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How Will India's Attempted Hinduization Impact Pakistan and the World?

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The maximum victims of these cowardly Islamic terrorists are Muslims themselves. The only thing they will achieve in non Muslim countries is to get the Muslims there kicked out.



There is nothing wrong in banning beef. The wrong thing will be forcing Muslims to eat or sell haram pork or drink alcohol (wonder which Pakistani was famous for having both these haram stuff!).

Like China is doing.

China orders Muslim shopkeepers to sell alcohol, cigarettes, to ‘weaken’ Islam - The Washington Post

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/10/02/china-22-tons-of-pig-meat-sold-as-halal-to-muslims/
& your banning beef will islam become weak ?lolzz.
Or it has been weaken in China ?lolzz
Well , I.only can tell you to come over to Pakistan & find one shop or restaurant selling pork in any form ?
About alcohole , its permitted for only minority group (Hindus +Christians +others )
You need to show your none Muslim I'd card to get a bottle of alcohol in any alcohol store in Pakistan ?
No Muslim can be a owner or a seller of that in Pakistan by law ?
Its a big offence in Pakistan if you are a Muslim & been found with alcohol or drunk with alcohol ?
Even though , we are a well recognised Muslim country but still we have put alcohol on the sell for our minorities who , are free to do what they might want ?
Being said that , I want you to write a petition to your dam moodi tea boy , to declare India as a Hindu state , & let world knows about it then check what happens to you next ?
& you must know there are 58 Muslim countries officially on earth , from where none of the govts can kick them out , if they stage some protest against their Hindu community , same as what you did in Gujarat & now ?
So rest asure , consciousness of India being a Hindu state are much more dangerous then been a secular state ?
But let it happen , so you can beg at least 58 Muslim countries to accept you ?
Same in case of Israel , after so long its been boycotted by most ifrhe Muslim states ?
Are you ready for that ?lolzx
If you are , I don't have any problems , i will be happy to help any , Indian Sikh , Christian , Muslim , & Nagaland peoples to get what ever they need to fight your Hindu state ?lolzz
That's my right in this world ?

Gita addresses the whole humanity as one, this is what I have written regarding tolerance.
Is gita been practiced by moodi or his gangs ?
 
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Haq's Musings: Rise of Sangh Parivar: Modi Accelerating Total Hinduization of India?

There have been serious questions raised about India's secularism since its independence in 1947. Such questions have gained new urgency with the rapid rise of Hindu Nationalists and the election of BJP leader Narendra Modi in 2014.



Serious doubts about India's claim of secularism were articulated well by Indian journalist Kapil Komireddy in an Op Ed piece he wrote for the UK's Guardian newspaper a few years ago. Here's an excerpt of it:

"Indian Muslims in particular have rarely known a life uninterrupted by communal conflict or unimpaired by poverty and prejudice. Their grievances are legion, and the list of atrocities committed against them by the Indian state is long. In 2002 at least 1,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Hindu mobs in the western state of Gujarat in what was the second state-sponsored pogrom in India (Sikhs were the object of the first, in 1984). Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi, explained away the riots by quoting Newton's third law. "Every action," he said on television, "has an equal opposite reaction." The "action" that invited the reaction of the mobs was the torching of a Gujarat-bound train in which 59 Hindus pilgrims, most of them saffron-clad bigots who were returning home from a trip to the site of the Babri Mosque that they had helped demolish a decade earlier, perished. The "equal and opposite reaction" was the slaughter of 1,000 innocent Muslims for the alleged crime of their coreligionists."

Komireddy goes on to describe how India's "liberal" elite rationalize sectarianism in "secular" India:

"The novelist Shashi Tharoor tried to burnish this certifiably sectarian phenomenon with a facile analogy: Indian Muslims, he wrote, accept Hindu rituals at state ceremonies in the same spirit as teetotallers accept champagne in western celebrations. This self-affirming explanation is characteristic of someone who belongs to the majority community. Muslims I interviewed took a different view, but understandably, they were unwilling to protest for the fear of being labelled as "angry Muslims" in a country famous for its tolerant Hindus."

