Worldview: India
by A Concerned Citizen
back to the Worldview Menu
Retired on 31 December 2007
Table of Contents
Human Rights
Pseudosecularism
Indian Constitution
Freedom of Speech
Banning Websites
The 'Secularist' Press
Pseudosecularism Abroad
Academic Inanity
Pernicious Politicians
Hindu Issues
Christian Missionaries
Religious Cleansing of Hindus
History as a Weapon
Caste Issues
Bullying the Temples
Sati and Communal Guilt
Preference for Males
Truth Tellers
Resistance
Other Problems
Islamic Issues
Muslim Riots
Muslim Terrorism
Muslim Birthrate
Appeasing Islam
Insurgency
Foreign Relations
Pakistani Subversion
Chinese Threat
US-India Relations
Hindus in the West
Supplementary
SRK's Comments
Other Articles
Some History
Some Good News
Videos
Human Rights
Pseudosecularism
Introduction (May 06): My interest in Indian politics stems from my interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. This led to my participation in online discussion groups, where I discovered some amazing facts, such as that many Hindus feel harrassed in a country where they make up 70-80% of the population! The common theme of these 'conservative' or 'nationalistic' Hindus, many of whom support the BJP party, is the travesty of 'pseudosecularism', which discriminates against Hindus in the name of protecting minorities. This is reminiscent of white outrage at minority quotas in America, and, indeed, it is interesting to learn that much of the left-right split in America has its counterpart in India.
I still have only a second-hand understanding of the situation, despite the best efforts of an informed Hindu correspondent named SRK, who appears in several places on this page, including the menu at the top. He represents the 'conservative' viewpoint, but lately I have been joined by a lady correspondent, whom I will call Sita, which is not her real name. Sita studied history and has been a member of the Congress party, which corresponds roughly to the liberal Democrats in America, as the BJP corresponds to the conservative Republicans. Their contrasting views give an interesting insight into Indian politics.
Let us start with Hindu-Muslim relations in India. There have been a number of Hindu-Muslim riots over the years, and many Hindus believe that most of them were started by the Muslims. A few years ago, some Muslim terrorists set fire to a train in Godhra carrying Hindu pilgrims, including women and children, and burned them alive. A Hindu-Muslim riot then broke out in Gujarat, and the local BJP government under Modi was accused of aiding the Hindus. The Indian press is highly politicized, especially the English press, which tends to be antagonistic to Hindus, so it is difficult to determine the truth regarding controversial events in India. However, this article documents the following regarding police action:
What did the Gujarat police do? In the first 48 hours of the violence, they arrested 3,900 persons, of whom two-thirds were Hindus (Sanjoy Banerjee, 'Indian Politics in this Age', Indian Currents, June 2002). By April 5, 9,500 persons had been arrested, of whom two-thirds were Hindus. 'The Gujarat police did try to restore law and order.' (Prem Shankar Jha, 'Gujarat: A Sober Diary', Outlook, April 22, 2002.) National Minorities Commission Chairman John Joseph noted, 'As on April 6, 126 persons were killed in police firing, of whom 77 were Hindus.' (Kay Benedict, 'Bad PR charge on Atal, Modi', The Telegraph, April 21, 2002.) L K Advani, ex-home minister, publicly stated that the police fired 3,900 rounds of ammunition.
This clearly indicates that there was no state-sponsored Hindu 'genocide', much less any outburst of 'Hindu fascism', as often alleged by the leftist Indian (and American) press. (Modi was recently denied a visa to the US, based on trumped-up charges that leftist groups managed to slip into the U.S. State Department's review process.)
DISCLAIMER (2 Dec 07): Since writing this, I have moved to the 'left' regarding US foreign policy (i.e. I agree that it has been largely imperialistic in some sense). It may thus seem strange that I am taking the side of the 'right' in India. This shows that one must disregard labels and seek the truth of specific caes. For instance, I can empathize with Muslim anger at American meddling in the Middle East, while also appreciating the dark side of Muslim history, especially in India. At the same time, I have become more aware of the many decent Muslims everywhere, so that one must be careful to avoid smearing entire groups, unless one carefully defines the group and proves that it is united in some aggressive action. The issue is not Muslims but Muslim militants.
More importantly, one must consider the history (see also here) of Hindu-Muslim tensions going back to the first Jihad-inspired invasions in the eighth century CE. Suffice it to say, these invasions lasted a millennium, were based on a fanatical Muslim hatred of Hindu 'idolatry' (along with the usual lust for loot and rape), killed millions of Hindus, raped and enslaved millions more, and, once the conquerors were established, imposed humiliating restrictions and taxes. As famous historian Will Durant said, The Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history. This pattern has continued in modern times, with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir, genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh, persecution of Hindus in Pakistan, and riots, bombings and attacks in India proper, all in the name of Islam. It is not as though the Hindus have never been provoked! Yet the leftist press goes out of its way to shine the spotlight on the occasional Hindu retaliation, while largely ignoring or excusing the centuries-old Muslim pattern.
For example, the 1993 bombings in Mumbai were blamed on the 'Hindu fascists' who demolished the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Ayodhya is the ancient and sacred birthplace of the Hindu God-hero Rama. Muslim conquerors intentionally demolished the temple that was there — a favorite pastime of theirs — and built a mosque instead, as a symbol of conquest and humiliation. The mosque was hardly being used when a crowd of Hindus demolished it in 1992 in order to rebuild the temple. Nobody was hurt or killed. I do not condone such vandalism, but in no way can this justify the lethal Muslim riots and bombings which ensued.
I asked Sita about all this, and her reply was twofold: (1) We should forget about past history and concentrate on the present, and (2) the poor and illiterate Muslim masses are abandoned by the wealthy and educated Muslims and are manipulated by the fanatical imams and mullahs, who have a 'vested interest' in keeping them radicalized. She says that the riots are called by the political parties — which does seem well-established in the case of the Congress-instigated Mumbai riots against Sikhs in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984 (if a retired Supreme Court judge's investigation has any credibility). When I mentioned Sita's views to SRK, he responded as follows:
This is a typically middle-class secular Indian argument. Since India, with a majority of Hindus, is also the poster-child for poverty, why is that only poor Muslims seem to have a tendency to riot, as opposed to Hindus living in equivalent squalour? What does a poor Muslim gain by attacking the nearest kafir in his slum, when both have the same problems of poverty, illiteracy etc.? And what do the obviously literate mullahs gain by exhorting the faithful to riot? When one answers these questions, one is left in no doubt that it is Islam, with its promise of deferred fulfillment in paradise, houris and all, that is the actual inducement to all the rioters, whether they are literate mullahs or illiterate slum-dwellers. Your friend is merely making the same roundabout defence of Islam that the professional negationists like Romila Thapar make — it's all about economics, illiteracy etc. etc., anything but Islam. She has sacrificed a few mullahs and politicians to save Islam.
From this, you can get an idea of the debate between intelligent representatives from both sides. Frankly, I lean more to SRK's viewpoint. The history of the Muslim invasions, persecution and intolerance could be forgotten if present-day Muslims were publicly and sincerely vocal in denouncing it. They hardly ever are (or at least I don't see much evidence of this), but there are plenty of Muslim clerics who accept the orthodox view that once a land falls to Islam, it must remain Muslim forever (Spain beware!). The Muslim poor may be rabble-roused by the clerics, but that does not excuse indulging in riots and attacking innocent Hindus. SRK later mentions the well-known case of the Moplah riots in 1921. This was during the height of the Khalifat movement, when Gandhi and others were trying to curry favor with the Indian Muslims by supporting the restoration of the caliphate in Turkey. Instead, Kemal Ataturk deposed the Caliph in Turkey, and the Moplah Muslims of Kerala then vented their fury on their untouchable (i.e. poor) Hindu kafir neighbors, including ripping babies out of wombs.
This trans-national allegiance to the worldwide Muslim community reminds me of something Kalavai Venkat, an amateur Hindu historian, once said on the now defunct Indian Civilization list: 'In 1946, 86% of the Muslims voted for the partition of India, while a majority of the Muslims conveniently stayed back in India.' In other words, if his statistic is correct, the vast majority of Muslims in India were willing to hack off a large chunk of their country to benefit their Muslim brothers, while cynically remaining in India to exploit the better economy. Not surprisingly, Pakistan became India's worse enemy, for reasons having everything to do with Islam. This reminds me of Muslims flooding into Europe seeking jobs, while threatening to impose the Sharia, through demographics if not through force. I guess any insolence is possible when God is on your side. Maybe we should learn how to put religious fervor to good use for ourselves, instead of criticizing it on petty moral and humanitarian grounds!
Other bones of contention would include, for example, the government subsidy of the Hajj. Nehru, the first Prime Minister and icon of the Congress Party, started the practice of buying Muslim votes by using taxpayer dollars to finance the expensive travel of millions of Muslims to the Hajj. An interesting sleight of hand for a 'secularist'! (I noticed the impressive Hajj terminal when I was at the Delhi airport.) Also, the mosques and churches are tax-exempt and free from government control, while many Hindu temples are taxed and regulated by the government. The rationale, I am told, is that anything Hindu is a 'threat' to the minorities, which is an interesting interpretation of 'secularism', to say the least. Another issue is the Uniform Civil Code. In most liberal democracies, it is taken for granted that all citizens must be equal before the law. In India, the Muslims have made progress at carving out a state within a state for themselves, which is now being repeated in many European countries. Riots and intimidation should not be viewed as mere juvenile temper tantrums. They often produce results, when the government has a failure of will, or when it actively courts votes, in defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution.
CENTRE DEFENDS SHARIAT COURTS
Hindustan Times, 2 Nov 06
Amidst raging debate over 'fatwas' issued by Shariat courts, the Centre has defended the Muslims' right to have such courts saying it was part of their fundamental right to freedom of religion guaranteed under the Constitution.'The functioning of Dar-ul-Qaza would be protected under the fundamental rights enshrined in Article 25 and 26(b) of the Constitution', the Centre said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a PIL seeking ban on Shariat courts.
Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion while under Article 26(b) every religious denomination enjoys freedom to manage its own affairs in matters of religion.
[. . .]
'It is also in vogue in many non-Islamic countries, for example, in England, which has a population of about 15 lakh Muslims, unofficial Sharia Panchayat are functioning.'
