Breaking India

Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines

Author	Rajiv Malhotra, Aravindan Neelakandan
Country	India
Language	English
Publisher	Amaryllis, An imprint of Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.
Publication date	2011
Pages	640
ISBN	978-8191067378
OCLC	706503582 [archive]

Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines is a book written by Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan which argues that India's integrity is being undermined by the support of western institutions for the Dravidian movement and Dalit identity. It was published by Amaryllis in 2011. In 2011, this book was in the list of top 10 bestseller books in India.

Synopsis

According to the book's promotional website breakingindia.com:

India's integrity is being undermined by three global networks that have well-established operating bases inside India: (i) Islamic radicalism linked with Pakistan, (ii) Maoists and Marxist radicals supported by China via intermediaries such as Nepal, and (iii) Dravidian and Dalit identity separatism being fostered by the West in the name of human rights. This book focuses on the third: the role of U.S. and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India.

In the introductory chapter of Breaking India, Malhotra writes:

This book looks at the historical origins of both the Dravidian movement and Dalit identity, as well as the current players involved in shaping these separatist identities. It includes an analysis of the individuals and institutions involved and their motivations, activities, and desired endgame. While many are located in the US and the European Union, there are an increasing number in India too, the latter often functioning like the local branch offices of these foreign entities.

The co-author Aravindan Neelakandan said: "We wrote the book for all Indians for you and me because we do not want our children to end up in refugee camps."

Upendra Baxi said that the book essentially focuses on "3-S":

1. Subordination of India's independence
2. Surveillance of independent India
3. Subversion of independent India

This book looks at the historical origins of both the Dravidian movement and Dalit identity, as well as the current players involved in shaping these separatist identities. It includes an analysis of the individuals and institutions involved and their motivations, activities, and desired endgame. While many are located in the US and the European Union, there are an increasing number in India too, the latter often functioning like the local branch offices of these foreign entities.

This book focuses on the role of U.S. and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India.

The book is the result of five years of research, and uses information obtained in the West about foreign funding of these Indian-based activities. The research tracked the money trails that start out claiming to be for education,human rights, empowerment training, and leadership training, but end up in programs designed to produce angry youths who feel disenfranchised from Indian identity.

The book reveals how outdated racial theories continue to provide academic frameworks and fuel the rhetoric that can trigger civil wars and genocides in developing countries. The Dravidian movement's 200-year history has such origins. Its latest manifestation is the Dravidian Christianity movement that fabricates a political and cultural history to exploit old faultlines. The book explicitly names individuals and institutions, including prominent Western ones and their Indian affiliates. Its goal is to spark an honest debate on the extent to which human rights and other empowerment projects are cover-ups for these nefarious activities.

Six Provocations

Dravidian identity constructed, exploited and politicized

The fabrication of South Indian history is being carried out on an immense scale with the explicit goal of constructing a Dravidian identity that is distinct from that of the rest of India. From the 1830s onwards, this endeavor’s key milestones have claimed that south India: is linguistically separate from the rest of India; has an un-Indian culture, aesthetics and literature; has a history disconnected from India’s; is racially distinct; is religiously distinct; and, consequently, is a separate nation. Tamil classical literature that predates the 19th century reveals no such identity conflicts especially with “alien” peoples of the north, nor does it reveal any sense of victimhood or any view of Westerners or Christians as “liberators.” This identity engineering was begun by British colonial and missionary scholars, picked up by politically ambitious south Indians with British backing, and subsequently assumed a life of its own. Even then it was largely a secular movement for political power (albeit with a substratum of racist rhetoric). In recent decades, however, a vast network of groups based in the West has co-opted this movement and is attempting to transform Tamil identity into the Dravidian Christianity movement premised on a fabricated racial-religious history. This rewriting of history has necessitated a range of archeological falsities and even epigraphic hoaxes, blatantly contradicting scientific evidence. Similar interventions by some of the same global forces have resulted in genocides and civil wars in Sri Lanka, Rwanda and other places. If unchallenged these movements could produce horrific outcomes in South India.

