For months, volunteers of the Art of Living Foundation worked hard day and night, to produce a flawless show, involving hundreds of performers. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny all this while. On D Day, 2d July 2011, everything was ready.

But this was counting without the vagaries of Nature: that morning, the temperature dropped by 15° and it started to rain, hard and steady.

25.000 disciples of the Art of Living prayed silently to their Master so that the rain stopped before the performance. But a totally different miracle happened.

First 50 Indian singers smiled though the rain while reciting ancient Sanskrit Slokas. Then, 500 Polish dancers hopped, skipped and bowed in the water puddles. Next, 2000 Bulgarians had the stadium enthralled with a perfect display of folk dancing, which was like a challenge to the weather, a triumphant cry of joy. Later, the ancient Indian science of yoga came indeed alive with hundreds of adepts going harmoniously through asanas.

Mysteriously, all the Art of Living performers seemed oblivious of the weather: standing for a long time in flimsy clothing, by 13° centigrade, under sheets of rains, while quietly waiting for their turn.

The sheer joy, energy, enthusiasm, of not only the performers, but also of the nearly 40.000 spectators who had braved the rain, was something to behold. Nobody, even amongst the ministers, presidents and MP’s who sat with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the dais, could remain indifferent.

There is a also beauty in the rain: the water spraying-up from the drums under the beating of the sticks; drops of rains, like tears of joys, dripping from the face of ecstatic performers; sheets of water, in the glare of spotlights, descending in a slanted manner on dancers in formations…

There were moments of extreme grace: the tango dancers, who slipped with their high heels on the wet podium and spontaneously hopped on the grass, giving probably one of their most acrobatic and inspired performances; the solo prima donna of the Swan Lake, who pirouetted, jumped, bended and tiptoed, transcending the rain and the cold; the Argentinian singers, who electrified the stadium with their modern rendering of ancient Indian devotional hymns…

And finally, that was what the miracle was about: not a cheap stunt of the rain stopping, by some power, or just a freak chance, which would have had many in religious ecstasy. But thousands of performers transcending adversity -which that day took the shape of unexpected cold and rain – through their devotion, faith and love of their Master, and in the process, attaining heights of perfection, which they might not have achieved in ideal conditions.

And in this union of their minds and bodies, not only were they sublime, but different people from different countries, religions, cultures, some of them even hostile to each other, sang, danced and blended naturally. And the message which this gathering was to give, went through effortlessly: that the whole world can come together, while celebrating harmony in diversity.

This is the miracle of love, this is the miracle of the rain. And even the skeptics rose as one man, as the laser show and tens of thousands of cheering spectators ended the celebrations of the Art of Living Foundation, which for 30 years has been selflessly serving humanity and will do so in the future.

francoisgautier26@gmail.com

I lived in the Pondichery Sri Aurobindo ashram for seven years. These were wonderful times: the Mother was still alive and everything looked new, everything seemed possible. One read Sri Aurobindo, of course, as he was the Master and the inspiration of the place, but one either did not understand or felt disconnected to his political writings.

Then, having done some journalism and photography in France, I started freelancing in South India and I discovered the Hindus. What I chanced upon was that their religion was not in their heads, as it is for us Christians – “I must pray, I must be good, I must not sin” – but that it was rather something they lived: they seemed, for instance, to accept me, a Westerner, a non Hindu, as they seemed to accept all other religions. This discovery would never leave me, even when I became a political journalist in Delhi for major French newspapers.

Thus slowly, I became acquainted with the eternal principles of Hinduism:
• A Hindu is one who searches for the Ultimate Truth.
• Unlike other religions, Hinduism refuses to sanction the monopoly of one God, or one Scripture as the only way to salvation.
• Hinduism is the eternal faith, Sanataana Dharma, or the universal law by which all humans are governed.
• Hindus believe that the soul takes birth in a physical body, dies, gets reborn, until it has attained Perfect Divinity.
• Hindus believe that one can cleanse oneself from karmas through yoga practices, such as pranayama, meditation or asanas.
• One can be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or from any other religion and still practice Hinduism. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has shown the way: breath has no religion and pranayama can be practiced by anybody, whatever their creed.

In that sense, I consider myself a Hindu

Nowadays, in every hotel, every railways station, every government office, you can find posters selling « Incredible India ».

I have been a defender of India for many many years, but the Incredible India campaign does not always match the reality on the ground.

Take visas, for instance. Because India’s intelligence agencies did not do their work properly and Headley was able to move around freely around the country, preparing the 26/11 terror attacks, visa rules have been tightened to such an extent that it has become ridiculous. Recently I asked for a visa for my assistant, a French lady, who likes India, and wants to work in India. She would help in the making of La Revue de l’Inde, the only magazine solely devoted to India in the French speaking world, and which props-up India as the natural, liberal and democratic alternative to China… The Indian embassy in Paris offered her a 3 months visa! Visa rules in India are nehruvian and outdated. The Chinese have understood that one needs to open one’s doors if one wants investments. Incredible India!

Take railways. 20 years ago one had to wait for a long time to get a confirmed berth on the Ranikhet Express which connects to two of the most popular hill stations in northern India: Nainital & Ranikhet. Any change? When we booked our tickets, we were waitlisted 12 & 13. A month later, we were still 12 & 13! Lalu Prasad & Mamta Banerjee might start new trains to please their constituencies, but they do not increase the existing capacities and as a result Indian railways have hardly progressed in 20 years, whereas again, the Chinese have clean, comfortable and fast trains. I say fast, because when we finally got confirmed berths on the Ranikhet express, the train was seven hours late and took 14 hours to cover the 378 kms that separate Delhi from Kathgodam, which makes for an average speed of 19 kms an hour. Incredible India !

India is the largest democracy in the world, they say. Is it at the moment? Reliance claims the Government has asked them to spy on a 100.000 phones. What about the other operators? How many phones is this Government spying on? The CBI blatantly lets go of Quatrocchi the only man who could implicate Sonia Gandhi in the Bofors scam, but goes out big time after Hindu ‘terrorists’. There is some progress though, because a few people are beginning to point a finger at Sonia Gandhi (Raja must have shared some of the scam money with the Congress for their election campaigns and we all know that Sonia holds the strings of the purse – hence her immense power), whereas before nobody dared, for fear of some goons ransacking their office or even being killed. Incredible India !

Speaking of mobiles. The 2G scam is not only about mobile operators paying bribes to Mr Raja to buy bandwidth at throwaway prices and sell them a month later at huge profits to foreign companies, as Tata did to Japanese Docomo, it is also about them thinking they can get away with anything and employing strong arms tactics to recover unpaid bills. I have been a customer of Essar, (then Hutchinson, then Vodafone) since 1997, when I paid a deposit of 5000, which is worth at least four more today. In 2008 my 11 year on-time paid connection (9811118828), was arbitrarily disconnected by Vodafone for a disputed bill of Rs 2000 (of unwanted adds while in Bali, which one of the then Hutch executives had agreed to waive). Then on 10.3.10, I received a call on my new mobile from sub-inspector Kripal Singh (08010649949), who said there was a non bailable warrant against me for unpaid mobile bills. He gave me the mobile number of a lawyer at Delhi’s Tees Hazra’s court (09540602039) and that I had to pay him an amount of Rs.7,500/- before 5 PM, otherwise I would go to jail. Most people pay out of fear. Incredible India!

