Karma and their relation? What is Naam Upashna Download pdf

In their attempt to convert, Christian missionaries promote the alleged resurrection of Jesus as the most compelling argument for their faith. Rabbi Michael Skobac presents a Jewish evaluation of this claim and probes the evidence provided for the Resurrection.

Jewish Rabbi responds to missionaries twisting the Bible. A point by point rebuttal.

Waheguru This is something Nihang Singhs should have done. They could have been in the forefront of leading this and expanding their outreach.

Waheguru Ji Here is a 3 hour long interview with him in English

The Portuguese came to India with a Cross in the one hand and a sword in the other. King Joao 111 (1557-1578) was particularly anxious about the spread of Christianity and wrote to the Viceroy Joao de Castro demanding that all power of the Portuguese should be directed to this purpose. ‘The great concernment which lies upon Christian princes to look to matters of Faith and to employ their forces for its preservation makes me advise you how sensible I am that not only in many parts of India under our subjection but in our city of Goa, idols are worshipped, places in which our Faith may be more reasonably expected to flourish; and being well informed with how much liberty they celebrated heathenish festivals WE command you to discover by diligent officers all the idols and to demolish and break them up in pieces where they are found, proclaiming severe punishments against anyone who shall dare to work, cast, make in sculpture, engrave, paint or bring to light any figure of an idol in metal, brass, wood, plaster or any other matter, or bring them from other places; and against who publicly or privately celebrated any of their sports, keep by them any heathenish frankincense or assist and hide the Brahmins, the sworn enemies of the Christian profession- –.It is our pleasure that you punish them with the severity of the Law without admitting any appeal or dispensation in the least.’ (K M Panikker, Malabar and the Portuguese, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1977.) Panikker’s statement that these missionaries were iconoclasts number one is testified to by their own writings. Let us see how Francis Xavier found himself ecstatic at the images and idols of the Hindu gods being broken to pieces. Xavier writes: Following the baptism, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn also prepared for baptism. After all have been baptized, I order that everywhere the temples of the false gods be pulled down and all idols be broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before this spectacle of pulling down and destroying the Idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them. (Letter dated 8 February 1545. See H. J. Colridge, Life and Letters of Francis Xavier, London, 1861, Vol. I, p. 10) Surprisingly, Xavier did this ungrateful act soon after the Hindu King of Kollam had given him a large grant to build churches. He was also highly critical of the Brahmin priests who were traditionally instrumental in teaching and spreading the Hindu religious tenets. In another letter he wrote: There are in these parts among the pagans a class of men called Brahmins. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and to whom applies the psalm, which says: ‘From an unholy race, wicked and crafty men, deliver me Lord’. If it were not for the Brahmins, we should have all the heathens embracing our faith. (Ishwar Sharan, The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple, New Delhi, 1991, p. 80). The archenemy of Hinduism, its followers and gods, Xavier did all he could to denigrate Hindus and destroy their idols of worship. His bigotry was, no doubt, to evoke the hatred of any native king committed to the cause of Hindu religion. Once the Christian missionaries arrived, the religious practices of the Portuguese turned oppressive after an initial period of indifference and all Hindu temples were ordered closed in 1541. Over 350 temples were destroyed by the year 1559 and even the private idol worship was banned. When Francis Xavier the famous missionary demanded the setting up of Goa Inquisition, a religious tribunal for suppression of heresy and punishment of heretics, things got worse. The first demand for the establishment of the Inquisition in Goa was made by St. Francis Xavier. In a letter addressed from Amboina (Moluccas) to D. Joao III, King of Portugal, on May 16, 1545, he wrote: The second necessity for the Christians is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish law, and according to the Mohammedan sect, without fear of God or shame of the world. And since there are many who are spread all over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition, and of many preachers. Your majesty should provide such necessary things for your loyal and faithful subjects in India. The eminent Jesuit historian, Fr. Francisco de Souza, describes in the following passage an incident which served as the immediate cause for the introduction of the Inquisition in Goa: Whilst in the island of Goa, heated efforts were made to