hinduwoman

Yes Mishra, it is easier to burden myself with the baggage of Hinduism, since I just pick the things I like. To be a leftist on the other hand seems to require subscribing every tenet of faith.
As for atheism, it is certainly needed, but also to sweep away Islam and Christianity.

Amit Misra

Do I take that to mean that you feel "burdened with the baggage of Hinduism"?
Cast it off: it'll be like the Pilgrim's Progress!
In your leading post, you said you felt like a Hindu leftist. When I point out that unsavoury characters like me also think they are on the Left, you weigh the relative burdens and (generously!) find mine the harder to bear. I don't think that my pink colour of Leftism needs me to subscribe to any "tenet of faith" -- the reverse in fact. My Left-leanings urge me to "Question Authority."
I would be interested to learn what your perceptions of the Faith of the Left are. Hope you find time to list them.
I guess we'll find it very hard to agree on anything. "Sweeping away" Islam and Christianity is not part of my agenda for atheism. My philosophy or world-view does not find strength in destroying that of another.
Cordially,
amit

Boro Nut

No, sadly, I'm afraid not. They've all moved to Bradford.

Boro Nut

Amit Misra

Oh? I thought all that was left of Bradford was Pakistan...

hinduwoman

sorry, but I shall be burdened only if I had to bear it unwillingly. As I said, I pick and choose.

Some of the tenets of Left in India that is laughable:

Aryan invasion is a reality. If anyone based on genetics or recent archeological discoveries question it he is a fascist.

Asking for uniform civil code is fascist.

Saying that Islam and Christianity are fundamentalist in their tone because they believe in exclusive salvation is fascist.

Pointing out that Hinduism has many good points and in some respects is superior to abrahamic faiths is fascist. (of course, with some white men saying some parts of Hinduism are good, this stance has become modified a bit)

Saying there had been conflict between Hindus and muslims on religious grounds throughout Indian history is fascist.

Any attack on any Christian missionary or nun is automatically the handiwork of RSS.

Amit Misra

Sorry for a short digression, hinduwoman, but I'm beginning to suspect that you aren't one person. Your language and the content of your posts varies a great deal. I'm also suspicious because a lot of Right-wing content on the WWW is written by consortia (see, for example, Dr. Jai Maharaj at what used to be soc.culture.indian).
Coming back to the tenets of the Left in India.
What you list are not tenets, at least in so far as my knowledge of language goes. A few tenets of the Left, for example, include:

Thou shalt ever strive to liberate the means of production from the control of Capital,
Thou shalt ever strive to liberate the working people from exploitation by the rich and the powerful,
Thou shalt not accumulate capital or goods beyond your need,
and so forth.

The (IMHO correct) identification of fascist tendencies within the Hindu Right as exemplified by the examples you list bears further discussion.

1. Aryan "invasion" is a straw man. I, as an unworthy representative of the Left, am happy with the concept of "continued interaction b/w Aryan and non-Aryan people in the region of the Indo-Gangetic planes over several centuries, leading to acculturation." If, in the course of this long interaction, there were battles between these people, this does not mean that the Aryans got up one day and invaded the lands lying to the East of Indus.
The imagined history of the Hindu Right would prefer to have the Aryans as "original" inhabitants of this geographic region. This view is not borne out by any "recent archaeologic evidence" (recall the brazen fraud that Rajaram and Jha tried to perpetrate on us a couple of years back).

2. A Uniform civil code is not fascist: the people who want to write one currently, are! I would not accept a Uniform Civil Code that recognizes a Hindu Undivided Family as a body corporate, liable to taxation under different norms, in comparison to a Muslim or Sikh undivided families. (If any non-Indians are reading this, an aside. A Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) comprises parents and progeny of several brothers and sisters living in the same accomodation and pooling their income).

3. Belief in exclusive salvation equals fundamentalism? I'll need more on that from you before I can respond.

4. Hinduism has many good points? Why not? So do Islam and X-ianity, don't they?

5. Conflict b/w H & M has of course been a reality. So has conflict b/w Capital and Labour! Which of these conflicts means more to you?

6. Things are coming to such a pass that very soon any "attack" on any one out of the Hindu Right brotherhood is going to be the handiwork of the RSS-inspired Weltenschaung

Bye for now. Hope I get the more educated hinduwoman to reply this time!

hinduwoman

Misra, about your theory I am several different persons I will have to think before giving an answer for all I can think of now is jokes about multiple personalities. But the other points ---

1) Quiet frankly, I do not see what 'original inhabitants' mean, because ultimately everyone came from Africa. The position is Mohenjodaro civilization is built by a branch of Vedic tribes --- which is nothing impossible.