What about banks? There is so much cheating in India by rich people (like Hassan Ali, who has just gone to jail though it is known for years he has 4 fake passports), that the low income lawful customers pay for them. Since five years foreigners can own property in India or even have 100% shares in companies. I am a PIO, so I have every single right that any other Indian have, except to vote. But try opening a trust account, even in a private bank like HDFC. It’s just hell, as your are mistrusted at every step, a hundred forms have to be signed, copies of your PIO have repeatedly to be given and every request starts with a no, no, no. The tragedy in India as it is so centralized with the Government breathing with a million rules on everyone’s necks, that private initiative is stifled, because everybody is so scared that they go even overboard in denying you. Incredible India!

If only Indian politicians could hear what ordinary Indians are saying about them. Our driver in Jaipur who is paid 5000RS a month by a hotel that charges 22.0000 Rs a day for a room, says with a smirk as soon as we get in his car: “India, My India, Incredible India, but everybody is corrupt Sir, I hate them all”. Incredible India!

Good journalism should always balance criticism with positive outputs so that one’s readers should not feel that the world is bleak and hopeless. Let me say then, that India has shown again that when in extreme distress, it can raise its head and correct its headings. The judiciary and the press are fighting the incredible corruption cancer that has taken over Indian politics and some accountability is being primed at the moment.

In Jaipur again, I stumbled in a stadium with over 100.0000 people, many of them youngsters, singing, dancing, breathing, and meditating with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar during the occasion of Shivaratri. That was amazing: Incredible India.

Fgautier26@rediffmail.com

Editor in Chief of the Paris-based La Revue de l’Inde and author of “A New History of India” (Har Anand, New Delhi)

If you read between the lines of most of Mark Tully’s books, you will see that he says – albeit in a diluted manner – that: a) secularism is a colonial left over; b) Hinduism constitutes the genius and the base of Indian civilisation. There is no doubt that Sir Tully is a well liked personality. But Mark was never too bold in his moral stands: see how he is now saying that Hindutva, Sex and Adventures is affecting his reputation. Why should he be ashamed of being a defender of the Hindus? I am not. In fact, I find his establishing a dialogue in the book between Imla, the Indian journalist, who is a diehard secularist (as most Indian journalists are) and Andrew, who gradually realizes that Hindus are a very wonderful – but persecuted people, is a brilliant ploy. It is a pity that every single critic has demolished the Hindutva part of the book, without even bothering to analyse the very important points Tully raises on Kashmir, Ayodhya, Sonia Gandhi, or Islamic terrorism.

Mark Tully may also have wanted to atone for his coverage of South Asia. I remember when we were both reporting on the Valley of Kashmir in the early nineties, that he would always highlight human right abuses on Muslims by the army, but hardly ever spoke about the 400.000 Kashmiri Hindus who were chased out of their ancestral homeland by threats, violence, rapes, torture and murder – and today have become refugees in their own countries. Mark Tully is known for his ‘fair’ reporting, but actually, he and the BBC coined phrases and set standards in reporting on South Asia, which still stand today and harm India’s image. Many of us know that since the mid-eighties Pakistan encouraged, financed, trained and armed Kashmiri separatism. But Mark always made it a point to say: “India accuses Pakistan to foster separatism in Kashmir”; or :”elections are being held in Indian- held Kashmir”; or “Kashmir militants ” have attacked an army post, instead of “terrorists”. All the other foreign journalists, yesterday and today, (except myself and maybe Tiziano Terzani) have followed the BBC’s benchmarks.

 This near colonial attitude towards India has even influenced today’s politicians in the West. For instance, Obama’s present foreign policy of thinking he can fight terror by making a frontline state of the very country which fosters 3/4th of the terror attacks in the world, and of putting the screws on India so that it negotiates with Pakistan, even at the cost of compromising on its sovereignty in Kashmir, is a direct offshoot of the BBC’s reporting in South Asia for 25 years. We also can read between the lines and know that Mr Obama is pressuring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to give-up India’s military nuclear programme, leaving her at the mercy of not only Pakistan’s , but also China’s formidable nuclear arsenal.

The irony is that the Indian Government seems to be enamoured of Mark Tully. But if you observe carefully, he was a strong detractor of Indira Gandhi, particularly on Blue Star and during the anti-Sikh riots. Though he praised Rajiv Gandhi in his beginnings, he became a critic of his style of functioning in the later years, specially after the IPKF fiasco. And he has been saying “that the moribund and leaderless Congress party has lashed onto Sonia Gandhi, who is Italian by birth and Roman Catholic by baptism”. (‘Nehru Dynasty’ for the BBC).

The below extract of Hindutva, Sex and Adventures seems to reinforce that statement.

EXTRACT “HINDUTVA SEX AND ADVENTURES”: SONIA GANDHI

 - I am coming to Delhi to cover Sonia Gandhi’s election as President of the Congress party, Imla said. They met at the Taj Mansingh for a cup of tea before walking to 1 Akbar Road, the Congress headquarters. Andrew could see that she was getting more and more snappy and she was actually looking for subjects about which she could disagree with him, sometimes violently, for she definitely possessed a very bad temper.

 They had such a fight about Sonia Gandhi. Andrew had found Sonia Gandhi quite likable when she was just Rajiv Gandhi’s (the pilot) spouse, a loving wife, who had adopted the Indian way of life; a good daughter in law: Indira Gandhi died on her lap on the way to the hospital, after being shot by her Sikh bodyguards; and more than everything, a good mother, who doted on her children and tried all her life to protect them. Andrew suspected she had kept her Italian passport, even after taking the Indian nationality (India does not allow you to hold two passports), but he had met quite a few foreigners in Delhi who also retained their origin passports after having obtained the Indian one. He had toyed himself for some time with the idea of taking the Indian nationality, now that he spoke Hindi quite fluently, but it was too difficult to travel with an Indian passport. He did not mind also her remaining a Christian: after all, he was still one himself. Indeed, one of his Italian journalists friends had prayed with her, along with Rajiv Gandhi, at a mass in Calicut with the bishop officiating – that was her private business. But after her husband was blown to pieces by the LTTE, he observed a drastic change in her: she did not seem to trust anybody anymore, became aloof and suspicious. He watched with dismay how the Congress leaders, some of them men and women of substance, whom he knew personally, applied pressure on her to enter politics for years. He had learnt also, through some well placed friends, that gradually, via the Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi foundations, she started controlling huge amounts of money. He knew also that in India money means political power, as a party needs hundreds of crores of rupees to win a general election. Thus, he thought that in her fortress of Janpath, surrounded twenty-four hours by security, she gradually lost touch with the reality of India.

Andrew, who had met her a few times after Rajiv’s death, thus took discreetly his distances with her, though in typical British fair play, he never made any comments publicly.

 When they reached the Congress headquarters amidst unprecedented security, which Andrew thought was unwarranted, considering there had never been any threats on Sonia Gandhi’s life, there must have been at least a hundred other foreign correspondents awaiting the crowning of Mrs Gandhi. As usual, Sonia made them wait (once when Andrew was covering Sonia’s campaigning in Hospet, Karnataka, she was late by eight hours). She lived literally next door in Janpath, but she finally arrived in a caravan of vehicles, with dozens of security guards running around her car, as if she was the American president. When she got out, most Congressmen bowed down in front of her, while some even touched her feet. Andrew was shocked: he felt that it was debasing for Indians, people of talent and culture to scrape down in front of someone who in the West would be an average person. But most of his colleagues did not seem to find anything wrong in it. As for Imla, she was smiling. Sonia’s election as Congress President was a foregone conclusion, nobody really opposing her. It’s like the crowning of an empress, thought Andrew.