The Sangh Parivar's project to Hinduize India has accelerated with the landslide victory of BJP leader Narendra Modi and his inauguration as Prime Minister of India in 2014. Some of the manifestations of this phenomenon as reported by the Washington Postare as as follows:

1.The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (or the World Hindu Council) launched a program called “Gharwapsi” (or Homecoming) to urge India’s Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism, which they said was the religion of their ancestors. It has resulted in many reported instances of forced mass conversions of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

2. Beef sales have been banned in several Indian states. The most egregious of such laws is the Maharashtra state law that criminalizes possession or consumption of beef.

3. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has said the Hindu scripture Bhagwad Gita must be declared a “national scripture.” Another BJP politician, Manohar Lal Khattar, the chief minister of the northern Haryana state has said Bhagwad Gita is considered more important than India’s secular Constitution.

4. Poor school children are being denied eggs, a cheap protein needed by growing youngsters, in their school lunches by India's vegetarian Hindu elite, according an NPR report.

The above changes are just the tip of a much larger iceberg of Hindu transformation of India with major appointments of Hindu ideologues by ruling party to key positions in education and media posts at the center and the provinces.

It's not just in India that the Hindu Nationalists are gaining strength. Their programs receive significant funding and support from non-resident Indians (NRIs). A report entitled "Hindu Nationalism in the United States: A Report on Non-Profit Groups" makes the following assertions regarding the strength and nature of the Hindu nationalist movement in the United States:

a. Over the last three decades, a movement toward Hinduizing India--advancing the status of Hindus toward political and social primacy in India-- has continued to gain ground in South Asia and diasporic communities. The Sangh Parivar (the Sangh "family"), the network of groups at the forefront of this Hindu nationalist movement, has an estimated membership numbering in the millions, making the Sangh one of the largest voluntary associations in India. The major organizations in the Sangh include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

b. Hindu nationalism has intensified and multiplied forms of discrimination, exclusion, and gendered and sexualized violence against Muslims, Christians, other minorities, and those who oppose Sangh violations, as documented by Indian citizens and international tribunals, fact-finding groups, international human rights organizations, and U.S. governmental bodies.

c. India-based Sangh affiliates receive social and financial support from its U.S.-based wings, the latter of which exist largely as tax-exempt non-profit organizations in the United States: Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), Sewa International USA, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation-USA. The Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party - USA (OFBJP) is active as well, though it is not a tax-exempt group.

Acceleration of "secular" India's total Hindu-ization under Prime Minister Modi represents a sea change for South Asia region and the world. It could prove to be verydestabilizing for India, a much larger and far more diverse country than its neighboring Islamic Pakistan. Such instability could derail India's economic rise unless its forced Hindu-ization is checked by the country's leadership with external pressure from India's friends. And its effects will be strongly felt far outside the borders of India. It is already causing serious issues between India and Pakistan that could lead a devastating war in South Asia with severe consequences for the entire world.

Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Over 100 US Academics Warn Silicon Valley Against Business With Modi
Modi's Pakistan Policy
Pro-Modi Indian-American Enters Silicon Valley Congressional Race
India is World's Biggest Oligarchy
Gujarat Riot Victims Hindu Nationalists Admire HitlerIndia Has World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates
Pakistan Needs More Gujaratis?
India's Israel Envy




Haq's Musings: Rise of Sangh Parivar: Modi Accelerating Total Hinduization of India?


How many Hindus are remained in Pakistan??? But Muslim population has grown substantially in India since 1947. Also Pakistan is officially a Muslim country, how can you even speak about another country?
 
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Haq's Musings: Rise of Sangh Parivar: Modi Accelerating Total Hinduization of India?

There have been serious questions raised about India's secularism since its independence in 1947. Such questions have gained new urgency with the rapid rise of Hindu Nationalists and the election of BJP leader Narendra Modi in 2014.

