Pre-Viewing Enrichment Worksheet for Water
INDIA - GEOGRAPHY & DEMOGRAPHICS
India occupies most of the Indian subcontinent. It is about 1/3rd the size of the
U.S. and now has more than 1.24 billion people. (Show a map of India and the
surrounding nations.) Most Indians are very poor. India has an ancient
civilization which has given much to the world, including the concept of zero and
the principle of non-violent mass action as an agent to force political change.
India is the largest functioning democracy in the world. The two main religions of
India are Hindu (80%) and Muslim (13%).
Beginning in 1757, the British East India Company controlled increasingly large
parts of India. By 1858 virtually the entire country was subject to British rule,
which was transferred to the British Crown. Led by Mahatma Gandhi, India
achieved its independence in 1947 through a campaign of non-violent mass
action. Gandhi's tactics of non-cooperation, civil disobedience, protest and
petition were often referred to as "passive resistance" but they were anything
but passive.
One of the ways in which the British had ruled India was to pit Muslim against
Hindu. The tactic was called "divide and rule". When Britain granted
independence in 1947, it partitioned its former colony into two separate
countries: a predominantly Muslim Pakistan and an overwhelmingly Hindu India.
Mass chaos resulted as Hindus fled Pakistan and Muslims left India. (India still
has a Muslim population of well over 100 million people. It is the fourth largest
Muslim nation in the world, after Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.)
The Ganges River is one of the major rivers in India. It flows from the Himalayan
mountains through eastern India and empties into the Indian ocean in what is
now Bangladesh. The water of the Ganges is believed to be holy with the power
to wash away sins. It is also believed that a person who dies with holy water
from the Ganges in his or her mouth will have an easier path to heaven. Indians
use the Ganges to bathe, to wash their clothing, and to carry their ashes to
heaven in small containers that float on the river. Stone steps, called ghats, lead
down to the river in many places, especially near temples.
HINDU RELIGION AND INDIAN CULTURE
Hinduism is described in ancient Sanskrit books called the "Vedas." Hinduism
teaches that a soul has many lives. It returns to earth in various body forms to
learn the lessons that life on Earth has to offer. The level of each rebirth depends
upon how well the soul lived out its past life. If a person is good in this life he or
she will be born to a higher incarnation in the next life. In the order of rebirth,
people are higher than animals and men are higher than women.
The goal of Hindu religious practice is to be liberated from worldly desires and
released from the cycle of rebirth and death.
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In 1938 India was a society bound by ancient customs. Although much has
changed, rural India is still quite tradition-bound. Over the thousands of years
that Hinduism has held sway in India, many traditions have acquired a religious
sanction even though they are antithetical to the basic teachings of the religion.
These include the caste system, patriarchy, and the treatment of women,
especially if they are widows.
The Caste System: Castes are groups in society ranked in a hierarchy and set
by birth. Since occupations are often handed down by birth, caste has a definite
relation to occupation. People generally marry only within their caste. In India,
there are thousands of castes and sub castes. They are seen as fundamental to
the sub-continent's social structure. When people converted from Hinduism to
Islam or Sikhism, they retained their caste affiliation.
Despite the fact that the caste system has been outlawed by the Indian
constitution, caste ranking and its influence on social interaction are expected to
continue to affect life in India in the future. Caste is stronger in the countryside
than in the cities and its effect is felt more in matters of kinship and marriage
than in interactions that are less personal in nature.
The Brahman caste was traditionally the most respected, honored, and esteemed
of all the castes. Brahmans were permitted to read and interpret the holy texts.
There were other castes and sub castes for warriors, government administrators,
merchants, etc. Some people were not even in the class system. These were
called the Untouchables and they occupied the lowest rung in society. They were
restricted to "unclean" occupations such as cleaning toilets or cleaning the hides
of dead cattle. If a member of a higher caste came into contact with an
Untouchable they had to perform a bathing ritual to cleanse themselves of
contamination from the touch. If Untouchables tried to improve their situation in
life, they were subjected to brutal repression.
Question #1: Write a one page argument contending that there is
nothing like a caste system in the U.S. In your article, rebut claims that
racism, classism, and entrenched economic inequality have effects that
are similar to a caste system.
Patriarchy: A basic belief of Hinduism and traditional Indian society is male
dominance. It permeates almost every aspect of Indian society. Men are
considered superior to women. Women pray to be reborn as a man, which is
seen as a step up in the universal order.
