Sarpedon

Hi everyone! I am quite confused as to why this change has occurred, but it must have come about as a result of previous actions, I suppose.

Anyway, we were having some charming discussions about the rise of the Hindu Nationalist Party in India, and what this means for Indian politics and Hinduism in general. Though I am not a hindu or an Indian, I am interested in this topic and frequently lurk around it. So anyway I would just like to restart the ball rolling with some observations:

Hinduism seems to be too diverse to fit in one rice kettle.

Militant Hinduism is nothing new.

The rise of the BJP is probably a reaction to increased islamic terrorism and the rise of islamist governments in Pakistan.

India is developing rapidly, and the central government is seeking some impetuous for increasing its power and religion is convienient.

India needs a strong central government to take its place among the worlds great powers.

I enjoy Nan.

Sorry about these strange comments, but I hope we can rebuild the forum as quickly as possible.

Ave!
Sarpedon

hinduwoman

Serpedon I agree with all the above.
Regarding the use of religion as a means of increasing power, I would add that it is suceeding not only because of Islamic violence, but also because of aggressive Christian evangelising ---- it is not nice to see in black and white that Hindus are children of Satan in missionary run school text books.
The more Hinduism as a whole is condemned, without glancing at the Abrahamic religions, the more defensive Hindus will get and band together toi support a 'hindu' party --- exactly what happened in recent Gujarat election.

Hinduthvaite

Hindu Nationalist Party is a misnomer for BJP which literaly is Indian people's Party. Now almost a non-entity Hindu MahaSabha can rightly be called Hindu Nationalist party. Hindu Nationalism is a secular ideology - more secular than the present day pseudo-secularism. In India strange things have been done in the name of secularism. For example Indian Government gives substantial subsidies to Madrassas that teach medieval version of Islam. Indian Government tazes per head Rs 2500 for Amarnath Yatra which fetches Govt even otherwise revenue through tourism but annually looses more than Rs 3,000,000/- in subsidised Haj pilgrim flights to Saudi. Guess what BJP - "The Hindu Nationalist party " did as it came to power talking all the time about "appeasement of none and justice for all". Well, it hicked Madrassa funding and increased Haj subsidy and its election partner National Conference increased the tax on Amarnath Yatra.
So much for secularism and Hindu nationalism!
:banghead:
In India prior to independence Hindu nationalism meant fighting for one-man one-vote principle (because Congress and Muslim League stood for 3votes for one Muslim) Now Hindu Nationalism which is dubbed as Hindu 'supramacism","chaunvinism" and "fascism" by leftists , has such "fascist" demands as common Indian civil law for all Indians, (Triple Talak and polygamy are allowed for Muslims in the name of secularism) , right to manage their educational institutions and religious places (Govt. 'manages' Hindu places of worship while it gives subsidies in electric consumption etc. to minority places of worship in whose management Govt. cannot interfere.),reurn of their temples in the three holiest places (Benaras,Ayodhya and Mathura) where the temples were destroyed and mosques built on their debris by Muslim invaders (No they are not demanding the return of all more than 20,000 places of worship turned into mosques all over India or not even an apology from Pope whose church ran the world's longest inquisition in India'a Goa), to stop the massive evangelical drive and war of soul harvest launched on Hindus by multinational evangelical and Jehadi organizations.
Well BJP is a sand horse that can't cross the river and usher us into the shore. I hope sincerely Hindus get a better real party with a vision. They want good ties with Israel. THey want their govt. to give voice and take action to stop for the ethnic cleansing that is happening for Hindus and Buddhists in Bangladesh and Tibet and Afganistan and Pakistan and within India at Jammu & Kashmir and Tripura and Mizoram. We Hindus have only this land as our own just as our Jewish brothers have only Israel.

S.Aravindan Neelakandan.

Amit Misra

Ditto Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc?
Do we agree that ways of thinking or, to be pompous, intellectual categories are only constructs of convenience? That our late lamented slogan of India's Unity in Diversity is not supposed to force the citizenry into either hindu or muslim, christian, sikh etcrice kettles, but into a melting pot?