Linking of Dravidian and Dalit identities

India has its own share of social injustices that need to be continually addressed and resolved. Caste identities have been used to discriminate against others, but these identities were not always crystallized and ossified as they are today, nor were they against a specific religion per se. Caste identity faultlines became invigorated and politicized through the British Censuses of India, and later intensified in independent India by vote bank politics. A dangerous anti-national grand narrative emerged based on claims of a racial Dalit identity and victimhood. But Dalit communities are not monolithic and have diverse local histories and social dynamics. There are several inconsistencies and errors in these caste classifications: not all Dalit communities are equivalent socially and economically, nor are they static or always subordinate to others. While Dravidian and Dalit identities were constructed separately, there is a strategy at work to link them in order to denigrate and demonize Indian classical traditions (including spiritual texts and the identities based on these) as a common enemy. This in turn, has been mapped on to an Afro-Dalit narrative which claims that Dalits are racially related to Africans and all other Indians are “whites.” Thus, Indian civilization itself is demonized as anti-humanistic and oppressive. This has become the playground of major foreign players, both from the evangelical right and from the academic left. It has opened huge career opportunities for an assortment of middlemen including NGOs, intellectuals and “champions of the oppressed.” While the need for relief and structural change is immense, the shortsighted selfish politics is often empowering the movements’ leaders more than the people in whose name the power is being accumulated. The “solutions” could exacerbate the problems.

Foreign Nexus exploits India's fault lines

An entity remains intact as long as the centripetal forces (those bringing its parts together) are stronger than its centrifugal forces (those pulling it apart). This study of a variety of organizations in USA and Europe demonstrates certain dangerous initiatives that could contribute to the breaking up of Indian civilization’s cohesiveness and unity using various pretexts and programs. The institutions involved include certain Western government agencies, churches, think tanks, academics, and private foundations across the political spectrum. Even the fierce fight between Christians and Leftists within the West, and the clash between Islam and Christianity in various places, have been set aside in order to attack India’s unity. Numerous intellectual paradigms, such as postmodernist critiques of “nation,” originating from the West’s own cultural and historical experiences are universalized, imported and superimposed onto India. These ill-fitting paradigms take center stage in Indian intellectual circles and many guilt-ridden Indian elites have joined this enterprise, seeing it as “progressive” and a respectable path for career opportunities. The book does not predict the outcomes but simply shows that such trends are accelerating and do take considerable national resources to counteract. If ignored, these identity divisions can evolve into violent secessionism.

Religion's role in the competition for soft power

Global competition among collective identities is intensifying, even as the “flat world” of meritocracy seems to enhance individual mobility based on personal competence. But the opportunities and clout of individuals in a global world relies enormously on the cultural capital and standing of the groups from which they emerge and are anchored to. As goes India and Indian culture (of which Hinduism is a major component), so will go the fate of Indians everywhere. Hence, the role of soft power becomes even more important than ever before. Religions and cultures are a key component of such soft power. Christian and Islamic civilizations are investing heavily in boosting their respective soft power, for both internal cohesiveness and external influence. Moreover, undermining the soft power of rivals is clearly seen as a strategic weapon in the modern kurukshetra.

Interrogating the term "minority"

The book raises the question: Who is a “minority” in the present global context? A community may be numerically small relative to the local population, but globally it may in fact be part of the majority that is powerful, assertive and well-funded. Given that India is experiencing a growing influx of global funding, political lobbying, legal action and flow of ideologies, what criteria should we use to classify a group as a “minority”? Should certain groups, now counted as minorities, be reclassified given their enormous worldwide clout, power and resources? If the “minority” concerned has actually merged into an extra-territorial power through ideology (like Maoists) or theology (like many churches and madrassas), through infrastructure investment (like buying large amounts of land, buildings, setting up training centers, etc.), through digital integration and internal governance, then do they not become a powerful tool of intervention representing a larger global force rather than being simply a “minority” in India. Certainly, one would not consider a local franchise of McDonalds in India to be a minor enterprise just because it may employ only a handful of employees with modest revenues locally. It is its global size, presence and clout that are counted and that determine the rules, restrictions and disclosure requirements to which it must adhere. Similarly, nation-states’ presence in the form of consulates is also regulated. But why are foreign religious MNCs exempted from similar requirements of transparency and supervision? (For example: Bishops are appointed by the Vatican, funded by it, and given management doctrine to implement by the Vatican, and yet are not regulated on par with diplomats in consulates representing foreign sovereign states.) Indian security agencies do monitor Chinese influences and interventions into Buddhist monasteries in the northern mountain belt, because such interventions can compromise Indian sovereignty and soft power while boosting China’s clout. Should the same supervision also apply to Christian groups operating under the direction and control of their western headquarters and Islamic organizations funded and/or ideologically influenced by their respective foreign headquarters? Ultimately, the book raises the most pertinent challenge: What should India do to improve and deliver social justice in order to secure its minorities and wean them away from global nexuses that are often anti-Indian?