The 'Centre' in question is not just some think tank but the national government. So! Freedom of religion now means a state within a state? It doesn't take a political genius to see where that will lead. Just because the British are doing it too doesn't mean it's sane!
BBC: BJP dismisses Gujarat riot claims
Back to India Menu
Indian Constitution
Back to India Menu
Introduction (20 Nov 06): The Indian Constitution contains a number of ill-conceived peculiarities intended to promote harmony between religions, castes and races. For example, there are infringements on freedom of speech, which would be considered shocking by American standards. To be fair, Europe has lately been moving in this direction, for a similar reason: the volatility of Muslim populations. I am no expert on the Indian Constitution, so I will not make many remarks of a general nature. Instead, I will simply introduce specific topics as they arise.
Back to Indian Constitution
Article 30 (20 Nov 06): A key bone of contention for Hindus is Article 30:
Back to Indian Constitution
Penal Code on Promoting Enmity (20 Nov 06): The penal code is equally ambiguous on what constitutes the promotion of enmity between religions, races, castes, etc. Since this involves freedom of speech and the expression of ideas, any American judge would immediately sense the danger of censorship inherent in such attempts to promote 'communal harmony'. One might argue that the social conditions in India require it, but this is rather patronizing towards the Indian public. Besides, it is not Hindus who get apoplectic when criticized by Muslims but the other way around. In other words, despite the apparent neutrality of the language, the true intention is to appease Muslims. (Christian missionaries may be devious in their tactics, but they no longer get violent when challenged.)
Whoever malignantly, or wantonly, by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause the offence of rioting to be committed, shall, if the offence of rioting be committed in consequence of such provocation, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both; and if the offence of rioting be not committed, with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine, or with both.
(1) Whoever —
Offence committed in place of worship, etc — (2) Whoever commits an offence specified in sub-section (1) in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine.
(1) Whoever, by words either spoken or written or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise,-
(2) Whoever commits an offence specified in sub-section (1), in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship or religious ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to five years and shall be liable to fine. However, note that this wording, however flawed, was never intended as a two-way street. As related by Sita Ram Goel in the Calcutta Quran Petition (available here), a Hindu named Chandmal Chopra tried to have the Koran banned on grounds that many verses clearly promote disharmony between the religions. His petition was rejected. Indeed, others then tried to have Goel's book banned, and Chopra spent some time in prison! (Goel managed to escape.) The petition also led to many riots in India. Imagine that! A mere petition leads to riots, just like the recent affair with the Mohammed cartoons in Europe. (The authors made clear that they did not really want the Koran banned. They simply wished to test the hypocrisy of the law. Indeed, they preferred that people everywhere read the Koran to see what is really in it!)
In summary, the portions of the penal code just examined only apply when the big, bad Hindu majority 'hurts the feelings' of certain minorities (viz. Muslims) by pointing out what the Koran clearly says, or by being so impertinent as to request equal treatment before the law. In a word, the flaws we have seen in the Indian Constitution and Penal Code arise when politicians are more concerned with appeasing militant minorities than in treating everyone the same and ensuring the rights of all.
Back to Indian Constitution
Freedom of Speech
Back to India Menu
Silencing The Da Vinci Code (15 May 06): Christians and Muslims have united in India against showing the DaVinci Code, a movie which many Christians consider disrespectful towards their religion. SRK has sent me some articles, which show how religious politics in India treats Hindus differently from 'minorities'.
Back to Freedom of Speech
Banning Firecrackers (14 Oct 06): In Nepal, the 'Communist fascists' (to use SRK's expression) have banned fireworks for Diwali. This is to Hindus what banning fireworks on the 4th of July would be to Americans. Such a break with tradition must be seen as an offense to Hindus, as an attempt to suppress spontaneous Hindu celebration. As SRK points out, this Rediff article slyly provides a 'subtle endorsement' to 'repeat the experiment' in India.
Back to Freedom of Speech
Angry Christians Force a Rock Album out of India (14 Oct 06): Like the Da Vinci code, this is another freedom of speech issue, where the tiny Christian minority is 'offended' by some artistic product, in this case the cover art of a rock album, and succeeds in having it withdrawn. However distasteful some artistic products may be, America has wisely resisted banning offensive material, except in very special cases such as pedophilia. Not so in India. Notice that Christians only make up about 2% of the population, yet they have such clout. How come?
However, to be fair, let us note that Hindu groups in America have sometimes succeeded in having the 'vulgar misuse' of Hindu religious symbols banned, e.g. pictures of Ganesha on a toilet seat. This issue is a bit tricky.
I asked SRK about this, and here is his reply:
However, my point is that in India, the Christians are usually on the vanguard 'guarding free speech' and staging sundry passion plays in front of the US State Dept. about 'persecution'. But then, just recently, they managed to get the da Vinci Code banned in some Indian states, notably, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. They have no qualms pamphletting Hindus with their offensive material on the Gods and Goddesses they venerate, whether it be the local school, a pilgrimage center (even Tirupati), or a festival (remember the Pope, Deepavali, 1999?). Most recently, we have this display of 'love' for one's neighbour.
Not just that, they have had the temerity to smear any and all Hindu activism as 'fascism' and 'endagering free speech' - whether it is protesting over Hussain's scrawls, or the Pope's call for the destruction of Pagan religion etc. So, my subject line about fascism (which was not in the case of the mutilated Jesus, objectively speaking) should be seen as the Indian Christian harvest of the crop they have tended and nursed from seed. I agree that private or public protests, as well as economic boycotts, are legitimate means of expressing one's disapproval. Government censorship, such as with the Da Vinci Code, is something entirely different and unacceptable. SRK is correct that it is hypocritical to protest a mutilated Jesus while simultaneously vilifying the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. And it does seem that many Hindu Christians protest too much, elevating mere criticism to 'persecution' and so forth, to which our State Department has indeed seemed too receptive. For example, Modi had his visa denied, despite no good evidence against him and much good evidence in his favor, as I presented above in the introductory portion of my Pseudosecularism article. Finally, the request not to celebrate Diwali is insulting and outrageous, even without the crude pressure.
Back to Freedom of Speech
Tibetan Dissident Silenced (17 Nov 06): Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan dissident residing in India, has been issued a gag order in anticipation of the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao from November 20-23, 2006. The order, issued by the Office of the Superintendent of Police, threatens Tsundue with deportation to Tibet if he does not remain in self-imposed isolation during the visit. Tsundue is an award-winning author and General Secretary of Friends of Tibet who has staged dramatic protests on behalf of Tibetan freedom from China:
Fortunately, some rank-and-file police in India still honor freedom. However, as SRK puts it, Chinese Fascists order, Nehruvian Stalinists implement, Leftists observe vow of silence.
I notice on the last link that Tsundue has proclaimed: Seeking Buddhahood is one thing, and freedom for a country is another. We are fighting for freedom in the world and not freedom from the world. This seems to be a sharp change in emphasis from traditional Buddhism and from the Dalai Lama! A new generation of Tibetans?
Here is a related article:
[. . .]
The recent order issued by the Indian government to my friend, the Tibetan activist Tenzin Tsundue, is a painful reminder that we do not belong here. Like Tsundue, I was born and raised in India. I love this country. It has sheltered and nurtured our people physically, spiritually and culturally for two generations now. But we are not Indian. We are foreigners and subject to a different set of rules. ...
Watching India negotiate borders with China deepens this sense of insecurity and makes all Tibetans uneasy. Aside from fear for our own interests, we fear for the future safety of our Indian brothers and sisters. We want to shout, to warn India — 'Stop before it's too late. You can't trust the Chinese'. China's recent claim to Arunachal Pradesh, an integral part of India, should be warning enough that nothing is too much for them to ask. ... The only way to deal with shrewd and calculating China is to be tough and stand strong in the face of their bluster and their threats. Back to Freedom of Speech
Hindu Activist Silenced (23 Jan 07):
'We have arrested him (Prem Shukla, Executive Editor of Dopaharka Saamna) for writing an article which spreads communal hatred', Deputy Commissioner of Police D M Phadtare said here.
In its edition on Saturday, the eveninger had reportedly carried an article hurting the sentiments of a particular community. Back to Freedom of Speech
Other Articles
Back to Freedom of Speech
Banning Websites
17 Jul 06: I don't believe this! Say it ain't so!
India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs Friday to block several websites. The list is confidential. Indian ISPs have been slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of Monday afternoon, Airtel. State-backed BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely will soon. The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/*.
India's burgeoning blogging community is up in arms against a government directive that they say has led to the blocking of their web logs.
The country's 153 Internet service providers (ISP) have blocked 17 websites since last week on federal government orders.
Some of these sites belong to Google's Blogspot, a leading international web log hosting services.
Indian bloggers say that the decision is an attack on freedom of speech. [. . .]
A federal government notification of July 2003 says it can ban websites in the interest of:
The sites that have been banned include ones with right wing Hindu affinities and an anti-Communist one. At least four of them are on the Blogspot hosting service.
The fast-growing community of online bloggers has borne the brunt of the government's decision to block some 20 websites in a post-Mumbai show of force. Some of the websites that have been blocked are Dalitstan.org, Clickatell.com, Hinduhumanrights.org and Hinduunity.com
But the most harried Internet users were the bloggers, who couldn't access Blogspot.com, Typepad.com or Geocities.com pages. Sources in ISPs in Delhi as well as Mumbai confirmed that the one blog government has asked them to block is Princesskimberly.blogspot.com.
It seems the order posed technical problems, resulting in a blanket ban on all blogs. 'You cannot block a single page on blogspot.com, which is why all of them are getting blocked', said Neha Viswanathan, Regional Editor, South Asia, Globalvoicesonline.org from London. [. . .]
Apparently, all the websites blocked are said to express 'extreme religious views'. 22 Jul 06: SRK alerts me to an important (and free) online book by Sita Ram Goel on the topic of freedom of speech in India:
The concept of Secularism as known to the modern West is dreaded, derided and denounced in the strongest terms by the foundational doctrines of Christianity and Islam. Both of these doctrines prescribe Theocracy under which the State serves as the secular arm of the Church or the Ummah, and society is regimented by the Sacred Canon or the Shariat.
