In the two months since the Orissa disgrace began, 50,000 Christians have been rendered homeless, many of their homes burnt. But Mohan Joshi, central unit secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishat (VHP) has been quoted by The Hindu as saying:
“Christians are setting their own homes on fire to get good compensation. There are rivalries among Christian groups. They are attacking and killing each other.”
60 Christians have been killed in the wave of retaliation that has followed the dastardly murder of Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati, but Prakash Sharma, chief of the Bajrang Dal, has been quoted in The Times, London as saying:
“How can you be sure Christians are not killing each other?”
A Catholic nun has told the Orissa police that she had been raped by four men, an incident confirmed by a medical examination, but Subhash Chauhan, Orissa’s chief of the Bajrang Dal has been quoted by The New York Times as saying that:
“…the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.”
Also read: Destruction of India as a shared space for all faiths
The seeds of hatred are being forced to bear fruit
churumuri 
No comments
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If you want to see Christians thrashing (if not killing) Christians come to Kottayam or COchin. The Christian community is highly fragmented there and have no real time to do conversions than solve their own problems. The police arrested a Christian for damaging the altar of a church in Alwaye (Aluva). The Church and Commie newspapers did not publish this news. In Shalom channel they show how successful conversions are happening in Punjab etc. The ‘converted’ Sardars still sport their beard and headgear! Hindu’s are being pushed to the wall. Nobody wants to talk about ‘SathyaDarshini’! Hindu’s are being pushed to the wall and will respond strongly whenever the so called seculars and funded medias like CNN IBN and Hindu play dirty votebank politics.
When Indians won Ms.World and Ms.Universe in a row, it was seen as a MNC Marketing tacting eyeing vast Indian markets. Now Vatican has a Saint Alphonsa who cures Polio and Cancer! India is still a huge market for conversion.
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The Missioneries from Kerala should be put on a deputation in Afghan for 6 months. If they ‘return’ successful, they should be placed in Orrissa and other Indian States!
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It’s even highly Objectionable that still the converts are having names like Balkrishna and Ramakrishna. It should be changed rather to Tom Mahapatro or Dick Mohanthy
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Now I know what to write for my Name to appear in the NY times and the London Times!!
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Whats the point here?
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I hope Prakash Sharma will say the same , if his wife, mom, sister or daughter gets raped; that they were all having their “regular” dosage of sex….. oh.. yeah, just that few more people were involved in the regular act.
Sickos!
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though replacing Prakash Sharma with Subhash Chauhan doesnt make anything difference here….. but for the formality sake… i meant Subhash Chauhan.
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Too ashamed to comment.
We are moving one srep closer to Rwanda/ Cambodia
Instigators are equally guilty as those commit heinous crimes. In the case of Mangalore, the instigation for mayhem/murder was initiated by GSB community and yet they went Scot free
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The natural response to this of course is that obviously the Godhra train burning was an act of spontaneous combustion by Hindus in the midst of religious ecstasy and Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati killed himself just like that.
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Without knowing what has happened here and elsewhere it is easy to pump meanings into incidents and write such pieces. Nobody need save Hinduism it can look after itself very well. It has withstood all these onslaughts since centuries. It is only a wishful thinking that Hinduism will be destroyed. Let us not forget in every religion there are fanatics and people with catholic outlook.
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It really hurts see BD boys making fun of such serious issues. Equally biased is the western media which highlights only christian violence and projects poor image of Indians.
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Both the VHP and Catholic Church should be banned. They are two sides of the same coin.
Ethical Humanism based on reason and science is the need of the hour. The mobs who plunder and rape in the name of religion is a disgrace to Humanity. The instigators and the instigated should be brought to book. The goons from the monkey brigade and the soul harvesters from kerala should be blamed for the violence in Orissa. The police should immediately arrest the rapists. The mischievous missionaries from Kerala should stop their malicious campaign and return to their ‘God’s own country’. I am wondering which God is indicated in this phrase – the hindu, muslim or christian in this communist controlled state.
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Hear No Evil,See No Evil and Talk No Evil.
Hindus are Chalu people. Whether they are Pseudo,Secular or Right Wing.
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The catholic church is no better than the SIMI and IM. Catholics are furtiuve enemies. I dont know what the saudamini senguptas and slurdesai and bUrkha dutts or the secular taliban of churumuri have to say abt teh following story
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/asia/buddhist.php
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This reminds me of the MC Sharma death in Jamia Nagar, where every Amar Akbar and Anthony was questioning the death as a fake encounter gone wrong.
Just shows, as to how much people believe in Indias Justice System.
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It appears it is difficult to save Hinduism from these Hindus
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It is really disheartening to see re-hash of propaganda spewed by ‘The Hindu’ (not really!), The Times and Newyork Times. Less said the better about ‘The Hindu’. ‘Newyork Times’ is a known ‘pagan’ hater who cannot admit that snake charmers are the last hope of endangered Christism in the west. Author of this piece needs education. ‘Hindu lunatic fringe’??? Wow.
Below is a response to Newyork Times by Hindus who get affected by its hateful lies.
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On October 13, 2008, the New York Times published a news article entitled “Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee” by Somini Sengupta.
This morning, the Hindu American Foundation submitted a Letter to the Editor as seen below. This Letter to the Editor is the third in three months submitted by HAF to the New York Times without a response or publication. Yet, HAF continues its persistence for accurate coverage for the Hindu American community. As Hindu Americans, we urge all of you as individuals to write to the New York Times and insist upon fair and balanced coverage.
Dear Editor:
Re: “Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee,” by Somini Sengupta, October 13, 2008.
As Hindu Americans, we unequivocally condemn and repudiate all of the violence consuming Orissa today. That the New York Times would engage in blatant, inflammatory race-baiting with the front-page headline above is shocking. If the intention is to spuriously allege that marauding Hindus across India are contemporary actors emulating the Crusades or the Islamic conquests–then mission accomplished!
Telling are the omissions in Sengupta’s reporting, that a) four others were brutally killed with Swami Laxmananda, including a female monk; b) Swami Laxmananda was more than a “preacher”–he was a Hindu social worker devoted to social upliftment in a neglected region; and c) all of the ostensibly Maoist assassins arrested in the killings of the Swami and his aides were Christian converts.
The tragedy unfolding in Orissa state results from the venomous amalgam of the Swami’s murder, and Hindu radicals in the area inflamed by evangelicals blaspheming Hinduism as they seek to meet quotas of new converts in a wild west battle for souls. Pluralism and respect for the tribals’ indigenous Hindu traditions became the first casualty that opened the door to the madness seen today.
=====
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In Mangalore, the real culprits are jobless catholic youth, KFD thugs and political parties like Cong(I). Sure, BD blew it with their first attack. Everything that followed the incident was carefully planned by minority groups with the help from gulf money and highly dishonest websites such as http://www.daijiworld.com.