When they were walking back, he had an argument with Imla:

- It would be impossible for a non-Christian, non-English, non-White Hindu woman, to become the supreme ruler behind the scenes in England, he said. Don’t you find this a little humiliating?

- Not at all. It’s because you don’t understand us, she retorted, we accept the others, not like you Britishers.

He tried to remain cool:

 - But this goes to extremes, Imla: there are a billion Indians, many talented; can’t you find one of your own to lead this country ?

 This time she was getting angry:

 - She is one of our own, ok? She has an Indian passport, she wears a sari, she speaks Hindi and she has India at heart. Not like some of your Hindutva fanatics, she threw at him.

 - You know I am not Hindutva, he replied, hurt

 - Oh yes, you are… Your sympathy goes to them now. That’s why you hate Sonia Gandhi.

- But I don’t hate her my dear, I just think that she wields too much power, being just an elected MP like hundreds of others…

But Imla had already stormed away and hailed a rickshaw to go back to her aunt….

… The next morning he went to the yoga conference where security was tight at as many famous saints were there, such as the shankaracharya of Kanchi, Ma Amrita Anandamai, B.K Iyengar, who more than anybody had helped to spread yoga in the West and swami Bhakta, an upcoming young guru, clean shaven, with flowing orange robes, who taught yoga and a revitalized form of pranayama and with whom Andrew had fixed an interview the next day.

Andrew, standing under an awning near the entrance, noticed her immediately. She was impatiently flashing a press card at one of the security guards and animatedly arguing with him. She was not only pretty, but her anger also exuded a kind of intensity that was appealing to him. He liked girls with personalities and had discovered, of late, that pretty girls are often shallow and self-conscious and that desire dies quickly when beauty is just an empty shell. She was wearing a white shirt and black pants, her black hair was tied behind her head, nothing flashy, but it suited well her personality. She must have felt the weight of his stare and she turned her head and their eyes briefly met. God, she also has pretty eyes, thought Andrew.

Andrew would not give up so easily, he followed her and as she was sitting down in the empty last but one row, he slipped into the chair next to her. She gave him a cool look, she had always been mistrustful of strangers:
-Thanks for having helped me, she nevertheless said and then turned her head away.
But he would not give-up
- Hi, my name is Andrew  Luyt and I am a British radio journalist, he said, extending his hand.
She hesitated and then shook it, noticing with a slight surprise that he kept it in his, longer than was decent to do.
- My name is Imla What are your doing here, she asked ?
-    I am learning all about yoga
-    - Oh, she answered, there is a lot of bull here. It’s all about marketing and brainwashing people.
Andrew was surprised: she looked so Indian, in spite of her western attire.
-    Well, he replied, I am an Anglican and some of my clergy think that yoga is very un-Christian, but how can you dislike something that was born in your country and that has taken the world by storm ? Every gymnastic discipline, every aerobic has some yogic ancestry !
But she was not convinced:
-    What we need in India now are good roads, honest politicians and lots of high tech, not godmen which are two dime a dozen in every nook of this country !
Andrew heard for the first time the word ‘godman’, used derogatively by the Indian media to call Hindu gurus and which he would encounter again and again. He asked:
- Then, why are you here ?
-     Oh, she replied, my newspaper has sent me to write a piece on Swami Bhakta for the Sunday magazine, because he is becoming very big in India, though I do not care much for him. But I have not even managed to catch his secretary so far.
Now I have her he thought:
- Well I have an appointment with him tomorrow morning. Would you like to join me ? I will give you a little bit of time at the end.
For the first time, she seemed interested in him:
- Yes, of course, she said, quick as only a journalist can be. Can you give me a few tips ?
- Sure, he smiled, if you let me buy you dinner at the pizzeria.

The pizzeria was then the only decent western restaurant in Rishikesh, run by a fat Italian, who talked a lot and baked fairly decent pizzas in his makeshift tandooori oven. She met him at seven o’clock. She had put on a salwar kameez and looked even more beautiful, slim, demure and pretty. They sat facing each other in the tiny restaurant overlooking the Ganges. She was distant and eyed him suspiciously, yet he could feel that she was curious about him.
He started asking her questions. She was born in Delhi but worked in Mumbai for the largest midday paper. Her father was an officer in the army, her mother a teacher and she was still living with them.
She was so Indian, yet in many ways, she was more westernized than him. She did not care about yoga and spirituality. Her political views were pretty straightforward:
-    I think the Congress represents the best chance for our country where there are so many minorities, so many religions and ethnicities, she said defiantly to Andrew (who then, could not agree more with her). Seeing Andrew silent, she continued:
-    You westerners have a romantic idea of India. But it’s all about half of our population not having access to proper sanitation, drinking water, or even one meal a day. This is why, Nehruvian socialism is also the right choice for us, as we need to uplift the destitute, the untouchables, which a brahmanic society has kept down for centuries.
But what astounded Andrew even more, was her culture. She had never read Kalidasa, whom Andrew had jus discovered in a bookshop in Khan market. His poetry, genius and sensuality shined even in the bad translation from the Sanskrit and Andrew intuitively felt that he was as good as Homer, as Shakespeare even. When he told her, she laughed :
-    Kalidasa, who ?
But she knew Tennyson’s poem ‘All things will die’, of which she recited the last stanza in a singsong voice, which sounded so out of place in this tiny restaurant serving Italian food in one of the holiest cities of India :
- And the blue wave beat the shore;
“For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.”

He felt touched somehow: there was spirituality in this poetry, which was so close to his own atavism and culture.
She also knew the latest bestsellers in the US: Mario Puzzo, Ken Follett, Danielle Steele, Patricia Cornwell, John Grisham, Dick Francis, half of whom Andrew had never read.

She hesitated for a second and then said, as spontaneously and effortlessly as Andrew had thrown his compliment:
-    - Thank you.
Let’s swim in the Ganges early tomorrow morning, he said, I have been told by a colleague that there is a small beach upstream, near the Laxman jhulla, where we can even sunbathe. After that we will go to interview swami Bhakta as it is on the same bank. Again she hesitated for a moment and then agreed. They parted in front of the restaurant with a formal handshake….

However angry I am at being falsely accused, I do think that Mark Tully, who is a decent guy, or whoever wrote this book, has raised very pertinent issues, by having a dialogue between the hero Andrew Luyt, who slowly sees that Hinduism is the basic structure of India – and Imla, his Indian journalist girlfriend,  who like most Indian journos, is a diehard secularist. Thus I cannot resist posting a few extracts of the books:
fg

…Like most western journalists, and in spite of being born here, Andrew came to India with a fair amount of goodwill and an aspiration to do justice to this huge and diverse subcontinent. But, also like most correspondents, he also landed armed with a number of prejudices, picked-up here and there during his strict protestant education: poverty, castes, gods and goddesses, fakirs, elephants, sacred cows and maharajas…

On the second day, he was invited by a British colleague to a party. He had heard that Delhi parties were famous for being boozy and late. It was in East Nizamudin, a place he would come to love and where he would live. But this time he got lost, not having grasped yet the maddening illogic patterns of street numbers in India. It was in the apartment of another foreign correspondent, a Frenchman, known for his love of women and stupendous capacity for drinking and it was full of journalists, both Indian and Western. The apartment was wide and beautifully furnished with teak antic pieces, there was a lot of alcohol, quite a few stunning women- mostly Indian – the foreign ones did not look like much to Andrew – and one could hardly hear oneself talking. Andrew, still a little shy, in spite of his booming voice, stuck himself in a corner and just observed. The western journalists wore all white cotton trousers, white open shirts, and had a seriousness about them that stuck Andrew. The Indian journalists had a glass of whisky in one hand, a cigarette – or sometimes a pipe – in the other, and loudly talked of politics to the western journalists who listened to them enthralled.

