RSS - Marketing Fascism as Hindu Nationalism

The title of the book may deter some of you from reading the book, and I hope you will make a point to read it.  It is in the interests of all people of a nation to learn each other’s point of view, to enable us to see the complexity of the issue and make decisions that are sustainable and beneficial to all Indians. What is good for you has got to be good for all to sustain. 

A majority of the people within the majority, any nation for that matter– regardless of their religion or race, are oblivious to the world around them.  In the US, a majority of white people don’t even know the apprehensions and fears the minorities endure. 

If you ask the Mexicans, Indians, Blacks, Arabs, Chinese, Somali, and the LGBT community, they can tell you the truth. Likewise, the majority community in Pakistan does not know the pain the minorities go through. Now, the same case is made with the Hindu majority of India; they just have no idea what difficulties, discrimination, and harassment the Dalits, Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs go through. They don’t even know that some of them, among them, are misrepresenting Hinduism. Hinduism does not suggest lynching of Muslims, raping Dalits, burning Adivasis and beating up on Christians.  It is time for the majority of Hindus to take back their religion, Hinduism is not about violence, it is about peaceful coexistence.  Muslims have endured that kind of label on them, but finally, they are regaining control of their religion.

The majority of Whites in America, Blacks in South Africa, Hindus in India, Atheists in China, Muslims in Pakistan and Jews in Israel assume that the other people who are less in number are living a secure life like themselves.    Since they don’t face the problems, they assume all are happy and should not complain. That is not the case; you have to be serious and read the issue to bring security to all people. You cannot be secure if people around you are not. 

Minorities are a group of people who do not have the votes to oppose or rectify the decisions of the majority that may be unjust to them.  As an example, Muslims are a majority in Pakistan and Hindus are a majority in India, Buddhists are a majority in Burma,  but in the United States, all are minorities.

The cover page of the book reads as follows: 

“Indian democratic-secular polity is passing through the most critical phase since its birth on August 15, 1947. Our constitutional polity has been taken over by RSS/BJP leaders committed to Hindutva politics which was neither part of modern India's its anti-colonial heritage nor have been faithful to the principles enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution. The Hindutva politics decried and continues to denounce democracy, secularism, egalitarianism and an all-inclusive India.

This book provides an insight into the philosophical moorings of the followers of Hindutva, and their action plans to convert India into a theocratic Hindu State. This insight is based solely on the internal documents of RSS/BJP and other fraternal Hindutva organizations. It is hoped that this Reader on RSS book will help researchers and common readers in getting acquainted with an ideology and its perpetrators who present the most lethal challenge to democratic-secular India.”

My goal in life is to open people's hearts and mind towards each other so we all can live cohesively and with least conflicts. I am pleased to offer pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. 

Mike Ghouse

Related Articles:

India Bulletin – March 18, 2018

India is at a dangerous curve now – you can laugh all you want to laugh. But if we don’t wake up and restore our democracy, each one of us will lose at the end. http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/03/india-bulletin-march-18-2018.html

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Standing up for Hindus
http://standingupforothers.blogspot.com/2012/04/standing-with-hindus.html

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Religious freedom in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh

There is a dire need to address the violations of religious and political freedoms in South Asia comprising the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Full report  http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/03/religious-freedom-in-India-pakistan.html

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Sri Sri Ravi Shankar owes an apology to Hindus

His statements are fodder for conflicts. To suggest that Indians will go to civil war, no matter how supreme court decides is ridiculous.  He does not respect the majority of moderate Hindus and Muslims who have accepted the verdicts of Supreme court in the past without creating a mess.  http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/03/sri-Sri-Ravi-Shankar-owes-apology-to.html

Secular India vs. Hindu Nationalism

Good piece and reflective of an average Indian.

Courtesy Huffington post

Six months into his post, India's Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi appears to be facing his worst nemesis, the resurgence of militant, chauvinistic and violent Hindu nationalism. It is ironic because, after all, Modi's politics is deeply rooted in the Hindutva movement. His election victory was attained with promises of development and growth for a young India. Foreigners and Indians alike had not expected Hindu nationalist ideologues to derail Modi even before he could launch his agenda of economic reform.