How "new" is new? And what is the target of militancy?
The current Narendra Modi militancy is new, in that it is unprecedented in barbarity, scale, motivation and scope. The political underpinnings of Modi-fied Hinduttva are as old as the 1920s, which is spanking new by Indian standards of reckoning time. The ideological basis of Golwalkar-Sawarkar-Hedgewar brand hinduttva is copied (notice that the hinduttvavadis have never had an original idea in the last 78 years) from Hitler, Strasser, Goebbels et al, with "global replacements" of "Bharat" for Deutschland and "Yavanas" for Juden.
Also, in re targets. Historical (ancient and medieval) militant hindus targeted their quarries without overriding concern for their religion. In so far as the idea of India was not crystallized into a Federated State, such warfare was not even internecine.

Just invert the object and subject, and see whether you sound logical. IMHO, the islamists in Pak and the Hinduttvavadis in India feed on each other. Ever since Jinnah and Malaviya-Tandon, et al started this vicious circle in the 1930s, its been spinning out of control.

For one, India is not developing rapidly. We haqve a 5% annual growth rate despite the sops that the neo-liberal honchos from the west offer us. We have spates of suicides by farmers who can't break out of their debts despite bumper crops. We have starvation deaths, drinking water problems, huge shortfalls in electricity supply, all-pervasive corruption, and a suicidal nuclear weapons program.
In the face of this huge mountain of problems, all that the central government is seeking is a fig leaf to hide its you know what: the organ that has raped and sodomized the citizenry for the past 50 years. Religion is not just convenient: it is the last but one refuge of the scoundrels. The last-patriotism- is kept under wraps, only to be shown off now and again.

India needs a full belly, drinking water, literacy, and individual freedom to take its place as a Nation-State among its peers.

Ever tried it with Nahari/ Nihari ? (the muslims are so contrary, they are ambiguous about spelling as well)!

Cheers
Amit

P.S.: hi hinduwoman

Hinduthvaite

Amit Misra's Nonsensical sense of history and society:


Indian Islam has always been diverse with communities often organically united with local other communities. But withthe advent of Wahabism there has been consisten monoculturing of Islamic community (imbibing it with a sense of International Ummah not much distinct from ComIntern) with Arab supramacism. Many local Islamic scholars were even killed. But Hindu nationalists consistently appealed to Muslim masses to join hands to fight for the common cause of India (Maulviya included). However Mahatma Gandhi thought the International Ummah feeling can be used as an effective anti-imperialist weapon against Britishers. So he supported the fundamentalist Khilafat movement which wanted the restorationof Caliphate of Ottamon Empire. With Turkey turning to Mustafa Kamal Pasha the basic logic of Khilafat collapsed. But it succeded in alienating the Muslims from nationalist stream. 'If a Kafir Gandhi could toy with Islamic Ummah' thought a Jinnah then so opposed to Khilafat movement, 'why not I do the same with my community'. Thus was born a revitalised panIslamic movement in India. Hindu nationalists were no match to the Muslim League from the beginning. After all Hindu nationalism accepts as its cultural basis diversity and stands for it. 2002 October the most cherished Vijayadasami function of RSS was addressed by the leader of Tibetan Government in exile. Last year Joseph Pulakunel , a famous Christian intellectual addressed its function. Late Fr. Antony de Mella whose beautiful book 'Sadhna' has been put on a condemned list by Roman Church (by Cardinal Ratzinger). His works has been translated into Tamil by RSS workers. The problem with panISlamism, Marxism and Evangelism is that they are expansionist monocultures of the mind with an Abrahamic memetic core. India is freeing Herself slowly from the clutches of Nehruvian socilaist raj of corrupt bureaucrats and Macaulite Brahmins peddling Marxism. Today Hinduthva has emerged as the protector of cultural diversity in this part of planet. Also it is a liberating force for the centuries of oppressed masses like myself who were called by the then ancestors of today's Socilaist Bramin Babus as Sudras and untouchables. Manuvadhis wanted Dalist to stop studying Upanishads and Vedas. Pseudo-secularist government of India virtually banned all aids to Hindus to start schools while the govt. shamelessly took away all money from the temples. But today RSS brings us much wanted education, health care and yes we dopnot have to lose our heritage and culture to get these services. No wonder the upper caste pseudo-secularist morons and Marxist perverts want Hindu natinlism to be seen apar with Jehadi barbarism and Evangelical racism. Often these Macaulist Marxist mongrels also believe in Aryan race theory and think that we Sudras are a lower race who can live in equality with them only under the patronising state of pseudo-secularism.