destroy Hinduism, father Provincial Gonslavo da Silveira and bishop Belchior Carneiro were moving about in Cochin persecuting the insidious Judaism. These priests came to know how in that city were living some descendants of the Israelite people, rich and possessing much, but infected with Judaism… The Inquisition set up in 1560 was notorious for using brutal torture and lasted till 1812 and this was the Golden age, according to Portuguese missionaries, where the power of life and death of ordinary People was held by a Christian priest. If people were unable to pass ‘act of faith’ (autos – da – Fe), they were stretched on the rack and also some people were burnt on the stake. The Goan Inquisition was documented in bestseller Guardian of Dawn by Richard Zimler who called it a ‘machinery of death’ – the most merciless and cruel ever developed. Dismembering the children limb by limb in front of their parents whose eyes were taped open till they agreed to convert was particularly an effective method. On the faintest suspicion of heresy, thousand died during the 252 years of the Inquisition. If a small idol was kept at home or a non-Christian prayer whispered, anyone could be arrested and tortured in special Inquisition prisons. It is estimated that by the end of 17th century the ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Muslims was complete as there was less than 20,000 that were non-Christian out of the total Goan population of 2,50,000. Commenting on the atrocities, Historian T. R. De Souza writes: At least from 1540 onwards, and in the island of Goa before that year, all the Hindu idols had been annihilated or had disappeared, all the temples had been destroyed and their sites and building material was in most cases utilized to erect new Christian Churches and chapels. Various viceregal and Church council decrees banished the Hindu priests from the Portuguese territories; the public practices of Hindu rites including marriage rites, were banned; the state took upon itself the task of bringing up Hindu orphan children; the Hindus were denied certain employments, while the Christians were preferred; it was ensured that the Hindus would not harass those who became Christians, and on the contrary, the Hindus were obliged to assemble periodically in Churches to listen to preaching or to the refutation of their religion. Francois Pyrad, a French traveler, was in Goa during the period of July 1608 to January 1610. In his account of his travels he gives the following information of the Inquisition in Goa: The Inquisition consists of two fathers, who are held in great dignity and respect; but the one is much greater man than the other and is called Inquisitor Major. Their procedure is much more severe than in Portugal; they often burn Jews, whom the Portuguese call Christianos noeuous, that is to say, ‘New Christians.’ It came into existence in 1560. The Jesuit historian Father Francisco de Souza tells us that the goal of the Inquisition in India was to destroy Hinduism and also persecute Indian Jews who had lived peacefully with the Hindus for centuries. Francois Pyrad, a Frenchman who lived in Goa from 1608-1610, tells us that the number of victims persecuted was very large. We have eyewitness accounts telling us that it was far worse than in Europe. J C Barreto Miranda, a Goanese historian, in his book (Quadros Historicas de Goa p.145), wrote of the Inquisitors sent by the Pope: The cruelties which in the name of the religion of peace and love this tribunal practiced in Europe, were carried to even greater excesses in India, where the Inquisitors, surrounded by luxuries which could stand comparison with the regal magnificence of the great potentates of Asia, saw with pride the Archbishop as well as the viceroy submitted to their power. Every word of theirs was a sentence of death and at their slightest nod were removed to terror the vast populations spread over the Asiatic regions, whose lives fluctuated in their hands, and who, on the most frivolous pretext could be clapped for all time in the deepest dungeon or strangled or offered as food for the flames of the pyre. Alan Machado-Prabhu records how the Portuguese conquered Goa and ruled by terror: In its two and a half centuries of existence at Goa, the Inquisition burned at the stake 57 alive and 64 in effigy. Others sentenced to various cruel punishments totaled 4,046. The people who were converted but still continued secretly to perform Hindu rituals were treated even more harshly… The manner in which the Church enriched itself was just scandalous. Half the property of a person found in possession of idols went to the Church…The Church acquired urban and rural properties on an impressive scale. The open performances of Hindu ceremonies were replaced by great public processions on Christian feast days. One of the worst criminals was Francis Xavier, later to be made into a saint. The Anglican historian Dr. Fryer wrote: In the principal market was raised an engine of great height, at top like a Gibbet, with a pulley …which unhinges a man’s joints, a cruel torture. Portuguese also inaugurated slave trade