This fact is more than evident if we survey the history of Christianity till the French Revolution, and the practice which prevails in all Islamic states till today. It is a different matter that Christianity has reconciled itself to Secularism because of its steep decline in its traditional homelands - Europe and the Americas. The doctrine remains unchanged and Christianity will restore Theocracy if it were to acquire power again. Islam has yet to evince any sign of similar reconciliation with Secularism either in doctrine or in practice. In fact, the recent trend in most Islamic countries has been to revert to Theocracy in its pristine form, that is, as it existed under the four 'rightly guided caliphs'.
It is, therefore, intriguing that the most fanatical and fundamentalist adherents of Christianity and Islam in India - Christian missionaries and Muslim mullahs - cry themselves hoarse in defence of Indian Secularism, the same way as the votaries of Communist totalitarianism coming out vociferously in defence of Democracy. The puzzle needs unravelling unless one is satisfied with the mere sound of the word 'secularism', and at the same time nails pluralistic Hinduism as a closed monotheism like Islam and Christianity as India-watchers in the West and their lickspittles in this country have been doing for a long time.
It is significant that the word 'secularism' occurs neither in the writings and speeches of Pandit Nehru nor in the vocabulary of its other present-day votaries if we consult the record from the pre-independence period. Even in the Constitution of India as enacted in January 1950 the word does not find a place either in the Preamble or anywhere else; it was inserted there arbitrarily by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency she imposed on the Country during 1975-76. But ever since Pandit Nehru rose to supreme power in the Indian National Congress and the country at large after the death of Sardar Patel in December 1950, we find this word becoming increasingly frequent in his writings and speeches and fashionable in the parlance of parties that have otherwise nothing in common except their hatred of Hindus and Hinduism. All sorts of Hindu-baiters have come to describe themselves as 'secularists' 'Secular forces' and 'Secular front' while distancing themselves from what they denounce as 'Hindu communalism'. It can be concluded quite safely that although all 'secularists' may not be scoundrels, all scoundrels in India are 'secularists'.
The puzzle stands solved when we learn from the post-independence writings and speeches of Pandit Nehru, the father of Indian Secularism, that he had borrowed from the modem West only the word and not its meaning in Western political parlance. In fact, he himself stated what he was doing in a letter he wrote to C.D. Deshmukh on 22 June 1952. 'Nothing amazes me so much,' he said, 'as the perversion of well-known words and phrases in political and other controversies today. I suppose every demagogue does it.'1 He was either being blatantly dishonest or was blissfully unaware that he had proved himself to be a despicable demagogue when he picked up a well-known word from the Western political parlance and perverted it to mean the opposite of what it meant over there. Secularism in the West had risen as a revolt against the closed creed of Christianity and had meant, for more than 150 years, a freeing of the State from the clutches of the Church. In the Indian context it should have meant a revolt against the closed creed of Islam as well, and keeping the state aloof from the influence of mullahs. He, however, turned Secularism in India into a poisonous slogan for the use of a Muslim-Communist Christian combine which he had forged in order to keep the national majority down.2 L.K. Advani had hit the nail on the head when in a moment of clarity and courage during the Ayodhya Movement (1989) he had said that. Secularism in India was a euphemism for Hindu-baiting. 22 Jul 06: The Indian government admits that it didn't want to ban so many blogs, only those that tell the unvarnished truth about Islam, which could lead to 'communal disharmony':
NEW DELHI. After two days of angry inquiries and accusations of censorship, the Indian government tried to explain Thursday why it had ordered blog sites blocked, calling it 'a technological error' that would be repaired soon.
In an e-mail sent early Thursday, an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said that the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal Web logs, had been prompted by the discovery of a Web site that contained 'two impertinent pages' rife with material containing 'extremely derogatory references to Islam'.
In an effort to stave off sectarian violence, said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, India's Department of Telecommunications instructed Internet service providers to block access to the two pages.
'Because of a technological error, the Internet providers went beyond what was expected of them, which in turn resulted in the unfortunate blocking of all blogs', the official said.
The move has sown anger and confusion among Indian bloggers, who have accused the government of censorship and demanded to know why their sites have been jammed. 25 Jul 06: In an article titled 'India: A Failed State?', author V. Sundaram relates some pertinent questions addressed by the owner of one of the banned websites to the Indian government:
Sundaram responds as follows:
Don't feel too ashamed, Mr. Sundaram. The European elites reacted the same way during the Mohammed cartoons affair.
4 Aug 06: Here is an interview with a spokeperson from one of the banned websites, Hindu Human Rights. She is a physicist, martial artist and fighter for Hindu human rights and human rights in general. Sounds like a great combination to me! The ban on her website was ridiculous, as there was no text of an inflammatory nature, only some pictures of atrocities visited on Hindus. She thinks some Marxist Hindu academics in the UK with ties to the Indian government were behind it. Sounds like Michael Witzel and the California textbook controversy.
5 Aug 06: The sites may have been blocked for anti-Congress rather than 'anti-national' reasons, which would be an assault on Indian civil liberties as egregious as Indira Gandhi's state of emergency.
It seems there is a definite slant to the websites that have been banned - a stance that is not anti-national, but anti-congress.
HinduUnity.org, one of the 17 websites banned by the Government, calls itself the mouthpiece of the Bajrang Dal - a quasi-political party
Exposingtheleft.blogspot.com - one of the four banned blogs on the list has its Sunday post on Congress trying to block a film being made about Sonia Gandhi.
The funniest of the lot is bamapachyderm.com - a woman's self-proclaimed vast right wing conspiracy, which is obviously anti national to the UPA Government.
All the sites in the list that the Government has banned contain anti-Muslim slash anti-Congress rhetoric. While the website of the Hezbollah's TV channel is not only accessible in India, it's hosted here as well. That last line is especially peculiar. I am reminded how Gandhi tried to curry favor with Muslims by supporting their Caliphate movement. And if you say that the Hezbollah site was simply overlooked, then how peculiar that they found that American woman's anti-left blog, one of millions of private blogs with a small readership.
Back to India Menu
The 'Secularist' Press
Back to India Menu
Introduction (26 Jul 06): The following gives an indication of how the 'secularist' press reports on Muslim terrorism. Indeed, according to SRK, this journalist is 'one of the pontiffs of Indian secularism', so naturally he receives a prominent place in a major American magazine:
Unlike the 9/11 attack, or the London bombings, terror strikes in India are not directed at some evil global power or at its symbols. Nor are they committed to support the Palestinian or even Kashmiri cause, or to exact revenge for the occupation of Iraq. Their central purpose, always, is to strike at India's homegrown notion of secular nationalism.
Last week's bombings targeted middle-class Mumbai. Most of the people who ride in 'first-class' train compartments in the city come from traditional business communities. They are upper-caste Hindu - and also, largely, Gujarati. That's important, for the large-scale killing of Muslims in Mumbai's neighboring western state of Gujarat, in 2001, is a blot on India's democracy, and a permanent scar in the minds of Muslims. There is nothing terrorists want more than to rekindle that same madness. A Hindu-Muslim riot damages India as nothing else can. But after quoting the above, SRK says, 'Wait, this gets better. Here's outright fabrication':
As SRK goes on to explain: 'A minor and inconvenient fact. The investigators apprehended 4 suspects. To quote from Gupta's own newspaper, the Indian Express':
SRK finishes with:
As I said, it is these less than reliable 'secularist' Indian journalists who are given pride of place in our Western newspapers and magazines. Beware, if you care about the truth in India.
Back to The 'Secularist' Press
The Malegaon Blast and Inventing Hindu Terror (12 Nov 06): Here is an article which describes how those who are ideologically predisposed to hallucinating require scant evidence. The phenomenon is hardly new; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are considered factual even today in many parts of the Middle East.
The media begins to purvey of the theory of 'Hindu terrorists' behind the blast. A large newspaper headlines: 'Is it Bajrang Dal or Lashkar-e-Toiba?' and others report on similar lines.
Thus was invented the new phenomenon of 'Hindu terror' as the counter part of Islamic terror! A newspaper even reported that 20 persons have been arrested from a Hindu locality!! The Prime Minister added his bit and said that he 'will not rule in or rule out' Hindu groups!!! It is now as if the existence of Hindu terror modules is no more an issue. Only their involvement in Malegaon is. At one stroke the world, familiar with only one terror brand, came to know of the Indian brand of terror, the Hindu terror.
Another implication was that, with terror having become common to both Muslims and Hindus, it is almost secular — no more Islamic — in character!
In just two weeks this bluff was called but not before it damaged the reputation of the majority people of this nation in the eyes of the world. The Maharashtra police had found within days of the blast that RDX has been used in Malegaon. RDX being the special brand of Islamist terror, it automatically ruled out any other terror as the police itself confirmed later. Yet secular India persisted with the Hindu terror theory. But the arrest of SIMI activists involved in the Malegaon blasts finally clinched who did it. There is no proof, even suspicion, of any organised Hindu terror, nor any unexplained, anti-Islamic terror acts, which could point to possible Hindu terror modules in operation. Yet secular India invented 'Hindu terror' at Malegaon.
The innovation of 'Hindu terror' was no accident. It was a logical sequence of other fabrications. Secular India first invented 'Hindu fundamentalism' and then concocted 'Hindu fundamentalists'. These were founded on the assumption that if Hinduism was a religion like Islam or Christianity should it not suffer from fundamentalism and fundamentalists like the other two? This is where the Secular India missed the point or deliberately misled itself — and also the people of India and the world — about the true nature of Hinduism.
The secular India equated two unequals — Hinduism and Abrahamic faiths — as equals, and from that point everything got distorted. As faiths, Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths are different in their approaches to other faiths, so different that they can never be equal. This takes us to an interesting case study of how secular India perverted in presenting Hinduism as the comparable counterpart of the Abrahamic faiths. How untrue this presentation is can be established by reference to what, not any Indian source, but, the Encyclopedia of Britannica, produced by Western scholars, says on Hinduism.
According to the Encyclopedia, the critical difference is that belief in Hinduism does not prevent the Hindu believer from believing or practising any other faith, including Islam and Christianity, something which the latter two cannot even think of. The Supreme Court adopted this definition twice, once in 1977 and again in 1994, to hold that Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship. Yet secular India continued to equate the inclusive Hinduism and the exclusive Abrahamic faiths.