Serious doubts about India's claim of secularism were articulated well by Indian journalist Kapil Komireddy in an Op Ed piece he wrote for the UK's Guardian newspaper a few years ago. Here's an excerpt of it:

"Indian Muslims in particular have rarely known a life uninterrupted by communal conflict or unimpaired by poverty and prejudice. Their grievances are legion, and the list of atrocities committed against them by the Indian state is long. In 2002 at least 1,000 Muslims were slaughtered by Hindu mobs in the western state of Gujarat in what was the second state-sponsored pogrom in India (Sikhs were the object of the first, in 1984). Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi, explained away the riots by quoting Newton's third law. "Every action," he said on television, "has an equal opposite reaction." The "action" that invited the reaction of the mobs was the torching of a Gujarat-bound train in which 59 Hindus pilgrims, most of them saffron-clad bigots who were returning home from a trip to the site of the Babri Mosque that they had helped demolish a decade earlier, perished. The "equal and opposite reaction" was the slaughter of 1,000 innocent Muslims for the alleged crime of their coreligionists."

Komireddy goes on to describe how India's "liberal" elite rationalize sectarianism in "secular" India:

"The novelist Shashi Tharoor tried to burnish this certifiably sectarian phenomenon with a facile analogy: Indian Muslims, he wrote, accept Hindu rituals at state ceremonies in the same spirit as teetotallers accept champagne in western celebrations. This self-affirming explanation is characteristic of someone who belongs to the majority community. Muslims I interviewed took a different view, but understandably, they were unwilling to protest for the fear of being labelled as "angry Muslims" in a country famous for its tolerant Hindus."

The Sangh Parivar's project to Hinduize India has accelerated with the landslide victory of BJP leader Narendra Modi and his inauguration as Prime Minister of India in 2014. Some of the manifestations of this phenomenon as reported by the Washington Postare as as follows:

1.The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (or the World Hindu Council) launched a program called “Gharwapsi” (or Homecoming) to urge India’s Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism, which they said was the religion of their ancestors. It has resulted in many reported instances of forced mass conversions of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

2. Beef sales have been banned in several Indian states. The most egregious of such laws is the Maharashtra state law that criminalizes possession or consumption of beef.

3. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has said the Hindu scripture Bhagwad Gita must be declared a “national scripture.” Another BJP politician, Manohar Lal Khattar, the chief minister of the northern Haryana state has said Bhagwad Gita is considered more important than India’s secular Constitution.

4. Poor school children are being denied eggs, a cheap protein needed by growing youngsters, in their school lunches by India's vegetarian Hindu elite, according an NPR report.

The above changes are just the tip of a much larger iceberg of Hindu transformation of India with major appointments of Hindu ideologues by ruling party to key positions in education and media posts at the center and the provinces.

It's not just in India that the Hindu Nationalists are gaining strength. Their programs receive significant funding and support from non-resident Indians (NRIs). A report entitled "Hindu Nationalism in the United States: A Report on Non-Profit Groups" makes the following assertions regarding the strength and nature of the Hindu nationalist movement in the United States:

a. Over the last three decades, a movement toward Hinduizing India--advancing the status of Hindus toward political and social primacy in India-- has continued to gain ground in South Asia and diasporic communities. The Sangh Parivar (the Sangh "family"), the network of groups at the forefront of this Hindu nationalist movement, has an estimated membership numbering in the millions, making the Sangh one of the largest voluntary associations in India. The major organizations in the Sangh include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

b. Hindu nationalism has intensified and multiplied forms of discrimination, exclusion, and gendered and sexualized violence against Muslims, Christians, other minorities, and those who oppose Sangh violations, as documented by Indian citizens and international tribunals, fact-finding groups, international human rights organizations, and U.S. governmental bodies.

c. India-based Sangh affiliates receive social and financial support from its U.S.-based wings, the latter of which exist largely as tax-exempt non-profit organizations in the United States: Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), Sewa International USA, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation-USA. The Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party - USA (OFBJP) is active as well, though it is not a tax-exempt group.

Acceleration of "secular" India's total Hindu-ization under Prime Minister Modi represents a sea change for South Asia region and the world. It could prove to be verydestabilizing for India, a much larger and far more diverse country than its neighboring Islamic Pakistan. Such instability could derail India's economic rise unless its forced Hindu-ization is checked by the country's leadership with external pressure from India's friends. And its effects will be strongly felt far outside the borders of India. It is already causing serious issues between India and Pakistan that could lead a devastating war in South Asia with severe consequences for the entire world.

Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Over 100 US Academics Warn Silicon Valley Against Business With Modi
Modi's Pakistan Policy
Pro-Modi Indian-American Enters Silicon Valley Congressional Race
India is World's Biggest Oligarchy
Gujarat Riot Victims Hindu Nationalists Admire HitlerIndia Has World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates
Pakistan Needs More Gujaratis?
India's Israel Envy




Haq's Musings: Rise of Sangh Parivar: Modi Accelerating Total Hinduization of India?

Let us assume the fanatic Hindus of India convert all Muslims into Hindus. What can you Pakistanis do about it ?
You can whine and bitch. I will give you a hint - your internal problems will still remain. Your Arab and Iranian co-religionists would not care.
 
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& your banning beef will islam become weak ?lolzz.
Or it has been weaken in China ?lolzz
Well , I.only can tell you to come over to Pakistan & find one shop or restaurant selling pork in any form ?
About alcohole , its permitted for only minority group (Hindus +Christians +others )
You need to show your none Muslim I'd card to get a bottle of alcohol in any alcohol store in Pakistan ?
No Muslim can be a owner or a seller of that in Pakistan by law ?
Its a big offence in Pakistan if you are a Muslim & been found with alcohol or drunk with alcohol ?
Even though , we are a well recognised Muslim country but still we have put alcohol on the sell for our minorities who , are free to do what they might want ?
Being said that , I want you to write a petition to your dam moodi tea boy , to declare India as a Hindu state , & let world knows about it then check what happens to you next ?
& you must know there are 58 Muslim countries officially on earth , from where none of the govts can kick them out , if they stage some protest against their Hindu community , same as what you did in Gujarat & now ?
So rest asure , consciousness of India being a Hindu state are much more dangerous then been a secular state ?
But let it happen , so you can beg at least 58 Muslim countries to accept you ?
Same in case of Israel , after so long its been boycotted by most ifrhe Muslim states ?
Are you ready for that ?lolzx
If you are , I don't have any problems , i will be happy to help any , Indian Sikh , Christian , Muslim , & Nagaland peoples to get what ever they need to fight your Hindu state ?lolzz
That's my right in this world ?


Is gita been practiced by moodi or his gangs ?

You'll help them just has you have claimed to help the kashmiri insurgency; by doing absolutely nothing while sitting in the confines of your house being a good little armchair general. Keep at it, convert.
 
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Let us assume the fanatic Hindus of India convert all Muslims into Hindus. What can you Pakistanis do about it ?
You can whine and bitch. I will give you a hint - your internal problems will still remain. Your Arab and Iranian co-religionists would not care.

Pakistan needs to do nothing when fanatic Hindus are doing such a good job with no help from Pakistan :-)
 
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Pakistan needs to do nothing when fanatic Hindus are doing such a good job with no help from Pakistan :-)

You OP says you are concerned about 'hinduization' of India and here you are expressing happiness over 'hinduization' of India. What has made you change your opinion in just 11 pages of post.
 
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You'll help them just has you have claimed to help the kashmiri insurgency; by doing absolutely nothing while sitting in the confines of your house being a good little armchair general. Keep at it, convert.
Its a long dam story , but in short I might make you happy , that I was PA soilder took part in kargill , my count was more then 199 eyeball shots of Indian soilders , so I have done what I should ?
Now its your turn to come out of your little "ghupha" & do something about the gang of Gujarat being , in power in India ?
 
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Fertility and Fate of Nations. #Modi, #BJP benefit from high birth rates in North #India The American Conservative

Fertility and the Fate of Nations | The American Conservative

India offers a startling example of this change, and its explosive political consequences. Half of that country’s component states now have sub-replacement fertility rates comparable to Denmark, or even lower. Meanwhile, some very populous states (like vast Uttar Pradesh or Bihar) retain the old Third World model. That stark schism is the essential basis for any understanding of modern Indian politics. As we might have predicted, the high fertility states are firmly and traditionally religious, and provide the base for reactionary and even fascist Hindu supremacist movements. Those currents are quite alien to the “European” low fertility states, located chiefly in the south, which tend to be secular-minded, progressive, and tolerant. Balancing those different regions would pose a nightmarish choice for any government, but the current Hindu nationalist BJP regime aligns decisively with the high fertility regions that provide its electoral bastions. The lesson is grim, but obvious: when you have to choose between two such distinct demographic regions, it is overwhelmingly tempting to turn to the one with all the voters, and all the young party militants. Invest in growth!