If you want a proof, see how anti-national are the minorities in Mangalore area. They have nothing but endless sympathy for terrorism and zero respect/tolerance for anything Hindu.
How can ever there be peace when one side acts like ‘better than everyone’ and continues to mock the majority?
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‘Big Balls’ seems to have some axe to grind with GSBs always!!!
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Its time to spend time being nice to the people next to us, christain, hindu, sikhs or any. No point influencing or trying to play with mass movements away from us, (over 50m away) this way or the other – at that level we are already on our way to destruction.
Just lets save humanity that exists in our vicinity. That’s enough work for each of us.
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Hopefully it wont go the way of Rwanda. The lunatic fringe will always find reasons to justify killings of people. As long as they stay the fringe and does not overwhelm the justice system, it is ok.
To people who want to blindly justify killing of unarmed people just because they follow a religion or belong to a group, I would recommend ‘Hotel Rwanda or the Tutsi Genocide’ by Paul Rusesabagina. Not that it will change anything…
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Anonymous Guy,
You talk as if you are a Gandhi. If I remember you once wrote a comment praising the Naxalites who by the way are killing innocent people and also unarmed.
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Read and learn.
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International Herald Tribune
Religious peace threatened in South Korea:
“Religious peace in our country is being threatened by those who dream of turning it into a medieval Christian kingdom through a church elder-president,” said Park Jeong Kyu, a spokesman for the Jogye Order.
Lee, 66, is an elder at a Presbyterian church in Seoul. Since his election last December, Buddhists have voiced a rising alarm over the country’s conservative Protestant churches. These churches support Lee, but they also have irritated many Koreans – not just Buddhists – with their assertive proselytizing and alleged disregard for other faiths.
Buddhists seized on these and similar episodes to accuse Lee and Protestant churches of “using the government as a proselytizing tool.”
Christian fundamentalists have stoked resentment by vandalizing statues of Dangun, the nation’s mythic founder. Families also have been divided as increasing numbers of Protestants have refused to take part in Confucian ancestor worship, holiday rituals that used to be performed in all families regardless of their religious affiliation.
The Buddhist furor escalated in recent weeks as videos circulated on the Internet showing zealous Protestant preachers, one of whom led his congregation in shouts for the “collapse of Buddhist temples.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/asia/buddhist.php
===
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I ‘praised’ the naxalites acts of killing innocent people?
Link please. Otherwise – just another example of how it is easy to justify violence against peoples’ lives and property by citing other examples of brutality.
It does not require a gandhi to dislike violence against a group of unarmed people. If you were on the receiving end – what would your reaction be?
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I took my visiting friends from South Africa to Ganapathy Ashrama’s Bonsai Garden during Navaratri. I saw many whites (Americans or Euros) going about the Ashrama owrshipping Indian Gods. Any ban on them by Bhajarang Dal? Are they polluting Hinduism?? Or this is reverse integration?
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Please read this article from newspaper
India has world’s largest hungry population
Vineeta Pandey
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 04:00 IST
Ranks 66th in global hunger index
NEW DELHI: India, the world’s largest foodgrain producer, also has the world’s largest hungry population, over 200 million. It ranks a poor 66th among 88 developing and transitional countries on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI-2008), says a report by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
GHI-2008 measured hunger on three fronts – proportion of people undernourished or calorie deficient; child malnutrition (underweight children under 5 years of age) and child mortality rates (malnutrition or disease deaths of children under 5 years).
The report found that hunger was a major threat in 33 countries, including India, owing to rising food prices. The fact that food importers outnumbered exporters implied many more countries were likely to suffer from higher prices.
Despite years of robust economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 sub-Saharan countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo and Sudan, and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh, which ranked 70th. This was in spite of the fact that the per capita income in the African countries was much lower than India’s.
India’s slightly better performance over Bangladesh was because of higher agricultural productivity. But it fared worse than Bangladesh in child mortality.
Among the better-fed countries, Mauritius ranked 1st, followed by Jamaica, Moldova, Cuba and Peru. China ranked 15th, Thailand 23rd, Sri Lanka 39th, Nepal 57th and Pakistan 61st.
The figures were arrived at by making use of data from National Family Health Survey-3 and National Sample Survey Organisation.
India State Hunger Index (ISHI) was measured for the first time in this exercise. Among the 17 major Indian states, Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger, ‘extremely alarming’, followed by Jharkhand and Bihar. Hunger levels ranged from ‘serious’ to ‘extremely alarming’, with 12 states in the ‘alarming’ category. Not one state had ‘low hunger’ or ‘moderate hunger’. The best state, Punjab, and others like Kerala, Haryana and Assam, fell in the ‘serious’ bracket.
When compared to other countries in the index, Madhya Pradesh ranked 81st, level with Chad, and Punjab was 33rd, below Gabon, Honduras, and Vietnam. Maharashtra and Orissa were ranked 66th, equivalent to India while Gujarat ranked 69th with Haiti. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were 60th with Guinea.
Even states with high economic growth like Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra had high levels of hunger, while states with relatively lower economic growth, like Punjab, achieved a lower hunger level.
“Hunger and malnutrition are often rooted in poverty. Part of the solution rests with increasing investments in agriculture and poverty reduction programmes,” said Ashok Gulati, IFPRI director in Asia.
India’s poor performance was driven by its high child under-nutrition and calorie insufficiency. Underweight children accounted for the greatest contribution to the ISHI in most states, followed by calorie deficiency and child mortality. In states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu calorie deficiency contributed as much as child underweight.
After reading this take a moment to think. Some Indyans working in America and Europe countries sending money to India to make trouble. Why not use the money for poor. India is more poorer than Africa??? This is shame. Some people eating well and writing bad thing on the internet . why.
May almighty Allah and Ramkrishna give everyone wisdom
Jai Hind
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Christian Terrorists have been responsible for two World War’s, however the tag of religion is not attached to them for the War Crimes.
The media is controlled by these mass murderers and they depict it in a manner to suit their interests.
In a athiest World they have lost the clutch of Europe,Canada and Most of North America. The Bible belt in the south is getting vanquished. Africa is known more as a Muslim continents. They dont have anywhere else to go but the largest democracy in the World. They are spreading the AMWAY culture of multi level marketing into India.
It is time the Govt has law to protect the local culture and tradition else we will end up like one of these capitalist jokers. Now they have lost their last dollar and are depending of the developing countries even for their daily bread.
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Cherry-picking statements cannot accurately reflect the position — neither of the Hindu side nor the Christian side.
The ridiculous statements reported in this post only shows the poor media relations, or PR skills, of the individuals quoted. I’m sure one could equally easily cherry-pick ridiculous statements from frustrated/hurt Christian individuals. That’s no reflection of either side’s argument.