Once the critical difference between Hindu faith and the Abrahamic ones was missed, the secular India's search for Hindu fundamentalism as the mirror-effect of the Islamic and Christian fundamentalism began. Conceptually, there is, and can be, no such thing as Hindu fundamentalism. Again a study of the phenomenon of fundamentalism, not by a Sankara math or Ramakrishna Mission, but, by the Chicago University in early 1990s established this. In the five-volume study of fundamentalism the editors concluded that 'the traits of fundamentalism are more accurately attributed to the 'People of the Book', the Jews, Christians and Muslims than to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Confucians'. The editors go on to say that the Books 'provide the fundamentalists with a cosmic enemy that serves both to intensify missionary efforts and to justify extremism' (P.820, Vol I 'Fundamentalisms Observed)'. Back to The 'Secularist' Press
Fifth Anniversary of Gujarat Riots (2 Mar 07): SRK observes the press reaction on the fifth anniversay of the Gujarat riots, which broke out between Hindus and Muslims when Muslim terrorists set fire to a train of Hindu pilgrims, burning them alive. This has been discussed here, where media reports show that Chief Minister Modi was not derelict in his duties, as anti-Hindu voices have alleged. SRK titled his email Linguistic evolution among Hindus in contemporary Gujarat, and I will reproduce it verbatim:
The lack of trust in the media is almost a fad here. 'TV-wallah and chhappawallah (television and print reporters)' are common expressions of abuse. Those who talk about the violence — let alone question it — are openly ridiculed at tea and paan stalls.
etc. etc. Well, I'm glad to see these patriotic (and probably Hindu) Indian children waving the Indian flag in Gujarat:
Back to The 'Secularist' Press
Pseudosecularism Abroad
Back to India Menu
Introduction (29 Jul 06): Pseudosecularism is not confined to India. In the West, it is called 'political correctness'. However, when it arises due to official cowardice in the face of Muslim militancy, as with the Mohammed cartoons, then one should draw a direct parallel to India. This may make the Hindus in India feel better, or not!
Ruby Films said it had been advised by police and Tower Hamlets council not to film in Brick Lane area, Shoreditch.
Brick Lane Business Association chairman Mahmoud Roug told BBC News it was a 'victory for the community'.
Some members of the Bangladeshi community claim that the original novel, by Monica Ali, is 'insulting'.
The book is about a Bangladeshi woman sent to London for an arranged marriage.
Ruby Films is now seeking alternative locations for exterior scenes it had been due to film in the Brick Lane area this weekend.
A spokeswoman said: 'We have been advised by the police and Tower Hamlets council that it is probably best not to film there.
'We wouldn't want to go anywhere where we are not wanted, or put anyone at risk.' Back to Pseudosecularism Abroad
Martha Nussbaum on the Gujarat Riots (21 Jan 07): Martha Nussbaum is a Professor of Law and Ethics in the University of Chicago law school (with appointments in the Philosophy Department and Divinity School). In the following article, she severely criticizes the Hindus of Gujarat for the riots of 2002. First read what I say here, including the documented evidence from multiple press reports of the time. Then decide for yourself whether she is being fair, or whether she is a good example of the severe bias against Hindus often found in the left-oriented press of both India and the West.
Fifteen minutes later, one car of the train erupted in flames. Fifty-eight men, women, and children died in the fire. Most of the dead were Hindus. Attempts to determine what really happened by reconstructing the event have shown only that a large amount of a flammable substance must have been thrown from inside the train. Because the area adjacent to the tracks was an area of Muslim dwellings, and because a Muslim mob had gathered in the vicinity to protest the incident on the train platform, blame was immediately put on Muslims. (Later, a number of public figures argued that the blaze was set by Hindu nationalists attempting to provoke a rampage.)
In the days that followed, wave upon wave of violence swept through the state. The attackers were Hindus, many of them highly politicized, shouting Hindu-right slogans, such as 'Hail Ram' (a religious invocation wrenched from its original devotional and peaceful meaning) and 'Hail Hanuman' (a monkey god traditionally celebrated for loyalty, but portrayed by the Hindu right as highly aggressive), along with 'Kill!, Destroy!, Slaughter!' There is copious evidence that the violence was planned before the precipitating event. The victims were almost all Muslims, with an occasional Christian or Parsi thrown in. There was no connection between the identity of the victims and the identity of alleged perpetrators: attacks took place, for the most part, far from the original site. In fact, many families of the original dead implored the mobs to stop. Nonetheless, more than 2,000 Muslims were killed in a few days, many by being burned alive in or near their homes. No one was spared: young children were burned along with their families. One Indian blogger puts it well:
UPDATE (28 Jan 07): This article (thanks to SRK) casts considerable doubt on Nussbaum's integrity. In her parallel life as a classics scholar, she seems to read things in the original Greek that contradict what all the other experts read. As to how she could be so talented as to be a professor of classics as well as of law and ethics, as attested to by my link to the University of Chicago, one may perhaps wonder about the integrity of those hiring her.
By the way, playing with translations is a favorite game of the apologists of Islam, who assure us that the Koran can only be read in the original Arabic, where 'slay the infidels' presumably means something sweet and poetic.
Back to Pseudosecularism Abroad
Academic Inanity
Back to India Menu
Introduction (4 Aug 06): Even more than their counterparts in the West, Indian scholars in the humanities tend to be Leftist-Marxist in ideology, and they don't hesitate to use their authority to spread deceptive propaganda about the majority. Here is an interview with Dr Arjun Appadurai, an anthropologist at New School University in New York. I will skip over his initial vacuous statements about 'minorities' worldwide to focus on the description of India that he presents to the West:
[. . .]
Second, in the South Asian story we have the bitterness of Partition. Especially in North India, and especially among Hindu nationalist groups, Partition is a wound and insult to the integrity of India, which created a perennial enemy, the state of Pakistan, and its supporters and sympathisers in Kashmir and in the rest of India.
That story could have been forgotten - but it is never forgotten; it is kept alive and kept active by politicians, by religious leaders, by party ideologues and by parts of the media.
Thirdly, in Pakistan you have a society that is in fact theocratic, and there is no question that Pakistan as a State has pursued a variety of official, unofficial and individual activities calculated to unsettle India. However open-minded one is, one has to recognise it. It is also true that India has done its part to keep up the competition with Pakistan, to outdo its military capacities, to exceed its nuclear capabilities and to limit Pakistan's influence in Asia as a whole.
But there is no denying that as a theocratic State under military rule, Pakistan has pursued anti-democratic policies at many levels, and has been unable to free itself from using Kashmir as a distraction from its own internal crises as a civil society and a buffer state in the Great Game of Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia and the United States.
[. . .]
We have to accept that reality, and the fact that violence for political and religious gains is not confined only to the Hindu Right. We must also acknowledge that Pakistan is not something invented by the imagination of the Hindu Right. It is real. It is authoritarian. It is theocratic. And Pakistani civil society has moved closer to the Islamic right.
In India, there are some Muslims who sympathise with Pakistan. It is hard to tell whether it is the product of their being driven out of India, mentally speaking, or whether they had a prior affiliation to Pakistan. The more you are pushed out, the more you are going to identify with some place where you might be a first class citizen.
And yet, I believe that the radical, terrorist voices one hears in the Muslim communities in India are few and small. The average Muslim in India today has this request to the majority community: Give us the room to survive. Muslims in rural and urban India are not thinking of taking over India, but are asking whether they can live there at all.
Sure, there is a rise in the anti-Muslim sentiments across India. What has been especially worrisome is that this anger has been adopted by the middle class, the educated and the professionals across India. The very classes and groups who would have been ashamed to express strong radical religious sentiments in the 1950s and 1960s are proudly pro-Hindu today.
[. . .]
[Responding to the interviewer's assertion that 'There seems some evidence to suggest that at least in some instances, minorities triggered the violence...']:
In that case, the state agencies can look into the problem. But when mobs take the law into their own hand and unleash violence, terrible things unfold. Study after study has shown that the retaliatory violence against the minorities is hugely disproportionate to the alleged crimes attributed to them. Yet this scholar does admit some culpability on the part of Pakistan, only to then try to neutralize it with a false moral equivalency. When Hindu nationalists complain about Pakistani or domestic Muslim terrorism, they are complaining about real crimes. This is not just nursing a grievance. He admits that Pakistan is 'theocratic', but never uses the 'terrorism' word, preferring instead the bland statement that Pakistan has made some attempts to 'unsettle' India. Just rattling the cage, nothing serious. What has India done wrong in its foreign policy, except to try to keep its part of Kashmir from being stolen? Same for the Northeast. India is just trying to hold together, and has shown no sign whatsoever of expansionist tendencies. It is too preoccupied with hostile Muslims on all sides to even dream of that! And it is hardly playing in a great international game. Maybe the US is, but India is just trying to survive.
Then we get the amazing statement that political violence is not confined to the Hindu right! How gracious of him! What has the Hindu right done except complain and occasionally tear down an unoccupied mosque (which was erected to humiliate Hindus in the first place)? The riots in Gujarat were in response to a despicable outrage, on top of years of terrorism. That doesn't excuse them, but I assure you that the death toll over the years favors Muslims by far. If one factors in the millions of Hindus slaughtered in Bangladesh, then Muslims are ahead by many orders of magnitude. And that is just since Independence. If one then considers the thousand years of Muslim invasion, there is just no comparison.
Where are all the patriotic Indian Muslim voices criticizing Pakistan? All we hear from them is complaints that they have not been given enough privileges to carve out their own Sharia state. It is this silence with respect to terrorism that Hindus hear loud and clear. Yet most Muslims may be poor people just trying to survive. It is their clerics and leaders who cause most of the problems. Even so, the Muslims don't have to follow them like sheep and vote en masse. The fact that they do clearly indicates that their Muslim identity means much more to them than their Indian identity. And the overall corrupt status of Indian politics hardly helps.