A section of the Vedas called the "Laws of Manu" have been interpreted to
designate a woman's life as having three stages. The first stage is when a girl is
under the protection of her father. In the second stage, as a woman, she is
under the protection of her husband. The third stage is widowhood, taken care of
by her oldest son. But if there is no male child or if the son's wife doesn't like
her, the widow is shunned and isolated. Basically, a woman doesn't have a real
life unless she has a man by her side. She is to look to her father and her
husband as her teacher, her provider, and her keeper. When her husband dies,
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she is to dedicate her life to Lord Krishna, the highest Hindu god. Krishna is
often pictured playing a flute.
Treatment of Widows: A married woman is considered to be half her husband's
body and when he dies she is considered to be half his corpse. When a husband
dies his widow must atone for her sins, which were thought to have contributed
to the death of her husband. Widows, no matter what caste they were originally
born into, were (and still are in many instances) relegated to the lowest stratum
of society. They are considered bad luck and unclean. For traditional Indians,
even the shadow of a widow is dangerous. Widows are therefore shunned by
society. The pronoun for a widow in India is "it" rather than "she."
There were few good choices for a widow in traditional Indian society. She could
throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre and burn with his body. This was
called Sati. This custom has recently fallen into disfavor and is now illegal. The
best solution was for the widow to live with her eldest son. She could not
remarry, unless the husband's younger brother consented to marry her.
A woman with no male child to provide for her, or whose son wouldn't take her
in, was relegated to a lonely ascetic life of prayer. Some found a haven in
ashrams, strict regime religious communities. Life in widows' ashrams was
simple and sparse. The widows got one bland meal per day. Tomatoes, spices,
onions, and sugar were forbidden to widows. There was no luxury in the ashram
and women slept on mats on the floor. Their heads were shaven and they
dressed in all white or all red. They were forbidden to wear makeup. Their days
were to be entirely focused on finding salvation in Lord Krishna hoping for a good
after-life and a better situation in their next reincarnation. One of the few times
that widows could celebrate was the feast of Holi, a festival of color. One of them
would be dressed as Krishna and color applied to their faces and clothing.
Question #2: Just one hundred years ago, the U.S. was a patriarchal
society. Women could not vote in most states, their rights on divorce were
inferior to those of men, few women graduated from college, fewer still
were in the professions, there were no female members of Congress, etc.
While women are still not treated as equal to men in all respects, much
has changed. This has not happened in some other parts of the world.
What reasons can you give for why the U.S. attitude toward women has
changed so much?
MISCELLANEOUS
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In India married women wear metal bands on their left wrist. When their
husbands dies, the bands are broken off.
Tumeric is a yellow/orange colored spice known for its antiseptic effects.
Hindus believe that when they die, they should die in the open so that it's
easier for their souls to gain access to the gods.
Hindus are vegetarian and cows are sacred to them.
The swastika, both right and left facing versions, are ancient religious
symbols of Hinduism. In Hindu designs there is often a dot in each
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quadrant. It is considered an auspicious sign and adorns many temples. It
is used on jewelry, in books, and on buildings. The Nazis took the left
facing version of the swastika for the symbol of their political party. The
Hindu swastika has nothing to do with that of the Nazis.
A eunuch is a man who has been castrated. A hermaphrodite is a person
born with both male and female sexual characteristics. In India there, are
500,000 to 1 million eunuchs and hermaphrodites. They form societal
groups and have particular functions. They sing at weddings and births.
Lately some eunuchs have been elected to political office in India as
people who will be less subject to corruption because they do not have
families and children.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Mohandas Gandhi was the greatest political leaders of the 20th century. His
influence was not only felt by the Indian people but all over the world. India's
refusal, under Gandhi's leadership, to use violence to throw off the yoke of
British Imperialism showed the world that there were ways to fight oppression
that did not require injury and killing. People seeking political and social change
adopted Gandhi's tactics of non-violent mass action, also called civil
disobedience, with great results all over the world. A few of the many examples
are: the U.S. Civil Rights Movement; the fall of the Soviet Union (one of the
world's two superpowers) in 1991; forcing the end to apartheid in South Africa in
1994; removing the long-time dictator of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, in
1986; the defeat of the fascist dictatorship in Argentina in 1983 which began
from the peaceful protests of "Los Madres," the mothers of political opponents of
the regime who had been killed or abducted; the "Velvet" Revolution in which
Czechoslovakia removed communist rule in 1989; the Rose Revolution in Georgia
in 2003; the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in 2004; and the Arab Spring of
2011.