Controlling the discourse of India

The book shows how the discourse on India at various levels is being increasingly controlled by the institutions in the West which in turn serve its geo-political ambitions. So, why has India failed to create its own institutions that are the equivalent of the Ford Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc.? Why are there no Indian university based International Relations programs with deep-rooted links to the External Affairs Ministry, RAW, and various cultural, historical and ideological think tanks? Why are the most prestigious journals, university degrees and conferences on India Studies, in sharp contrast to the way China Studies worldwide is under the control of Chinese dominated discourse, based in the West and mostly under the control of western institutions?

Reception

File:Breaking India Book Release.png

Breaking India book release (Feb 2011)

Ram Jethmalani, a Member of Parliament said the book is ‘an eye opener, a warning to us’ about not only of internal enemies but external enemies outside our border who are collaborating with dummies, proxies inside our border trying to weaken India, break her unity, integration and ultimately to jeopardise our freedom, sovereignty, culture. The co author Aravindan Neelakandan said We wrote the book for all Indians for you and me because we do not want our children to end up in refugee camps.

Professor Upendra Baxi, former Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University, said that the book essentially focuses on 3-S- Subordination of India’s independence, Surveillance of independent India and Subversion of independent India. S Gurumurthy, columnist, public intellectual and financial analyst said 'This work is long overdue. There have been a lot of efforts to expose the kind of machinations that's going on to pervert our nationalism, pervert our past, pervert our great heroes, pervert even our spiritual personalities like Thiruvalluvar'.

Translation

In December 2011, a Tamil version of the book titled Udaiyum India? was released. In April 2014, a Hindi version of the book titled Bharat Vikhandan was released.

On the 15th of February 2015, a Kannada version of the book titled Bharatha Bhanjana was released in Bengaluru by the noted Kannada litterateur M. Chidananda Murthy. The book is translated to Kannada by Shri Lakshmikanth Hegde and edited by R. V. Jahagiradar, with a foreword by the renowned Kannada novelist S. L. Bhyrappa.

Reception

File:Breaking India Book Release.png

Breaking India book release (Feb 2011)

Positive response

Several speakers at the book release gave a positive response to Breaking India. For example:

eminent international jurist and Member of Parliament Shri Ram Jethmalani said that [the book] is "an eye opener, a warning to us" of not only of internal enemies but external ones too who are collaborating with dummies, proxies inside our border and trying to weaken India, break her unity, integration and ultimately to jeopardise our freedom, sovereignty, culture.

Columnist, public intellectual, and financial analyst S Gurumurthy said:

This work is long overdue. There have been a lot of efforts to expose the kind of machinations that's going on to pervert our nationalism, pervert our past, pervert our great heroes, pervert even our spiritual personalities like Thiruvalluvar.

Criticism

Christian minister Vishal Mangalwadi (who was a topic in the book) wrote:

The authors of Breaking India display a tremendous capacity for collecting data. Had they also the intellectual integrity to interpret fairly the people they critique, they might have won many hearts and minds. The authors' goal is noble – to unite India – although they come across as terrorists, indiscriminately shooting every Western scholar, linguist, scientist, politician, philanthropist, and missionary who ever spoke out against the oppression of "lower caste" Indians. "Faultlines" that divide India can be bridged if the case for unity is made honestly, with grace and charity. After 650 pages, I was left with feeling that the authors heaped loads of insult on every intelligent Hindu who feels that caste and untouchability are wrong.

Gita Ramaswamy writes:

This doorstopper of a book is really one long polemical pamphlet. The authors' intention is historiographical confrontation with Bible-thumpers in Tamil Nadu, but what they lack is expertise in handling historical data and a professional approach [...] The problem is in analysing Dravidian and Dalit faultlines. They don't get wished away by denial. One would expect the authors to analyse these faultlines, acknowledge the limited validity of conversions and identity politics, and discuss their limitations. Instead, they are in denial throughout and consequently fall into outrageous positions.

See also

• Being Different
• Indra's Net
• Invading the Sacred
• Hinduism Invades America
• Hindu American Foundation
• Hindu politics

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External links

Breaking India

• Breaking India (book website) ^[archive]
• Rajiv Malhotra, How Evangelists Invented 'Dravidian Christianity' ^[archive]

Rajiv Malhotra

• rajivmalhotra.com ^[archive]
• The Infinity Foundation ^[archive]
• Huffington Post - Blog by Rajiv Malhotra ^[archive]

Videos

• Video: Discussion of Rajiv Malhotra's BREAKING INDIA book by Dr. Subramaniam Swamy on November 20th, 2011 Bangalore ^[archive]
• Video: Breaking INDIA: A Talk by Rajiv Malhotra ^[archive]

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breaking_India&diff=969069662&oldid=969019490 ^[archive] (by a wikipedia editor who often censors other views)