Back to Academic Inanity
Amartya Sen and Identity (19 Aug 06): Amartya Sen is a Nobel-prize-winning economist of Hindu origin and leftist persuasion, now at Harvard, who has written a new book, Identity and Violence, which has been endorsed by such level-headed thinkers as Francis Fukuyama, the ex-neocon. This interview is a textbook example of typically leftist thinking, which seems sweet and reasonable on the surface, but does grave injustice to the truth. I will quote some sentences and comment. First, the purpose of the book:
One of his examples follows, that of a Muslim named Kader Mia:
I have discussed at length how the crimes of Muslims on Hindus are vastly greater than those of Hindus on Muslims. Hindus, the original inhabitants of India, have never invaded anybody, but the Muslims invaded India over ten centuries, slaughtering tens of millions of 'infidels' in the name of Allah. Even after Muslims were vanquished, they continue to start most riots, to which Hindus sometimes respond out of exasperation. Furthermore, Islam is behind most of the terrorism in India. To be sure, Hindus have sometimes attacked innocent Muslims, and this is deplorable. But to take this as a tacitly typical case is dishonest and despicable. Yes, identity can be a problem, especially when it is the driving force behind religious fanatics like many Muslims. Sen should be talking about them instead. Hindus, on the contrary, have been notably tolerant over the centuries, except when driven to desperation. It is not they who have an ego or an identity problem. Not only is Sen's calumny despicable, but so are those who so eagerly or naively endorse him, which unfortunately includes many foolish Hindus.
Almost all that is great and noble in Indian civilization has come from Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and maybe Sikhs. These religions are native to India and share a common 'dharmic' thread of tolerance and openness to various ideas, in particular regarding the divine. This is quite a contrast to the fanatical intolerance of Islam, which proclaims the aggressive rantings of a single book to be divine truth which cannot be contradicted or questioned. There is a common spirit in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, such that one can consider them different branches of the same family, and in this sense 'Hinduism' loosely defined is indeed the true civilization of India. One should note that many Brahmins were influenced by Buddhism, or became Buddhists themselves. Buddhism later merged back into Vedanta. Jainism has also retained close contact with Hinduism, by using Brahmin priests at weddings and funerals. Islam and Christianity are invaders, which are inherently inimical to the dharmic tradition and have been imposed by force. If there is an identity problem in India, it is due to Muslim aggression and Christian meddling (e.g. by bribing poor Hindus to convert). It is Islam and Christianity which have grotesque egos, inspired by their exclusivist creeds. It is this puerile exclusivism which causes divisions in India and elsewhere. Why can Sen not see this and be honest about it? Does he wish to ingratiate himself with the leftist climate at Harvard, even at the expense of betraying his own people? And then to dress it up as sweet tolerance! This is just too much!
UPDATE (2 Oct 06): Here is another laudatory article on Amartya Sen's leftist vacuities, in which he again portrays the so-called Hindutva movement as the enemy of the tolerant Hindu tradition, rather than the quest for equality before the law that it truly is. In addition, the reader is provided with an interesting quote from the sacred Hindu epic Ramayana, spoken by the sage Javali, which is taken by Sen to epitomize the skeptical tradition in Hinduism:
SRK assures me that this is a gross distortion of the text, taken out of context, a 'last-ditch effort' by Javali to persuade Rama to return, when all else has failed. Rama chides Javali for his efforts, as indicated by the following verses:
Sen provides a better case for Hindu open-mindedness by quoting the famous 'Creation Hymn' or Nasadiya Sukta of the RgVeda (X:129):
However, even here, as SRK points out, the meaning is rather in the spirit of the Vedantic preference to describe the indescribable Brahman (supreme principle of reality) by negatives rather than by affirmatives. Thus the famous Neti, neti (Not thus, not thus) of the Upanishads.
What is important here is that Sen is distorting a well-known virtue of Hinduism, its remarkable freedom in speculation about the divine, to paint a false picture of the 'Hindutva' movement as rejecting that tradition. How refreshing is this Hindu open-mindedness compared to the puerile dogmatism of the prophetic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam! Sen is correct on the virtues of the Hindu tradition, but he deceives the reader on the Hindus of today. (Note: This update has been altered, as I made factual errors in the first version, which SRK was kind enough to point out.)
Back to Academic Inanity
Pernicious Politicians
Back to India Menu
Deceiving for Communal Harmony (16 Aug 06): Here is a remarkable story, which clearly reveals how Indian politicans feel they must fabricate deception for the sake of 'communal narmony':
For the first time, Sharad Pawar [who was Maharashtra Chief Minister at the time] has admitted, on record, that he had 'deliberately misled' people following the 1993 Mumbai blasts by saying there were 12 and not 11 explosions, adding the name of a Muslim-dominated locality to show that people from both communities had been affected.
Spilling the beans on what became an ill-concealed secret in later days, but had never been said openly, Pawar said he had to quickly find a way to stop Mumbai from going up in flames and this was the ploy he hoped would keep Hindus from retaliating.
The step was pre-meditated as only shortly before making the announcement about the 12th blast that never was, he had been informed of 11 coordinated blasts in the city in March 1993, all hitting Hindu majority areas. This refers to the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai, which killed at least 200 and injured 800 according to the BBC. To recapitulate, Hindus in Ayodhya had demolished an unused mosque that had been erected centuries earlier by Muslim conquerors over the traditional birthplace of the deity Rama in order to humiliate Hindus. No one was hurt. Muslims in Mumbai then retaliated with street violence, and Hindus retaliated on the Muslims in a similar manner. Then some Muslims planted 11 bombs in Hindu areas in order to retaliate for that. A typical sequence of events in India, where a relatively minor incident is escalated by Muslims into terrorism. Nevertheless, the truth is swept under the rug for political convenience, but nobody was really fooled. Still, it's useful to have the admission.
Back to Pernicious Politicians
Talisma Nasreen Denied Visa (16 Aug 06): Here is a very sad story. Talisma Nasreen is an author of Bangladeshi origin who has written very bravely on the oppression of Islam in her home country, especially with respect to women. She would be in great danger there, and has been living in exile in India. Now, to appease domestic Muslims, the government is sacrificing her by refusing to renew her visa:
'I have just come to know that I have been granted a six month tourist visa. I am shocked and shattered because I have been denied a residential permit in India and reduced to the status of a tourist,' said the author, whose permit expires Wednesday.
'As a tourist I can be asked to leave any moment. My visa cannot be renewed in future too. A tourist visa can be given even for three days while a residential permit can be granted for 10 years also,' Nasreen told IANS.
I hope America takes her, though she clearly wants to live in an environment similar to her roots, like the West Bengal where she presently resides. This is reminiscent of India's surrender during the Rushdie affair, when terrorist threats in the form of religious fatwas cowed the Indian government into banning his books. I would have hoped that the present government would try to atone by embracing Talisma. She should have been given Indian citizenship! It is amazing how civil liberties can be eroded in the name of not offending the feelings of a minority! If the Muslims started complaining about Tibetans, I'll bet they'd be kicked out. By the way, as SRK caustically remarks, millions of illegal Bangladeshis have flooded into India, including many terrorists, but the government does little.
Back to Pernicious Politicians
Christian Missionaries
Back to India Menu
Banning Conversions By Fraud Or Inducement (25 May 06): SRK sent me an article on a bill to ban conversions by 'fraud or inducement', which has become a contentious topic in Indian politics. This is a difficult issue for me. On the one hand, as a child of the European Enlightenment, I consider freedom of thought and religion to be sacred. It seems abhorrent for the state to intervene in any way. On the other hand, it is clear that some Christian groups in India are exploiting the poor Dalits against the Hindu majority. Furthermore, Christianity has a long tradition of meddling in politics to further its power. At the risk of sounding elitist, one might ask: Does the manipulation of resentment in poor and uneducated people constitute a true expression of religious freedom? Is that what the spirit of the Enlightenment was about? I don't think so. Finally, what is a religion? Does a religion that preaches world domination deserve to be called a religion? Is it not rather a satanic cult? Perhaps Christianity has been 'defanged' and only the Muslims still preach a genuine Jihad. But can a milder version of ideological conquest be called decent, if the same spirit of intolerance endures? It is one thing when I seek out a Hindu swami or Buddhist monk for his wisdom, but quite another when a priest or minister interjects himself in my life uninvited and tells me that my religion is wrong.
The issue of religion is complicated in India by caste politics, about which much false propaganda has been propagated by those who stand to benefit. For example, the poverty in India today is due to Muslim and Christian invasions, not to the supposed evils of caste. Hence, Christian proselytizing in India could be seen as adding insult to injury. At the same time, there have indeed been corruptions in the caste system, such as untouchability, which are not intrinsic to Hinduism. After all, there is slavery in the Bible, and some Christians in past times have owned slaves, but one doesn't identify slavery with the Christian religion. Just as Christian progressives purged slavery from the West, so have Hindu progressives, starting with Vivekananda and Gandhi, been reforming the decay in Hindu society. It is malicious for well-funded missionaries to exploit this situation by falsely smearing Hinduism for the poverty of the 'lower' castes. (Though as SRK says in his notes, the truly orthodox Hindus do take ritual purity very seriously, but that this their business as long as it remains a private prejudice, which does not interfere with the welfare of others, e.g. by leading to discrimination in employment.)
Here is an article from August of 2005 containing a discussion I had with SRK on U.S. foreign policy and religion in India.
See also here.
Criticism of Missionaries
Mother Teresa
Some Missionary Websites
Some Anti-Missionary Websites
Back to Christian Missionaries
Misconceptions About Caste (2 Oct 06): There are many misconceptions about caste, often promulgated and exploited by missionaries. To clear them up, the following article is highly recommended:
Back to Christian Missionaries
How 'Hindu Fanatics' Treat The Pope (18 Sep 06): SRK has an interesting series of links showing how differently the Pope is treated by Muslims, on the one hand, and the 'dreaded Hindu fanatics', on the other. Recently, the Pope made a remark about Islam which has offended many Muslims throughout the world and sparked the usual demonstrations and riots. (It hardly matters that the Pope was citing someone else's view.) Even after apologizing, 'protests and violence persisted across the Muslim world, with churches set ablaze in the West Bank...'.
On the other hand, in recent years, the Pope made a point of visiting India during the holy occasion of Deepavali to announce his long-term aim of converting all Hindus to the 'true message' of Christ. The reaction from the Indian elites was rather different from that of the Muslims:
UPDATE (18 Sep 06): SRK just sent me this quotation from noted Indologist Koenraad Elst, reminding us just how contemptible is the cowardice of Muslim apologists in the West, when one considers the genuine and justified fear of dhimmis over the centuries who were living in Muslim lands:
How unfortunate that Nehru, the 'father of the nation', was ashamed of being Hindu. It started a whole trend among Indian elites and intellectuals.