For the first time Andrew heard words, which later would become part of his vocabulary:
- Gosh, said, a chap from the London Telegraph, whom Andrew had briefly met once, these Hindu fundamentalists will bring curse to this country; see how they are claiming that most the mosques in India, including the Babri Masjid, are built on destroyed temples…
- Yeah, replied another chap, whom Andrew had never met, in a German accented-English, we journalists, have to do our bit for India’s persecuted minorities, you know, the Christians who are attacked in tribal ideas, or the Muslims who do not get the same education as Hindus and are nowhere to be found in the top layers of Indian society.
- Right you are, continued the Telegraph chap. I am actually compiling a report of Human Rights abuses in India. We need to preserve Secularism, which I believe we British bequeathed to this country, he concluded, rather pompously, thought Andrew…

All these new words, plus the smoke, noise, and movement, left him slightly stunned after the quietness of British parties. Dinner was served at 11 pm, which struck him as rather late. He ate quickly, mumbled a goodbye to his host and went back by rickshaw to the Claridges, again baffled by what he was encountering in India

He started hunting for a place in Delhi, which was easier said than done. Even in those times, foreign diplomats, who were ready to pay anything for a house in posh areas of Delhi, had helped to make rental prices skyrocket to ridiculous heights: 75.000 Rs for a big flat in Golf Links, or one lakh for a house in Jorbagh. The owners were usually rich Punjabis, who asked for 50% of the money to be paid in black in foreign accounts and demanded one – sometimes two – years in advance. One day Andrew went to see a flat in Sujan Singh Park, near the Ambassador hotel, where lived the famous writer and journalist Kushwant Singh. The owner was a fat Sikh who had rings on every finger. Flat was nice, but when Andrew requested to see the servants’ quarters, he was shown a dump of a room without any windows and when he asked about the bathroom, the fat Sikh replied
- they don’t need bathrooms, they can use the public toilets in Khan Market !
Andrew, in spite of his British self-control, nearly slapped the guy and left without a word. He would discover much later that rich North Indians often paid and treated very badly their servants and whenever he saw in papers that a servant had murdered his or her masters and fled with their money, he remembered the servants’ quarters in Sujan Singh Park. Finally he settled for a run down flat in East Nizamudin,  overlooking the shrine of the Muslim Sufi saint, Nizamud-din Chishti, a district which then was not yet as popular as it would become with intellectuals and journalists. He remodelled it, hunted Delhi’s antic markets for old colonial furniture and made it in a haven of peace. Ultimately, he would become known as the ‘Knight of East Nizamuddin’….

Le fascisme c’est de refuser le dialogue, comme le font tous les indianistes du CNRS et de l’EHESS quand on leur tend la main, dialogue qui peut prendre place devant témoins sous forme de débat…

Le fascisme c’est de traiter de fasciste quelqu’un qui vit depuis 40 ans en Inde, est marié depuis 20 ans à une Indienne, dont les meilleurs copains sont des Indiens appartenant à toutes les religions. Quelqu’un qui dans sa vie privée n’est ni raciste, ni haineux, ni méchant…

Le fascisme c’est d’être assis sur son pesant derrière à Paris (ou dans cette grosse bulle qu’est Delhi) et de disséquer l’Inde à partir de préjugés, de faux théorèmes, en se basant sur le politiquement correct, qui n’est que du reçu de son éducation, son atavisme et ce qu’on lit (cela s’appelle  de la connaissance de deuxième main)….

Le fascisme c’est d’accuser de fascisme quelqu’un qui a couvert le Cachemire pendant 15 ans, au moment des troubles les plus graves, qui a parcouru de long en large le Pakistan, le Bangladesh, l’Afghanistan, qui a sillonné l’Inde comme aucun autre journaliste français… Même s’il se trompe – au moins il parle d’expérience – et peut-être le temps lui donnera raison…

Tout ce que j’ai fait, lorsque je travaillais pour le Figaro, c’est de dire qu’il existait un problème avec l’islam en Asie du sud, à un moment où il n’était pas politiquement correct de le dire. J’ai aussi rédigé une série d’articles sur les grandes religions en Inde, qui ont provoqué l’ire des indianistes. Ceux-ci ont écrit au Figaro un impressionnant nombre de lettres de protestation, demandant des droits de réponse et ma démission. De ce jour là, j’ai été marqué et une campagne de diffamation à tous les niveaux a été initiée contre moi.

Quand on est accusé d’être antimusulman, c’est pire que d’être un pestiféré, on est condamné sans jugement, sans que les accusateurs s’objectivent une seconde. S’ils le faisaient, ils réaliseraient que c’est une ironie terrible: on excuse les attentats suicide en Israël ou à Bombay qui tuent des centaines d’innocents, au nom de la ‘persécution’ des Palestiniens, des Tchéchènes ou des Kashmiris; mais on accuse des pires crimes quelqu’un qui n’a jamais assassiné personne, ni même prôné la haine, mais a simplement écrit ce qu’il a constaté de ses yeux, en vingt ans de reportages.

Tout au long de ma carrière, j’ai souffert de cette étiquette qui ne s’explique pas mais est véhiculée de personne en personne et fait rapidement le tour de tout ce qui touche à l’Inde, que ce soit les agences de voyage, les expatriés, les diplomates ou les journalistes : « c’est un antimusulman, un pro-hindou, un fasciste »… Les gens, même les plus éclairés, ne veulent écouter que le politiquement correct, l’idéologie de masse, ils ne veulent jamais entendre la différence. J’ai connu six ambassadeurs de France, mais jamais m’a-t-on invité pour me demander mon avis sur un sujet ou un autre. Je me suis même dernièrement fait jeter par l’ambassadeur actuel, Jérôme Bonnafont, qui m’a traité de… fasciste… parce que je lui ai fait remarquer que c’est après que 59 hindous innocents, dont 36 femmes et enfants, aient été brûlés dans un train par une meute de musulmans, que les émeutes antimusulmanes du Gujarat ont démarré. Pourtant Jérôme Bonnafont ne fait pas lui-même exactement dans le politiquement correct: il est le premier ambasadeur étranger à Delhi ouvertement gay, ce qui fait jaser le tout Delhi francophone.

C’est cette arrogance bien française, qui ne s’explique pas au pays des cartésiens, de traiter de secte tout ce qui a une couleur hindoue, ou de fascistes ceux avec qui on est en désaccord, sans leur accorder la chance de s’expliquer et sans même s’expliquer à soi-même la logique de ses accusations. Le président Sarkozy, qui a montré qu’il savait être différent, devrait constituer un petit comité de Français qui VIVENT l’inde du dedans, pour le conseiller.

Q. Where were you born and brought up, education?

A. I was born in Paris in 1950. I had a strict upper-class catholic education, but I never really fitted in the system and revolted against it quite early. Thus, I was sent to many famous boarding schools all over Europe, from which I was regularly kicked out ! My family wanted me to be a businessman and I attended an American business school in Paris called IDRAC, but my interest was in writing and I quit to work in a small newspaper, which quickly folded; then I wrote the script of a film for a friend (whose father, a famous film director, had given him 30.000 francs to do his own film). Needless to say, the film was never released and soon after, I left for India : I had just turned nineteen.