The origins of Hindutva or militant and revivalist Hindu chauvinism can be traced back to the early 20th century British rule in India. Hinduism is a religion unlike others, especially the Abrahamic faiths, in that you are born a Hindu but you cannot be converted into one through any ceremony. There is also no fundamental creed or any book or books which every Hindu should know or recite. The basis for the spread of Hinduism across the Indian subcontinent was its pluralism, its acceptance of differences and its catholicity.

However, there were Hindus who increasingly believed that their polytheistic faith lacked the wherewithal to face monotheistic faiths. A conservative backlash within Hinduism started which led to the creation of various organizations, some educational and cultural and others political. In 1909 a pamphlet titled 'Hindus: A Dying Race' was published which made the absurd argument that Hindus would soon become a minority and Muslims would become the majority in India. That this view still has prevalence is reflected in a recent statement by senior leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) Praveen Togadia spoke about the need to raise the percentage of Hindus from 82 percent to 100 percent.

A Hindu revivalist, Nathuram Godse, who believed that India's founding father Mahatma Gandhi was too sympathetic to Muslims, assassinated him on January 30, 1948. This assassination and the bloody and violent Partition left a legacy on Indian nationalism and the definition of citizenship in the Indian constitution. The Indian constitution provides wide-ranging rights to its citizens, including to its large minority populations. India is a secular, pluralistic democracy where citizenship is territorial and all minorities, ethnic and religious, are treated as equals.

Hindutva, or Hindu chauvinism and revivalism, instead defined citizenship differently. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the leading ideologue of Hindutva, wrote a pamphlet in 1923 titled 'Who is a Hindu' /'Essentials of Hindutva' where he defines what he refers to as citizenship for any Hindu or person who lives in the Indian subcontinent. Savarkar states that a Hindu is he who considered the land from the Himalayas or the Indus to the Indian Ocean as his Fatherland (pitrubhumi) and Holy land (punyabhumi). This meant that only followers of these religions Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism can be true citizens. Since all the other faiths in India -- Zoroastrian, Christianity, Islam and Judaism -- have their holy lands outside of the Indian subcontinent their followers cannot be seen as true citizens. When Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, minister in Mr Modi's cabinet, in a speech in Delhi on December 2, 104 differentiated between 'Ramzadon' (Progeny of Ram) and 'Haramzadon' (illegitimate offspring) she was harking back to Savarkar's definition of who is a true citizen and who is not.

Mahatma Gandhi's legacy as father of the nation coupled with the fact that for the first seventeen years India was ruled by Jawaharlal Nehru, a secularist and pluralist to the core left what is referred to as Nehruvian secularism. This is what has underlay Indian nationalism for the last six decades and has ensured a semblance of stability. This edifice started to crack from the 1990s with the rise of Hindutva within India and with the rise of revivalism in other parts of the world and its reverberations within India. As in other parts of the world with economic growth comes the rise of a middle class which is more conservative, outwardly-religious and demonstrative of beliefs it often seeks to impose on others. The rise of Islamic radicalism and revivalism in other parts of the world including in the Indian subcontinent has only strengthened the roots of Hindu revivalism.

There has been a steady rise in the number of religio-communal incidents in India in 2014 whether it be the case of a member of parliament force feeing a Muslim who was fasting for Ramzan or the staged conversion of 57 Muslim families in the city of Agra in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh under the title of "homecoming"

There are three potential explanations for these incidents. The first is that this is an internal revolt within the Hindu revivalists who seek to put pressure on Modi to use his electoral mandate to implement policies of their choice. This could explain why members of Modi's own cabinet have made controversial statements: whether Niranjan Jyoti with her remarks on Ramzadon/Haramzadon or External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj talking about the need to make the Bhagvad Geeta the national book of India. However, what is also known is that Modi has reprimanded his ministers for such remarks in private. A few days after her Geeta remark, Swaraj also spoke about the need for tolerance in India.