Back to Christian Missionaries
Swami Vivekananda on Missionary Hypocrisy (21 Sep 06): In Myths About the Swami - Part II, Arun Shourie provides this memorable quote by Swami Vivekananda on the hypocrisy of the Christian missionaries, who say vile things about the peaceful Hindus and their gods, but dare not criticize the Muslims:
The verse quoted is from a poem by Bishop Heber.
Back to Christian Missionaries
Pope Uproar vs. Graham Staines (25 Sep 06): Recently we have seen the Pope cowered into profuse apologies when his words outraged Muslims. In a speech in Germany, he mentioned a medieval Byzantine emperor who said that Islam only bought the world 'evil and inhuman' things. These were not even his words, yet Muslims throughout the world predictably went crazy with anger, churches were burned in the Middle East, and an Italian nun in Somalia was killed. The Pope's reaction was to forget about the nun and immediately fall to his knees begging the Muslim world for forgiveness.
Contrast this with the previous Pope's brazen proclamation in India a few years ago to reap a 'harvest' of conversion in India. That Pope knew he could get away with it in India, because Hindus rarely fight back, and the forces of 'pseudosecularism' in Indian politics actually work in his favor. I mentioned this to SRK, and he replied:
Also note that condemnable as the act of murder is, Graham Staines was killed by people in the local area who resented his specific activites. They did not target random Christians or their churches. However, in the current case, non-Catholic orthodox Churches, and a random Catholic nun have been targeted in a wantonly vindictive manner. The Pagans [in India] could at least claim to be directly affected by the acts of Staines, but here, even that fig leaf is missing, and the true believers could hardly care less. But then, the purveyors of love [i.e Christians] know that, when it comes to 'wounded sensibilities' of the peddlers of peace [i.e. Muslims], discretion is obviously the better part of valour. To adapt a saying of Jesus: 'Show the other cheek only if you cannot retaliate.' Back to Christian Missionaries
More Dalits Converted (14 Oct 06): As reported by the BBC, another 2500 dalits recently converted to Buddhism and Christianity. As discussed in the article by Elst, caste was not oppressive in ancient India, and similar social structures existed elsewhere. Muslim invasion and British colonialism produced the following two misfortunes (amongst others): (i) Hindus turned inward and caste became a defense mechanism against invaders; and (ii) a once rich nation was reduced to poverty. How bitterly ironic that the poverty produced by Christian-inspired colonialism is now being exploited by Christian missionaries! It is so much easier to blame this poverty on rich Hindus who live in the present than on foreign colonialists who are long gone. The Communists play this dirty trick too.
In some rural areas, there are indeed caste tensions, though usually over land. Some slightly richer farmers may also happen to be of a different caste, but this is easily turned into class warfare, under the guise of caste warfare. It is interesting that the US, with its huge inequality of wealth, has largely avoided class warfare. How did it do this? By being so wealthy that enough people feel a stake in the status quo. That same wealth also provides generous welfare to the poor. Again, the irony is that Western wealth was built on colonialism. This does not mean that I am a leftist or Communist or even that I advocate large monetary transfers to poor countries. However, I believe in honesty about the historical record, though I also advise poor countries to get their economic act together rather than wallowing in resentment over past injustice.
The silver lining in this is that more of these poor seem to be converting to Buddhism than to Christianity. This may seem like a bigoted statement on my part, but I really do think that Buddhism is better for them. For one thing, it is similar to Hinduism in being wise and tolerant, which contrasts with the doctrinal rigidity and exclusivism of Christianity. Furthermore, Buddhism really has little to do with Communist-style socio-economic revolution but rather with internal spiritual development. So the dalits shouldn't be radicalized by Buddhism, nor will they leave the Indic family, as Buddhism is recognized as a brother dharmic path by all Hindus who are not feeling suicidal.
As for the ancient Vedic teaching that society is like an organism, with some performing the function of the head, and others that of the arms or feet, let us observe that this is simply the truth! Society needs this division of labor in order to function. Various Communist experiments at social leveling over the past century produced massive economic disasters and starvation. In any society, most people who are born into the educated classes will have children who more or less remain in the educated classes, and likewise for the laboring classes. The problem is when this becomes too rigid and opportunity for the talented few is stifled. This was no more true of ancient India than for other societies of that time, and it is not true of modern India. As shown by various articles here, there is no direct correlation between caste and wealth in modern India. The issue is poverty, and the cure is economic development, not the predatory ideological exploitation of unsophisticated people.
UPDATE: SRK has some remarks regarding the conversions to Buddhism:
The entire exercise is just to provide the proverbial fig leaf for conversions to Christianity. If Hindus criticise this instance of mass conversion, they would be simultaneously criticising the religion propagated by a revered Pagan personage, which would be bad PR. The Abrahamics and quasi-Abrahamics have therefore co-opted the figure of Buddha - in the hope that water will somehow turn to wine by association. It reminds me of what Muslims did in Multan, many centuries ago:
How sad! I thought conversion to Buddhism was a way for India's disaffected poor to remain 'almost Hindu' while enjoying a psychological feeling of freedom that has little to do with socio-economic reality. Notwithstanding SRK's warning, I will remain hopeful that this is the case. And I will say something in favor of Ambedkar: he honestly described the horrors of Muslim oppression.
Back to Christian Missionaries
Rebellion in the Northeast (9 Nov 06): This started out as a minor articl
Introduction
Article 30 of the Constitution
Penal Code on Promoting Enmity
ARTICLE 30 of the INDIAN CONSTITUTION
30. Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. --
(1) All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
(1A) In making any law providing for the compulsory acquisition of any property of any educational institution established and administered by a minority, referred to in clause (1), the State shall ensure that the amount fixed by or determined under such law for the acquisition of such property is such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under that clause.
(2) The State shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language.
In practice, this means that minority (e.g. Muslim and Christian) 'education institutions' (which easily overlap with mosques and churches) are free from government control, even when they receive government funds, but Hindu temples are not. Why? Because that right for Hindus was not explicitly written in! (That's according to SRK, as discussed in the link below. Such logic would probably not fly in America, but we are talking about India.) Note that 'administer' means not just control of curricula and such matters but extends to control of the finances, which leads to taxation of Hindu temples but not of mosques and churches! Yet the latter are free to govern themselves and the temples are not! SRK and Konraad Elst have more to say on this matter.
PENAL CODE ON 'PROMOTING ENMITY'
153. Wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot — if rioting be committed — if not committed
153A. Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony
(a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, or
(b) commits any act which is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquillity, or
(c) organises any exercise, movement, drill or other similar activity intending that the participants in such activity shall use or be trained to use criminal force or violence or knowing it to be likely that the participants in such activity will use or be trained to use criminal force or violence, or participates in such activity intending to use or be trained to use criminal force or violence or knowing it to be likely that the participants in such activity will use or be trained to use criminal force or violence, against any religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community and such activity for any reason whatsoever causes or is likely to cause fear or alarm or a feeling of insecurity amongst members of such religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community,] shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
153B. Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration
(a) makes or publishes any imputation that any class of persons cannot, by reason of their being members of any religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community, bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established or uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, or
(b) asserts, counsels, advises, propagates or publishes that any class of persons shall, by reason of their being members of any religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community, be denied or deprived of their rights as citizens of India, or
(c) makes or publishes any assertion, counsel, plea or appeal concerning the obligation of any class of persons, by reason of their being members of any religious, racial, language or regional group or caste or community, and such assertion, counsel, plea or appeal causes or is likely to cause disharmony or feelings of enmity or hatred or ill-will between such members and other persons, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Clearly, it doesn't take much to be afoul of the law. If one merely states the opinion that, say, the Koran promotes the spread of Islam through violence, and if Muslims then get offended and indulge in violence, you have not only won your debate but may also find yourself in jail! If you say that loyalty to the shariah and caliphate (however hypothetical the latter) is incompatible with loyalty to the Indian state and constitution, then one also lands in hot water, however logical your claim. The Indian Constitution doesn't even seem to want to protect itself, let alone the rights of Hindus and others to criticize religions and ideologies they may disagree with!
Silencing The Da Vinci Code
Banning Firecrackers
Angry Christians Ban a Rock Album
Tibetan Dissident Silenced
Hindu Activist Silenced
Other Articles
Kalavai Venkat: Silencing The Da Vinci Code
V. Sundaram: The Da Vinci Tsunami
You are quite right in that free speech guarantees the right to offend as well as to protest an offense, subject to public order. In the case of the toilet seats, Hindus contacted the manufacturer and discussed their concerns, as they did in the case of Gods on slippers, etc. etc. They also made clear that their community would engage in an economic boycott of the said manufacturers (as did Christians in the case of the mutilated Jesus).
In January 2002 his profile peaked when he scaled scaffolding to the 14th floor of the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai to unfurl a Tibetan national flag and a banner which read 'Free Tibet' down the hotel's facade. China's Premier Zhu Rongji was inside the hotel addressing a conference of Indian business tycoons. The world's media featured Tsundue's antics and Indian police officials reportedly congratulated him in prison for standing up for his rights.
WHY I WILL PROTEST HU JINTAO'S VISIT
Tenzin Choeying, Rediff, 17 Nov 06
Hu's visit will stir memories of the repression and murder of 1989, a year when most people remember Tiananmen but Tibetans remember Lhasa. As the Party Secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Hu led a vicious attack on protesting Tibetans and imposed martial law. Hundreds were killed, imprisoned and tortured. For this effort, Hu was later rewarded with a promotion to the most senior levels of the Communist Party.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF SHIV SENA MOUTHPIECE ARRESTED
Rediff India Abroad, 22 Jan 07
The Executive Editor of a Shiv Sena mouthpiece was arrested on Monday on the charge of inciting communal disharmony, a senior police offical said.
What 'particular community'? This is so confusing! I wish these Indian newspapers would stop playing games. Just kidding. It is all part of the pseudosecularist mindset. On a more serious note, please notice how dangerous and foolish it is to have any kind of a law based on 'hurting the feelings' of a 'particular community'? Or on hurting the feelings of anyone. Such vagueness could make free speech effectively null and void.