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High-fertility eastern Turkey is of course much more religious than the secular west, and this is where we find the Qur’an Belt that so regularly supports Islamic and even fundamentalist causes. It simply makes electoral sense for the government to respond to the interests of that populous growing area, and to drift ever more steadily in Islamist directions.

But there is a complicating fact. Those fast-breeding eastern regions are also home to what the Turkish government euphemistically calls the “Mountain Turks,” but which everyone else on the planet calls “Kurds.” Turkey’s Kurdish minority, usually estimated at around 15-20 percent of the population, is expanding very rapidly—to the point that, within a generation or two, it will actually be a majority within the Turkish state. This nightmare prospect is front and center in the mind of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who a couple of years ago issued an apocalyptic warning of a national Kurdish majority no later than 2038. That date is a little implausibly soon, but the principle stands.

In the face of seemingly imminent demographic catastrophe, what can Turkey do? One solution is for the government to plead with citizens to start breeding again—even those western secularists—and to get the national fertility rate closer to 3 than 2. But since that outcome is highly unlikely, the government must resort to short term solutions, and to extol religious, Islamic identities over ethnicity. Ideally, a return to Islam might even provide an incentive for families to reassert traditional values, and to have more children. Alongside that policy, the government has an absolute need to suppress stirrings of Kurdish nationhood or separatism on Turkish soil.

From a demographic perspective, the Turkish government is going to find any manifestations of Kurdish identity terrifying, far more than even the hardest-edged Islamism. ISIS is an irritant; the Kurds pose an existential demographic threat.

And in large measure, that explains why Turkish jets are targeting the Kurdish PKK militias, rather than ISIS.
 
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You underestimated Hindus badly. Hindu was imagined as fragile grass eating people by the invaders. But, today's (extremist)Hindu is "Virat Hindu" armed by Swords and Pistols, driven by Sangh ideas perpetually waiting for the foregone Mughals and Afghans/Persians to arrive so that the Badla/revenge can be carried for the 800 years of foreign rule on India. They see today's Muslims and Christians as those bygone people and era.

Hindus are drawn to terrorism by the right wing groups not alone Maharashtra or Nagpur, most of the Hindi heartland is mindlessly castey and their leaders are now RSS fellows. In fact joining RSS is seen as casual as joining as scouts, guides or NCC! Imagine the extend RSS penetrated to Hindu society cleverly disguising their violent agendas! It is not us infidels who are in the wrong track. The sword wielding Sanghi needs a re-examination before aiming to ban beef or force fascist agendas on us.

Unfortunately, there's no websites like "faithfreedom" or Ali Sina's to show them some light and moderation. The illiterate farmers who known only ek maar do tukra attitude are motivated by the Khakhi Mussolini's. The hate for Islam is motivated again and again. Those Khaki's sitting on the ground's were not alone doing exercises; Their brain is also masterfully brainwashed with the hatred for Abrahamic religions and the idea of Akhand Bharat. Today, just after a year on power, not alone Hindu extremists, common Hindus are also motivated against minorities and they are told that their rights were taken by these Abrahami "Adharmi's". Just like Hitler's purposefully created hate propaganda against Jews. Today, organized religions are Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. No, Hinduism is not a way of life. It CAN be defined and it emulates Islam and communism in organizational unity and hierarchy structure with great inputs of Fascism, Mein Kamph and more - assuming the support of common Hindus for RSS-BJP. South Indian states like Kerala seems to be the very few lone atolls of secularism and tolerance.
 
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maybe you cannot do anything

He can just remain obsessed. An impotent obsession, utter feeling of humiliation and jealousy.

What a pathetic, useless, impotent, self hate filled life.

You OP says you are concerned about 'hinduization' of India and here you are expressing happiness over 'hinduization' of India. What has made you change your opinion in just 11 pages of post.

The OP is just a scavenger, scavenging anything in his obsession with India and Hindus.

Such people feel it gives the only meaning to their otherwise empty, useless, pathetic, self loathing filled life.
 