by seizing able-bodied men and women in the neighbouring Indian territory and selling them. They opened a slave market in Goa. (The Syrian Christians of Kerala, 1963, p.31). Apparently this market not only served the export trade but was in much demand by the local Portuguese whose lifestyle was extravagant and profligate. But we are also told that there was a lively trade in Kaffirs, a derogatory term for the natives of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The girls, who, we are told, were very much in demand, were paraded for sale in the nude. (B. Penrose , Goa, Queen of the East, p.67). In 1592 the viceroy of Goa proclaimed that slaves of infidels who converted themselves to Christianity would be freed. (Cunha Rivara – cited by Priolkar, The Goa Inquisition, Delhi, 1962, p.141). Those who have escaped death by their extorted confessions, are strictly enjoined, when they leave the prisons of the Holy Office, to declare that they have been treated with great tenderness and clemency, in as much as their lives, which they justly merited to lose, should be spared. Should anyone, who has acknowledged that he is guilty, attempt to vindicate himself on his release, he would be immediately denounced and arrested, and burnt at the next Act of Faith, without hope of pardon. (Dellon, quoted by Priolkar, The Goa Inquisition, Sec.2, p.34). Dr Dellon described the Archbishop’s prison as: The most filthy, dismal, and hideous of all I ever witnessed, and I doubt if there can be any other in the world more repulsive. Another particularly odious Edict of Faith was the obligation of Goa’s citizens to spy on behalf of the Inquisition. [Its] infamy never reached greater depths, nor was more vile, more black, and more completely determined by mundane interests than at the Tribunal of Goa, by irony called the Holy Office. Here the Inquisitors went to the length of imprisoning in its jails women who resisted their advances, and after having satisfied their bestial instincts there, ordering that they be burnt as heretics. (A India Portuguesa, Vol.11, Nova Goa, 1923, p.263) Christianity in India had finally succumbed to the authority of that pseudo-Christian religion of the papacy. Tradition and dogma were elevated above God’s Holy Word. (H. H. Meyers, The Inquisitive Christians, New Millennium Publications Australia, 1992, p. 40) The Goa Inquisition thus forms one of the black chapters of Indian history which speaks about the tortures the non-Christians especially the Hindus underwent. Instituted in the name of God, it was the gruesome and inhuman weapon in the hands of the devils, an instrument of oppression in the hands of the most intolerant fanatics who massacred in the name of their God and faith. It was the worst of all the instruments of fanatical oppression humanity ever witnessed. (Author is the former Kerala State President, Unnatha Vidyabhyasa Adhyapaka Sangham, higher wing of Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Saikshik Mahasangh in Kerala.) https://indusscrolls.com/francis-xavier-and-goa-inquisition/

I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Pune in India, and my curriculum was in psychology and philosophy. My syllabus was largely frozen, unchanged since colonial times, and the psychology we studied was all by British and American authors. It occurred to me that there was a disconnect between what I was reading in textbooks and what I was experiencing in India. I could see the disconnect in rituals, at bus stops, while I was driving around on my moped—different cultural spaces. There were multiple layers of cultural meanings and practices around me, from the modern to the feudal, the postcolonial, and the neoliberal. But it was forbidden to ask questions about these cultural meanings in the classroom. It was not considered scientific to ask how religious meaning was critical to an understanding of Indian psychology, for instance. This led me to seek a way of thinking about psychology that rooted in an understanding of culture—that saw culture as more than just another object to study. I felt very alienated from the way psychology was being done until I came to Clark University, where culture and narrative identity were more prominent. In psychology, the stories of people from the Global South were depicted as a deficient form of humanity, and stories of people of color were relegated to the margins. I saw 356 million Indian youth, a gigantic part of our humanity, missing from the canon of the discipline. Their voice, their realities were erased, and I wanted to start addressing this gap. This motivated me to come up with a decolonizing framework to speak to these absences, to speak to the realities of the people who are the majority of humanity, but largely missing from the field. Dhar: You mention the disconnect you saw between what you were studying in psychology and life in India. Can you illustrate this with an example? Bhatia: Take the concept of internalized oppression and colonialism. I personally felt this during my master’s. I was studying how the founders of psychology had portrayed Indians in their work, and the