Category: Hindutva

From The Horse’s Mouth

When the Mangalore pub attack happened, a popular Hindutva website based in Kerala sort of justified the attack saying that what Sri Ram Sene has done was to save the Hindu girls from being lured away by Muslim youth. They also coined the term Jehadi Romeo. A Malayalam newspaper which is known to have strong ties with SNDP Yogam and it’s chief Vellappally Nadesan (who is famous for his anti-minority views), carried out an article about Love Jehad which mentions the new strategies of Jehadis.

Now the SRS chief says that the issue was not about Muslim boys, but about girls drinking:

The Amnesia pub attack. Was your problem that the girls were drinking, or that they were hanging out with Muslim boys?

No, there was no religious issue. It was about girls drinking.
[via]

I am just wondering what would the SRS supporters have to say now.

The Sene Sainik

Hey! What’s up? Haven’t seen you lately.

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Busy with what? Work?

Yeah, work. But not the office work. I joined a cultural army and was busy protecting our culture.

Oh, you joined the Sene Sainiks? I heard you guys beat up some girls in a pub or something? Man, why would you do something like that??

We were actually protecting our women, silly! Did you know that Muslim boys lure away our girls and get them converted at Ponnani in Kerala? And it is not only our girls, but the Christian girls too. Christian girls man! Your tribe. Do you see the danger now? We gotta be together in this fight against Jehadi Romeos!

Oh! Didn’t know that. Hmmm… but hey! Wait a minute! Why would you beat the girls for what boys are doing to them? You were beating up them poor victims for the fault of someone else?

That is why we talk about culture saala! These girls did not consider our warnings about Jehadis and became a threat to our great culture.

So you beat them up in order to protect our culture?

Well, that too.

But what right do you hold to come in and beat up these girls? Shouldn’t it be left to themselves to decide what they want to do with their life and culture?

When they fail on their duty to uphold the culture, we come in and take care of that. See what a selfless service we do to our country?

Hmm… well, you remind me of someone else whom I’ve seen in the media. I can’t remember who it is, but you resemble him a lot.

Oh yeah? Who is it? Well, anyways, do you see what western culture is doing to us with all these?

Well, what is this western culture?

Immorality, that’s what the West is all about! They booze, they date, they always think about sex.

I’m just thinking who was that other guy I’ve seen on TV. You remind me of him a lot.

What?

Forget it. Anyways, I think we had all of what you said since thousands of years back? We even wrote Kamasutra that explained… well.. you know… several ways of having sex.

That is part of the culture, silly! We taught the world how to have sex! And compare it to what these girls do in pubs! They get boozed and dances with men of other religions! What a horrible crime that is!!

Oh yeah, I can see that. And what is it that you have against Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s Day is a Christian festival. And Christians imported such festivals from the West to convert people to Christianity!

Valentine’s Day is a Christian festival? I never heard of any Church in India celebrating the festival of St. Valentine.

You wouldn’t. Such are the tactics of the Christians!

I got it! I got it!!

What?

The guy whom you reminded me of.

Who is it?

Osama Bin Laden! He too used to talk passionately about protecting his religion and culture from the west, the Christian west’s agenda to de-stabilize the Islamic countries, and upholding the culture by taking it on women and innocent people!

You bloody pseudo-secularist, Commie, Christian! I will see what to do with you!

(PS: Those who are interested can also participate in the Pink Chaddi campaign. There could be no better Valentine’s Day gift than a Pink Chaddi to send to the Sri Ram Sene folks! 🙂 )

Indian Taliban back in action

The names change, from Bajrang Dal to Sri Rama Sena, but the radical Hindutva organizations continue to assault the countrymen in the name of ‘protecting Indian culture’. This time they attacked women. When I had written against such groups earlier in this blog, there were people protesting and saying that calling them Indian Taliban is too much. But just read the news quote given below and tell me how these Senas are any different from Taliban. Also tell me how come we are vocal against Taliban but so silent on such home-grown organizations.

The Sena activists accused the women of involving themselves in immoral activities, including consuming alcohol, dressing indecently, and mixing with youths of other faith”.

And don’t think that they would stop having fun now. The day when these organizations conduct their annual ritual of cultural protection is coming up. And yes, you guessed it right – the Valentines Day on February 14th. Last year, it was the turn of Bajrang Dal to clean up the culture. We got to either speak up against these groups or get ready to be Talibanized in the near future. Taliban too, started out with small scale operations.