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#Hindutva #Science? Pranks And Scientific ‘Cranks’ in #Modi's #India | Nidheesh J Villatt | Tehelka Investigations,

Hindutva Pranks And Scientific ‘Cranks’ | Tehelka - Investigations, Latest News, Politics, Analysis, Blogs, Culture, Photos, Videos, Podcasts

Similar to Zia’s Pakistan, apart from creating an atmosphere where those who uphold a scientific temper are physically attacked and even killed (for instance the murder of anti-superstition activist Govind Pansare in Maharashtra in February last year), the government has also appointed Hindutva supporters with questionable academic credentials as heads of scientific institutions. There have also been instances of public funds used for researching ‘Hindutva science’. This raises the important question that many are asking: Is the Hindutva brigade aiming for the creation of a ‘Hindu Pakistan’?

“By contaminating science with absurd claims based on an ultra-nationalist political project, these self-proclaimed scientists are out to make the society regressive,” says Gauhar Raza, a scientist and poet based in Delhi. “Religious epics are narrated to younger generations as historical truths. This is exactly what happened in Pakistan.”
 
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I am sure the world with over 100 countries as christian based and 55 of them based on Islamic majority won't be impacted at all if one country is to return to its roots or so-called "Hinduize". No minority including us has a problem with it. In fact, it would strengthen our identity as a strong nation and we would then be able to focus on harmonizing ancient philosophies with modern scientific research.

Don't see how Pakistan will be impacted in any way at all.

You can only be impacted if you think you are being impacted.
 
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Top #Indian Scientists Say #India's #Modi Government Is Becoming Increasingly Anti-science. #BJP

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...reasingly-antiscience/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share … #science


Three murders, a suicide and a rash of political appointments at universities have thrown Indian academia into an uproar against the conservative (right-wing) government. Prominent artists, writers, historians and scientists are speaking out against an intensifying climate of religious intolerance and political interference in academic affairs.
“What’s going on in this country is really dangerous,” says Rajat Tandon, a number theorist at Hyderabad Central University. Tandon is one of more than 100 prominent scientists, including many heads of institutions, who signed a statement protesting “the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country.” The statement cites the murder of three noted rationalists — men who had dedicated their lives to countering superstition and championed scientific thought — and what they see as the government’s silent complicity.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the 2014 general elections in India in a landslide victory. The BJP and Modi, in particular, are aligned with the extremist right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. (This unholy alliance is comparable to the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party, but the RSS is a paramilitary group with more violent overtones than the Tea Party has shown so far.) Together, the BJP and RSS promote the agenda of Hindutva, the notion that India is the homeland of Hindus and all others — the hundreds of millions of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in this sprawling, secular democracy — are interlopers.
“The present government is deviating from the path of democracy, taking the country on the path to what I’d call a Hindu religious autocracy,” says Pushpa Mittra Bhargava , who founded the prestigious Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Hyderabad.
Despite his blatantly anti-secular stance, Modi’s stated goals for economic development are wildly popular, particularly among the country’s majority Hindus. But academics and intellectuals have been protesting the erosions on academic freedom almost from the start.
In January 2015, at the 102nd session of the Indian Science Congress, several members of the BJP government led a session on ancient Indian science and claimed that thousands of years ago, Indians had built planes that could fly not just on earth but between planets. There were other outlandish claims — that the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha is proof that Indian ancients knew the secrets of cosmetic surgery, for example. Scientists were dismayed, and some did call for the session to be canceled, but their primary response then was still ridicule, rather than outrage.
In February 2015, economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen stepped down as chancellor of Nalanda University in Bihar, protesting the “considerable government intervention” in academic decisions. That same month, gunmen attacked a left-wing politician called Govind Pansare and his wife; Pansare later died of his injuries. Then, in August, gunmen killed Malleshappa Kalburgi, a leading scholar and rationalist, at his home. “They were a threat, so they were eliminated,” says Tandon.
The attacks shocked the academic community and ignited protests from writers, filmmakers and historians; many returned their national awards as a symbol of their dissent.
Scientists were late to the table, which is not surprising, given that most of Indian science relies on government funds. Still, in October, three separate groups of scientists made statements — the total signatories now number nearly one thousand — protesting the government’s inaction against the acts of violence. (Bhargava returned his Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in India, to the president.)
 
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