Here here!

Personally, I go red and bloated, clutch at my chest, bulge my eyes and make gurgling noises before turning a nice dark shade of purple. Fortunately I recover quickly.

Bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism:
Still disagree. Two wrongs, and so forth. Moreover, as one post insightfully commented, until the hindutva hordes lay siege to western institutions, there will not be much of an opinion against them in the west. By the same token, bulwarks agiainst islamic fundies in India are meaningless constructs. Whatever demographic fudging the hindutva crowd may resort to, the fact remains that hindus are a significant majority in India. Whatever semblance of democracy we have here is still enough to ensure that Islamic fundies are never going to call the shots in India. So the bulwark stuff is misplaced. Do these minority-bashing braggarts have the guts to go and fight the real terrorists in Kashmir? No-- there you have no demonstration of militant hinduism a la Panun Kashmir in Delhi or New York or DC.

Hindus and Biological Evolution:
You have a point- no tenet of the humongous set of beliefs that a 'hindu' (to my knowledge) possesses, militates aginst biological evolution. In fact, in high school curricula, there is a chapter on evidences in favour of evolution. Along with the junky stuff of 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' I have encountered one innovative school kid who wrote in an exam paper that the scriptures support evolution! You see, the first avatar of Vishnu was a fish (aquatic), the next was a tortoise (amphibian), the thirs was a boar (mammal)... neat, huh?
Which brings me back to hindutva. These guys have the irritating habit of picking up something like this from ancient/medieval literature, and throwing it in the teeth of technological/scientific practice. So, you'll find hindutva apologists trying to tell you that Rama had the technology for ballistic missiles, hydrogen bombs, space flight, and so forth. No, I'm serius, they really do!
Finally, Sastan, I just can't go with a proposal that says one fundamentalist is entitled to his or her own brand, since it is a minority view in the global perspective. And, if you look at the numbers, hindutva types are not that small a population in terms of world figures...
Amit
P.S: I still maintain that there is a distinction between commonn or garden hindus and those informed-indoctrinated-influenced by hindutva.
Amit

There is an increase in the number of hindu fanatics, but it has got more to do with politicians using religion as a tool to get votes rather than the religion turning violent.

And i always used to wonder why "hindutva" appealed more to people in the northern part of India, especially UP and Bihar. Maybe local factors play a major role in people getting sucked into the movement and the need to justify their existence.

I see two extremes in the country, on one hand u have the urban/sub-urban areas inundated with a generation of teenagers and kids going gaga over the western pop culture with no inkling whatsoever about the "freedom is best enjoyed with responsibility" (and these are typically the well-off category plus the others in the not-so-well-off but "wannabe"-category) and on the other extreme politicians who are drumming up religion to get votes plus people who are scared of "change", the economic liberalization has brought about.

Wanted to key in more…but remembered about a thread which talked about the same long ago….i will just paste my views from there…..
The common man and the so-called educated souls have been lured by the political shenanigans due to different and common reasons; "identity crisis" is the common reason. Given the amorphous nature of the religion/philosophy and the diversified cultures which are parts of a country called "India", Hinduism is what offers them a common platform, an identity, a definition which suits them to adhere to, a glorious past which they can be proud of and which will make them forget the pains of being part of a developing economy. For the common man a different reason is the threat to his religion/nation and for the educated masses it is the view that "minority religions are taking advantage of the secular status and making a mockery out of it". The following statement is often heard in universities all over india and in offices - "these guys say they are minorities and get all the concessions and reservations. In the same breath, many of them support an enemy state (Exp : pakistan..from the fact that most muslims choose to support the opposing cricket team than the home team).

Muslims have been the objective of most of the religious attacks till date, christians joined the ranks after RSS/bajrang dal politicised the issue of conversion. One of the pricking points for most educated has been "why do they only try to convert the poor and especially those belonging to rural areas?"

when so many people live in a nation and the governing method is democratic, some people tend to take advantage of misplaced emotions and that is what had happened. Can you even imagine the kind of violence that will take place even if 50% of the so called "hindus" want to become bigots?

And like Welch pointed out in that thread …..
So while i am disturbed by the turn of events, i would not give a verdict yet, this is and was a resilient lot and hopefully the culture and people would be able to assimilate this new movement as well.

JP

Amit Misra,

I have to concede that you make some interesting points against my bulwark against militant Islam notion.

I still think it's a pretty good notion though and I hope that events don't prove me wrong....or too wrong anyway.

Personally, I'd like to see them get up into Kashmir and put their money where their mouths are.

