Dharma and sub-prime crisis

Crisis of faith looms as Dharma goes on a red-tag sale
R Vaidyanathan
1221 words
29 January 2008
DNA - Daily News & Analysis
English
Copyright 2008. Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.

There's something unholy about the bid to get people to invest on religious lines

After investments in stock market based on Islamic values, investors would now be able to park money in stocks of companies that operate in accordance with the principles of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, said a recent news item. "Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and Dharma Investments, a leading private investment firm, pioneering the development of faith-based investment, have announced the launch of the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes," it said.

The new indexes measure the performance of companies selected according to the value systems and principles of Dharmic religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. The Dow Jones Dharma Index series includes the Dow Jones Dharma Global Index, as well as four country indexes for the US, the UK, Japan and India. The indexes are designed to underlie financial products such as exchange-traded funds and other investible products that enable investors to participate in the performance of companies which are compliant with Dharmic religious traditions.

"The Dow Jones Dharma Indexes are the first faith-based indexes created to measure Dharma compliant equities. As faith-based and socially responsible investing continues to grow worldwide, our goal is to provide the investment community with the most comprehensive benchmarks that comply with these principles," said Michael A Petronella, president of Dow Jones Indexes. "The launch of the new Dow Jones Dharma Indexes marks a major step in our effort to further expand our range of faith-based indexes."

"We are honoured to be serving a demand for faith-based investing," said Nitesh Gor, CEO of Dharma Investments. "India and Asia have made remarkable advances economically over the last few years and in parallel we believe that bringing our religious values onto the global stage offers sustainable solutions to the problems facing the world today. The principle of Dharma contains precepts relevant to good conduct, but also the implicit requirement of mindfulness about the sources of wealth - and therefore responsible investing," he added.

The index universe for the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes is defined as the top 5,000 components of the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Total Market Index as measured by float adjusted market capitalisation, and all components in the Dow Jones Wilshire India Index. To be included in the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes, stocks must pass a set of industry, environmental, corporate governance and qualitative screens for Dharmic compliance. Industry screens include unacceptable sectors and business practices.

Environmental screens take account of a company's impact or policies with respect to emissions, climate change and carbon footprint analysis, oil and chemical spills and waste management and recycling. Corporate governance screens comprise the handling of labour relations/ disputes/ discrimination allegations, human rights violations, working conditions/wages. Excluded from the index are companies from sectors that are deemed unacceptable due to the nature of their business activities and operations. Excluded are also companies that have exposure to unacceptable business practices. Some examples of unacceptable sectors are aerospace and defence, brewers, casinos and gaming, pharmaceuticals, tobacco. Some examples for unacceptable business practices are alcohol, adult entertainment, animal testing and genetic modification of agricultural products.

To ensure the quality of the indexes and the integrity of the underlying index methodology, three boards were established to define, build and implement the screening criteria: the Dow Jones Dharma Academic Advisory Committee, the Dow Jones Dharma Supervisory Board and the Dow Jones Dharma Religious Council.

The whole idea looks like a propaganda efforts for the first world in the new world order and it tells what should be appropriate for emerging markets like India. Why Dow Jones never thought of a "Christian" or Jewish index is a puzzle that does not require deep thinking. In the world of Dow, what is good for Christians is automatically good for the world. And of course, Christian sects are not "faith-based "but "rationality-based." Actually Dow should construct a Catholic index and then a Mormon index and a Pentecostal index and then a Baptist index and then a Seventh Day Adventist index and then an Assemble of God index and then a Methodist index and then think of Hindu Dharma.

For Wall Street - which represents the anti-thesis of Dharma - to be talking about a Dharma index is a bit surprising. But, the idea is to tell Hindus how to behave in the financial markets as per the white man's decision. It is in a sense semitising Hinduism.

The fact that non-Dharmic bodies such as Dow Jones in the US and a private profit-oriented company in the UK, both unconnected with lived experience in Dharma, are expected to control the technical aspects such as selection of categories for Index construction, assignment of weights to different categories and constructing the index for industries and enterprises on a proprietory basis is also a cause for great concern

Hinduism has several sampradayas and it talks about Yuga Dharma. It also talks about different stages of a man's existence namely Brahamacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyas and dharmic behavior is related to the stage of life. The index is a subtle mechanism to deny Hindus and India their rightful place in the emerging economic order. It is atrocious that the entire pharmaceutical industry is excluded as adharma. In that case, the index should exclude Hollywood, with its level of obscenity and for that matter all consumer industries, since Hindu Dharma is not for consumerism as practised in the West.

It is simply an appropriation of the Hindu concepts to put down the growth momentum of India. Already, we find that the white world has appropriated yoga - to the extent I am told I should give $5 if I inhale in California since it has been copyrighted and branded. For exhaling, of course, the fees would go to another agency. The entire Hindu soft power is getting appropriated by the white world - helped by some brown sepoys from India who know not what is happening. Whether it is yoga or meditation or vaastu or ayuerveda or vegetarianism or even reincarnation -everything is appropriated, given a price tag, branded and sold back to gullible Indians. If a white man says that smoking is bad, then it is scientific and if it is told by my grandfather, it's superstitious or irrational.

This colonial mindset is reinforced by this index, which has the audacity to suggest that aero-space and defence are excluded since they are not dharmic activities. If India is hit by a missile, will these Dow Jones peddlers of half truth come and help us? Have they heard about the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna's advice to Arjuna? Why can't they advice Pentagon that Defence is against the Bible?

It looks to me a tool to subordinate Hindu interests to that of preconceived notions of development and growth. It will a dangerous tool in the long term since Wall Street vultures are going to decide about what is dharmic for Hindus. It is a façade to impose WTO and other such agenda on the gullible Indians. Hence India and Hindus should categorically and unambigously and unequivocally reject such efforts to misuse Hinduism by Wall Street business interests.