Another explanation is that the Hindu revivalists supported Modi simply in order to come to power and now that the BJP is in power the Parivar is demonstrating that it is really they who are in control and not Mr Modi.

The final possibility is the assertion by some that Modi is coming out of the closet and showing his true self. However, Modi's election campaign and his speeches after becoming prime minister have focused on development not Hindutva. Further, in hisAugust 15 speech Modi emphasized the need to reduce "communal tensions" and spoke about pluralism and moving forward.

India's future is tied to its identity as a pluralistic, democratic and secular society that is a pillar of stability in a region and world that is increasingly chaotic. What Indians would like is for Mr Modi to come out and say in the open what he believes instead of allowing others to frame the issue for him.

Follow Aparna Pande on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Aparna_Pande

Subramaniam Swamy; is he good for India's long term social cohesion? A video response

We are planning on producing a YouTube response to Subramaniam  Swamy's opinions and assertions, are they good for India or not?

Does he make sense and how?  Does he have fascist leanings, does he understand democracy?

Should we give him a free ride?

Share what is on your mind, I will be selecting at least three individuals representing diversity of opinions, you can come to my office studio in Dallas or we can skype it.

Who should be India's role model? Should India aspire to be a free country like the USA, where  you can breathe, drink, eat, wear or believe whatever the hell you want to believe or like Saudi Arabia's where you are forced to believe what the bullies want?

What kind of India do we want? 

References:

Unite hindus, divide muslims- BJP leader S. Swamy Strategy for 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIT_rnSdyVM

and this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oel91g02Ts

You can respond at the following links:

1. http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2014/03/subramaniam-swamy-is-he-good-for-indias.html
2. www.facebook.com/IndiaPluralism
3. dallasindians@yahoogroups.com 
4. MikeGhouse@gmail.com 

Mike Ghouse,
Pluralism Center | Education, Research and Activism
Pluralism is "Respecting the otherness of others"
Studies in social, religious, cultural and political pluralism
www.Foundationforpluralism.com

Narendra Modi’s Rise in India

Courtesy - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/narendra-modis-rise-in-india.html?_r=0

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

 In 2002, rioters in the western Indian state of Gujarat savagely killed nearly 1,000 people, most of whom were part of the Muslim minority. Now, barely a decade later, Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time and still holds the office, is a leading candidate to become prime minister of India.

Mr. Modi, a star of India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, would become prime minister if the party won enough seats in parliamentary elections next summer with support from its political allies. His rise to power is deeply troubling to many Indians, especially the country’s 138 million Muslims and its many other minorities. They worry he would exacerbate sectarian tensions that have subsided somewhat in the last decade.

Supporters of Mr. Modi argue that an investigation commissioned by India’s Supreme Court cleared him of wrongdoing in the riots. And they insist that Mr. Modi, who is widely admired by middle-class Indians for making Gujarat one of India’s fastest-growing states, can revive the economy, which has been weakened by a decade of mismanagement by the coalition government headed by the Indian National Congress Party.

There is no question that the Congress Party has failed to capitalize on the economic growth of recent years to invest in infrastructure, education and public institutions like the judiciary. And instead of trying to revive itself with new ideas and leaders, it is likely to be led in the coming election by Rahul Gandhi, the inexperienced scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

But Mr. Modi’s strident Hindu nationalism has fueled public outrage. When Reuters asked him earlier this year if he regretted the killings in 2002, he said, if “someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is.” That incendiary response created a political uproar and demands for an apology.

Mr. Modi has shown no ability to work with opposition parties or tolerate dissent. And he has already alienated political partners; this summer, an important regional party broke off its 17-year alliance with the B.J.P. because it found Mr. Modi unacceptable.

His economic record in Gujarat is not entirely admirable, either. Muslims in Gujarat, for instance, are much more likely to be poor than Muslims in India as a whole, even though the state has a lower poverty rate than the country.

India is a country with multiple religions, more than a dozen major languages and numerous ethnic groups and tribes. Mr. Modi cannot hope to lead it effectively if he inspires fear and antipathy among many of its people.

Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »