Hindutva's threat to Hinduism
The author’s fears and concerns about Hindutva are unfounded ("Why Hindutva is a threat to the happy, hippie ways of Hinduism"). The 2014 general elections were not a vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party but for Narendra Modi’s policies of growth, development, jobs and good governance. Any subsequent efforts to polarise the community have not yielded electoral bounties.
The Hindutva lobby is a reaction to the perverse secularism practised by Indian polity and intellectuals. Politicians have sought to appease a specific minority and use them as a vote bank.
After nearly ten centuries of being ruled in their own country by minority communities, it would be great if in a democratic one-man-one-vote system, the Hindu majority sees some reflection of their relative status rather than continued downgrading of their cultural and societal aspirations.
Secularism was meant to protect minorities but in practice it continues to punish the majority, while no demonstrable uplifting of the minorities has been attained. That should be a greater concern to this atheist Hindu author. – Vibhaker Baxi
***
The writer missed some basic tenets of Hinduism. He says he is an unwavering atheist, but is he? As opposed to his claims, Santoshi Maa the goddess originated much before the film.
Hinduism is basically defined by a Sloka, which roughly translated means in whatever forms, attributes, characters etc. you will seek me, I will come to you. So the problems of different gods and goddesses is not an issue in Hinduism. Even atheists are Hindus.
Hinduism is a dynamic religion and self-evolving. So what you see in Hinduism today was not there in the past and will not be there in the future. – Aftab Kala
***
A good article but doesn't offer anything new. Every Hindu knows and understands his religion even if he doesn't talk about it. – Krish Dhar
***
Hinduism is about 10,000 years old. Lord Ram was born around 7,000 years ago. Valmiki described planetary positions at Ram's birth and the software at the planetariums did the rest.
If Hinduism was so strong, lakhs of Pandits would not have been driven out of Kashmir and inhabitants of Assam would not have suffered a similar state. Being hippie about your religion has such consequences in today's complex world. – Sunder Muthanna
***
The article is very superficial in its approach. Although it recognises that the nature of Hinduism is not missionary and is limited to a geographic location in India, it also fails to see that Hinduism's geographic footprint has shrunk in the last 1,000 years.
The religion had a spread from Afghanistan (Takshshila) in the west till Bengal and beyond in the east. If we talk about history, we cannot just talk about 50 years as its a very small timeframe. – Satyajeet Shukla
***
If the author was aware of the contradictions between his first sentence and the last, he would be rushing off to a language school for his "class pretension" skill, instead of gushing out this moronic "me-too" liberal bravado. – Akshay Srinivasan
***
I just wanted to commend Arvind Kala's article for its simple language and brutal honesty about the reality of Hinduism. It was never a religion but a geographical location. It was never intended to fit into a book or a bunch of rules about how one should or shouldn't live their life. Everything hovered around balance, srishti, karma, dharm and many other concepts that still remain unexplored and unexplained to the masses.
Hope floats with the writer's uplifting words about what our way of life really means. Hinduism is just one word that does not even begin to describe the religion. And like the invasions over the course of the last thousand years that couldn't dent its existence, I'm sure Hinduism will weather this storm too. – Pradeesh
***
You may not be wrong in calling Hindutva a hippie religion, but I have serious reservations about some of the claims you make about Hinduism in the article.
Claims from fanatics about the aims of Muslims are absurd. But the same applies to fanatic claims about the aims of Hindus.
Your article's basic claim is that despite Hinduism's "don't care" attitude, it has survived for 3,000 years. I wonder whether will Hinduism will meet the same fate as Judaism or Zoroastrianism if people don't care about the religion.
You are right in telling Hindutva militants that "our religion does not need your protection". No religion has any place for extremism and militancy. I feel ashamed when saffron-clad, self-proclaimed saviours of my religion spew hate and vengeance at public forums. – Amol Mundhra
Unacknowledged sacrifices
These soldiers accepted bodily pain to the extent of death rather than bearing pain of the soul ("Remember Rezang La: The unimaginable sacrifice of an Indian army unit during the 1962 war"). They died so that their loved ones, their unit, village, state and country wouldn't have to hang their heads in shame.