Churumuri’s post commits a serious fallacy. It trivializes an important debate. We expect better from Churumuri.
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Not India’s first woman saint
Francois Gautier
Indian media went into a tizzy while covering the canonisation of Sister Alphonsa, an obscure nun, to prove its secular credentials! Indian journalists forget that this country has had other women saints too
As a Frenchman, I was coached right from childhood that logic, what we in France call cartesianism, is the greatest gift given to man and that one should use one’s reason to tread in life. Thus, I taught to my students in a Bangalore school of journalism, the SSCMS, that the first tool of a good reporter is to go by his or her own judgement on the ground, with the help of one’s first-hand experience — and not go by second hand information: What your parents thought, what you have read in the newspapers, what your caste, religion, culture pushes you into…
Yet in India, logic does not seem to apply to most of the media, especially when it is anything related to Hindus and Hinduism. One cannot, for instance, equate Muslim terrorists who blow up innocent civilians in market places all over India to angry ordinary Hindus who attack churches without killing anybody. We know that most of these communal incidents often involve persons of the same caste — Dalits and tribals — some of them converted to Christianity and some not.
However reprehensible was the destruction of the Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process. Compare that with the ‘vengeance’ bombings of 1993 in Mumbai, which killed hundreds of innocent people, mostly Hindus. Yet Indian and Western journalists keep equating the two, or even showing the Babri Masjid destruction as the most horrible act of the two.
How can you compare the Sangh Parivar with the Indian Mujahideen, a deadly terrorist organisation? How can you label Mr Narendra Modi a mass killer when actually it was ordinary middle class, or even Dalit Hindus, who went out into the streets in fury when 56 innocent people, many of them women and children, were burnt in a train? How can you lobby for the lifting of the ban on SIMI, an organisation which is suspected of having planted bombs in many Indian cities, killing hundreds of innocent people, while advocating a ban on the Bajrang Dal, which attacked some churches after an 84-year-old swami and his followers were brutally murdered?
There is no logic in journalism in this country when it applies itself to minorities. Christians are supposedly only two per cent of the population in India, but look how last Sunday many major television channels showed live the canonisation ceremony of Sister Alphonsa, an obscure nun from Kerala and see how Union Minister Oscar Fernandes led an entire Indian delegation to the Vatican along with the Indian Ambassador. It would be impossible in England, for instance, which may have a two per cent Hindu minority, to have live coverage of a major Hindu ceremony, like the anointment of a new Shankaracharya. What were the 24×7 news channels, which seem to have deliberately chosen to highlight this non-event, trying to prove? That they are secular? Is this secularism?
The headline of the story “India gets its first woman saint”, run by many newspapers, both Indian and Western, is very misleading. For India has never been short of saints. The woman sage from over 3,000 years ago, Maithreyi, Andal, the Tamil saint from early in the first Millennium CE and Akkamahadevi, the 15th century saint from modern-day Karnataka, are but a few examples of women saints in India. What many publications failed to mention in the story is that this is the first woman Christian saint — not the first Indian woman saint. This statement is ok, when it comes, for instance, from the BBC, which always looks at India through the Christian prism (BBC ran a few months back an untrue and slanderous documentary on Auroville), but when it comes to the Indian media, it only shows the grave lack of grounding in Indian culture and history of most Indian journalists. As a result, they suffer from an inferiority complex.
This inferiority complex, as expressed by television’s live coverage of the canonisation of Sister Alphonsa, is a legacy of the British, who strove to show themselves as superior and Indian culture as inferior (and inheritor of the ‘White Aryans’, a totally false theory). Is it not time to institute schools of journalism, both private and public, where not only logic will be taught, but where students shall be made aware of Indian history and of the greatness of Indian culture, so that when they go out to report, they will use their own judgement and become Indian journalists, with a little bit of feeling, pride and love for their own country?
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Can’t Churmuri prevent “Azamgarh” from posting comments here. Opinions are one thing but how long do you tolerate puerile behaviour?
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Touchy…touchy….
Firstly, the BD and the VHP are branded as uncivilized scum …then they get berated for such statements??
How can “heathens” be civilized anyways…? To use a “Churchy” phrase…
Let’s not accuse the accused for trying to defend themselves!
In any case…what is the point here? That these are not possibilities?
Any investigative agency of any worth would be worthless if it did not investigate all possibilities.
How do the accusers know that there are no internecine quarrels amongst Christian groups? How do the accusers know for sure that the nun in question was indeed raped by BD men..if at all? How??
Just like they know the Jamia thugs are innocent??!
Those who talk of “Rwanda” so easily should know that there is some such thing as a self fulfilling prophecy. So let’s get a grip on self-flagellation!
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I thought this topic had died down, after all the hot exchanges in this blog. Why are you reviving it once again?
Have you written anything about christin militants in the North East killing the Hindus? Your eyes and ears are shut to the oppression of the Hindus in their own land.
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@shantarama….
Did you really mean Catholics?? …or did you mean Proselytizers or did you mean all Missionaries?
Coz, it would be funny to me if you meant- ban Catholics.
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https://churumuri.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/1611-per-cent-jump-in-assets-in-5-years-hello/#comment-76869
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@Gaampa Says:
15 October 2008 at 11:14 pm
I took my visiting friends from South Africa to Ganapathy Ashrama’s Bonsai Garden during Navaratri. I saw many whites (Americans or Euros) going about the Ashrama owrshipping Indian Gods. Any ban on them by Bhajarang Dal? Are they polluting Hinduism?? Or this is reverse integration?
————————————————————————————-
You saw many whites going to Ashrama and worshipping! Check with them, they are not converted; They are not DALIT/DOWNTRODDEN christians to whom these Hindu pandits lured into Hinduism.
Neevu hesarige takka haage Gaampa-ne.
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Dear nameless Nationalist, you mean the bajarangis of DK are Saints?
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All the wrong things in India if not the whole world is because of the dirty Hindoo fanatics is the theme of late.. but..
When there were a string of Church bombings (http://news.indiainfo.com/2000/07/17/blast.html) Hindoo fanatics were promptly blamed and many a neta hung their heads in shame and lost their sleep over this slur to the nations fame. But when the real perpetrators were caught nary a squeak from the secularists. Perhaps their throats went hoarse from all that bleating earlier.
In Jhabhua, a Nun was raped and again the secularists went for the jugular blaming Hindoo fanatics for this heinous crime. The reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhabua_nuns_rape_case) caused neither the loss of face nor sleep.
In Orissa (http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/india/cracks-develop-in-maoist-outfit.aspx) they slaughtered an old 84 year old Swami who was working for the upliftment of the under privileged lot. But how can we forget, this kind of service is the patented right of the Soul Harvesting NGO fronts alone ?
In the aftermath, a Nun is claimed(after a few days) to have been raped;
but that she is still missing is really interesting.
Ramdev gets a huge following and this becomes inconvenient for a few folks like Karat from the Red Brigade and so she throws a bone in the works. (That the *bone* became too hard for her to chew is another matter). In Kanchi the Sankaracharya attributed to be the force behind Jayalalitha’s failed anti-conversion ordinance is conveniently entangled in a murder case. Aren’t Hindoos supposed to be pagans/kafirs without a book or a guide ? They are to be like the headless chicken to be promptly harvested. How dare these *Dongi* babas claim to be any authority!
When some religions proclaim the exclusivity of their path to salvation, the noble idea of “Freedom to practice and propagate” creates a conflict with the ideals of secularism. If the very idea that theirs is the only way to heaven is so ingrained in their religion, then the interpretation of the above “Freedom” would mean the headless chicken have to forego their faith. And it is this interpretation that leads to trash literature such as “SatyaDarshini”. But then literary freedom is the exclusive right of only a few. How dare a Hindoo be affronted by the liberties of the Minority ?
If there really are no mass conversions going on how did the demographics of the North East change so rapidly ?
And along comes the Western Media fed with this partisan coverage and an outside government passes a resolution (http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/1520/48/).
IF there are any doubts about the headless chicken allegory, please read
http://www.mnnonline.org/article/10356
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“NSRK Ravi, director of the North American Mission Board’s Evangelism Response Center and a former Hindu, told Baptist Press he had not heard of Zed before the chaplain prayed in the U.S. Senate. Ravi said Zed “has been a minor figure among the Indian Hindu community until recently.”
But now Zed’s followers are growing rapidly, and a group called Friends of Rajan Zed has been established in India with goals of “working to maximize human potential, promoting and preserving peace, and praying for humankind,” according to the Reno Gazette-Journal Aug. 26. The group has asked Nevada’s governor to declare July 12, the day Zed recited a prayer at the U.S. Senate, as Rajan Zed Day.
NAMB’s Ravi said he’s not sure whether Zed has a clear religious agenda behind leading prayers at American government institutions, but Ravi does believe Zed is using those open doors to show the growing Indian Hindu presence in the United States. ”
“Second- and third-generation [Americans with ties to India] are not religious; they are becoming more materialists,” Ravi added.
North American believers have a unique opportunity to reach out to an international population without having to go overseas. Pray that God would encourage Christians in the U.S. to reach out to this segment of their society.
========================================
So Hindoos have an agenda! But the NGO fronts do not !
What me worry.. I will have some Churmuri..
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Shyodha, Rightly said.
Even when I read the headlines “india gets first women sait” these thought came to my mind. Guess they deliberatly forgot mention first “christian” saint in the headlines. How come indian journalist can forget about the all the women saints in past..?
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Watching BBC International’s news coverage on the Orissa violence on Oct 15, 08 for its north American audience, was not only horrifying but extremely disgusting. It was like watching 15th century half naked malnourished tribal s fighting a war among themselves.
I am so much ashamed to be called a citizen of a country where such gruesome incidences take place.
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Swamy,
There is not much of a difference between the Catholic Church and Bajrang Dal except that the Catholic church is much more notorious and powerful than the BD. The Catholic church has been instrumental in the papal bulls to inquisitions in our own goa to successful extermination of native indegenous tribes in africa and america and is the single most notorious institution spreading terror. Also include the biggest child abuse racket of the CC. They also hide under the missionary work or the white man’s burden as they used to call it. That is similar to what VHP and BD do. Like the catholic church the VHP and BD run several schools and hospitals in tribal areas. But their whole game is communal and sectarian – both of them BD and Catholic church should be banned as they stand for superstition, violence and irrationality.
We need the values of enlightenment and reason. The catholic church does not stand by these values and is an obscrutarian organization with a vicious agenda. The great philosopher of the french revolution Voltaire had this to say the great work done by these missionaries in Goa – “Goa is sadly famous for its inquisition, which is contrary to humanity as much as to commerce. The Portuguese monks deluded us into believing that the Indian populace was worshiping The Devil, while it is they who served him.” . That is what these organizations – BD, VHP and catholic church are – contrary to humanity as much as to commerce. They need to be banned.
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Shantaram,
By your argument of banning Catholics – how about banning upper caste hindus from justifying random acts of violence on innocent people?
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If you ever wonder how minorities/dishonest journalists in Mangalore area systematically accuse everything on Hindus, BJP and Police, read the latest report here:
http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=52406
It’s amazing how dishonest they are and spin everything into anti-Hindu, anti-Police thing. After the riots, when those jobless, stone-pelting Catholic youth were released from local prison, Christian community threw a big party to welcome them back …as if they had achieved sometihng big!!
@ tksbhat – I never said Bhajrangis are saints. Where did you read it?
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http://deccanherald.com/Content/Oct172008/national2008101795679.asp
Now a new Christian demand to split Kandamal into two pieces. They are likely to create a Nagaland in Orissa.
True blue effects of conversion can result in seccession. Pseudo secular parties will support this anti national cause.
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Lo Anonymous Gay,
WTF has provided you withe the evidence u were asking for. Now respond to that and then spew ur anti hindu venom
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Annonymous Guy – Caste system should be banned as much as the Roman catholic church.
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Look here you shameless psedusecular taliban….
Maoists were hired by a “certain community” to kill Swamiji
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/17orissa.htm
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@Shantarama,
Absolutely agree on the Inquisition…but i also am aware of this:
Firstly, look at the time-line!!! When did the Goan/Spanish/Roman Inquisition happen Vs what is happening at the hands of the Bajrang Dal and VHP, in THIS day and age. Is it a sound argument to compare events centuries apart just because they Can be compared?
Secondly, i have not seen even the slightest ounce of regret by any Sangh-member….not to the Media, or in Court. The Sangh seems to stand by it’s members – no matter what. The Pope in 2000 has apologized for the Inquisition as “…The Inquisition belongs to a tormented phase in the history of the Church, which . . . Christians [should] examine…” and also in Australia, on July 19, 2008 has made a historic full apology for child sex abuse by priests and clergymen in Australia.
This is widely criticized, naturally, of being lip service, but for an organisation the size of the CC it is a landmark, from its previous position of silence, i think.
I have seen plenty of chest-thumping, mocking, and bravado by the Sangh after every show of its strength. Even if i had seen, and I would like to see -hopefully- even a single apologist or reformist train-of-thought in the Hindu-right and i would gladly give them the benefit of doubt.
Till then, i feel differently about your equating CC with Sangh Parivar.
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@shantaram
I could understand, however if you equated Proselytizers with the Sangh.
