Claude Arpi French dentist-turned- Tibetologist, author of Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects has written:
"Though I am still a French man, I adopted this country as my own long ago However, today, I am sad. When I left France for India, I came with a dream: I was going to the land of the Vedas, of the Buddha, a continent with an eternal religion. I thought everyone in this country was turned "inwards", seeking a higher light; I believed India would soon be able to guide the world towards a more meaningful tomorrow. Why I am sad now? I can't help feeling a terrible divide between this dream and today's reality (at least the one depicted in the English media).
I still believe in "India of the ages", but I cannot grasp why Indians themselves still refuse to acknowledge the greatness of their culture.
Is it not disheartening that historians base their judgment on press reports and not on their own scholarship? Then why do they spend three days discussing text-books when there are so many more important subjects related to history to be discussed?
What about the neglected discoveries of Poompuhar or the new sites in the Gulf of Cambay?
It is estimated that 12 million Americans are today practicing yoga and that 450 yoga centers are blossoming in the US. The same tidal wave is submerging Europe. In France alone, more than one million people are practicing Buddhist meditation.
What is sad and shocking is that these historians, like many intellectuals in India, are not at all concerned by what has always made India great, they prefer to denigrate India. "
(source: India of old-new dreams - by Claude Arpi - dailypioneer.com).
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