representations were highly racist. From Darwin to Stanley Hall, they spoke of colonized people as “primitive savages.” Churchill had called us a beastly people. In my seven years of studying psychology, I was always told that British and American culture was superior and more advanced. When I challenged my professors and asked why we continue to study this knowledge, which is colonialized, racist, and treats us as slaves, I was dismissed as being rebellious. When I met graduate students from sociology, they taught me about caste hierarchies. I was able to bring in centuries-old oppressive structures that psychology was not studying. Psychology was only about the identity of middle-class people and was based on studies done in the United States. In India, class is deeply tied to caste hierarchies, but in my Master’s in psychology, I was told to ignore caste in my analysis because that would complicate things, and we wanted to keep explanations easy and scientific. Dhar: Few people understand how internalized colonization works, and how speaking in English instead of your mother tongue becomes a marker of high class, caste, education, morality, and intellect. As an undergraduate studying psychology in India, I used to joke that if I spoke English well enough, I could land a job as a computer engineer. Can you talk about how Indian academics and psychologists internalize these colonial ideas? Bhatia: First, they didn’t challenge the representations given in the books, the canon that was being exported from the West to the so-called third-world departments. They tried to indigenize it, give it an Indian flavor, but the core thinking, the empirical structures, and the positivist ideas, were never disturbed. Second, there is the politics of location. Everyone was located in different socioeconomic conditions, from the middle and upper class to those from Dalit backgrounds, which is the lowest social group in the Indian caste hierarchy. But Indian academics and psychologists were not allowed to speak to that. Their existential experiences of living in India in these caste hierarchies, their socio-cultural identity, were important topics to them, but they could not bring that into the knowledge production process. The third is the politics of practice. As a culture, we spent thousands of years thinking about the ‘self,’ the meaning of the self, nirvana, liberation, etc. at the metaphysical, philosophical, and psychological level. But all of this accumulated cultural wisdom was pushed to philosophy and seen as unscientific. There was no room for indigenous healing frameworks for understanding mental life because it was relegated to religion and philosophy. These are the three areas where colonial internalization played out. Dhar: Have you received any pushback for doing this work on decolonizing psychology? If yes, from where? Bhatia: There was pushback throughout my career, especially when I was beginning to develop ideas in opposition to the mainstream in psychology. When I wrote my 2002 paper on historical representations and rethinking of psychology, there was considerable pushback by the reviewers and a denial of the problem. In that paper, I did a hundred-year portrait of how psychology has been complicit in advancing the colonial agenda directly and indirectly. I named all the key founders and stated that Orientalism, the practice of representing the East in ways that aided in colonialism, would not have been unleashed as a political project by the West without the explicit complicity of the social sciences. The most common pushback was the rejection of my papers by journals, simply because it offended some reviewers who thought I was too severe. They would insist that this is all in the past and that psychology is progressive now. There was also resistance from colleagues who warned me that there is a risk in picking on the establishment. To articulate a framework of psychology from an anti-colonial and anti-racist position 20 years ago was tough, and there was a lot of emotional labor involved. Dhar: How did the social sciences and psychology support the colonial project? Bhatia: Take the example of G. Stanley Hall, founder of APA, who we are told is a hero and pioneer of psychology. He was also an advocate for colonialism and called for so-called “primitive” people to be domesticated and controlled, or else our world would be run by inferior people. He advised that the field should collaborate with politicians and soldiers to find out how to domesticate or wipe out these populations. So, there was a hint, maybe not an explicit agenda, of genocide. But all of this went unacknowledged by the field of psychology. It is the same story with Darwin, who also espoused racist opinions. Those are two examples I could give. Additionally, there is the fact that modern psychology is predominantly the study of white, Anglo-Saxon, upper-class, elite, and mostly American subjects. All this knowledge about human psychology emanates from research on this one type of subject, and then it gets exported to the rest of the world. Dhar: Indian culture and philosophy have a long history of knowledge about the ‘self,’ but the self in psychology is different from the Indian concept of self. You have written about how psychology promotes a “neoliberal self.” What does this mean? Bhatia: We have spent over a millennium speaking, inquiring, and analyzing the term ‘self.’ Kenneth Burke, the literary critic, called it a God term. In the Indian context, the self is always thought about as embedded within the family, the community, and the neighborhood. The distinctions between self and other are slippery; this is a kind of slippery subjectivity. It cannot be encased within the individual. Psychology’s understanding of self is based on the individual as self-contained, as atomic—a self which fashions itself as separate from the other. That concept did not exist in the Indian context, which focuses on the connection of self to the world, a relational concept. Philosophically, the transcendence of self was important. In postcolonial times, after the British left but colonialism remained in India, new and powerful ideas about the self came about. In the ’70s, with the unleashing of modern globalization and privatization, and with the decline in social safety nets and access to public goods, came neoliberalism. Within neoliberalism, the idea emerges that social structures are not going to guarantee the maintenance of self. You have to rely on your biography, your strength, your family, your education, your credibility, your degree. You become an entrepreneur—managing your ‘self’ and making it presentable becomes critical, as Gauri Pathak says. Being presentable involves acquiring new skills, whether it is meditation, new degrees, or other ways to look attractive and market yourself. This how you get Silicon Valley-type language in cross-cultural psychology, which promotes these new ways of thinking about the self. These psychological ways of thinking tie well-being to your productivity. This is the neoliberal shift, and it reflects the neoliberal economy and culture. Dhar: Psychology reinforces this ‘neoliberal self’ by promoting theories of self-management and emotional regulation. What did you find in your research about this ‘self’ in India? Bhatia: Neoliberal globalization affects each community in specific ways. Youth who have access to cultural capital, elite education, and wealth have developed a transnational identity where the understanding of Indianness is tied to being highly mobile. This can mean education at Oxford, travel across the world, acceptance by their German and Swiss friends, etc. Neoliberal language gave them an Indianness that could be exported around the globe—cosmopolitan but also culture-oriented, not backward anymore. For example, in my book, Nina calls herself the ultimate Indian because they are the ones who set the standards of Indianness, and others usually follow it through fashion or consumption. This is a very consumer-oriented model, and behind it is the transnational capitalist class that supports this neoliberal self. The middle-class is different; they are educated with limited income, and they work for large corporations, often as call center workers. They are the neo-colonial subjects. They have to go to accent reduction workshops—part of management practices where corporate cross-culture psychology is used to regulate them. They have to attend workshops to understand Indianness and Americanness! They laughed at it—this was their resistance. They would ask, “I am Indian. Why do I need to study what Indianness means?” The workshops used traditional cross-cultural psychological concepts, and Indians were portrayed as always late, unable to adapt, argumentative, too flexible, authoritative, and hierarchy-oriented. In contrast, Americans were portrayed as punctual, reliable, and self-sufficient. All these diversity and management programs are invented in the US and executed there. The Indian youth do not passively accept these ideas, but they could not resist it within the organizational culture. Privately, they make fun of it and call it gora psychology (white psychology), but the corporate stranglehold is too firm. Administrators had mandates from corporations to use personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to evaluate performance. If one cannot talk like Americans or the British, it is a problem. There is a strong colonial hold on how to be yourself and what happens if people speak in a vernacular accent. They teach you to remove MTI (mother tongue influence). These are the ways coloniality has now taken a neoliberal turn and persists in India. Lastly, there is the fact that social justice issues are not considered in psychology. We rarely ask about what impact poverty and chronic hunger have on self and identity in India. The lives of urban workers are not given any attention. It is as if they don’t exist as subjects. Their lives took a turn for the worse with liberalization. Globalization was supposed to help them. Their income increased a little, but the life around them became much more expensive and unaffordable, and their aspirations changed. Dhar: These workers don’t feature in our research