Q. Tenure: how long, any affiliations other than Le Figaro ?

A. When I reached India, I stopped writing for a long time, except my own diaries and I went into other spheres – meditation and gardening, for instance ! In 1982, at the occasion of the Asian Games in Delhi, I chanced upon an article (on the Asian games) in a French newspaper. It had all the usual clichés on India : poverty, fakirs, Mother Teresa… So I wrote a letter of correction to the Editor.. and he offered me to write an article, which I did. And then another article followed and another and another… I then started writing and photographing for different publications and finally ended-up being the correspondent in South Asia, for the Geneva-based « Journal de Geneve », which at one time used to be one of the best international newspapers in Europe.  Five and a half years ago, I switched to Figaro, for which I now work exclusively, except for the occasional photo feature (on Kalarapiyat for instance).

Q.  How interested in Indology — what set it off, what caused it?

A. Indology grew on me the moment I started getting out of Auroville (which is a bit of an island in the midst of India). In fact I would say that India grows on those (Westerners) who LIVE India in whatever field (dance, music, spirituality, crafts, photography – but not journalism). Also I have an interest in spirituality and it opens-up so many different areas of Indian life.

Q. Married to Indian, other roots in India?

A. I have been married nine years to Namrita, who is from Delhi (mother is Hindu, father Sikh). Being married to a « daughter of India » is a natural complement of my being in this country for thirty years. My roots are very much in this country, even though I remain a Westerner. But I have no intention of going back to France, except for yearly visits to meet my family.

Q. Relationship to Auroville?

A. I came to India with the first caravan for the international city of Auroville – and even though I spent seven years in the Sri Aurobindo ashram Pondichery, because I was immediately attracted  by this totally Indian and spiritualised atmosphere (lots of Westerners in Auroville), my dedication is to Auroville, where I have spent most of the last 22 years. It is this ATTEMPT at  human unity which makes Auroville great (because so far, we cannot boast of many achievements !) and the fact that such a place exists and that it is in India (where else could it be but in the land of great tolerance and spiritual experiment ?) is a sign of hope for the rest of humanity.

B) Publications and books

Q. I have read excerpts from “Rewriting Indian History” on the web at www.hindu.org · Relationship if any, with Hinduism Today?

A. Not directly. Sitaram Goel, Publisher of the Voice of India ( For a long time, Sitaram Goel and Ram Swarup, who just passed-away, single handedly defended Hinduism in the face of the Marxist-Christian-Muslim onslaught in India) had read some of my articles in Blitz magazine and asked me if he could publish a series of them under a book form. I answered that I would rather write the book from scratch and thus was born ”The Wonder that IS India”. Later, Hinduism Today, a remarkable set-up, which for the first time in the history of Hinduism is attempting to rationalise and gather together this great knowledge to present it to the world, offered to put it on their site in the net.

Q. You take exception to Basham’s book: because it thinks of India only in the past tense?

A. Not only does he think that India was great solely in the past, but his idea of India’s greatness is very selective; furthermore, he subscribes to the usual western slogans : the eternal clichés propagated by a few Christian missionaries and “enlightened secularists” on the Indian caste system. “The Aryans anointed themselves the ruling class (= Brahmins and Kshatriyas), while the poor conquered Dravidians (Harappans), became the slaves, (= Vaishyas and  Shudras)”. Or: “As they settled among darker aboriginals, the Aryans seem to have laid greater stress than before on purity of blood and class divisions hardened…” (36, Wonder that was India). Or else this monstrosity: “…In the Vedic period, a situation arose rather like that prevailing in South Africa today, with a dominant fair minority, striving to maintain its purity and its supremacy over a darker majority”… (138, Wonder). Poor India, being granted the honour by Mr Basham, of being the founding father of racism! But it is thus that Mr Basham lays the ground for his later theories on what he calls Hindu imperialism.

Q.  Quoting from Koenrad Elst (whom I have interviewed in the past), Isn’t Elst dismissed by some as not a serious scholar?

A. It is very unfortunate that Konrad Elst is not able to publish his writings but in Hindu oriented magazines or publishing houses, for he is not only one of the most thorough and knowledgeable scholars on India, but also, because he is a Westerner, he is able to perceive things that Indians themselves, blinded by two centuries of colonialism and 50 years of so-called secularism, do not see any more. I hope that History will grant him his due place in the fight for Indian Renaissance.

Q. What other books have you written? Tell me more about them.

A. I have written ”Rewriting Indian History”, published by Vikas. Next February ”Un autre regard sur l’Inde” (a different look at India), will be published in France and Switzerland by Editions du Tricorne and I have just finished a novel called ”The last caravan to India”, which I hope to publish first in France and later in India, after getting it translated in English.

Q. What are you currently working on? Kalari Payat?

A. I am working on two books in collaboration with Indian photographer Raghu Rai. The first one indeed is on Kalaripayat, which as you may know is the ancestor of all great Asian martial arts, such as judo and karate. This Kerala-based multi-discipline martial art travelled to China and later to Japan with Buddhism and brought to these countries not only martial knowledge, but also medical science which gave birth to acupuncture in China. The other book is about the French influence in India past and present.

C)· Views

Q· Why are Elst, Frawley, Kak etc. so much devalued by the mainstream English-language press in India? Are they not rigorous scholars?

A. Again, they are very rigorous scholars – the scope of Elst’s knowledge is amazing. But they have been going for a long time against the mainstream thought of this country, which was initiated first by the Britishers and later taken on by Nehru and the intellectual left based in JNU, all of which were predominantly anti-Hindu and which strove to eradicate the genius that was India.

Q· Your views on the discrediting of the Aryan Invasion Theory. Isn’t it a bit far-fetched to suggest that in addition to not being invaded, in fact Indian tribes went westwards?

A. Not at all. Because not only do latest archaeological and linguistic discoveries prove that there never was an Aryan invasion of India and that it was a theory propounded by the early archaeologists and linguists which were all at the service of the British (including the much vaunted Max Mueller who has falsified India’s historical datings). Because how could the colonisers of the land, the bearers of « civilisation » and the true religion, ever accept that they might be the  descendants of those they were colonising ? As for Aryan (or rather Indian tribes) to go westwards, there is nothing preposterous in that theory. Just compare Greek philosophy with Vedic thought, which it is known now, is much older than Greek civilisation. There is also a striking similarity – which has been dwelt upon by numerous Indologists, including French scholar Alain Daniélou – between some forms of Christianity and Hinduism. There is no doubt that Christ was inspired by Hindu and Buddhist esoterism and there are numerous stories that he even came to India to be initiated. And finally, many recognise that the Gypsies, whose language has still many similarities with Sanskrit, and appeared in Europe around the 14th century after having transited through Iran and Egypt, were a lost tribe of India, probably of harijan origin.

Q. I have been reading a good deal of argument about Bhagwan Gidwanis “The Return of the Aryans”. What is your view of this?

A. I have not read this book and I would be interested to know where I can get a copy. But this whole Aryan concept is an invention of colonial linguists for their own hidden purpose; it is even today used by Christian missionaries and was also taken up by Hitler, this great asura of the 20th century, to justify the killing of six millions Jews. What does Aryan mean ? Nothing ! There were Vedic tribes who happened to be receptive enough to the forces of Nature and the Cosmos to develop a unique spiritual system which was the basis for the future Indian civilisations. Full stop. All the rest is propagaganda of Muslim writers and Christian missionaries, who, since they came to this country, have been intent to divide India into religions, castes, tribes etc. Whereas vedic philosophy was always for unity : santanam dharma. Everything, every path, every sect is acceptable, as long as it leads you from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. Today the Congress, the Left and all the Mulayam Singh are still at it : how to divide this country and make sure it dies forever.

Q. Your views on Islamic invasion and missionary invasion

A. I think the above answers your question, but I must add that if the Vedic greatness had not degenerated and India had remained united in dharma, there could have never been Muslim invasions and later western colonisation. This said, the massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese. In the words of another historian, American Will Durant: “the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilisation is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying within”.

Q. Why is it that foreign writers fall into either of two camps: either openly hostile (eg. Barbara Crossette,Molly Moore) or openly supportive (eg. you, Mark Tully)

A. You either hate India or love it. Let’s forget about tourists, because they are a distinct breed and their purpose is different. But if you take western journalists or writers, you will find that a great many of them (after some time) dislike India, or even sometimes hate it. Take the British who were in India for 300 years, how many of them got even to understand truly even a little bit of this great country ? 0.02% (you can’t even say that Foster understood India) ? There is basically an unconscious militant dislike of the Christian world towards Hindu India (and in this militant hate, Christians are even ready to ally themselves with their traditional enemies: Islam. Last week I was in Jhabua, where the four nuns were raped [it was not a ‘religious’ rape as reported by the Press] and the lawyer whom the Christian priests had selected to defend their case, was a Muslim). And even today you find that the West loves to honour only these Indians who basically are anti-Hindus, such as Mother Teresa or Amartya Sen, however brilliant they are  in their own fields. True, India  is a difficult country for a westerner : dirty, unhygienic, obscure sometimes. It is also full of contradictions and it does not open-up to those who do not make any efforts to truly understand it. But once more, you have to LIVE India if you want to understand it. This is why journalists and western corespondents always closeted in Delhi, this artificial and arrogant city, can never understand India : they are just mouthing the same old clichés (Hindutva, caste system, Ayodhya, secularism), which they hear at the same embassies cocktails, the same journalists’ parties, the same secular Indian Press meet (such as Outlook)…

Q. What is your view on the Sarasvati Vandana/Vande Mataram controversy?

A. The Ministers  walked out when the Saraswati Vandanam was played. But why should anyone object to Saraswati, the Goddess of learning, She who bestowed so much Grace on India. In 1939, a disciple had said to Sri Aurobindo that: “there are some people who object to the singing of Vande Mataram as a national song; Sri Aurobindo had replied: “in that case Hindus should give up their culture”. But the disciple had continued: “the argument is that the song speaks of Hindu gods, like Durga and that it is offensive to Muslims”. Said Sri Aurobindo: “but it is not a religious song, it is a national song and the Durga spoken of is India as the Mother. Why should not the Muslims accept it? In the Indian concept of nationality, the Hindu view should be naturally there. if it cannot find a place, the Hindus may as well be asked to give-up their culture. The Hindus don’t object to “Allah-Ho-Akbar”.

Q. What do you think the solution is to endemic Macaulayism in India?

A. It is obvious that Education in India has to be totally revamped. The kind of Westernised education which is standard in India, does have its place, because India wants to be on par with the rest of the world, and Indian youth should be able to  deal confidently with  the West: do business, talk, and relate to a universal world culture. But nevertheless, the first thing that Indian children should be taught is the greatness of their own culture. They should learn to revere the Vedas, they should be taught the genius of the Mahabharata and the Ramanayana; they should be told that in this country everything has been done, that it was an unsurpassed civilisation, when the West was still mumbling its first words, that Indian civilisation reached dizzying heights, which have been since unsurpassed. But overall they should be taught early that India’s greatness is her spirituality her world-wide wisdom. INDIA’S NEW EDUCATION HAS TO BE SPIRITUALISED; IT HAS TO BE AN INNER EDUCATION, WHICH TEACHES TO LOOK AT THINGS FROM THE INNER PRISM, NOT THROUGH THE WESTERN ARTIFICIAL LOOKING GLASS.

Q. Do you find Hinduism in danger? Besieged? But isn’t it true that it has always survived — muddling through somehow?

A. Yes, it is true that Hinduism has always managed to survive in the face of tremendous odds (Muslim holocaust, British colonisation, Nehruism…). But it is also true that life is always on the razor’s edge and that nothing is won until the last moment. Today Hinduism is facing a more insidious onslaught, but which may be even more dangerous: from its own people. From the Left, who wants to eradicate totally Hinduism and for that purpose supports whatever is inimical to it, including Islam and Christianity; from the so-called ‘secular’ politicians, such as Mulayam Singh or Laloo Prasad, who have done tremendous harm to India; from Sonia Gandhi, a Christian, who might one day Prime Minister of India; from missionaries who continue to convert through covert means; from its so-called intellectual elite which swears by liberalisation and westernisation, not understanding that this will eventually kill India’s soul… Overall, there is a vast semi-conscious conspiracy to denigrate Hinduism; and there Muslims and Christians walk hand in hand : it goes from Husain painting Saraswati naked, to Deepa Mehta’s lesbians being called Radha and Sita. Everybody calls Thakeray a fascist or a madman, but let a Hindu minority in Saudi Arabia, or even in Europe, try to denigrate the Virgin Mary or Jesus, and see what happens. At least the man has guts, whatever his excesses.

Q. Do you think the state-sanctioned disparity between Hindus and other faiths will continue?

A. It is great tragedy that for instance different Congress governments have left millions of Bangladeshis settle in Eastern India and have kept quiet about it, just to cater to the Muslim vote bank. Today even, all the ‘secular’ politicians refuse to accept the Assam Governor’s conclusions which are absolutely right : Assam’s way of life, its culture, religion, are being totally wiped out by the Bangladeshis immigrants, who on top of that bring with them a militant religion and do not really integrate in the Indianmainstream. This should not happen and it is one of the dangers that Hinduism has to face today, because Muslims multiply much more rapidly than Hindus, who have generally accepted the need to have only two or three children, even in the backwards villages of Tamil Nadu.

Q. Where do you think the population is going in regards to Hinduism, never mind the politicians?

A. I do hope that India is not going to turn its back on Hinduism. Because with 800 millions souls, Hindus constitute the majority of this country. Traditionally and historically, Hinduism has always been the most tolerant of all religions, allowing persecuted minorities from all over the world, whether the Jerusalem Jews, the Parsis from Persia, Christians from Syria, or even Arab merchants, to settle in India over the centuries and practice their religion in peace. Are the French ashamed of their Greco-Roman inheritance? Not at all ! On the contrary they even think that civilisation started only with the Greeks. Would you call the Germans or the Italians « nationalists » because they have Christian Democrats Parties?  Christianity is the founding stone of Western civilisation and nobody dares deny it. Clinton goes to the mass and swears on the Bible and none finds anything to say. We French are brought-up listening to the values of Homer’s « Iliad », or Corneille’s « Le Cid ». It is true that in France there has been a separation of the State and the Church; but that is because at one time the Church misused its enormous political power and grabbed enormous amounts of lands and gold. But no such thing ever happened India. The much maligned Brahmins never interfered in politics and today they are often a neglected lot.

Q. Aren’t there ills in Hinduism? Why aren’t these being cleansed? You would admit that there is continuing casteism in India; perhaps also patriarchal ill-treatment of women?

A.  Oh yes, there are a lots of ills in Hinduism, the worst one being that for some mysterious reason, Hindus tend to be the most undisciplined, (look how they drive) collectively selfish, and nationally uncaring community in India, so that it requires a Mother Theresa to look after their own underprivileged. In the same way, they tend to extend cleanliness only to their own immediate surroundings : their homes, or their front porches, but neglect the rest. It is puzzling for instance how a people which has worshipped the Ganges for thousands of years, treats it with so little respect, dumping every day thousands of chemicals in its waters. They are panicky, cowards (I have my own theory on this: the collective terror unleashed by the Muslim invasions in the unconscious mind of Hindus still trigger in them this panicky and everyone-for-himself- syndrome) and have lost this great quality of courage, selflessness and boldness, which Vivekananda tried to drill back into them, with little success. They are corrupt, which is the gravest of sins, because it is not only the poor, which is understandable, but also the rich, who mix ashes in cement, adulterate petrol, mustard oil, alcohol (maybe we should have here for a few years a military dictatorship China-like. Take for instance a few of the hoarders who recently manipulated the prices of onion or salt, put them against a wall and shoot them like animals. You will see how India’s economy will straighten-up quickly). There is so much black money in this country, so much hidden wealth, which could make India one of the richest countries in the world if it became white again. And finally Hindus exploit and abuse their own underprivileged : they pay badly their servants, mistreat them; no wonder that sometimes these very servants kill their masters for a few rupees ! My good friend and competitor, Françoise Chipaux, Le Monde’s corespondent, showed me recently the servant quarters of her flat which is in Sujant Singh Park, one of the poshest districts of Delhi. You should have seen them : there were not even toilets ! Once again you take a few of these owners (who ask for two years advance, half of it payable on a foreign account) and shoot them…

Q. We have a dilemma regarding reservation and the upliftment of the weaker sections. What is your view on the OBC, SC/ST problems?

A. India’s great Sage and philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, felt that the caste system is the most misunderstood, the most vilified subject of Hindu society : “Caste was originally an arrangement for the distribution of functions in society, just as much as class in Europe, but the principle on which this distribution was based was peculiar to India. A Brahmin was a Brahmin not by mere birth, but because he discharged the duty of preserving the spiritual and intellectual elevation of the race, and he had to cultivate the spiritual temperament and acquire the spiritual training which alone would qualify him for the task. So it was for the Vaishya whose function was to amass wealth for the race and the Shudra who discharged the humbler duties of service without which the other castes could not perform their share of labour for the common good”.

But, yes, there is no doubt that the institution of caste degenerated : « It ceased to be determined by spiritual qualifications and thus lost most of its meaning. The spirit of caste arrogance, exclusiveness and superiority came to dominate it instead of the spirit of duty, and the change weakened the nation and helped to reduce us to our present condition ».

Thus, Nehru’s intentions by devising the reservation system may have been good, but as usual it has been perverted by human nature and has encouraged sloppiness, cheating and believe it or not, casteism in the reverse sense, as it pays today to say that you from an underprivileged caste ! Thus, everybody wants to be part of OBC, even Christians who converted to escape the caste system ! Moreover, it has encouraged anti-brahmanism, like in Tamil Nadu, whereas Brahmans never interfered in political affairs and single handedly preserved the Hindu tradition.

Q. What are your views on the Nehru dynasty and Sonia Gandhi’s recent rise?

A. It would be a real shame if Sonia Gandhi becomes one day India’s Prime Minister. It is not the question of her being a foreigner (although there should be enough brilliant people amongst the 800 millions Hindus); it is the question of her having not the slightest idea of what India is truly about, locked that she is in her 6, Janpath fortress, surrounded by sycophants. Moreover there is no doubt that she is a Christian, which is perfectly her right; but as most Christians, she probably has a hostile bias against Hinduism – and it shows in her remarks against the BJP and for « secularism ». As For the rest of the Gandhi dynasty, I hold Nehru most responsible for this country’s present condition, because his policies have done tremendous harm to India and continue to do so. What we see today is his legacy at all levels of Indian life, be it political (secularism), education (Macaulysm), intellectualism (Left) or even art (aping the West).

Q. India’s relations with the US are at best rocky, but lately France seems to have taken it upon itself to try and supplant the UK as India’s partner in Europe. Is there going to be improved trading relations with the EU?

A. I should hope so ! the US has demonstrated since 1947 the most stupid, arrogant, ignorant, short-sighted policy towards India. Today is no better,as it is continuing to favour Pakistan, a country which is ten times smaller than India, ten times less democratic, ten times more dangerous. When you see the amount of love, adulation -nay aping, I would say – there is amongst Indians towards America; and when you see at the same time the basic hostility that the Muslims masses in Pakistan and other Muslim countries have towards the US, you can only conclude that Americans are the most idiotic race there ever was in this planet, which is already full of imbeciles !

France is equally ignorant of India, but for some strange reason there is a measure of good will, of sympathy, of symbiosis even, for India. It gets translated sometimes in the wrong manner: France’s love for Satyajit Ray for instance, who however brilliantly, presents a very pessimistic image of Indian society. But there, we find a ray of hope, there is a chance of the two countries finding some meeting ground. Thus if India, now that she is a nuclear power , can develop some kind of privileged relation with United Europe, it could counterbalance the US’s hostility. But then you will see, as soon as China will start to falter economically – and that should not be too far – the US will suddenly « discover » that India exists and Newsweek will run a cover on « the other Giant of Asia ». The rest of the world, which anyway always copies America, will follow.

Q. What do you think the long-term fallout of the nuclear bomb will be? There are some who say that if Napoleon Bonaparte hadn’t been side-tracked at the Battle of the Nile, he would have come to India and helped Tipu Sultan. What do you think of this line of thought?

A. India should stand by the dogma of ahisma, non-violence, But to be non-violent one needs to be strong . Over the centuries history has shown that India has always been the bullied, the oppressed, the invaded, whether by Alexander’s armies, the Muslim, or the western colons. Even the Chinese made mincemeat of India in 1962. By getting the nuclear weapon, India makes the first step in getting some respect – even if it is fear – in the eyes of its hostile neighbours. Look at the paranoiac reaction of the Chinese, isn’t it symptomatic ? Also there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that Pakistan is the latest reincarnation of Islam’s militant hatred towards Hindus, the Infidels ‘par excellence’. Pakistan’s present active hostility towards India, is nothing but what the Koran still preaches : « Jihad fi Sabilillah », ‘Holy War for the Greater Glory of Allah’.  In the face of such hostility, India has to guard herself; then only she can allow herself to be magnanimous. Gandhi’s and Buddhism’s ahimsa, were the non-violence of the weak and the coward; not the non-violence of the lion, which lets preys walk by, because he is not hungry and knows he can get them any time he wants.

Q. In some ways, aren’t you being disloyal to your country and the Catholic faith into which you were born, by accepting India so much?

A. Why ? A soul has no nationality, no religion ! Rather I would say that it has only the religion and the nationality of it past lives. Each soul has a history and belongs to some country, some race, where it reincarnates again and again. I consider India as my country, not because I happen to live here, but because the moment I set foot in this country, something deep in me recognised that it was my place, my known territory. Now it is also true that I cannot deny my own culture and upbringing – and I am proud of it in many ways: it allows me to express myself, it gave me the backbone of my professional and literary achievements. If only India could get some of the material perfection the West has, its thirst for perfection, its caring for the others and motto of egalitarism !