2) So what do you think the RSS wants to do? Has it ever said anything about particular laws they want to implement regarding the family of all Indians? One law for everyone. After all, there is a common penal code.

3) A Christian or Muslim who believes that only his sect is going to heaven is automatically intolerant. he believes he is superior and has the right to impose his faith on others by force or fraud for the latter's own 'good'. That is why these two religions have always been more fundamentalist and prone to jihads and crusades. To quote an oft-repeated statement these days --- why shall we tolerate intolerance?

4) SO? in any so called secular newspaper any attack on Christianity and Islam, except in the most delicate terms like some of them had been bad, is forbidden. The leftists I spoke with seems quite bewildered even at the thought these two religions can promote evil in any way. Speak of it in conference, even of the recent religious cleansing going on in Bangladesh and you are ungentlemanlike who is trying to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere. Meanwhile waxing eloquent on evils of Hinduism is considered a mark of liberation.

5) As long as it is recognized that brotherhood between muslims and hindus throughout eternity is a myth and clashes took place on religious grounds, I don't care. As for conflict between capital and labour, as long as we have the present social setup it will continue.

6) Point not clear.

Amit Misra

'Original' inhabitants : great! we agree! so you do not hold with the Hindu Right's tenet that Aryans were the 'original' inhabitants of the Indus valley. Maybe you're not so sure about whether or not there was an invasion, but are you willing to buy that the Indus valley of ca 2500-3000 years ago had a demography that showed influx of peoples from Central Asia? Must you insist on "Vedic" tribes, or is that just shorthand? If you are comfortable with the idea that the Rg Veda was in all probability composed by a pastoral people who were different in lifestyles from the inhabitants of Mohenjo Daro, we're both on the same side against the imagined history of the Hindu Right.
What I think the RSS wants to do : I think that the RSS wants to capture political power in India, build a predatory, fascist State that is particularly beneficial to the Military-Industrial complex, marginalize rural and working-class India and silence dissent brutally. When it has done so (and it is sure to succeed in the short term!), it wants to establish Hindu hegemony in South Asia, and establish the Hindu on the world forum.

Gotta rush now, but I'll be back.
amit

Amit Misra

Continued: What the RSS wants to do with the common civil code
With special reference to the inordinate privileging of the majority community in India, I fear that the RSS wants to implement its stated agenda of reducing the Yavana to a second-class citizen, shorn of legal rights to follow precepts of Abrahamic traditions. At the same time, it would empower equally obscurantist traditions associated with Hinduism, leading to increase of resentment in the practitioners of Abrahamic religions. Therefore, if a common civil code is being written by a Left-of Center government, I would welcome it, provided it does away with things like tax exemption of religious activity (including minority education institutions propagating religios education). The RSS, I fear is going to do away with minority education institutions, but build in protection for chauvinist Hindu religious, cultural and civil-society institutions in the garb of a "common" civil code.

3. Intolerance:
Your statement does not seem logically valid. Even if I grant it some kind of non-logical, intuitive validity, I would be tempted to reply with an analogous statement: A Hindu who believes that only his/her sect is uniquely placed to pursue a way of life that is ennobling and satisfying is not only intolerant, but an obnoxious prig as well!
Recent events in India also testify to the fact that the scale of untruth, fraud and forgery that proponents of the Hindu Right resort to, have put even Goebbels to shame. The latest is Mr. Vinay Katiyar (BJP General Secretary, UP)'s contention that there have been 2 people by the name of Manu who wrote smritis; with the ancient one being "worshipped in every Hindu household" and the medieval guy being the one who's responsible for the anti-women, anti-lower caste and pro-patriarchy, pro-feudalism content of the smarta tradition.

4. Good and Bad Points:: I can probably sympathize with you if you've come across the "Chic-Secular-Left." But to put a better perspective on it, I sort of go along with the idea that since there is any number of Right-wing baddies out to malign innocent and not-so-innocent Muslims, I'd better use my limited resources and time to contest the space that the Right-wing propaganda seeks to occupy. Sure, there's much that is wrong with muslim and x-ian society in India, and in happier times, I'd engage with it raucuously enough. But when any criticism is liable to be triumphantly carried of by murderous goons; to be used as an excuse for killing-raping-burning-looting the muslim or x-ian citizen, I'd rather keep my mouth shut till such time as this threat has been contained.

5. Brotherhood myth : Brotherhood b/w various communities in India is not a myth-- haven't you heard of fratricidal conflict? Cane and Abel, or Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh, or Ashok and whatzisname?
Jokes apart, my position is that there is much more in common than is different b/w Indian Hindus and non-Hindus living in the same apartment block or village or town or geographical zone. It is this common ground (in Rajani Kothari's recent agonizings) that is denied by the RSS-mafia.