Gandhi was also a great religious and moral leader of the Indian people who
called him "Mahatma" which means "Great Soul". They also called him "Bapu"
which means father in Gujarat, one of the languages spoken in India. Gandhi's
highest principles were love and truth. Throughout his life, Gandhi was a
religious Hindu, but he acknowledged the validity of all other religions. When
asked if he was a Hindu, Gandhi replied, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a
Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew." Gandhi rejected Indian/Hindu traditions that did
not recognize the worth of the individual and campaigned for reform in many
areas of Indian life.
Many religious texts stress the equality of all beings before God. This was the
bedrock of Gandhi's reforms. He looked at Indian society and saw where its
customs and practices violated this basic principle. These included sectarian
tensions between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, the oppression of the
Untouchables, child marriage, and the treatment of widows. Gandhi preached
that all men were brothers, whatever their religion. He advocated civil rights for
the Untouchables and called them "Harijan" which means children of God. He
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campaigned against child marriage and supported remarriage for widows,
especially child widows. He challenged the Indian people to go to the roots of
their religion which incorporated loving and inclusive messages similar to those
of Jesus Christ. He asked Indians to reject the cultural overlays on Hinduism
(that had been thought to be religious doctrine for centuries) and to reject the
old rules that supported the caste system, denied equal treatment for women,
and oppressed widows.
Gandhi was an Indian of a mercantile caste who was educated as an attorney in
England. He first practiced law in South Africa where the British had imported
Indians to serve as laborers and shopkeepers. The Indians in South Africa were
subjected to harsh and oppressive laws by the government, although they were
not treated as poorly as the Africans. Gandhi developed non-violent mass action
as a tactic to overturn the harshest laws against Indians.
Gandhian non-violence works on the minds of the oppressors to make them
realize that continued oppression debases their own moral values. Through
boycotts and other forms of direct action, the protesters also assert economic
pressure on those in power.
In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and became active in religious and political
affairs. He was a leader of the Indian National Congress, a broad-based political
organization which sought independence from Britain. While Gandhi wanted India
to be independent of British rule, he would not demean himself by hurting
anyone. ("There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes
that I am prepared to kill for.") His leadership of non-violent resistance to British
rule led the authorities to put Gandhi in prison several times. Each imprisonment
made him more popular. Eventually, in 1947, India gained its independence from
the British Empire without an armed struggle.
Gandhi was not always able to convince the Indian people to do what he wanted,
but he had tremendous power. For example, in 1947 there were terrible
sectarian riots in Bombay and several other parts of India. Hindus were killing
Muslims and Muslims were killing Hindus. People were being massacred by the
thousands, including women and children. Gandhi implored the populace to stop
and when they wouldn't, he went on a fast to the death or until they did stop.
After several days, the leaders of the riots came to his bedside and swore that
the violence would end, if only Gandhi would eat and not die. He sent them away
and told them to come back when the violence had stopped. Only then would he
eat. The riots stopped, the cities were quiet, and Gandhi ate again. See Mahatma
Gandhi, Apostle of Nonviolence by John Dear, S.J.
Gandhi's reforms were rejected by Hindu fundamentalists, one of whom
assassinated Gandhi on January 30, 1948, a few months after India gained its
independence.
Question #3: Name two American Presidents whose political leadership
had far reaching importance across the world and who could be said to be
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one of the most important political leaders of their century. Describe your
reasons for selecting these men.
Gandhi dedicated his life to seeking Truth. His original formulation was "God is
Truth". He later modified it to "Truth is God." He changed the world with his acts
of non-violent protest, setting examples from which leaders like Martin Luther
King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, and countless others would gain inspiration.
Here are some statements by Gandhi that bear repeating:
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I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your
beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the
Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity
and love.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and
love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a
time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it,
always.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism
or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
God is Truth . . . [many years later] . . . Truth is God.
I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only
teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your
life.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is
momentary.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only
temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
WIDOWS IN INDIA TODAY
Many parts of India are still very tradition-bound. Many widows' ashrams, similar
to the one shown in the movie, still exist. Many widows are still forced into
prostitution to get enough to eat. The movie struck home in India. Hindu
fundamentalists felt so threatened by the message of "Water" that the first time
an attempt was made to film the movie they rioted, threw the sets into the
Ganges, and shut down the production. Death threats were made against the
director. The production was suspended and nothing happened for about five
years. Then the movie was recast with new actors and filmed under another
name in Sri Lanka, a primarily Buddhist country.
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