Bharat's spiritual population is its asset

Recently, a cartoon published by the German magazine Der Spiegel sparked controversy in India.

The Cartoon:

• Depicted an overcrowded Indian passenger train with people hanging off the roof.
• Contrasted it with a sleek, modern Chinese bullet train.

The Criticism:

• Many Indians found the cartoon offensive and racist.
• They felt it relied on outdated stereotypes of India as poor and underdeveloped.
• Critics pointed out that India has modern infrastructure, including its own bullet trains (Vande Bharat).

The Defense:

• Der Spiegel never apologized, though some Germans felt the cartoon was in poor taste.
• The intent may have been to highlight the population difference and its impact on infrastructure needs.

German history in praise of Indian Philosophy:

Max Mueller did great harm to India as a young, well-paid employee of the British East India Company. His job was to translate the Vedas, and he was eager to show that the Vedas are worthless and Christianity much superior. Moreover, he proposed without any archaeological evidence the Aryan Invasion Theory, which helped the British to divide and rule.

The older Max Mueller, however, seemed to have realised the depth of the ancient Indian tradition and praised India highly. He said the famous sentences in his lecture in Cambridge:

“If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.”

“If I were asked from which literature, we here in Europe would get the refinement, which we need most to make our life more universal, inclusive and perfect,… I would again point to India.” [1]

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), who is famous for claiming that “God is dead”. Yet even Friedrich Nietzsche praised India’s ‘religion’. He wrote, “in regard to religion, Europe has not reached the subtleness of thought of the ancient Brahmins”.[1]

Graf von Keyserling was one of the first who travelled to India after the Suez Canal had opened. He wrote a book on yoga, which was a big hit in the 1920s after WW1. He wrote: “It is incredible, how important even short, but regular meditation is for inner growth.”[1]

Conclusion:

The spirituality of Indian population is its greatest asset. This will manifest in the form of superior economic power soon.

References:

1. https://mariawirth.com/indian-influence-on-german-philosophers/
2. https://www.garudabooks.com/thank-you-india-by-maria-wirth/
3. Die Gnadenreligion Indiens und das Christentum (1930; India’s Religion of Grace and Christianity, 1930)