Strategy for popularizing Indian Knowledge Systems (Dharma)

A knowledge system represents a system of thought, and it can be utilized by anyone regardless of personal identity, nationality, race or religious affiliation.

For instance:

• Nagarjuna, considered the second most important Buddhist thinker after Buddha himself, was a practicing brahmin, and yet he utilized Buddhist axioms to develop his thought.
• Western notions of Cartesian time, reductionist metaphysics are the result of Biblical influences. Yet those from other traditions and identities have been using these to do engineering and other problem solving.

Likewise, my approach to dharma in BD has been as a knowledge system only, and not as identity for political purposes. By adopting this posture, I have entered spaces that are otherwise blocked to ideas seen as identity politics. 

I offer this as food for thought: While some persons want to combine their knowledge system with their identity, and also combine their identity with their politics, it is equally legitimate for others to keep these domains separate. By keeping my allegiance to a dharmic knowledge system separate from my identity and politics, I have greater flexibility in how I play my cards in a given situation.

Many other faiths use this strategy and have far greater experience in doing so. For instance, Sufism is being propagated very successfully as a knowledge system (dealing with aesthetics, arts, 'generic' spirituality) independent of any religious identity. BD points out that secularism is similarly a kind of "Christianity's double", because it propagates certain categories that appear neutral but in fact they are sneaking "Christianity inside".

(There is a gang attacking me with misinformation. They claim to be championing against inculturation. So have I been doing this very intensely long before they even arrived at the scene. The difference is that I also see secularism as a form of Biblical inculturation, which is a deeper understanding then theirs is even today. This is why BD goes into great length to contrast between secularism and sapeksha-dharma and explains why the latter is a superior knowledge system.)

The so-called clash of civilizations is actually a clash of knowledge systems. Unfortunately, many people are fighting at the surface level seeing it as a fight of identities and political control of resources.

Bottom line: If you propagate dharmic civilization using the term "Indian Knowledge Systems", you will penetrate deeper and easier. So make a conscious choice between three kinds of discourse: (i) knowledge systems, (ii) identities, and (iii) politics. Each has its forums. Unsophisticated persons lack the nuance to choose when to separate them and when to combine them, and how to combine them.

-RM