Tribune India: Book critical of Gandhi banned
BBC: Hindus upset over ban on holy dot
Boing Boing, 17 Jul 2006
BBC, 19 Jul 2006 sovereignty or integrity of India
security of the state
friendly relations with foreign states
public order
preventing incitement to commissioning of any cognizable offences.
Hindu Unity
Opini Pundit
Pajama Editors
Hindu Human Rights
Indian Express, 18 Jul 2006
As SRK says regarding the banning of Hinduhumanrights.org, 'It's now official. Hindus don't have any human rights.' This does seem extreme to me, like China or the USSR. It even calls Indian democracy into question, but so do many other things. (Michelle Malkin has more.)
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Secular Theocracy vs. Liberal Democracy
compiled and edited by Sita Ram Goel
Voice of India, New Delhi
Here are the first few paragraphs fropm the Preface:
INDIA ADMITS 'TECHNOLOGICAL ERROR' IN BLOG BLOCKADE
by Somini Sengupta, NYT, 20 Jul 2006
Well, we can't blame them too much. Europe is supposed to be the bastion of liberal democracy and human rights, but look at how quickly so many European politicians and intellectuals caved in to Muslims during the Mohammed cartoons controversy.
'These websites were singled out because, according to the Indian government, they might incite religious violence. The nine American websites banned by India are all critical of the Islamist movement. Not a single website of Islamic extremists justifying and even celebrating the Mumbai bombings has been banned. Why did India ban these websites? And what is the larger meaning of this action? As proprietor of one of the banned websites, I am in a unique position to answer those questions.'
It is a matter of shame and dishonour for the non-existent UPA government in so far as the orphaned non-Muslims of India are concerned that Dr. Rusty Shackleford has himself given an answer to the first question by saying that these banned websites have offended the feelings and sensibilities of Islamists and the non-men in the government of India are mortally scared of our own Muslim citizens. Another categorical fact known throughout the world is that liberty will never be able to co-exist in a situation where there are large populations of Muslims. As Dr. K D Pratipal, Professor Emeritus, Comparative Religion, University of Alberta, Canada, aptly puts it: 'Muslims will only live as an oppressive majority and a turbulent minority.' In the case of India the latter half of the quotation is relevant and appropriate, and duly blessed by the politically insolent and ideologically insolvent government of India.
by Narendra Nag, CNN-IBN, 28 Jul 06
Introduction
Malegaon Blast and 'Hindu Terror'
Fifth Anniversary of Gujarat Riots
OPINION: A CAUSE FOR COMFORT
by Shekhar Gupta, Newsweek International, 24 Jul 06
(Gupta is editor-in-chief of the Indian Express newspaper.)
The bombers failed in their goal - to foment violence between Hindus and Muslims.
So, Gupta is saying that Muslim terrorism against Hindus should not be seen as terrorism against Hindus but as terrorism against India's distorted version of 'secularism', which benefits Muslims by whitewashing their crimes. Wonderful logic. And, as usual, he smears the Hindus, this time in Gujarat, by failing to point out that the riots there started when a group of Hindu pilgrims was burned alive on a train by Muslim terrorists. In turn, this followed decades (really centuries) of Muslim terrorism in India, with the occasional exasperated Hindu response.
On the other side, in April Hindu fanatics bombed the Jama Masjid, the stately 17th-century mosque in old Delhi that is an abiding symbol of Islam in the Subcontinent.
The agencies were exploring the possibility of finding some links with Abdul Karim Tunda's gang as the chemical composition — potassium chlorate and sulphur mixed with acid — was used by him during the 1997 blasts in the national capital.
Wow! Abdul Karim Tunda must be a Hindu! After all, Gandhi used to chant Ram-Rahim, Krishna-Karim. But then, given the kind of 'information' Gupta usually spouts, he is naturally wary of trusting news printed in his own newspaper!
MALEGOAN BLAST AND INVENTING HINDU TERROR
S.Gurumurthy, NewIndPress, 8 Nov 06
A blast at an Islamic dargah at Malegaon in Maharashtra kills over 37 and injures over a hundred. The victims were peaceful worshipers on a Friday, the sacred day for Muslims.
This is indeed how many 'intellectuals' operate! They ignore boring facts as beneath their dignity but indulge in fancy ideas that are as fallacious as they are convenient to a particular ideology. If all religions are 'equal', as we were unfortunately taught by the likes of Gandhi, then it is only 'logical' that Hindus would have terrorists too. Further, note how this obliterates the very real religious dimension from Islamic terrorism, thus making an effective and reality-based discussion practically impossible. It is particularly confounding that the 'Abrahamic' faiths should be 'misunderstood' on something that they proclaim as essential to their faith, namely, exclusivity. Even the gentle Jesus, who waged no Jihads, nevertheless made it clear that one could only be 'saved' through belief in his mission. Meanwhile, the Hindus have many avatars and rishis, and the Mahayana Buddhists proclaim an infinite number of Buddhas throughout all space and time. Why indeed should wisdom be limited to one prophet except to serve some political motive?
(...Secular ritualistic flagellation of Gujarati Hindus on the fifth anniversary of the post-Godhra riots...)
Rediff, March 1, 2007
The 'secular' author observes the ground realities:
In large sections of the majority community, a homogeneous view has emerged about the riots. Nowhere else in India can one possibly find such a total absence of dissonant opinion among the urban people. Modi is harnessing this 'homogeneity' among the Hindus of Ahmedabad to his great political advantage. This trait was beginning to appear among Gujarati Hindus even before the 2002 riots. It has solidified and been internalised in the last five years.
And then comes the heartfelt prayer for the return of the halcyon days of casteism and economic hardship:
Of course, anti-incumbency, economic failures, emergence of competitive politics, receding fears in the Hindu psyche and the inevitable resurfacing of the caste divide can incrementally create fissures among Gujarati Hindus, but such a process will be gradual.
Note: The old 'strategy' for winning elections in Gujarat (pre-Modi) which evokes such nostalgia was the casteist 'KHAM' formula. Here's the explanation from a blue-blooded 'secular' source.
In the 1980s, the Congress had gained popularity using the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim) formula. Its policies were geared towards the downtrodden. However, over the years, the BJP has cut into the Congress vote bank, not only in Adivasi areas but also among the OBCs and Dalits.
Introduction
Martha Nussbaum on Gujarat
BRICK LANE MAKERS CANCEL FILMING
BBC, 27 Jul 06
The makers of the film Brick Lane have cancelled filming in the London area where it is set owing to opposition from the Bangladeshi community there.
So England, the bastion of free speech and democracy, caves in and decides it would be 'best' not to exercise that freedom of speech. Of course, there is an excuse for this: we don't want anybody hurt. With that kind of logic, the Muslims could eventually get control over the political discourse of the nation, just by being threatening. Or have they already?
WHY WOMEN WERE MUTILATED IN GUJARAT
Martha Nussbaum, Boston Review, Summer 2004
On February 27, 2002, the Sabarmati express train arrived in the station of Godhra, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, packed with Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya. Ayodhya, as the alleged birthplace of the god Rama, has been a focal point of Hindu anti-Muslim feeling for several decades. In 1992, Hindu zealots destroyed the 16th-century Babri mosque there, claiming that it covered the remains of a Hindu temple. The pilgrimage, like many others in recent times, aimed at forcibly constructing a temple over the disputed site, and the mood of the returning passengers, stymied by the government and the courts, was angry. When the train stopped at the station, passengers got into arguments with Muslim vendors and passengers. At least one Muslim vendor was beaten up when he refused to say 'Jai Sri Ram' ('Hail Ram'), and a young Muslim girl narrowly escaped forcible abduction. As the train left the station, stones were thrown at it, apparently by Muslims.
Notice how she deftly stacks the story against Hindus, with every possible abuse of innuendo and framing. (In this footnoted, scholarly article, the first footnote appears after the crucial allegations have been presented as 'facts'!) The simple fact is that the fire was set by a Muslim mob. Are we really to believe that a train full of Hindus immolated themselves for political gain? And there is no discussion of the historical context in which the riots occurred, nor of the attempts to quell the riots, with many arrests of Hindus as well as Muslims. No mention that the mosque at Ayodhya was indeed built on the traditional birthplace of Rama, nor that the Hindu destruction of the mosque was bloodless, unlike the innummerable incidents of Muslim terrorism since medieval days. Even minor details in the article are ridiculous, such as the protrayal of Hanuman as violent. Anyone who knows Hindu religious art knows that it is sweet to a fault. And then, the talk of Hindu envy of Muslim sex organs gives her thinking away as radical feminist rubbish.
She justifies her reaction by equating Islamic terror to the Gujarat riots. The two things are clearly different - while the former is planned attacks on civilians to cause maximum damage by a network of groups occurring regularly in the 21st Century, the latter was sporadic fighting by the civilians themselves, called riots, and occurred over a specific period in 2002 after a triggering incident (which was the Godhra incident where a Muslim mob burnt alive about 60 Hindus). Equating Islamic terrorism and the Gujarat riots as Martha does is absolutely untenable and unacceptable.
Can we accept such a biased anti-Hindu crusade from a professor (of ethics no less!) in one of America's major universities? There is no real attempt to present both sides of the story. From a professor of law as well as ethics!
Introduction
Amartya Sen and Identity
AVERAGE INDIAN MUSLIM WANTS ROOM TO SURVIVE
Interview with Dr Arjun Appadurai, anthropologist
Rediff, 4 Aug 06
Partition was entirely due to the ill-will of Muslims against Hindus. Gandhi did everything in his power to prevent it, to the point of making a fool of himself. As mentioned elsewhere on this page, most Muslims in India voted for partition, and most of those cynically stayed behind to exploit the better Indian economy. Above all, what matters is that Pakistan has been promoting violence in Kashmir and India proper, all in the name of Islam. Hundreds of Kashmir Hindus have been killed and thousands displaced. India has done no such thing to Pakistan. The riots in India are typically of Muslim origin, like the infamous Moplah riots of the 1920s, with Hindus occasionally reacting out of desperation. The last 'poster child riot' of the Indian left, namely the riots in Gujarat, were in response to the burning of Hindu women and children in a train by Muslim terrorists, and this on top of incessant terrorism in Kashmir. And was it Hindus who attacked parliament with guns, or various temples with bombs? And so on and so on. Finally, the Muslims in India rarely speak up against this terrorism, nor do they try to befriend the Hindus. Instead, they insist on carving out a state-in-a-state with their own special laws that follow the Sharia. Only a few educated semi-Muslims like Abdul Kalam claim any fondness for the Bhagavad Gita, whereas countless 'moron swamis' have proclaimed to find the spirit of the Gita in the Koran, which is absurd. This naive 'kindness' is never reciprocated. Find me one single authentic Muslim cleric who has discovered the spirit of the Koran in any Hindu scripture.