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic.

phaedrus;
thanks for your response, but maybe i'm too dense to have grasped what you're trying to say. this thread started with me griping that the infidels are being lenient towards hindu bigots or the 'hindutva brigade.' there seem to be 2 reasons why people in the west aren't too worked up about these characters. the first parallels Brecht's poem about how the gestapo first came to get the jews, then the communists, and so on, while the protagonist kept quiet. then one night, the gestapo came for him, and he yelled, but there was no one to help him-- they'd all been taken away while he had watched silently...
the other reason for a soft corner for the hindutva people is that they appear to be some kind of antidote to evangelical christianity and aggressive islam.
unfortunately, i don't think either of these reasons are valid. up and at 'em folks-- bash a few hindu bigots whenever you get a breather from the hard work you have against the x-ian and islamic variety.
Amit

Amit Misra,

I'm sure I'm not unique in pondering discussed topics when I'm not here on this forum.

I think I'm actually coming around to sharing your opinion but I have one reservation, the question; if Hindutva doesn't provide a resistance to Islamic fundamentalism, who will?

Forum, Why not put all of the religeons bullshit into a large paper bag. Shake it up. Spill it out on to a table. Then start all over again.

Sastan

Amit Misra - until the hindutva hordes lay siege to western institutions, there will not be much of an opinion against them in the west.

My contention would be that they will never, not in the forseeable future, be a threat; an examinatio of their (lack of a) bloody history would support that.

By the same token, bulwarks agiainst islamic fundies in India are meaningless constructs.

I disagree.

Whatever demographic fudging the hindutva crowd may resort to, the fact remains that hindus are a significant majority in India.

Has anyone ever disputed that?

Whatever semblance of democracy we have here is still enough to ensure that Islamic fundies are never going to call the shots in India.

Let's look at the Indian sub-continent, three countries were formed during the partition, those with Islamic majority populations have struggled through various military juntas, whereas the Islamic-minority country became and remained a democracy. Would it be too politically incorrect to suggest a correlation? Especially when taken in context with the rising 'Arabisation' of the various Islamic cultures around the world (read increasing fundamentalism). And the Islamic population in that time (in India) has doubled to about 20% of the population, in another 50 or so years, they would be approaching a majority, having overtaken Christianity in the whole world as well. Isn't a threat to democracy forseeable?

So the bulwark stuff is misplaced. Do these minority-bashing braggarts have the guts to go and fight the real terrorists in Kashmir? No-- there you have no demonstration of militant hinduism a la Panun Kashmir in Delhi or New York or DC.

Isn't that a good thing?

In fact, in high school curricula, there is a chapter on evidences in favour of evolution.

I'm not sure about India, but in Bangladesh, despite being an Islmaic majority country, does teach in support of evolutionary theory in biology subjects. I'm not sure whether you were deliberately trying to convey that the Indian curricula has only limited support for evolutionary theory, but that was the impression I got. Is this correct?

I have encountered one innovative school kid who wrote in an exam paper that the scriptures support evolution! You see, the first avatar of Vishnu was a fish (aquatic), the next was a tortoise (amphibian), the thirs was a boar (mammal)... neat, huh?

Nothing particular innovative about this, I first encountered this in Milner's Encyclopedia of Evolution, and I've encountered many Hindus citing this (the theory, not the book), as well as verses from the Rg Veda, while researching on Creationism in Hinduism.

phaedrus - Exp : pakistan..from the fact that most muslims choose to support the opposing cricket team than the home team

I've heard this claim before, is there anything other than anecdotal evidence to support this?

Waning Moon Conrad - I think I'm actually coming around to sharing your opinion but I have one reservation, the question; if Hindutva doesn't provide a resistance to Islamic fundamentalism, who will?

I don't expect Hinduism to present any serious bulwark against Islam, the Hindu's are, for lack of a better word, pussies. I can see them being reduced to an insignifact group if Islam continues to rise as it is unchecked. I'm betting on a dying and threatened Christian world to rise up for one final, likely bloody, fight, before one or both shrink and dissapear.

'.. bulwarks against Islamic fundies are a meaningless construct': It is not meaningless for the Hindus who see their religion being maligned while told to respect Muslim sensibilities.
Protest against Hussein's naked Saraswati is bigoted; endorsing fatwa against Rushdie is openmindedness.
Demonstrating against "Water" leads Star TV to lecture Hindus on democratic rights of citizens; Vandalizing halls showing Gaddar leads Star TV to say that scenes offensive to minorities (doing namaz wearing sindoor) should be cut out.
To smash an old ruined mosque is evil; when Buddha statues are smashed, well let no intellectual speak against it.
To assemble for Kumbh mela is superstition; to subsidize hajj --- from hindu taxes yet --- (and my atheist tax as well), but not hindu pilgrimages, is secular.
And let us not forget the debate about uniform civil code.
In each of the above cases, the Muslim masses led by their politicians and mullhas and abetted by so called Intellectuals are getting the better of the deal.
And of course Islamic terrorism draws its sanction from the Koran itself. Check out my Islamization of Taliban thread.