and our experiments. Subjects of most psychological research in India tend to be city-dwelling, upper-caste, educated elite. You have written about how Euro-American psychology tends to speak for others and silence them. Can you talk about a time you noticed that happening? Bhatia: The entire enterprise of psychology over the last 50 years has spoken on behalf of the rest of humanity, even though psychology itself is a local and provincial discipline emerging out of a particular historical period in Europe and America. The Euro-American modern subjects then speak on behalf of Asians, Africans, etc. Western psychology decides what good emotional and social development looks like, and then sets the standards for what constitutes a good education, life, health, and mental health. It decides all our psychiatric diagnoses. These are embedded in specific local cultural practices and then exported to the rest of the world. Another way of speaking for someone is through research. In the book. Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, she writes that research was a very dirty word in the Maori community in New Zealand. This is because almost all of the research done on them and their way of life was by Europeans who wanted to exploit, contain, and destroy them. This particular community and their sense of self was largely represented by American psychological frameworks. Dhar: Psychology was born in the Global North and is deeply entrenched in specific cultural values such as individualism, meritocracy, etc. Do you think psychology can ever truly be decolonized? What would that look like? Bhatia: I think yes, it could be decolonized, but only under certain conditions. It has to be a political project akin to the abolishment of slavery, which means that to abolish it, you needed to change its entire structure. It is not just driven by the state. It is about the very idea of what it means to be a human being. It is political, economic, cultural, personal, psychological, familial, and sexual. The roots of slavery had to be attacked, but the effects still exist. Right now, more African-Americans are dying in the pandemic because of health disparities. Native American theorists have insisted that the decolonization model is not simply about taking a social justice perspective. It is about reclaiming land, territory, water—reclaiming language. Decolonization means restoring what was lost. American undergraduates are 4,000 times more likely to be represented in psychological experiments. Then our studies claim that these findings can be applied to a person living in the Global South. The project of decolonization is viable, but it has to be complete decolonization in the way Frantz Fanon talked about it—new humanity. You have to dismantle the current methods of thinking about and doing psychology. You cannot compromise because the colonial structure has tentacles at all levels: knowledge production, editors, writers, and the power of the American academy, etc. These tentacles, like the neoliberal order, regulate all psychological knowledge production across the world—deciding what forms of knowledge are considered elite, who gets published, who gets tenure, what makes a journal prestigious, and so on. First, you have to map, identify, and analyze this architecture. We are not even there yet. We have just opened up the conversation about what decolonizing means. We have to ask ourselves, what does it mean to do psychology? There needs to be a revival of indigenous concepts that were for 500 years, not given any credibility. They do not exist in a pure form without being impacted by colonialism or modernism, but they are viable frameworks. Take, for example, the Buddhist contemplative practices like Vipassana practiced and handed down for thousands of years. Silicon Valley understood the power of these practices, diluted them, turned them into mindfulness, co-opted them, and then sold them back to India. A lot about the mindfulness movement is powerful, amazing, transformative, but at the same time, there is the commercial interest of the rich. There are potential practices in many indigenous philosophies, religions, and community psychologies that we haven’t explored without evoking the language of Eurocentric knowledge. Colonization is deeply rooted in capitalism. This current crisis has starkly exposed the difference between the haves and have nots—people who have care and those who don’t, those who can stay at home, and those who cannot. Psychology is rooted in the individual project of colonization, which serves to keep the idea of the individual intact. The intellectual project of decolonization will only be fulfilled when many of us come together in solidarity to rethink the entire structure. https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/05/sunil-bhatia-on-decolonizing-psychology/

Waheguru On the topic of Sikh spirituality I would highly recommend Bhai Simranjeet Singh Ji Tohana YouTube channel He has over 200 q and a with Gurmukhs who are doing Simran and having experiences, you can also message Bhai Sahib if you have questions while doing Simran.