@Nilgiri Sahib, Aap to chhaa gayen!
This article was truly written very well and struck close to home and heart in lot of ways. The author is to be credited highly.
My own father has all manner of unyielding stubbornness on certain issues with certain groups (some are minorities, others are majorities)...and labeling and tarring them all at same time while he does it.
It always crushes me each time when he says something very unfair and then dismisses my protests and counters in the way fathers know all too well....like only Seti could with Moses when the latter is brought to him in chains (by a certain movie's take on it).
Moses preaching the evils of the great oppression of his Hebrew people he only recently found he was one of....and Seti ultimately responds
"he who ate of my bread....and called me father....would make rebellion against me!".
So you see...I see his flaws (esp as he has aged and so have I..and the greatest points of contention are sorely apparent).
I do speak up about them when I can, in the way I best know how (often going back to first principles) but I am resigned to him not changing on certain matters....but I also see the first principles approach is really the best way as it has eked out silent compromise and quiet respect between me and him in lot of areas.
He is a product of that window I speak of, his elders saw worse times and the promised redemption of all of that did not go to desired speed in his youth and life around him in his beloved motherland....
...but he is a kind soul (much of him is also what you see here in me, it must not be dismissed) and I do hold him higher than any man I know.
He is full of some great contradictions (that even he remarks upon from time to time) past the steely and sometimes haughty Iyer exterior. I wont forget when he saw all the Malays in Singapore when we moved there, their women on the whole always dutifully wearing the "Tudung" as needed by their faith. Having become quite jaded with way TN and urban India at large was being fast changed back home by what he sees as foul foreign influences...he always tended to remark: "These are good, honourable, modest women! I respect the Muslim faith immensely for this. We Hindus must learn from this".
I sometimes quote this back at him when he gets lippy about Muslims on other matters i.e him seeing in Singapore a modern, prosperous urban setting for a cultural expression that did not bend too much to the modernity...and how that was achieved by a minority he admonishes at other times for other reasons. But even Hindus do not escape his criticism it must be said....that is an example I feel of the deeper quality that comes into play when you can introspect logically along the same issue you hold for other groups...and I can only hope it has also impressed and grown in me.
We are all complex, flawed beings. The deepest ultimate understanding is none other than this and the greatest counterforce is thus naturally the ego. But both are needed in some proportion for balanced living and happiness. As many people as possible having the right tools to analyse this would thus be my larger prescription to the problems of society and mankind.
Very apt, Sir. However, it is a bit difficult to connect to the latent Islamophobia that is being mentioned (the lady is obviously a Paappan). While what you suggest will reaffirm the deep faith in ancient culture that is the best antidote to what you have called a 'loss of self-esteem', we need to know that this counter-acting of the loss of self-esteem will also counter-act the Islamophobia. Does it follow, or does it need to be curated?
Read the above for context.
It needs well reasoned and applied curation I feel (as a default for the citizenry)....as I had more of this than my dad...and even he admits I am more well-reasoned (at least in functional practice) than him on lot of matters of society (especially how society changes so fast these days but certain things stay the same resolutely for better or for worse). So I feel I speak and intuit this stuff from some level of personal experience.
Our lives are quite finite, our interest (on certain important matters) is also quite finite on the whole....especially to the downstream action and larger application of it. Our formative window is especially finite.
The whole conversation changes if these were infinite, but then the whole reality changes too.
We must plant the seed correctly, it must be tended correctly and the fruit harvested well...and prepared and eaten well.
The opposite is given by Lord Byron quite well:
“The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree. I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.”
Quite eloquently referenced in the metallica song (if anyone is into that kind of music like I am) "Bleeding me".
So we do all generally realise these things are finite in nature, though the cyclical process as a whole outlasts us...and may indeed be seemingly infinite....and thus something of a greater meaning/purpose if we see it that way.
This is why education must be well rounded but specifically have insertion points for well reasoned debate (and contrasts offered for maximum resolution)....which must be a good part of your formative years.
This is the opposite of rote learning (which played larger role in my dad's education and formative years, though he had a rare natural innate knack to question and counter it and thus he achieved quite a lot among his peers).
Rote learning is very inept to the "fall as it may" stuff that inevitably happens later. Life doesn't throw you perfect rote-based stuff...not even close...so the very psychology of being reliant on rote (and lashing out a world far more different to that) is a big issue I see at play in India too. It has such a great cultural inheritance but stubbornly and almost clownishly chooses not to see it well enough....with the focused clarity it requires.
It is thus a nuanced understanding for promotion of this kind of debate culture that can also be read about in the ancient history of India...and hopefully impressed on a larger body of people (as an example of what I am referencing in a larger way)...harnessing an existing positive corollary made to that civilisation....if approached with the right mind-frame and curation as you put it.
I see the problems very much with "reaffirmation" left to own inertial energies (and thus filters and biases), especially now with this direction at play we have had and have in the modern era.