S.Aravindan Neelakandan

hinduwoman

Hindu militancy is not new, because in middle ages Hindus have fought against the Muslim rulers. After Muhammad Gahzni returned destroying Somnath, Hindu rulers attacked him and his local guide misled him into the desert without water. Vijaynagar empire was purposely set up to stem Islamic expansion, while Shivaji wanted to reestablish Hindu dominance. It is only the terminology that is confusing. Hindus who reject that Hinduism can be a violent in defence, just does not know their history.

__________________________________________________ __
The ideological basis of Golwalkar-Sawarkar-Hedgewar brand hinduttva is copied (notice that the hinduttvavadis have never had an original idea in the last 78 years) from Hitler, Strasser, Goebbels et al, with "global replacements" of "Bharat" for Deutschland and "Yavanas" for Juden.
__________________________________________________ __

Yes, this is one accusation often made. Perhaps you can supply references? Original quotes please and not what some eminent historian has concluded.

Amit Misra

hinduwoman wrote:
Exclusively? Unitedly? Calling themselves hindus? I really think that in (the) middle ages, armies have fought armies, and very rarely in India, the populace has fought against rulers. It is symptomatic of the RSS indoctrinaire to provide hindu/muslim labels to these events.
and also, with reference to the Nazi inspirations of Hinduttva:
Sorry, I do not have access to primary sources, but try William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", specially sections in Book I under chapters such as "The Intellectual Sources (?) of the Nazi Movement" towards the beginning of the book, when he is discussing the influence of Nietzche (spelt OK?), H.S. Chamberlain and Wagner on Hitler's thought.
Shirer, BTW, has not been granted "eminence" by our eminent Minister Arun Shourie. Also try "Bunch of Thoughts", "Hinduttva" and "We, or Our Nationhood Defined" by you-know-who.
BTW, how's your atheism doing ?

hinduthvaite wrote:
... followed by a lot of text
I protest! The nonsense that follows in the text is not my view of history and society at all!
I suspect, with my North-Indian, Brahminical superiority, that much of the nonsensical text is lifted from electronic resources made available to RSS apologists, and the remaining are the fulminations of someone who has not been able to de-class himself. hinduthvaite, please get over the artificial categories created by political propagandists. We're human beings, conversing rationally.

aristhrottle

Hello Amit,

Could you elaborate on your above mentioned statement, please?

Interesting thought. While the genesis for the RSS philosophy might have risen from a reaction to islamic extremism in India in the 1920s, I think it has managed to garner better support (across a wider spectrum of Indian society) only after the 1980s vis-a-vis, the Kashmir problem.

Suicidal. Strong word. Could you elaborate on this, please?

aristhrottle

Hello Aravindan,

This seems (to me) to be an oxymoron. Does cultural diversity require a "protector"? I would imagine it would be otherwise.

Perhaps you might be able to clarify your statement better.

Also,

Could you make use of paragraphs in your posts? It makes for difficult reading if you lump everything together.

Amit Misra

Aristhrottle, I don't want to be long-winded, but I'm just suggesting that the much-vaunted diversity of Hinduism is not exclusive to this religion alone. Roman catholics, for example, with all their subhead classifiers--Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Jesuits, etc, are just as diverse as practitioners/adherents of other religions. They differ in their beliefs, but are in agreement about being x-ian. Hindus, likewise, are diverse in their beliefs. You also wrote:
The genesis of the RSS ideology (not philosophy: they are too infantile to be called philosophical) lies in alarm at the prospect of an exploitative, cast-restricted order falling apart in the beginning of the 20th century. Interests vested in the maintenance of exploitative structures hit upon this plan of claiming religious sanction for their political aims. No wonder you have a triumvirate of Brahmins from Maharashtra at the fount of RSS ideology...

And also, you want me to elaborate on how nukes can be suicidal. Not the right time or place. Would you like to go through the website of the Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons? http://www.isanw.org