The issue is not that their country failed them in every way. It's that we as a nation did not learn our lessons and are failing our soldiers even today. – General Uppal
Unnecessary blame game
I really don't understand why Scroll has a problem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ("How the Modi government is fuelling a dangerous comeback of drug-resistant microbes"). This article is about as silly as blaming the failure of the monsoons on the Modi government.
The irony is that the various "ineffective" policies mentioned in the article are named after incompetent leaders and instituted by the previous government.
Microbial resistance has been building in India because of easy access to antibiotics, which again should be blamed on previous governments. – Alok Agrawal
Unfounded generalisation
Before writing or publishing these articles, either experience living abroad or ensure that you get your facts right and don't bias the argument in favour of a "secular" opposition ("Why are so many in the Hindu diaspora completely taken with Modi?").
I have lived abroad for the last 15 years and for the first time I am starting to feel like India is respected and considered equal among nations.
So please stop your propaganda and do not make broad and unfounded generalisations. – Suchit Ahuja
***
I would like to register my protest against Scroll for publishing such divisive articles, which fragment Indians abroad as "Hindu diaspora" and "others". We are being forced to take the writer's word that Narendra Modi's popularity among the diaspora is solely because of their communal inclinations. Any other explanation, including development, is untrue because the writer says so.
I cannot chide you for being anti-establishment or for being biased against Modi. But as an avid reader, I expect basic journalistic ethics. – Rohit
***
The headline is quite misleading and the article is deluded to an extent. The article creates the impression that NRIs, particularly the "Hindu diaspora", adore Narendra Modi wherever he goes. The hypothesis is purely based on numbers, which could be interpreted wrong. Just because more than 70,000 people filled the Wembley Stadium in London, it does not mean that Modi has a dedicated following among Indians abroad. It's a mix of admiration, curiosity, hype, and entertainment. And Modi excels in the last category. – Promod Puri
Forgetting the real issues
The article focuses too much on the Darwaza's name and does not pay attention to the facts ("Bhangi Darwaza: Why did the ASI notify an offensive name for a gateway in a Madhya Pradesh fort?").
Whether it was a "bhangi" or someone else, was someone actually sacrificed at the time that the door was built? When was the door built? Was it customary for people to be sacrificed?
If a human was indeed sacrificed at the time the Darwaza was built, would it be strange if the person sacrificed was a bhangi or a war captive, as the debate over the name suggests?
Let us not indulge in modern myth-making to falsify history. Let us establish the facts. And if the facts cannot be sufficiently established, it is better to leave an age-old tradition intact.
Let us fight the demeaning of bhangis in reality rather than only at the level of sounds and words. If I call someone a "sanitation worker" rather than a "bhangi", but do nothing to help that person actually improve the material level of life, then it is simply a form of hypocrisy. – Prabhu Guptara
Modi's Wembley show
If a Bangladeshi prime minister were to visit India, we may not allow them to conduct such meetings and for good reason ("Modi rocked Wembley. Would India allow the Bangladeshi leader to do a similar show in Delhi?"). Despite the author's frivolous attempt to show Bangladesh as very cooperative in dealing with terrorists, the truth is quite the opposite. They harbour many terrorists who frequently cross the border and kill our security forces and indulge in other terror activities. In such a situation how can we entertain a bonhomie of the kind that the author is suggesting. – Podi
***
The US and British governments have considered Hindi as the alternative official language of India. They do not recognise Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, or any other Indian language for translation. For our political purposes, we can have 1,000 languages. But it is practically impossible to provide translators for all these languages, even in India.
There cannot be any discussion questioning India's democratic credentials. The translation policy has not been changed for the last 69 years. Then why has Modi come into the picture?
Can he provide translations for all Indian languages in all countries? I would humbly suggest that only sensible reports be published. – VN Venkataraman
Diamond in the rough
The writer needs to study the issue in detail before justifying his claims "Why Pakistan should also claim the Kohinoor – but won't"). The diamond did not actually belong to Ranjit Singh, but rather to the Kakatiya Dynasty that originated in the present-day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.
The diamond was later forcefully acquired by Allauddin Khilji and after many twists and turns, was taken into possession by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It is very clear that the diamond is not Maharaja Ranjit Singh's legacy and I don't think there is any doubt that the diamond belongs to India.
I request you not to spread such false statements and encourage any further misunderstandings between the two countries. It would just create more bitterness. – Madhu Gamya
Thank you so much for highlighting this side of the issue. In both countries, masses at the grassroots remain victims of colonial slavery of the governance apparatus inherited from the scheming merchants. The intelligence agencies and armies are the biggest burden of the hungry masses.
If both nations introduce institutional democratic reforms at the micro-level, I am sure we will be able to overcome the policy of controlled chaos introduced by the armed forces of both countries.
Irrespective of whether they are Hindu Punjabi, Muslim Punjabi or Sikh Punjabi, cultural bonds are still the strongest bonds. Pakistan must also stake its claim to the legacy of Ranjit Singh, who was truly a Punjabi sovereign. – Aridaman Jit Singh
***
If the diamond was owned by a person who lived in Pakistan, it doesn't mean that the country is the rightful owner. – Shushrut Devadiga
Ridden with cliches
A somewhat striking set of photographs, coupled with a tiresome text piece by William Dalrymple ("Five images that define Steve McCurry’s India") . The author plays the tired, cliched card of India's poverty, its inequality, and its struggles to develop, without so much as an acknowledgement of his own forefathers' part in that impoverishment.
When can we have a rational and objective acknowledgement that India is doing fantastically well, given what it had in 1947? Fewer than 70 years have passed since the end of a brutal occupation – one that systematically and deliberately impoverished the nation.
To read Dalrymple's words on India's poverty left a disgusting aftertaste, especially when served a double dose of the usual "white men come to India and find the poverty deeply spiritual" nonsense. – Sahawa Sahawa
Weak argument
Ajaz Ashraf's article is disappointing, but not surprising ("War trophies: When Hindu kings raided temples and abducted idols"). The author offers the work of just one scholar – Richard Eaton – as proof that only 80 temples were destroyed by Islamic rulers over hundreds of years and that they took it upon themselves to respect the local religions of India. This is a weak argument. Is the writer using this example to suggest a large scale indigenous history of temple destruction?
Scholars the world over are quite comfortable with the understanding that thousands of temples were destroyed by foreign invaders and turned into mosques. Instead of rewriting history, it would be better to understand that the current phenomena of ISIS and other fanatical jihadists destroying, plundering and slave trading is nothing new. India has suffered such an onslaught a thousand years ago. – Ankur Sethi
The author’s fears and concerns about Hindutva are unfounded ("Why Hindutva is a threat to the happy, hippie ways of Hinduism"). The 2014 general elections were not a vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party but for Narendra Modi’s policies of growth, development, jobs and good governance. Any subsequent efforts to polarise the community have not yielded electoral bounties.
The Hindutva lobby is a reaction to the perverse secularism practised by Indian polity and intellectuals. Politicians have sought to appease a specific minority and use them as a vote bank.
After nearly ten centuries of being ruled in their own country by minority communities, it would be great if in a democratic one-man-one-vote system, the Hindu majority sees some reflection of their relative status rather than continued downgrading of their cultural and societal aspirations.
Secularism was meant to protect minorities but in practice it continues to punish the majority, while no demonstrable uplifting of the minorities has been attained. That should be a greater concern to this atheist Hindu author. – Vibhaker Baxi
***
The writer missed some basic tenets of Hinduism. He says he is an unwavering atheist, but is he? As opposed to his claims, Santoshi Maa the goddess originated much before the film.
Hinduism is basically defined by a Sloka, which roughly translated means in whatever forms, attributes, characters etc. you will seek me, I will come to you. So the problems of different gods and goddesses is not an issue in Hinduism. Even atheists are Hindus.
Hinduism is a dynamic religion and self-evolving. So what you see in Hinduism today was not there in the past and will not be there in the future. – Aftab Kala
***
A good article but doesn't offer anything new. Every Hindu knows and understands his religion even if he doesn't talk about it. – Krish Dhar
***
Hinduism is about 10,000 years old. Lord Ram was born around 7,000 years ago. Valmiki described planetary positions at Ram's birth and the software at the planetariums did the rest.
If Hinduism was so strong, lakhs of Pandits would not have been driven out of Kashmir and inhabitants of Assam would not have suffered a similar state. Being hippie about your religion has such consequences in today's complex world. – Sunder Muthanna
***
The article is very superficial in its approach. Although it recognises that the nature of Hinduism is not missionary and is limited to a geographic location in India, it also fails to see that Hinduism's geographic footprint has shrunk in the last 1,000 years.
The religion had a spread from Afghanistan (Takshshila) in the west till Bengal and beyond in the east. If we talk about history, we cannot just talk about 50 years as its a very small timeframe. – Satyajeet Shukla
***
If the author was aware of the contradictions between his first sentence and the last, he would be rushing off to a language school for his "class pretension" skill, instead of gushing out this moronic "me-too" liberal bravado. – Akshay Srinivasan
***
I just wanted to commend Arvind Kala's article for its simple language and brutal honesty about the reality of Hinduism. It was never a religion but a geographical location. It was never intended to fit into a book or a bunch of rules about how one should or shouldn't live their life. Everything hovered around balance, srishti, karma, dharm and many other concepts that still remain unexplored and unexplained to the masses.
Hope floats with the writer's uplifting words about what our way of life really means. Hinduism is just one word that does not even begin to describe the religion. And like the invasions over the course of the last thousand years that couldn't dent its existence, I'm sure Hinduism will weather this storm too. – Pradeesh
***
You may not be wrong in calling Hindutva a hippie religion, but I have serious reservations about some of the claims you make about Hinduism in the article.
Claims from fanatics about the aims of Muslims are absurd. But the same applies to fanatic claims about the aims of Hindus.
Your article's basic claim is that despite Hinduism's "don't care" attitude, it has survived for 3,000 years. I wonder whether will Hinduism will meet the same fate as Judaism or Zoroastrianism if people don't care about the religion.
You are right in telling Hindutva militants that "our religion does not need your protection". No religion has any place for extremism and militancy. I feel ashamed when saffron-clad, self-proclaimed saviours of my religion spew hate and vengeance at public forums. – Amol Mundhra
Unacknowledged sacrifices
These soldiers accepted bodily pain to the extent of death rather than bearing pain of the soul ("Remember Rezang La: The unimaginable sacrifice of an Indian army unit during the 1962 war"). They died so that their loved ones, their unit, village, state and country wouldn't have to hang their heads in shame.
The issue is not that their country failed them in every way. It's that we as a nation did not learn our lessons and are failing our soldiers even today. – General Uppal
Unnecessary blame game
I really don't understand why Scroll has a problem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi ("How the Modi government is fuelling a dangerous comeback of drug-resistant microbes"). This article is about as silly as blaming the failure of the monsoons on the Modi government.
The irony is that the various "ineffective" policies mentioned in the article are named after incompetent leaders and instituted by the previous government.
Microbial resistance has been building in India because of easy access to antibiotics, which again should be blamed on previous governments. – Alok Agrawal
Unfounded generalisation
Before writing or publishing these articles, either experience living abroad or ensure that you get your facts right and don't bias the argument in favour of a "secular" opposition ("Why are so many in the Hindu diaspora completely taken with Modi?").
I have lived abroad for the last 15 years and for the first time I am starting to feel like India is respected and considered equal among nations.
So please stop your propaganda and do not make broad and unfounded generalisations. – Suchit Ahuja
***
I would like to register my protest against Scroll for publishing such divisive articles, which fragment Indians abroad as "Hindu diaspora" and "others". We are being forced to take the writer's word that Narendra Modi's popularity among the diaspora is solely because of their communal inclinations. Any other explanation, including development, is untrue because the writer says so.
I cannot chide you for being anti-establishment or for being biased against Modi. But as an avid reader, I expect basic journalistic ethics. – Rohit
***
The headline is quite misleading and the article is deluded to an extent. The article creates the impression that NRIs, particularly the "Hindu diaspora", adore Narendra Modi wherever he goes. The hypothesis is purely based on numbers, which could be interpreted wrong. Just because more than 70,000 people filled the Wembley Stadium in London, it does not mean that Modi has a dedicated following among Indians abroad. It's a mix of admiration, curiosity, hype, and entertainment. And Modi excels in the last category. – Promod Puri
Forgetting the real issues
The article focuses too much on the Darwaza's name and does not pay attention to the facts ("Bhangi Darwaza: Why did the ASI notify an offensive name for a gateway in a Madhya Pradesh fort?").
Whether it was a "bhangi" or someone else, was someone actually sacrificed at the time that the door was built? When was the door built? Was it customary for people to be sacrificed?
If a human was indeed sacrificed at the time the Darwaza was built, would it be strange if the person sacrificed was a bhangi or a war captive, as the debate over the name suggests?