D) Closing

Q. If you were setting India’s course with Europe, what would you do, on a political and foreign policy front?

A. Again, India has to assert her own personality, by pursuing the foreign policy that suits best her own interest. Automatically she will then gain respect, not only from Europe, but also from the US. Actually India should take a lesson or two from China. Look at the Chinese, they do exactly what they like, they keep threatening and blackmailing the world, and not only they get away with it, but also have the respect of all Industrialised nations. India presents a far more better picture than China, which has killed a million innocent Tibetans: it has managed to remain democratic in spite of all its problems – separatisms, overpopulation, corruption, etc. I think Europe will come to appreciate India’s democratic achievements, specially the day when China’s iron (and bloody) communist hand will be removed by whatever circumstances. That day, all problems which were kept bottled-up and suppressed in China will erupt to the surface and one could witness a chaos similar to what happened in URSS. And this is exactly what the present government should tell Europe : «  look, you cannot ignore us, we are the next superpower in Asia and the largest country by 2020; we are nuclear, but we are democratic and we have a long tradition of tolerance and culture ». I think a few nations will understand that language – maybe not the British, (who are anyway a spent nation) because they still live in the past – but at least the French – and maybe the German.

Q. How exactly does the French people and the French establishment view India? The view from here is that the French are supremely pragmatic, not given to posturing.

A. I did not know the French were supremely pragmatic ! The German, surely; but the French : you flatter them ! French are like Bengalis : they are great talkers, good artists, warm, fun-loving people, but infinitely lesser doers than the Germans. Today with modernism and the American way of business, which the US has slowly imposed upon the world, this may be changing; but still the French love good food, fun, debating and posturing – witness their sports mania, which is mostly armchair sportsmanship ! This is why maybe there is an empathy with India, which is also a bit of an armchair sportsman, such an in cricket, this crazy sports left by the British, which is totally unsuited to India’s climate. True, the French are the only nation which did not condemn India outright after their nuclear blasts. There maybe three reasons to it : first of course, the French had  just concluded their Pacific tests and suffered themselves from the world’s hypocrite condemnation; two, there is that mysterious ‘kinship’ between India and France (of which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother of Pondichery often spoke); and three, different Indo-French programmes, started by Mrs Gandhi who spoke good French and knew Malraux well, continued by Rajiv Gandhi who promoted the year of India in France in 1985 and continued by Mr Chirac’s visit to India beginning of 1998, finally bore some fruits.

Q. Your views on Hinduism and its central place in the Indian enterprise, if it were to come from an Indian, would be considered ‘fundamentalist’. But you seem to be tolerated to some extent by the ‘secularists’ of India. Is that primarily because you are a white person? Is it a racial thing?

A. Very good question ! I would say that it is not so much because I am a white person, although that can help in India, either because the average Indian is nice with the western man, or because there is a colonial hangover here which means that your white skin sometime opens you a lot of doors with India’s upper class, ‘elite’ intellectuals, or top bureaucrats (in passing, upper-class Indians must be the most snobbish people in the world; but they don’t realise that it is something they inherited from the British and that they are only aping their erstwhile colonisers). No, I would say that the fact that I work for a very reputed and conservative newspaper opens a lot of doors to me, which would otherwise be closed. Konraad Elst or David Frawley, that other eminent Indologist, do not have this privilege and I make the most of it (would you interview me otherwise?)

Q. Paul Theroux said recently that Indians are obsessed about race, caste and food. What do you think?

A.  Paul Theroux is a very pompous man and on top of that, a mean and treacherous friend – witness his book on his ex friend Naipaul (who had the courage to change his ideas about India). People like Theroux may be brilliant and witty, but they are quickly forgotten by History : who will know Theroux in 100 years ? As for his opinion about India, I would not pay too much attention to it; first it is not very original, as millions of westerners have already condemned India in  the lines of race, caste and food. By race, he probably means the Aryan race, which is as we have seen, is a bogus subject; we shall not get again into the caste issue, the favourite whipping boy of India haters. But food ??? At any rate, the West is much more obsessed with food than India ! From the Romans downwards there was a mania of overeating and bulimia is a typically western phenomenon, (which may come to India because of westernisation). But long ago, Indian Sages knew that « one eats for living; but does not live for eating ».

Bibliography

* The Wonder that was India (Voice of India,  2/18 Ansari Road, New delhi 110002)

* Rewriting Indian History (Vikas, 576 Masjid Road, Jangpura, New delhi 24). Can  be found in New delhi at some bookshops, such as Fakir & Sons in Khan Market.

* Un autre Regard sur l’Inde (Editions du Tricorne, 14, rue Lissignol, Genève 1201, Switzerland)

* La dernière Caravane des Indes (to be published)

I came to India by accident, if you wish. My best friend’s father was the last French Governor of Pondichery and he told me there was a caravan of cars driving from Paris to Auroville-Pondichery. AS I had had a strict upper class Christian education, I thought I needed to see the world – and driving to Pondichery seemed a good way to start. But when I reached Delhi I understood India was my home and I stayed.

2. What would you consider the greatest change brought in you by the masters Shri Aurobindo and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar?

Sri Aurobindo is my Supreme Master, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is my living guru becasue he does the work that I feel is most important for Mother India and of which Sri Aurobindo was a pioneer.

3. Why is terrorism in India a topic that is ignored by the West?

West is good-willing but extremely ignorant about India. We need to educate westerners about India. There are a few hurdles, chief amongst them Western Indologists who have made it a tradition to belittle India and its traditions and always harp and amplify its negative sides, such as castes, sati, child marriage, poverty, etc.

4. Why do you think Western Media ignores the human rights abuses against Hindus inflicted by terrorists?

Well, the West  is facing the same terrorists threats than India, but as long as it is not hit too hard by them, it pretends they do not exist. How long with this blindness last???

5. What motivated you to create a “Museum of True India History”?

We see more and more today that Indian History has to be rewritten according to the latest linguistic and archaeological discoveries, if Indian children are to understand who they are and where they come from. We know now that not only the history of India’s beginnings were written by European colonizers, with an intention to downsize, downgrade and postdate Indian civilization, but that unfortunately, generation after generation of Marxist Indian historians, for their own selfish purposes, endorsed and perpetuated these wrong theories, such as the Aryan invasion, which divided India like nothing else, pitting South against North, Aryan against Dravidian, Untouchables against Brahmins.

Not only that, but British and Marxist historians, eager to give prominence to the Congress, which was in the first place a British institution, robbed of their true places in history giants, such as Sri Aurobindo, who, apart from being the avatar of the ‘supramental’ age, was the early prophet of Indian independence, when all Congress wanted was a few crumbs from the British. As a result, very few Indian children know about Sri Aurobindo today. Thus we need to have a physical place where true Indian history will be shown.

6. Can Kashmiri Pandits ever hope for a return to their homeland and for the world to understand the atrocities committed against them?

There has to be a strong Hindu nationalistic government in place for that. It willnot happen for quite some time.

7. What is life like for a “firangi” In India?

It’s good. I am a lucky guy. Hindus and Indians accept easily different people in their midst.

8. Any special message for our readers?

How much of yourself do you give to your American identity – and how much space do you preserve for your Indian-ness ? These are the questions that Indian expatriates should ask themselves today. For we see many of the children of Indians who settled in the US twenty or thirty years ago, merge themselves totally in the American way of life, speak with an American accent, eat Mac Donald, think American… and in the process forget all about their wonderful Indian culture… Hindus need to be united in the US, as they are fragmented in a thousands of groups that often fight with each other. The time of Hindu power has come.