Related posts: The Hindutva hypocrisy again

(Image courtesy: Times of India)

Myth: Tolerance is religion’s contribution

The Sangh Parivar and it’s supporters time and again have been saying that their violence is in response to centuries long oppression that Hindus had to face from it’s foreign invaders. They say Hindus had to suffer because of the tolerant nature of Hindus. They further explain that the Mughal raj, British raj, Missionaries and conversion are all results of this centuries long tolerance and universal acceptance of Hinduism. This has gained quite some sympathy from both national and international audience and is often used to justify the brutally violent acts of Sangh Parivar. But this story of tolerance is nothing but a myth.

Love, hate, tolerance and intolerace are all human traits. Religion could either enhance it or destroy it. The choice is left to the human beings. Jesus Christ taught the message of love and forgiveness to his disciples. He asked them to spread these words whereas some of his disciples simply went after spreading the religion and setting up it’s institution in the name of spreading his words. The abuse of Christianity had resulted in wars and religious persecution. Jesus Christ was gone and a religious institution replaced him. This abuse continues to happen as we hear US president George Bush say “God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq… And I did“.

Similarly, Hinduism is a beautiful philosophy. Many of the Hindu holy texts contain some beautiful thoughts and ideas. But by practice, Hinduism was not that universally accepting. The most celebrated “universal acceptance” of Hinduism is primarily based on our racist mentality that exists even now. I remember a couple of incidents – of how a northie wrote that “Madrasi chicks look ugly” which got the entire blogosphere in to a north-south divide discussion and then the most recent one from the first ever BlogCamp Kerala in 2008. One (and only) foreigner who attended the BlogCamp Kerala wrote this in his blog after the blog camp:

People were taking picture of me like I was a tourist attraction. 100 guys, 3 girls and one Guillaume, and everyone is interested in the Guillaume.

Yes, that happened in a so-called intellectual part of the society. Similarly, you go to an event, you see an african-american man and you don’t even feel like sitting beside him. But if he was white, you would definitely use any chance that you could talk to him and be a friend.

The above mentioned is one simple example of the racist mindset that we have. We love the color “White” or anything “foreign“. Hence we had warmly welcomed the Whites and other foreigners. This is one thing that resulted in the British Raj. The rulers of that time while they were treating their downtrodden within their social system (Dalits and poor people) like pigs, welcomed their White friends who later became their masters. Their own racist mindset resulted in all these. British Raj, Missionaries and such. And people call that racist mindset tolerance and universal acceptance. And that racist mentality is exactly what the problem behind conversion. Because it resulted in helping the foreigners, deep-rooting caste-system and poverty in it’s own society which later lead to missionaries and conversion.

If love, tolerance and acceptance were religious inventions, there wouldn’t have been atheists who are as humanitarians as some religious figures. The only difference is that such atheists (and I am not referring to some of those urban atheists who say “I am an atheist” for fashion) do not put any religion’s label in their work. So whenever you hear the Sangh’s doctrine about tolerance and universal acceptance, think again.

The Price of BJP’s Secularism

BJP leader and the party’s prime minister candidate L K Advani has declared himself as “secular” because “he studied in a missionary school“. Don’t we know what it took him to be secular other than his missionary schooling credentials? That includes bringing down the Babri mosque which resulted in Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the nation that killed a large number of Hindus and Muslims and helped the extremist organizations of both religions to attract the youth to their fold. A secular nation’s social fabric was broken and Advani became a prominent figure in the party. Now as the prime ministerial candidate of BJP, Advani has become secular.

Oh, and guess what, a BJP leader says this:

“In Orissa, untouchability among the Hindus and a simmering discontent among the lower strata have drawn people to other religions. Social acceptance is a big dilemma there,” the BJP leader said.

A statement that has come quite late, but I am glad that he identifies the root cause (other than the missionary tactics) now which I have been mentioning in this blog for quite a long time. Now, what do they have to say about those innocent people who have been killed and misplaced because of the riots in Orissa? How many more people have to pay with their lives until the whole of Sangh Parivar realizes the meaning of real secularism?

(Image courtesy: Newsx.com)