6. (Forget it!)

Bye
Amit

Hinduthvaite

Sorry to burst some bubbles...

1. Even the supposedly fiercest of the Hindu nationalist organizations - Bajrang Dal does not oppose conversions of Dalits to Buddhism. However the Delhi conversion was actually a different piece of cake altogether. As the renowned
rationalist and the editor of Internationalist Rationalist Bulletin Mr.Sanal Edamaruku himself born in a Christian family rightly points out, "The Delhi ceremony was a perfect replica of its predecessor....Everything was exactly the same as 46 years before - but still there was a major difference. Official
organizer of the Delhi meeting was the "All India Conference of Scheduled Castes and Tribes", an umbrella organization of government employees with a membership of more than three millions. Secret wire puller and financier of the event, however,
was the All India Christian Council (AICC), an outfit of the Evangelical Church, which comprises of all kinds of neo-protestant "born-again" and missionary organizations
and is dominated by Baptists and Pentacostals. ....The Evangelical Church sailed with the wind and sponsored - under the shroud of secrecy - the participation of 300 Dalits in the Durban conference, the biggest, best-coordinated and most vocal group. There was, of course, a strategy behind the generous support. The Durban conference, was the calculation, would cause great embarrassment to the Indian government."

2. While Dr. Ambedkar resolutely rejected the Aryan Invasion Theory and distanced himself with contempt from any movement that gave a racial interpretation to caste system. Further
he rightly pointed out how food and occupational taboos played a crucial role in creating untouchability (which means Buddhist non-violence too played a strong role in the emergence
of untouchability.) [A small diversion: Role of Buddhism & Jainism in creating untouchability] In South India for example Jainism a non-violence religion played an important role in making Sudras untouchables (because they ploughed the land and in the process killed many organisms for their living.) The result was that the Sudra populationof Tamil Nadu was vehemently anti-Jain and pro-Brahminical even though in the merchant and warrior classes Jainism was patronised. Ineveitably millitant Saivism emerged victorious in South India. Most ancient Tamil literature has as its deities Vishnu,Skanda and Indra. But soon it was Shiva who was hailed as the Lord of the South. Further in Brahminical mythology again and again we find the sublatern elevation. Both Mahabharatha and Bhagavatha have stories where in a Brahman seeking wisdom leaves his house and at last earns it from a woman and a butcher (who are supposedly inferior). Then a great sage seeks immortality and in the desert he meets a butcher carrying water in a pitcher made of dog skin. As the sage refuses the water offered by him, the butcher turns out to be God and the water in the dog skin is actually nectar of immortality. As against this in Buddhist Jataka tales as well as popular legends importance is given to birth and occupation. Thus a Bodisattva could never be born a butcher but any
Brahminical God or Goddess would.]
The Dalit organizations of today which are secretly funded by and explicitly supported by Church use the name of Dr.Ambedkar but seldom care for his vision and wisdom. They have openly embraced the racist and anti-Semitic attitude of Medieval Church so much so that the 'Dalit Voice' magazine supported by Church asked its readers to read 'Protocalls of the Elders of Zion" to understand an alleged 'Brahmin-Zionist' conspiracy. Brahmins were actually Jews according to this magazine. So much for Aryan invasion theory being a straw man and its role in promoting racist hatred for the sake of evangelism.

3. Today Buddhists as well as Hindus face ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh. It is the Hindu nationalists who are the only political group that raises its voice against this. RSS anual meet this year was presided by the head of the Head of the Tibetan Government in Exile. 'Hindu Fascists opposing Buddhist conversions' is thus a halluciantion created by missionary-marxist propaganda.
4. As far as Jha & N.S.Rajaram, the whole controversy was unnecessarily created by Michael Witzel who had an axe to grind in the whole affair. Now it has been established Beyond doublt that there has been NO computer distortion to show any seal as a horse. Further many competent archaeologists like Jim Shaffer,
Jonathen Meyer,B.B.Lal, Dr. Bhist have given clear proof that from Harappa to second urbanization there does exist a cultural continuity and internal evolution with NO outside invasions. Further Hindu nationalists do not claim at stage a racial purity. On the otherhand they have consistently rejected reading a racial
conflict between two culturally and racially different monolith societies (one indigenous and the other alien) as was done by colonial Indologists and their memetic descendents. And modern aracheology and scholarship have vindicated the stand of Hindu nationalists.

-S.Aravindan Neelakandan

(By the way Amit as a great 'practicing scientist' who olds 'career scientists' like Dr.Kalam in contempt, with all your leftist leanings and post-modern methodologies I wonder what research you are into ...)