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Let's begin with the lefty narrative, read on.
Giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous
Statues – big statues, the largest in the world – are being built all across India.
Like many public monuments, they attempt to convey history in a concrete form. But India’s new statues convey something else, too: the power and vision of one dominant group – and the vulnerability of others.
That’s because India’s biggest new public monuments all pay tribute to Hindu gods and leaders.
As a scholar of social change in India, I see statues as a projection of a nation’s values at a particular moment in time. For many Muslims and other religious minorities, then, these hulking public monuments of Hindu icons send an ominous message about their status in society.
Rising Hindu nationalism
The mammoth public shrines to Hindu nationalism are a pet project of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.
Since taking office in 2014, Modi has used his power to promote Hindu nationalism, a polarizing ideology that sees Hindus as India’s dominant group. Yet India is a constitutionally multicultural country with the world’s second largest population of Muslims – comprising over 170 million people.
Twenty percent of its 1.3 billion people are Muslim, Christian or another religion.
By 2021 India, which is already home to the tallest statue in the world – Gujarat state’s 597-foot-tall “Statue of Unity,” commemorating Indian independence hero Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – plans to unveil two more record-breaking monuments, both portraying icons idolized by Hindu rightists.
A 725-foot bronze likeness of the god Ram planned for Uttar Pradesh state will soon surpass the Statue of Unity in size. And in Mumbai construction has been halted on a 695-foot-tall likeness of the medieval Hindu warrior Shivaji, pending the results of an environmental review.
Guinness World Records also recently judged Tamil Nadu state’s 112-foot depiction of the face of the Hindu god Shiva as the world’s largest bust statue.
All this is happening under Modi, who is up for re-election in monthlong general elections that start on April 11.
He was voted into office in 2014 on a platform of “development for all.” Promising to boost the economy in a country where nearly 22% of people live in poverty and millions go hungry, Modi and the BJP won an historic parliamentary majority over the center-left Indian National Congress, its main competitor.
Since then, India has improved in international “ease of doing business” rankings, passing regulations that improve commerce and the protection of property rights.
But some of Modi’s boldest moves to improve cash flow and boost public revenues, including a 2017 tax reform initiative and a ban on saving in certain high-value currencies, have failed. Unemployment has risen under BJP rule, particularly in rural areas, and the national economy suffered during the “demonetization” process.
Over the last five years, under Modi’s administration, India has also seen a startling rise of Hindu vigilante violence.
..read the rest here.
India Is Changing Some Cities' Names, And Muslims Fear Their Heritage Is Being Erased
The name of India's Mughalsarai railway station, near Varanasi, was changed last year to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, for a right-wing Hindu leader who died there in 1968.
Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tens of millions of Hindus took a ritual dip in the Ganges River this winter as part of the largest religious festival in the world — the Kumbh Mela. For centuries, the festival has been held in various cities in northern India, including Allahabad.
But when pilgrims arrived this year for the Kumbh Mela, Allahabad had a different name.
Last year, officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj — a word that references the Hindu pilgrimage site there. The name Allahabad dated to the 16th century, a legacy of a Muslim ruler, the Mughal Emperor Akbar. "Today, the BJP government has rectified the mistake made by Akbar," a BJP official was quoted as saying when the name was altered.
read the rest here.
The right wing rebuttal:
Notice how both the left and right wing perspectives presented here skirt the real cultural WAR.
exhibit A:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirk_(Islam)
....................................
The statue/Idol thing is a direct civilizational gauntlet throwdown challenging the ideology of Islam.
discuss...
Giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous
Statues – big statues, the largest in the world – are being built all across India.
Like many public monuments, they attempt to convey history in a concrete form. But India’s new statues convey something else, too: the power and vision of one dominant group – and the vulnerability of others.
That’s because India’s biggest new public monuments all pay tribute to Hindu gods and leaders.
As a scholar of social change in India, I see statues as a projection of a nation’s values at a particular moment in time. For many Muslims and other religious minorities, then, these hulking public monuments of Hindu icons send an ominous message about their status in society.
Rising Hindu nationalism
The mammoth public shrines to Hindu nationalism are a pet project of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party.
Since taking office in 2014, Modi has used his power to promote Hindu nationalism, a polarizing ideology that sees Hindus as India’s dominant group. Yet India is a constitutionally multicultural country with the world’s second largest population of Muslims – comprising over 170 million people.
Twenty percent of its 1.3 billion people are Muslim, Christian or another religion.
By 2021 India, which is already home to the tallest statue in the world – Gujarat state’s 597-foot-tall “Statue of Unity,” commemorating Indian independence hero Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel – plans to unveil two more record-breaking monuments, both portraying icons idolized by Hindu rightists.
A 725-foot bronze likeness of the god Ram planned for Uttar Pradesh state will soon surpass the Statue of Unity in size. And in Mumbai construction has been halted on a 695-foot-tall likeness of the medieval Hindu warrior Shivaji, pending the results of an environmental review.
Guinness World Records also recently judged Tamil Nadu state’s 112-foot depiction of the face of the Hindu god Shiva as the world’s largest bust statue.
All this is happening under Modi, who is up for re-election in monthlong general elections that start on April 11.
He was voted into office in 2014 on a platform of “development for all.” Promising to boost the economy in a country where nearly 22% of people live in poverty and millions go hungry, Modi and the BJP won an historic parliamentary majority over the center-left Indian National Congress, its main competitor.
Since then, India has improved in international “ease of doing business” rankings, passing regulations that improve commerce and the protection of property rights.
But some of Modi’s boldest moves to improve cash flow and boost public revenues, including a 2017 tax reform initiative and a ban on saving in certain high-value currencies, have failed. Unemployment has risen under BJP rule, particularly in rural areas, and the national economy suffered during the “demonetization” process.
Over the last five years, under Modi’s administration, India has also seen a startling rise of Hindu vigilante violence.
..read the rest here.
India Is Changing Some Cities' Names, And Muslims Fear Their Heritage Is Being Erased
The name of India's Mughalsarai railway station, near Varanasi, was changed last year to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, for a right-wing Hindu leader who died there in 1968.
Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tens of millions of Hindus took a ritual dip in the Ganges River this winter as part of the largest religious festival in the world — the Kumbh Mela. For centuries, the festival has been held in various cities in northern India, including Allahabad.
But when pilgrims arrived this year for the Kumbh Mela, Allahabad had a different name.
Last year, officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj — a word that references the Hindu pilgrimage site there. The name Allahabad dated to the 16th century, a legacy of a Muslim ruler, the Mughal Emperor Akbar. "Today, the BJP government has rectified the mistake made by Akbar," a BJP official was quoted as saying when the name was altered.
read the rest here.
The right wing rebuttal:
Notice how both the left and right wing perspectives presented here skirt the real cultural WAR.
exhibit A:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirk_(Islam)
....................................
The statue/Idol thing is a direct civilizational gauntlet throwdown challenging the ideology of Islam.
discuss...