Early on in his continuously provocative book, Sen writes about how 'many of the conflicts and barbarities in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique and choiceless identity'.
One way to describe Kader Mia is to see him as a poor day labourer, living in ramshackle accommodation, chronically hungry, and with a family that was constantly deprived. He could also be described as a Muslim person, which he was. He was put to death just outside our house because of this last identity, which was regarded by the Hindu rioters to be the only one that was relevant, and it was that identity that led to the violence in the form of eliminating a member of the so-called 'enemy community'.
He also faults those in India who are convinced that Indian civilization is in fact a Hindu civilization.
There is no after-world, nor any religious practice for attaining that. . . . [Religious] injunctions . . . have been laid down in the [scriptures] by clever people, just to rule over [other] people.
...Thus Rama spoke in righteous rage
J'av'ali's speech to chide,
When thus again the virtuous sage
In truthful words replied:
'The atheist's lore I use no more,
Not mine his impious creed:
His words and doctrine I abhor,
Assumed at time of need.
E'en as I rose to speak with thee,
The fit occasion came
That bade me use the atheist's plea
To turn thee from thine aim.
(i.e. go back to rule. S.R.K.)
The atheist creed I disavow,
Unsay the words of sin,
And use the faithful's language now
Thy favour, Prince, to win.'Who really knows?' it asks about creation. 'Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced?. . . perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not — the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows — or perhaps he does not know.'
Shashi Tharoor (WP): Review of Sen's A Passage to India
Amartya Sen (Rediff): On cricket and patriotism
Shabana Muhammad (FFI): Where Can I Buy a Brain? (satire)
Deceiving for Communal Harmony
Talisma Nasreen Denied Visa
PAWAR: TO KEEP PEACE, I MISLED PEOPLE ABOUT 'A93 BLASTS
in the Indian Express, 12 Aug 06
TALISMA 'SHATTERED' BY TOURIST VISA
in the Hindustan Times, 16 Aug 06
Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, whose one year residential permit expires on August 16, has been granted only a six month tourist visa by the Indian government, putting a big question mark on her future stay here.
Muslim law board: Throw Taslima out of India
Bhaskar Roy: Secularism is not about appeasing terrorists
Banning Conversions By Fraud Or Inducement
Misconceptions About Caste
How 'Hindu Fanatics' Treat The Pope
Swami Vivekananda on Missionary Hypocrisy
Pope Uproar vs. Graham Staines
More Dalits Converted
Rebellion in the Northeast
Case of Bobby Jindal
Trouble in Orissa
Francois Gautier: Will Hinduism survive the present Christian offensive?
Arun Shourie's 'Missionaries in India' (reviewed by C.J.S. Wallia)
Koenraad Elst: The Problem of Christian Missionaries
Gautam Sen: The Uncertain Future of Hindus [more]
Ashok V. Chowgule: Christianity in India (the Hindutva perspective)
S.R. Welch: Evangelism's Quest to Conquer the World
Proselytization In India (an Indian Christian's perspective)
Rajiv Malhotra: The Conversion Agenda
Dalit Freedom Network (website)
K.M. Talreja: Holy Vedas & Holy Bible: A comparative study
HRW: Anti-Christian Violence on the Rise in India
CWN: Hindus Target Christians in India
Adventists: Well-known Leader Speaks Out Against 'Foreign Christians'
Hindu Voice UK: Row over Indian 'Anti-Conversion Law'
Aroup Chatterjee: Mother Teresa, the Final Verdict
Chris Hitchens: Pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic and fraud
Christopher Hitchens: Interview on Mother Teresa
Susan Shields: Mother Teresa's House of Illusions
Walter Wuellenweber: Mother Teresa - Where are her millions?
Mother Teresa's Hidden Mission in India:
Conversion to Christianity
TIME Magazine: Praises Mother Teresa without reservation
ARUN SHOURIE: THE POPE DISPELS ALL DOUBTS!
One thing to be said for the Pope's visit: he has silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists. Whenever attention has been drawn to the plans the Church has of converting India to Christianity, to its plans of 'reaping the great harvest for Jesus', these propagandists and secularists have asserted that a miasma was being manufactured to sow hatred. Now that the Pope has himself declared that the Synod of Bishops was 'a call to conversion'; now that he has reiterated his call to the Bishops to 'open wide to Christ the doors of Asia'; now that he has proclaimed the goal of the Church again, 'just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent'; now that he, having heard reports of the Bishops has proclaimed his expectation, 'the character, spiritual fire and zeal' of Asians 'will assuredly make Asia the land of a bountiful harvest in the coming millennium'; now that having recalled what he wrote in Redemptoris Missio — 'God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for sowing of the Gospel', — the Pope has announced, 'This vision of a new and promising horizon I see being fulfilled in Asia'; now that the Pope has embraced as his own what his Bishops had proclaimed — 'the heart of the Church in Asia will be restless until the whole of Asia finds its rest in the peace of Christ, the Risen Lord' — now that he has again proclaimed that the very purpose of the Church is evangelization, that it is 'driven' in this task by 'the Holy Spirit' indeed that 'the Holy Spirit is the prime agent of evangelization', that the Church is 'empowered by the Holy Spirit' to carry out this task, the secularists seem a bit non-plussed about how to make out that the apprehensions which were being expressed about the Church's plans and stratagems are figments manufactured to justify persecution. Rediff: Pope: Third millennium will witness harvest of faith in Asia
Rediff: Zealots to lie low during Pope's stay
Rediff: Anti-Pope yatra ends in Delhi
Rediff: Sainiks held for anti-Pope protest
Rediff: VHP willing to garland pope
Rediff: Bajrang Dal demands apology from Pope
Rediff: VHP wants an apology from the Pope
The VHP are supposed to represent the dreaded Hindu fanatics. As you can see, they are a bit confused as to just how they feel about the Pope. Arun Shourie, the eminent defender of Hinduism, is correct when he says that Hindus should take the Papal invitation to 'interfaith dialogue' with a considerable grain of salt! Or as SRK says, somewhat more acerbically, 'Looks like there is better 'interfaith understanding' between the religions of 'love' and 'peace' than either have with the accursed cow-worshipping Pagans.'
There may be situations where surrender is the lesser evil. Thus, we should not judge those Hindus too harshly who saved their skins by succumbing to brutal Islamic pressure to convert. But in the past two centuries, when the oppressors were mere liberal Britons and smug Nehruvians, remaining loyal to Hinduism didn't take that much bravery. The man who sees his friends abandon him when he is out of luck, though all they risk by keeping his company is a bit of a bad name by association, has the right to take a skeptical view of not just their friendship, but of their character as well. Even his enemy, who sees the so-called friends cross over to his own side, will not have a high opinion of them. If the Sikhs and Ramakrishnaites want to save their honour, they had better declare themselves Hindu before the anti-Hindu atmosphere fades away.
BBC: Anger over Gujarat religion law
'One thing I would tell you, and I do not mean any unkind criticism. You train and educate and clothe and pay men to do what? To come over to my country to curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion and everything. They walk near a temple and say, 'You idolaters, you will go to hell'. But they dare not do that to the Mohammedans of India; the sword would be out. But the Hindu is too mild; he smiles and passes on, and says, 'Let the fools talk'. That is the attitude. And then you, who train men to abuse and criticise, if I touch you with the least bit of criticism, with the kindest of purpose, you shrink and cry, 'Don't touch us; we are Americans. We criticise all the people in the world, curse them and abuse them, say anything; but do not touch us; we are sensitive plants'. You may do whatever you please; but at the same time I am going to tell you that we are content to live as we are; and in one thing we are better off - we never teach our children to swallow such horrible stuff: 'Where every prospect pleases and man alone is vile'. And whenever your ministers criticise us, let them remember this: if all India stands up and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that which you are doing to us. And what for? Did we ever send one missionary to convert anybody in the world? We say to you, 'Welcome to your religion, but allow me to have mine. You call yours religion, but allow me to have mine'. '
Note that while the Ummah reacts collectively ('monolithically') to the Pope's alleged insult to Mohammad, they are not collectively apologising for the churches burnt/vandalised or the slain Italian nun. The faithful of all denominations and their assorted pontiffs are also maintaining a studious silence over the murder of the nun, a fellow Christian. Now contrast this with the Passion Plays staged every year over the death of Graham Staines and his sons at the hands of irate Pagans in India.
The Graham Staines affair involved a missionary and his family who were killed by Hindus who resented his activities. This was blown out of proportion by the pseudosecularist press to make it look like there was a wave of Hindu fanaticism spreading through India. The true wave of fanaticism comes from certain Muslims, but unfortunately it is taboo to say this in many parts of India.
This is not traditional Buddhism, but Ambedkarite Buddhism to which conversions are taking place. This has little to do with Buddha's tenets.
The Sun Temple at Multan has been described by early Arab geographers like Sulaiman, Mas'udi, Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal who travelled in India during the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian era. The Arab invaders did not destroy it because besides being a rich source of revenue, it provided protection against Hindu counter-attack. 'Multan', wrote Mas'udi, 'is one of the strongest frontier places of the Musalmans... In it is the idol also known by the name of Multan. The inhabitants of Sind and India perform pilgrimages to it from the most distant places; they carry money, precious stones, aloe wood and all sorts of perfumes there to fulfil their vows. The greatest part of the revenue of the king of Multan is derived from the rich presents brought to the idol... When the unbelievers march against Multan and the faithful do not feel themselves strong enough to oppose them, they threaten to break their idol, and their enemies immediately withdraw.'
Of course, I must concede that the Christian padres are more sophisticated (or devious, to put it crudely).