Mourn idea of India, but don’t forget that the idea of people is changing too

[Ajay Ghatak]

Curious....when did India force you to quit Hinduism? Do you have any personal examples to share?

Waaay too often. Christian Missonaries used to come to my father's village and convert people by telling them how they are going to hell because they are worshipping stone. Their conversion activities were protected by secular free speech laws even if they are openly mocking Hindu religion. Try that against Islam in Pakistan and swift hand of law will snap you into two. Eventually a large number of neighbours bought into that drama and they pushed us out of neighborhood as it had become a christian neighbourhood.

Even after anti-conversion laws, there is seldom any arrests or convictions. So long they are cursing Hinduism, its all kosher under secular framework of Indian laws.

 

[Arulmozhi Varman]

There is no need to impose one set of laws to ALL Hindus. State level laws can deal with difference in regional variances on such matters. The differentiator with Muslims and Christians is that they can NEVER have a common understanding with Hindus because they have pledged loyalty towards a religion foreign to India. They will ALWAYS look towards outside India for filial and religious community ties. Such kind of people cannot be allowed to have political power in a nation which is homeland for Hindus and Sikhs.

Fortunately for Hindus, variances are tolerated and even revered. There is no single one book of truth in Hinduism. Nor one single god and no one single authority on what is divine. Variances among Hindus can be reconciled because Hindus do not expand by converting each others to their faith. They usually want to be left to their devices -- unlike Christians and Muslims. This tolerance of variances have been used to push this f'ed up secular agenda.

If you look at it, Sikhs also do not actively try to convert others into their faiths. They have in past asked for political identity but a peaceful co-existence with them is very much possible for Hindus. Besides they don't have the "increase the tribe" agenda of Muslims in India or save the souls agenda of Christians. Like variances of Hinduism, they want to be left alone to their devices and possibly a political identity. A compromise based on autonomy and political representation can work with Sikhs and Hindus. No such thing is ever possible with muslims or christians.

Now you are contradicting again. You want "state" to take care of regional differences. What do you think on how it is right now? It is the state that is controlling Hinduism right now. Our temples lands are being sold off by commies, deavidos and even BJP folks.

While I agree that Abrahamic religion and it's culture hasn't actually tried to integrate within this land but your complains and solutions isn't an real world solution. It would result in an quagmire. A Islam with so called one book and one prophet has still has so many sects and subsects and even castes. We are even older civilisation. Uniformity can never be forced on Dharmic civilisation.

 

[samv]

In fact, a strong impression has been created that the sentiments, views and beliefs of Hindus must be respected because they are the majority or the authentic people.

Shouldn't they be respected?

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Now you are contradicting again.

When did I contradict before? How am I contradicting now?

You want "state" to take care of regional differences. What do you think on how it is right now? It is the state that is controlling Hinduism right now. Our temples lands are being sold off by commies, deavidos and even BJP folks.

Not "state". State level laws. The problem right now is that those laws are open to amendment and abuse by Muslims and Christians and commies too. By limiting power to only Hindus and Sikhs and right to vote or hold administrative and political office to only Hindus and Sikhs with explicit laws that protect Hindu interests, it will be possible to protect interests of local variations of Hindus.

True, that it may not be perfect in the sense cunning politicians or in-money folks may influence and carry out activities counter to interests of Hindus or people may misuse the very laws meant to protect Hindus against them as it happens in any society. You can counter that by means used today to counter the power of such individuals. With time, this gets better.

While I agree that Abrahamic religion and it's culture hasn't actually tried to integrate within this land but your complains and solutions isn't an real world solution. It would result in an quagmire. A Islam with so called one book and one prophet has still has so many sects and subsects and even castes. We are even older civilisation. Uniformity can never be forced on Dharmic civilisation.

There is no need to uniformity in Dharmic religions. What is needed is to prevent loss of power to the foreign influences like secular left leaning interests, Islam and Christianity. There are even small foreign origin religion and interest groups that are not exactly counter of Hindus eg Parsis. There is no need to punish them or drive them totally out of power. By co-existing with Hindus and Sikhs for past so many generations they have given an ample proof that they can be trusted to coexist in the future. There are small Jewish communities too. These also do not seek to convert Hindus into their faiths or capture Hindus lands. The underlying idea should be defend Hindu and Sikh interests and NOT to crush interests of non-Hindus and non-Sikhs. But non-Hindus should give ample proof over a very long period that they can be trusted with political or administrative power in India. That said known hostiles like Muslims and Christians cannt be trusted with political power and cannt be allowed to become large enough to challenge Hindu interests.

 

[letsrock]

When did I contradict before? How am I contradicting now?


Not "state". State level laws. The problem right now is that those laws are open to amendment and abuse by Muslims and Christians and commies too. By limiting power to only Hindus and Sikhs and right to vote or hold administrative and political office to only Hindus and Sikhs with explicit laws that protect Hindu interests, it will be possible to protect interests of local variations of Hindus.

True, that it may not be perfect in the sense cunning politicians or in-money folks may influence and carry out activities counter to interests of Hindus or people may misuse the very laws meant to protect Hindus against them as it happens in any society. You can counter that by means used today to counter the power of such individuals. With time, this gets better.


There is no need to uniformity in Dharmic religions. What is needed is to prevent loss of power to the foreign influences like secular left leaning interests, Islam and Christianity. There are even small foreign origin religion and interest groups that are not exactly counter of Hindus eg Parsis. There is no need to punish them or drive them totally out of power. By co-existing with Hindus and Sikhs for past so many generations they have given an ample proof that they can be trusted to coexist in the future. There are small Jewish communities too. These also do not seek to convert Hindus into their faiths or capture Hindus lands. The underlying idea should be defend Hindu and Sikh interests and NOT to crush interests of non-Hindus and non-Sikhs. But non-Hindus should give ample proof over a very long period that they can be trusted with political or administrative power in India. That said known hostiles like Muslims and Christians cannt be trusted with political power and cannt be allowed to become large enough to challenge Hindu interests.

Your so called "centuries" old peaceful co-existing is a huge myth. Dalits were not even allowed in to villages. Most brutal works like animal husbandry, smith, farming were forced as hereditary professions while most leisurely and lucrative professions of priesthood, land ownership, trade were reserved for upper castes.

Your passion for "hindus" is commendable but the biggest source of problem is within and not those 20 percent minorities.

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Your so called "centuries" old peaceful co-existing is a huge myth. Dalits were not even allowed in to villages. Most brutal works like animal husbandry, smith, farming were forced as hereditary professions while most leisurely and lucrative professions of priesthood, land ownership, trade were reserved for upper castes.

Your passion for "hindus" is commendable but the biggest source of problem is within and not those 20 percent minorities.

Most of issues do stem from internal weakness and injustice, no denying. Thats the reason why these external invasive elements : Islam and Christianity took root in the society in the first place -- India did not have enough defences against these elements and to be honest, there was NO India as a united political entity till 1947 plus there were vast communities of people who were mistreated historically.

That all being said, these elements, Islam and Christianity is indeed like a foreign weed. While we fix our "garden" if you will, we need to ensure that the weeds are uprooted and thrown out of our entire land, otherwise by the time we will fix things, these weeds will simply overwhelm us. They have done it all over world and to be honest they have done it spectularly successfully in subcontinent as well. They converted enough of Hindus and created two nations out of the lands traditionally held by Hindus AND they still left enough of the invasive species in the remaining in our leftover of lands to still infect us with their foreign religion, sowing seeds of another partition.

Curse on morons like Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar to not foresee this trouble. And folly and stupidity of Hindus to never create a political party to represent their interest till it was all too late. Jana Sangh came into being in 49 or so. After entire game was over. We need to ensure that in the next round Hindus are not routed out like they did in past.

 

[letsrock]

Most of issues do stem from internal weakness and injustice, no denying. Thats the reason why these external invasive elements : Islam and Christianity took root in the society in the first place -- India did not have enough defences against these elements and to be honest, there was NO India as a united political entity till 1947 plus there were vast communities of people who were mistreated historically.

That all being said, these elements, Islam and Christianity is indeed like a foreign weed. While we fix our "garden" if you will, we need to ensure that the weeds are uprooted and thrown out of our entire land, otherwise by the time we will fix things, these weeds will simply overwhelm us. They have done it all over world and to be honest they have done it spectularly successfully in subcontinent as well. They converted enough of Hindus and created two nations out of the lands traditionally held by Hindus AND they still left enough of the invasive species in the remaining in our leftover of lands to still infect us with their foreign religion, sowing seeds of another partition.

Curse on morons like Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar to not foresee this trouble. And folly and stupidity of Hindus to never create a political party to represent their interest till it was all too late. Jana Sangh came into being in 49 or so. After entire game was over. We need to ensure that in the next round Hindus are not routed out like they did in past.

Again you are mistaken on two counts - that hindus never created parties to represent themselves, and Calling Islam, christianity as foreign when the natives have embraced it and are happy with it.

On first mistake both congress and bjp are parties to represent hindu upper castes. congress was led by kashmiri brahmin family from its inception since 1947 with small exceptions of lal bahadur shastri and PV NR - incidentally both are brahmins as well. RSS was always led by brahmins except Rajendra Singh who also is an upper caste thakur.

At state level too hindus have several political parties - Samajwadi for yadavs, LJP for jats etc.

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Again you are mistaken on two counts - that hindus never created parties to represent themselves, and Calling Islam, christianity as foreign when the natives have embraced it and are happy with it.

INC was the representative of non-Muslims (Majorly Hindus) in General and provincial election in all the years leading to partition. Check out the elections from 1935 in British India. In 1945-46 election, there were two major parties, INC and Muslim League. Muslim League became the sole representative of all Muslim seats (reserved) and INC almost anywhere else. Result was a successful demand for Domanion of Pakistan. INC while promoted the idea that they represent all of India, was essentially a secular party. They were thought to represent the Hindu majority, in reality they were more of the same UK rule, after all their leadership was trained by British.

The real representation of Hindus in any sense of the word came only in 1949 with Jana Sangh. It was too late by then. They were novice in the great game of representative democracy and rules were set by their opponents : the seculars. It took them almost 75 years to gain any real power.

On first mistake both congress and bjp are parties to represent hindu upper castes.

False. Congress in ideology is a socialist secular party but in reality it is a cabal serving Gandhi Family. There is nothing Hindu about it. Their top most leadership is Hindu Upper caste, but they have nothing to do with Hinduism in their operation. They are essentially self serving elites trained by British and europeans in secularism and socialism (false one) who also happen to be Hindu upper castes.

BJP arrived on the scene way too late. It only got enough power recently. And yes, it has delivered on its promises. It will need another 100 years of BJP rule to fix things or they will need to do a Mao on divided secular Indian landscape to speed up the process.

Compare this to Jinnah : He was a Muslim serving interests of Muslims in British India and he also happened to be a european trained intellect. He did not let them bend himself to become their puppet. Thats the reason Pakistan is what it is : an honest muslim country.

 

[letsrock]

INC was the representative of non-Muslims (Majorly Hindus) in General and provincial election in all the years leading to partition. Check out the elections from 1935 in British India. In 1945-46 election, there were two major parties, INC and Muslim League. Muslim League became the sole representative of all Muslim seats (reserved) and INC almost anywhere else. Result was a successful demand for Domanion of Pakistan. INC while promoted the idea that they represent all of India, was essentially a secular party. They were thought to represent the Hindu majority, in reality they were more of the same UK rule, after all their leadership was trained by British.

The real representation of Hindus in any sense of the word came only in 1949 with Jana Sangh. It was too late by then. They were novice in the great game of representative democracy and rules were set by their opponents : the seculars. It took them almost 75 years to gain any real power.


False. Congress in ideology is a socialist secular party but in reality it is a cabal serving Gandhi Family. There is nothing Hindu about it. Their top most leadership is Hindu Upper caste, but they have nothing to do with Hinduism in their operation. They are essentially self serving elites trained by British and europeans in secularism and socialism (false one) who also happen to be Hindu upper castes.

Compare this to Jinnah : He was a Muslim serving interests of Muslims in British India and he also happened to be a european trained intellect. He did not let them bend himself to become their puppet. Thats the reason Pakistan is what it is : an honest muslim country.

Right - so proudly Janeu dhari people like Rahul gandhi or lal bahadur shastri are not hindus for you. Good luck finding your "hindus". Both INC and RSS are exclusively hindu upper caste parties - you cannot practically get more representative of hindu upper castes than that - considering they are not even 15 percent of population. If you think so you are utterly delusional.

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Right - so proudly Janeu dhari people like Rahul gandhi or lal bahadur shastri are not hindus for you. Good luck finding your "hindus". Both INC and RSS are exclusively hindu upper caste parties - you cannot practically get more representative of hindu upper castes than that - considering they are not even 15 percent of population. If you think so you are utterly delusional.

Its not only the people but its the system they create as well. Are ALL leaders in Congress ONLY Hindus? Do they serve Hindu interests? The answer to both of the question is a resounding no. If they did, the constitution of India would not be having words like secular inserted in it in what was an undemocratic slight of hand.

RSS is indeed Hindu organization but it entered the political scene way too late to play the first round of this game ie in 1949. They were only able to get any real absolute power in 2014.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Shouldn't they be respected?

That is a dishonest comment. This is what came before and after the sentence torn out of context:

This line of argument also empowers the Hindutva forces to justify anti-Muslim violence as the natural reaction of the people/Hindus. In fact, a strong impression has been created that the sentiments, views and beliefs of Hindus must be respected because they are the majority or the authentic people.

The idea of the people, when elevated as rational, homogeneous entity, is highly dangerous — it hides the inherent class-caste-gender contradictions and empowers the political class to justify electoral majoritarianism.

Reading the sentence that preceded it makes it clear that the allusion is to irrational positions - Islamophobia and Islamophobic violence in violation of the law - merely because this is done by the majority, and these sentiments - nothing rational or legal about them - must be respected because those holding them are members of the majority community.

The following sentence, on the idea of the people, makes it clear that popular sentiment should not drown out more serious social problems.

 

[letsrock]

Its not only the people but its the system they create as well. Are ALL leaders in Congress ONLY Hindus? Do they serve Hindu interests? The answer to both of the question is a resounding no. If they did, the constitution of India would not be having words like secular inserted in it in what was an undemocratic slight of hand.

RSS is indeed Hindu organization but it entered the political scene way too late to play the first round of this game ie in 1949. They were only able to get any real absolute power in 2014.

Again there is really no political identity called hindu. It was entirely made up in early 20th century. Before that Hindu was just a label foreigners used to describe natives - not referring to any ideology or religion you can use to judge whether one is a hindu or not - they are just basically people that is all.

A political identity was crafted in early 20th century by a bunch of upper castes when they realized India will be free from British rule and next ruling will be based on votes and democracy. Then suddenly they had need for numbers - so they started counting all sorts of people - people who were not even allowed in to temples like dalits - as Hindus. So they can claim to be there leaders. Since Muslims or Christians who have much broader view of world will not accept such "leadership" - they were cast as enemies of the "nation".

If your interest in fairness is real you will thoughtfully consider the points, combine it with your common observations of hindu society (caste based priesthood, caste based marriages, caste based discrimination) and form better opinions. Observe that throughout the world the norm for nation is language (with exceptions ofcourse) not religion.

 

[ranjeet]

*mourning*

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Again there is really no political identity called hindu.

Hindu is a religious entity. Its like saying there is no political entity like Islam. Ofcourse! There was no political entity called Hindu or Islam. They are religious concepts. The political arms that represented these in India only appeared in early to mid 20th century. Muslim League for Muslims and Jana Sangh for Hindus.

It was entirely made up in early 20th century. Before that Hindu was just a label foreigners used to describe natives - not referring to any ideology or religion you can use to judge whether one is a hindu or not - they are just basically people that is all.

If the label is your issue, then let it be Sanatan Dharm for your convenience. It has existed since antiquity in India. Honestly, label never mattered. The content did and it was always there. Does not matter if it was crisp or nebulous, the native believes were always there.

A political identity was crafted in early 20th century by a bunch of upper castes when they realized India will be free from British rule and next ruling will be based on votes and democracy. Then suddenly they had need for numbers - so they started counting all sorts of people - people who were not even allowed in to temples like dalits - as Hindus. So they can claim to be there leaders. Since Muslims or Christians who have much broader view of world will not accept such "leadership" - they were cast as enemies of the "nation".

In India, even Islam had this situation. All India Muslim League was established 1906.

Jana Sangh was late for the show, it became a political party in 1949 only.

BTW, Muslims did not have ANY broader world view in British India. They had to use religious duty to ensure that Muslim league wins in elections. Till this date, given the situation of education among the Muslims its foolish to make such a claim. They still operate on the same principles : voting for Islam.

If your interest in fairness is real you will thoughtfully consider the points, combine it with your common observations of hindu society (caste based priesthood, caste based marriages, caste based discrimination) and form better opinions.

I don't have any interest in fairness. I have only interest of Hindus as paramount, rest is not even a matter. BTW, all these caste is very much an issue among Muslims as well. They even have tribal affiliation as issue in Pakistan.

Observe that throughout the world the norm for nation is language (with exceptions ofcourse) not religion.

This is laughable. You are on a Pakistani website and you are claiming this. Folks tell this gentleman what is the first basis of Pakistan? Islam Or Urdu? Unless you somehow don't consider Pakistan as a nation. Hilarious!
"Pakistan ka Matlab kya? La ilaha il allah".

 

[ranjeet]

Hindu is a religious entity. Its like saying there is no political entity like Islam. Ofcourse! There was no political entity called Hindu or Islam. They are religious concepts. The political arms that represented these in British India only appeared in early to mid 20th century. Muslim League for Muslims and Jana Sangh for Hindus.


If the label is your issue, then let it be Sanatan Dharm. It has existed since antiquity in India.


In India, even Islam had this situation. All India Muslim League was established 1906.

Jana Sangh was late for the show, it became a political party in 1949 only.

BTW, Muslims did not have ANY broader world view in British India. They had to use religious duty to ensure that Muslim league wins in elections. Till this date, given the situation of education among the Muslims its foolish to make such a claim. They still operate on the same principles : voting for Islam.


I don't have any interest in fairness. I have only interest of Hindus as paramount, rest is not even a matter. BTW, all these caste is very much an issue among Muslims as well. They even have tribal affiliation as issue in Pakistan.



This is laughable. You are on a Pakistani website and you are claiming this. Folks tell this gentleman what is the first basis of Pakistan? Islam Or Urdu?

You are trying to convince Indians who won't most probably survive to vote in 2024. Just mock them move along.