Let us not indulge in modern myth-making to falsify history. Let us establish the facts. And if the facts cannot be sufficiently established, it is better to leave an age-old tradition intact.
Let us fight the demeaning of bhangis in reality rather than only at the level of sounds and words. If I call someone a "sanitation worker" rather than a "bhangi", but do nothing to help that person actually improve the material level of life, then it is simply a form of hypocrisy. – Prabhu Guptara
Modi's Wembley show
If a Bangladeshi prime minister were to visit India, we may not allow them to conduct such meetings and for good reason ("Modi rocked Wembley. Would India allow the Bangladeshi leader to do a similar show in Delhi?"). Despite the author's frivolous attempt to show Bangladesh as very cooperative in dealing with terrorists, the truth is quite the opposite. They harbour many terrorists who frequently cross the border and kill our security forces and indulge in other terror activities. In such a situation how can we entertain a bonhomie of the kind that the author is suggesting. – Podi
***
The US and British governments have considered Hindi as the alternative official language of India. They do not recognise Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, or any other Indian language for translation. For our political purposes, we can have 1,000 languages. But it is practically impossible to provide translators for all these languages, even in India.
There cannot be any discussion questioning India's democratic credentials. The translation policy has not been changed for the last 69 years. Then why has Modi come into the picture?
Can he provide translations for all Indian languages in all countries? I would humbly suggest that only sensible reports be published. – VN Venkataraman
Diamond in the rough
The writer needs to study the issue in detail before justifying his claims "Why Pakistan should also claim the Kohinoor – but won't"). The diamond did not actually belong to Ranjit Singh, but rather to the Kakatiya Dynasty that originated in the present-day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.
The diamond was later forcefully acquired by Allauddin Khilji and after many twists and turns, was taken into possession by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It is very clear that the diamond is not Maharaja Ranjit Singh's legacy and I don't think there is any doubt that the diamond belongs to India.
I request you not to spread such false statements and encourage any further misunderstandings between the two countries. It would just create more bitterness. – Madhu Gamya
***
Thank you so much for highlighting this side of the issue. In both countries, masses at the grassroots remain victims of colonial slavery of the governance apparatus inherited from the scheming merchants. The intelligence agencies and armies are the biggest burden of the hungry masses.
If both nations introduce institutional democratic reforms at the micro-level, I am sure we will be able to overcome the policy of controlled chaos introduced by the armed forces of both countries.
Irrespective of whether they are Hindu Punjabi, Muslim Punjabi or Sikh Punjabi, cultural bonds are still the strongest bonds. Pakistan must also stake its claim to the legacy of Ranjit Singh, who was truly a Punjabi sovereign. – Aridaman Jit Singh
***
If the diamond was owned by a person who lived in Pakistan, it doesn't mean that the country is the rightful owner. – Shushrut Devadiga
Ridden with cliches
A somewhat striking set of photographs, coupled with a tiresome text piece by William Dalrymple ("Five images that define Steve McCurry’s India") . The author plays the tired, cliched card of India's poverty, its inequality, and its struggles to develop, without so much as an acknowledgement of his own forefathers' part in that impoverishment.
When can we have a rational and objective acknowledgement that India is doing fantastically well, given what it had in 1947? Fewer than 70 years have passed since the end of a brutal occupation – one that systematically and deliberately impoverished the nation.
To read Dalrymple's words on India's poverty left a disgusting aftertaste, especially when served a double dose of the usual "white men come to India and find the poverty deeply spiritual" nonsense. – Sahawa Sahawa
Weak argument
Ajaz Ashraf's article is disappointing, but not surprising ("War trophies: When Hindu kings raided temples and abducted idols"). The author offers the work of just one scholar – Richard Eaton – as proof that only 80 temples were destroyed by Islamic rulers over hundreds of years and that they took it upon themselves to respect the local religions of India. This is a weak argument. Is the writer using this example to suggest a large scale indigenous history of temple destruction?
Scholars the world over are quite comfortable with the understanding that thousands of temples were destroyed by foreign invaders and turned into mosques. Instead of rewriting history, it would be better to understand that the current phenomena of ISIS and other fanatical jihadists destroying, plundering and slave trading is nothing new. India has suffered such an onslaught a thousand years ago. – Ankur Sethi
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