Islamic fundies are never going to call shots in India : that is what people thought before Partition. The sultans and Moghols ruled by the sword and they can do again.

"minority-bashing braggarts" ---
Funny. during such discussions minority always means Muslims and christians. They never mean the Jews or Parsis. But then since these groups never insult Hindu culture or have any conflict with hindu neighbours they cannot be 'minorities', right? Also let us never never mention Bahais or Ahemediyyans who are relentlessly persecuted by mainstream Islam. It is nasty and illeberal to speak of Islamic persecution of minoritites.

Sastan, many Hindus agree with you that we have become pussies. That is why Shivsena, Bajrangdal etc are giving armed training to any Hindu who asks. In particular camps for women's self-defence have become hugely popular. Incidentally, I think a report said that a whole gang of Shivsena turned up to fight in Kashmir but the army naturally turned them back since they lacked expert training.
When I read stories of Hindu Munani shooting dead members of Muslim militant parties I feel disturbed; on the other hand I feel comforted by the thought that Hindus have protectors. After all in the Partition riots it bloody well wasnot Muslim tolerance that saved Hindus; it was militant Hindus like Aryasamaj and Sikhs and the ordinary Hindus who were determined to fight.

Waning Moon wrote:
"if Hindutva doesn't provide a resistance to Islamic fundamentalism, who will?"

easy. rational opinion. fighting fire with fire is misplaced in this case. the two kinds of bigotry are only going to feed upon each other.

Sastan wrote: My contention would be that they will never, not in the forseeable future, be a threat; an examinatio of their (lack of a) bloody history would support that.

But Hindutva does have a bloody history. They have engineered hindu-muslim riots and carried out pogroms in Punjab during the 1940s. In the early 1990s, Mr. Advani left a trail of blood in the wake of his kitschy "hindutva chariot" as he drove from Gujarat to Bihar. In 2000-2001, they vandalized village churches, murdered x-ian preists and 're-converted' former x-ians to their brand of hinduism.

Sastan "Has anyone ever disputed that (hindus are numerically far more significant)?"

Yes! one major campaign by the hindutva crowd is that muslims (the randy b*s) don't use contraception, and so have more children than hindus. The fact is that progeny numbers correlate to education and awareness status much more tightly than religious grouping.

Sastan- "(south asian)countries with Islamic majority populations have struggled through various military juntas, whereas the Islamic-minority country became and remained a democracy. Would it be too politically incorrect to suggest a correlation?

not politically incorrect, but a trifle short-sighted. I maintain that one important factor among many that led to partition was the effort by the feudals to protect their interests. So, while India proceeded to implement land reforms and try to give land to the tiller, Pakistan's right-thinking politicians kept geting sidelined by the big range barons. Not surprisingly, these landowners were the major players in all aspects of statecraft, including high echelons of the military. Politics in Pakistan, therefore has several hallmarks of range wars of the Wild American West. BAngladesh (former East Pakistan) tried to democratize during the 1960s, but got caught up in a militant movement. Mujib-ur-Rehmans murder and subsequent events have shown that once more, it is the machinations of the privileged few that prevent the country from achieving democracy. India, the seemingly-democratic polity, is no less in the grip of the 'privileged few' that I mentioned earlier, but that is another story. The upshot is, political events in south asia are better viewed from economic perspectives instead of appraisals of religious affiliations of the citizenry.

Sastan- "Indian curricula has only limited support for evolutionary theory, but that was the impression I got. Is this correct?"

No, that kid's answer to an exam question was just a funny aside. But, yes, if you look at a recent document called the "National Curricular Framework" issued by the top honcho (needless to say, and RSS-type) of India's National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), you get the uncomfortable feeling that the Hindutva horde is out to sneak in elements of Hindutva obscurantism into school curricula.

Les Benton wrote: "Why not put all of the religeons bullshit into a large paper bag. Shake it up. Spill it out on to a table. Then start all over again..."

Not on *my* table, you don't! :-)

Hinduwoman, sorry for not replying to your post, but I'm far too weary of the uninformed and dangerous nonsense you've been fed on. Maybe tomorrow...