Understandable, (but IMHO) a stretch for me… :)
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Why go far into the bloody church history come to the recent times…..
Yes first you convert south Korea from 88% buddhist to 18% now and you say sorry….
See what Red Indians are in America than say Sorry…
See what Abrogines are in australia then say sorry…
See what Maoris are in New Zealand then say sorry….
And now they’ll turn India into Nagaland and say sorry…… that means Christians are secular… and Church is sorrrrrrryyyyyy…
Absolutely disgusting…
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Swamy,
I agree that equating inquisition to the recent violence is not so right. But there are historical forces that needs to be understood behind every act of violence. The modern day Catholic churches in India are not full of saints. There is not much difference between the BD and catholic church as they are both involved in sectarian propoganda. If you do not believe in it, just go to some of those theological conferences held by institutions like the dharmaram college in Bangalore and also view some of their publications which reference the pagan Hindus in no uncertain terms. The Christian mafia in the north eastern states are no innocent suffering saints as they like to be portrayed in the western media.
I am against the Sangh Parivar activities and I do not belong to their organization. I feel that they are violent and abusive to non indian faiths. But I also hold the christian church along with the Muslim mullahs with their hate agendas are also majorly responsible for this sectarianism. The point is all these people are fighting over fictions like maybe Jesus saving the world from sin or allah is the only true god or Hinduism has all the answers. None of these faiths and beliefs would stand on firm ground upon scientific and rational explanations. As a rationalist and a scientisst I feel threatned by the stranglehold of these religions as they have encroached into our instituions with thier poisonous agenda to comply with their irrational belief systems. If you think the catholics churches are innocent victims and the kerala missionaries did not have any other sectarian agenda in orrisa then you are simply shutting down reality and living in denial. It takes two (or even more) hands to clap.
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Those interested may read an article by S L Bhyrappa in the VijayaKarnataka (16th Oct 2008,Thursday) entitled “Intha GhaTane bere yaava deshadalli naDediitu?”(Kannada) Know that many views will be expressed about it. But he has given everybody a chance to think.
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How to save HInduism? What are the tricks used by otheres ? Please see http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?Page ID=7136&SKIN=C
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Cong MP suspected behind VHP leader’s murder
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17911§ionid=4&issueid=75&Itemid=1
This R K Nayak guy is very close to Rahul Vinci and his mother.. !!
Now all the pieces are falling in place..
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For some information on grassroots movements of ex-muslims, one may visit http://www.faithfreedom.org.
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Avva Madesa,
I think Anonymous Guy has run out of “anti upper caste” comments.
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To beat Naxalites….Hindus must “eliminate” the rich – poor divide.
To beat Missionaries….Hindus must “eliminate” “casteism”.
To beat Islamists….Hindus must not “hurt” Muslim sentiments.
All of the above targets achieved, Hindus then have the right to survive…if not..tondare illa….they have the above mansions they can enter…
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If you keep saying, Hinduism will save itself, it won’t. what happened to Cambodia which has the largest hindu temple complex in the world?
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Lo Madesha, wtf,
F… your upper caste.
Even god cant save India from better than a third world country as long as casteism exists.
You guys can remain lotus-eaters and delude yourself and wallow in whatever ‘caste’ you belong to.
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Anonymous Guy,
Be practical. There are ample laws as per constitution that give equal rights to all. Dont blame the upper castes. Its very rare to see those madivanta ajjis these days who wont let other people into house n all. The problem is wit the lower strata itself and their leaders who wanna cash in on their ignorance. Assume one fine day the caste bias is completely rooted out of India. Then there shall be class based discrimination. There will be discrimination based on color. Discrimination based on age. Just look @ the what the TV channels specify for the posts of news readers.( She should be beautiful and within 25 yrs of age). Isnt this discrimination? There will be discrimination based on intellectual capacity of a person inside a family itself. You cant go policing everyone. People should become aware of their rights. There are caste issues even amognst beef-eaters and soul harvesters not just lotus eaters. Have an open mind.
The developed countries are no utopia, they are also plagued by different issues @ a different level.
If u just come to the conclusion that casteism is the root cause for all problems in India, then i can only say that you are a narrow-minded person.
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Anonymous Guy,
As I have already said you have nothing to say other than blaming the so called upper caste for everything. And how did you assume I belong to the upper caste? Just because I gave proof of your “Naxalite praising”? And see how you ignored that proof.
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bari olu,
I dont get what you are trying to say.
So if casteism is rooted out – it will be a bad thing because it might be replaced by something else?
How is one narrow minded because she/he thinks the caste system is bad for India (I didnt say root cause – but caste and its importance in our life is one of the things which keeps us down as a third world country and allows others to exploit us and convert us and pretty much do anything they want to us). And non-hindus in India bickering among each other based on caste – isnt that a good example why it is a national curse – not just a Hindu problem!
Yes all countries and every person have problems – that is the nature of life. There will be inequity, there is no social justice yet people strive to be better and treat others better all the time. Things have improved from the middle ages – for any religion or country.
But casteism is something which does nobody good anymore. It is of no use to the upper castes and it certainly does no good to the oppressed. People who delight and profit from seeing us weak, disunited, poor and mistrusting each other based on caste – they will certainly think that the caste system should continue forever.
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I said u are narrow-minded coz u think all problems are because of caste. You seem to be one confused lot when you say
“Yes all countries and every person have problems – that is the nature of life. There will be inequity, there is no social justice yet people strive to be better and treat others better all the time. Things have improved from the middle ages – for any religion or country.”
You say things have improved since middle ages and still crib . And u also accept that inequalities will still stay. At one hand you want utopia and other hand u r accepting a utopia is not possible.
The indian constitution has given ample rights to people of all the castes. Blaming the upper castes in not right because the lower castes are staying oppressed because of they are represented by short sighted leaders like Mayawati, Arjun Singh, Laloo, Paswan etc.
People can be divided not just based on religion, it can also be based on region, language etc.
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wtf,
Naxalite praising? Where? And you gave proof of that, you just said it – you are crazy :)
The caste system sucks.
The ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ castes can keep blaming each other and every other thing in the world. But their blind insistence of propagating castes instead of banning it and containing it will keep Indians mired in third world poverty.
And you guys trying to justify the caste system (or what is it you guys are doing by defending it?) is funny.
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Anonymous Guy,
Here it is again – https://churumuri.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/1611-per-cent-jump-in-assets-in-5-years-hello/#comment-76869
“And you guys trying to justify the caste system”
Where? Can you point to my comment where caste system is justified?
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Hindus will have this problem as long as there is a huge poor underclass in India. The Hindus need to help the poor to counter the Christian proselytizing. Even the Chinese have uplifted the poorest people in their society and the poor in China are much better off as compared to their likes in India, and China started out poorer than India. The upper caste Indians did create a religion that accepted everyone–Buddhism– as a solution to the problem of caste…but after many barbaric Muslim invasions the native creative culture was disrupted and Hindus became very orthodox, rigid and retrogressive in order to survive Islam. It is a wonder that Hindusim survives at all considering the Muslim devastation–V.S. Naipaul is right, Indian culture stops being creative at 1000 a.d. The Hindus after numerous barbarian assaults have become very passive. It is sad. Hindu nationalism is just Hindus reasserting themselves in the face of aggressive, proselytizing religions and in the face of a government that does not take seriously majority interest. They have already lost Kashmir the cradle of Hindu civilization. Since Buddhism which was a good solution to the problem of caste and a native development and not an import, had to flee in India, India is in need of something to replace its ideals. Unless Hindus do something about the underclass in India, they will continue to multiply and the population will approach 2 bn…already there are too many people. A two child policy for India?
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Also caste has become unnecessary in modern times–but it did have a function. Indian culture survives as a result of it and India is not like Afghanistan where the local Buddhist Zoorastrian culture was so easily converted by force to Isalm. Because of caste, Muslim invaders had such a hard time converting Indians.
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Also it is stupid to blame caste for the problems of India. They are largely a result of the Islamic disruption of the native culture and of the current apathy of a peoples that has become passive after being enslaved for 1000 years. HIndus are the most passive people on the face of the earth. There were a lot of tribal, aboriginal people in India. The Hindus did not kill them off like the Europeans but lived with them side by side. People developed religions like Buddhism to integrate and assimilate everyone, but Buddhism and the creative Hindu culture came to an end after to coming of Islam. Buddhism, the solution to caste, a home grown phenomena, and not an import had to flee due to disruptions by Islam and it took its great world view to Tibet, China and Japan. These societies have benefited immensely from its fruits whereas this religion was unable to grow in its motherland. The people who were excluded by caste became an underclass as Hindus became orthodox and conservative to survive Isalm and movements like Buddhism which would have created a more egalitarian society came to an end. Before you make comments about caste being the root of evils in India, one should read Indian history, and see why movements like Buddhism that tried to create an egalitarian society died out. Under Islam, HIndus suffered and became rigid and orthodox to survive the imposition of a foreign rule and had to pay very high taxes. The result was cultural decay. But were it not for caste, the Muslim invaders would have converted all Indians to Islam and the result would have been that it would have become like an Afghanistan(where the original Buddhist Zoroastrian culture was wiped out completely by Barbaric Turkish invaders) or a Pakistan or Bangladesh. So we owe our survival in part to caste. What is needed is a revival of ideals in India that created religions like Buddhism which was a voice for all.
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Just joining this blog. Lot of intelligent people expressing their opinions.
But nothing concrete interms of suggestions for building a healthy
society for people of all faiths to live and practice their relegions.
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Kingkhan – I don’t see such a society anywhere…let alone in this country. People wish for such a society sure.
In my opinion, it is important for nations to possess assertive majorities..and I don’t mean political majorities, because political majorities are too fluid and are blessed with short term visions. No, nations must possess Civilizational majorities. In fact, the elite must nurture such majorities. It is only through their strength that balance and a center of gravity can be assured to a people.
Liberalism specializes in destroying the will to such Civilizational majorities and that is why we see so much of unrest in most nations today.
Let’s see for illustration;
USA – White Christian Civilizational base
India – Hindu Civilizational base
China – Confucian Civilizational base
Britain/Europe – White Christian Civilizational base
Israel – Jewish Civilizational base
What liberals in each of these nations have done is to, termite like, eat away at national vitals. When this happens, confusion sets in and focus is lost. Liberals like to call such effect, “multiculturalism”. Another fancy name for mass suicide. Another interesting analogy would be the after effects of an orgy!
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wtf,
How was that praise? Let me repeat what I said:
“Looks like the Naxalites are the only ones who are doing something about the whole mess…”
And they were. So you think all Naxalites are bad people? Nothing good should be said about them? What do you think pushed them to be Naxalites?
The caste system thing was for bari olu. But I guess for you too, unless you want to come out and say – the caste system is an evil thing and has been harmful to the most people in our country. And our country itself. Dont you agree?
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larissa,
In what way is the caste system a good thing? It is based on the idea of oppression and that someone has to do a set of things based on who they are born to.
Simply stating random things about Buddhism, Islam etc. wont change the fact that the caste system is our invention and our problem.
Your argument is akin to some white people in the Southern United States or some parts of Europe saying segregation and racism is a good thing for everyone since it helped them be where they are. And that all non-whites should be kept segregated for everyone’s good.
I dont see how the ideals of Buddhism have any place for the caste system.
It has to be rooted out if we are to make progress from being a third world nation. Of course we can continue to live in a fool’s paradise and ignore this or defend it or blame anyone and everyone in our history. While problems like class conflicts, elections rigged on the basis of caste, nepotism based on caste, reservations, naxalism, conversions of lower castes to other religions etc. continue to keep weakening our nation.
Removing the caste system will make Hinduism stronger not weaker.
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=>Removing the caste system will make Hinduism stronger not weaker.<=
Interesting point. Thanks for thinking about making Hindusim stronger. Veer Savarkar would agree with you. Mohandaas Gandhi would disagree.
Anyway-
Now let us turn our heads towards slighlty bigger issues:
What do you think Uniform Civil Code will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think discarding article 370 will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think COMPLETELY stopping so called NGO-foreign fund flow into India will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think BANNING of screaming five times a day, 365 days year, WITH A MICROPHONE will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think throwing all the padres who are molesting nuns behind bars will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think BANNING nunhood (yes, all those sisters) before twenty one will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think BANNING of using TAX PAYER money to fund religious institutions (i.e. madrassas AKA terrorist camps) will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think BANNING building white walls indicriminately all over India will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think arresting Arabs who show up in Hyderabad to ‘seed’ will do? Make India stronger or weaker?
What do you think?
Shall we start cleaning up?
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Anony Guy,
I am not supporting caste system in any way. I am saying Hindu laws in India are quite strong and provide equality to all. Its just the people of lower strata are kept ignorant and divided by self centred short sighted leaders.
I assume you must know that the Aryan Invasion Theory was a tool used to divide the Hindus. The sole basic foundation of this country has been laid out on basis of farce and appeasement policies. Caste system is a blessing in disguise for the politicos to divide the country. How do you think you would be in a position to eradicate the same?? Any solutions atleast on paper??
Well said Shyoda,
I say a Hindu isnt provided equal rights under indian constitution why do some religions have the rights to wed 4 wives @ the same time. How much free are women in the nether community.
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Removing the caste system is the need of the hour. The caste system is an evil thing and needs to be rooted out, that is 100% true.
But I don’t see that happening in the next several decades, maybe it will take more than a century. I had some hopes earlier, but when I see the comments on churumuri by ‘educated’ people, I realize that there is no hope.
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In my opinion, this Caste System cannot die. It will mutate like it always has, but cannot be killed.
The reason is very simple. Caste provides for Group identity. Forgetting one’s Caste is much like committing some sort of suicide. An “aware” Group would never accede to such suicide.
Little wonder that politically aware Depressed Castes have taken to calling themselves “Dalits” and those that are not so politically “awake”…still go by their traditional Caste identities.
In the above case, “Dalit” is only a mutation of an earlier Caste identity..and not an obliteration of Caste itself. This is proved by the fact that an OBC (another mutation in the making)or a Forward Caste person cannot “become” a Dalit.
Now, can this “group energy” be utilized positively? I believe it can be done. For all it’s faults, Uttar Pradesh politics has created a platform that “Brahmins” and “Dalits” share together.
In this lies more food for thought.
Moreover, when people speak of “rooting” our the Caste System, they must try and explain what that actually means on the ground.
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@Anonymous Guy
I never said caste is a good thing–simply that some people who do not understand Indian history seem to think that it is the source of all of India’s evils. What was Buddhism? A religion created by upper caste Hindus as a reaction to the corruption and inequalities of caste. The Buddhists were creating a more egalitarian society but Buddhism was disrupted in India and thrown out of India as a result of barbarian Muslim invasions. Buddhism was a native development suited to India, not a froeign import. So some upper castes in India were concerned with uplifting and integrating everyone and the growth of religions like Buddhism is a testimony to that. Why did Hinduism stop being creative, become retrogressive and stop creating anything worthwhile? Why did Buddhism have to flee its homeland but grew in Tibet, China and Japan? Why did Hindus become ultra orthodox? Does it not have to do with the fact that foreigners disrupted the native culture through repeated invasions? Do a bit of reading of Indian history. Why do you not read Kitab-i-Yamini, written by a Muslim historian chronicling the Mahmud’s invasion of India. Since it is writeen by a Muslim you will not be able to accuse him of distorting history because he is a Muslim writing about the Muslim invasions.
All I am saying is that Hindus have to recover those very ideals that lead to religions like Buddhism to spring forth. But after being enslaved for 1000 years, Hindus not only do not understand their history but also seem to like to whitewash their history. Caste is no longer needed–but to say that it was a source of India’s problems is to be completely ignorant of Indian history in a larger context. Why do you not ask yourselves why did Indians stop being creative and why did they become orthodox and why did ideals resulting in religions like Buddhism come to a stop? It was because the native culture was disrupted by too many foreign invasions resulting in the fact that Hindus were enslaved for 1000 years and they became orthodox to survive and stopped being creative. It is useless to argue with anyone who has not read enough of Indian history. Indians will never create anything worthy of admiration until they understand their own history.
Caste has become a historical monstrosity and is no longer needed. But you cannot deny that if your ancestors had not been orthodox and fought for their religion they would have become Muslim. Why was it so easy for the Muslims to conquer India? Because the dominant religion was Buddhism and the Buddhists did not like to fight. I have nothing against Muslims. People are born into a religon and cannot help it But I really dislike people who try to whitewash and distort history.
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Indians will have to come up with a solution that is native and not imported. I am appalled by how ignorant Indians are of their own history. How can they expect anyone to respect them when they are ignorant of ther own heritage and culture? Caste is already dead in cities anyway and is already dying out due to urbanization, it seems to me, and will continue to do so with the spread of education and urbanization. All Indians should ask themselves why did they become an enslaved prople for 1000 years, why did their creative culture come to a halt suddenly in terms of creativity and read their history to get the answers.
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Ms Larissa
I think you are being very critical on the invaders. I agree there were some who insisted on religious conversions, but most of the 800 odd years of Mughal rule is testimony to the fact that Islam was not forced on the masses, otherwise we would have been a muslim majority country.It would not have been very difficult in 800 years of rule.
Even if you look at the local king like Tipu Sultan, you will never see that he insisted on converting forcibly. I believe that he was a practicing muslim, who i feel is the only king who died on the battlefield defending honour of his soil.If he was power concious, he would have bartered and gained time and power like the rest of the rulers.
By all this what i really want to imply to you is that Islam doesnt encourage forcible conversions. But the fact that the Holy Quran is the only unchanged letter of the Almighty to all mankind, implores muslims to deliver his message to all humanity.
And please dont judge Islam on the basis of the present day muslim, your judgement will be seriously affected.
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Atheism/Rationalism anyone??
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Ms Larissa
I also beleive that the Bible is the word of the Almighty, alongwith the Taurath and the Zaboor(two more Holy books, brought down on The Jews and the Zorastrians). But these books were changed to suit the whims and fancies of their followers. The basic Commandments itself have been altered.
But the Holy Quran is the last of the Holy Books, and this time it was addressed to whole of Humanity, and not just to the Muslims. So no muslim can say it is their book, but it belongs and addresses all humanity. And the Holy Quran, is the same without a single change till date.Kindly read it.
I also beleive in the fact that the Almighty has sent nearly 124000 prophets to the whole of mankind, with his message, to all sections of people in this world. But we the dwellers of this Earth, have failed to follow their commandments.
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@Vinay…i agree on the rationalism part, atheism cant say, its a personal choice!
But yes, I do question the ppl (irrespective of their being hindus muslims christians jews buddhists parsis sikhs and absolutely anyone at all)…I do question ppl who claim thier religious texts are unchanged since their conception more than a millenia ago!
If anyone has played the game “pass the msg” when he/she was a child, they wud know that with jus 20 ppl in the room the msg almost never gets thru undistorted/unchanged!
With this kinda of proof if u tell me that with thousands of ppl analysing n preaching religion in their own way, interpreting the religious texts in their own way, and popularising religious teachings in their own way, there is no change in what the holy books today contain……well, wat can i say? each one is free to choose his/her own illusion!
And yeah PLEASE DON’T SAY THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS A CHILD’s GAME. I think children would be the most likely candidates to pass on a msg in its original form because of the same reason that they are most of the time innocent/guileless! Unlike adults who are affected by propaganda, social status, political implications, financial implications, moral implications, family issues…all of which are likely contributors to distorting a good message!
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It is absolutely wrong to say that casteism is ‘dying out in cities’! That statement is completely wrong, misleading, and downright foolish. You probably don’t know the way people cling on to their caste. I have heard elders saying, “Love marriage is to be discouraged, but if at all one insists on going in for a love marriage, the partner should be a Brahmin. It is tolerable (just) even if he/she is from a different state/language, but being a Brahmin is of paramount importance.” And these are well educated, widely travelled city dwellers.
If you are unmarried, Why don’t you try marrying someone from a different caste? Then write back.
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Oh yes, I have one more question. This is esp directed to ppl who claim hinduism is imperfect and that it oppresses ppl with caste et al since ages past and that their respective religions are flawless in this context.Please bear with me and i hope someone will answer!
Judaism has origins to about 37 BCE if i m not mistaken, christianity originates around the 0 CE, and Islam originates around 500 CE. All of them have similar origins, Prophet/messenger of god coming thru Abraham and so on and so on.
What i am wondering is, if these religions were equal and just to all humanity as each one of these monotheistic religions claim,and if everyone was so very happy with the then new religion, what exactly is the reason for the development of 3 new religions within such short amounts of time?3 religions that are based on the same history but each teaching the same msg under a diff prophet/msger of god/son of god and yet each one claiming to be the only true religion!
Unless i am answered with a good rational explanation to this doubt of mine, i have no choice but to hold the Hebrew bible, the christian bible and the holy quran as nothing else but revised editions of one book with a few name changes here and there! and that automatically rules out the famous claim, ” OUR RELIGIOUS TEXT IS TOTALLY UNCHANGED AND EVERY OTHER TEXT IS FALSE”!
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And also will ppl stop Brahmin bashing. To think that 5% of the indian population(brahmins) who hold neither the best paying jobs nor the most influential posts are responsible for the plight of 45% of indian population(all the spl reservation groups included excepting minority religions) is jus plain irrational.
A populace which is nine times more numerous in a country where they have the right to chose their representatives are oppressed by brahmins! Amazing logic!
And yes, ppl encourage at best brahmin brahmin marriage, so whats the problem, they want ppl who have been brought up on similar cultural backgrounds because of the simple reason that it will easier for the couple to get along with each other better in hard times! So are u saying screw the parents and elders for looking after the future interests of their kids? How can ppl be so narrow minded? If u wanna marry intercaste or inter religion, convince ur parents about it, they wont be happy but they will concede to ur demands in the end.
If some one doesn’t have the balls or the guts to tell the parents wat he/she wants in life and decides to blame them n their religion/caste for not marrying ppl they love, then they are jus immature n probably shudnt be gettin married yet cos clearly they cant think for themselves nor can they stand up to support their own views!
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Prajwal:
Don’t talk nonsense. You speak like a juvenile college kid, in fact that is what I think you are. The issue here is that parents will prefer marrying their kid to someone of the same caste, even if the kid wants to marry someone of his/her choice, and that someone is infinitely better in every respect. The problem is that, in this case, most parents’ idea of ‘looking after the future interests of their kids’ is to impose a match with someone of the same goddamn caste, irrespective of the kid’s wish.
You talk about ‘balls’, ‘guts’, and so on.. these days we see ‘honour killings’ for this same issue. There is emotional blackmail, ostracism, getting shunned by society and sometimes physical force.. the list goes on. These are some of the things one has to endure if one dares to go against the caste system.
I am a ‘Brahmin’. Just mentioned this lest you submit another immature post about ‘Brahmin bashing’. What I have written above applied to all goddamn castes, not just Brahmins. Stop making an ass of yourself by typing juvenile stuff about ‘Guts’, ‘Balls’, ‘Telling your parents’, ‘parents accepting’, and similar stuff.
Someone was asking about “Moreover, when people speak of “rooting” our the Caste System, they must try and explain what that actually means on the ground”
For a start, accept that there is a problem. Realize that the problem is still terribly widespread, in villages, towns, cities and megacities. And then, stop defending the ‘honour’ of your caste. Stop taking cudgels for your damn caste. Do it for better issues. There is no lack of genuine issues to fight for.
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Blaming the leaders, the politicians and the ‘system’ for everything has become a fashion in India. People crib endlessly about dirty roads, and don’t think twice before littering. People crib endlessly about traffic, but will not follow lane discipline. Corruption – that is the favourite topic of all educated Indians over a cup of tea, isn’t it? Most of those hypocrites would bribe their way out of a traffic offence. If questioned about it later, they will say, “the system is like that, what can I do?”
Likewise, Dalits/lower castes curse the Brahmins and blame them for keeping them subjugated, and Brahmins consider Dalits as inferior species. It works both ways. And people continue marrying based on caste, voting based on caste, giving everything a caste flavour.
All Hindus unite when it comes to religious wars, all Brahmins unite when it comes to a caste battle. We also have various sects of Brahmins, and each one calls himself superior to all the other Brahmin sects. And don’t even get me started on ‘Marathi Manoos’ and ‘Mannina Maga’ discussions. Total anarchy is what we are heading for.
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Vinay, what do you propose should be done with Caste? Something concrete and practical please.
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@vinay
more i read ur posts the more i see similarities i see in ur way of thinkin n mine(this i say considerin i got chided for bringin up topics of blaming others n corruption et al)
yes im also a brahmin n i m also a college kid, never pretended otherwise. Also have had issues at home about my gf whom i intend to marry as sson as i get done with studies bla bla bla, both faced our parents n got their consent. U speak of diff sects/groups of brahmins. I think im the 4th or 5th one among my cousins to go for an “inter-sect” marriage if u will.
Have no illusions that all brahmins have an opinion that they consider themselves better than the rest(mebe u know only such brahmins but i know all types, types who are moderate, types who are elitists and types who are rebellious to the age old brahmin code). I live with more muslims and malaysian hindus in the same apartment for more than a year now and not to forget the one room which has been so far occupied by a chinese n then a muslim n then a christian who is leaving today as he finished his internship.
I have been studyin and working with quite a big group of muslims n have a really really good muslim frnd who does not follow the islamic code of hijab/burkha.
We have had religious debates(healthy ones) they question our practices and i question theirs, and at the end of the day we are all back to working/studying together with NO FEELINGS OF ONE BEING SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER or whatsoever!
But u know wat is the most acute observation u can make in a day, muslims stick to their group n talk in arabic, the europeans stick to their group, n then there are the indians who stick together jus cos they are indian or like the russians n ukranians stick together in their group.
THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE IS you cant blame a person for liking the practices of ppl from similar cultural backgrounds which unfortunately/fortunately plays a role in Love marriages or watever intercaste/interreligion interactions u wish to consider.
Let me give u a few simple examples:
1. I am sure u consider Indian kitchens clean, u know after cooking, u wipe the slab clean n u r done. But it is not considered clean by the europeans or the americans cos for them everything from the floor to the stove to the oven to every single speck of bread crumb lying around should be cleaned after u use the kitchen. The muslims i have encountered so far have a completely diff idea of cleanliness, their idea is that their utensils etc shud be clean but they have no concern for the common cooking area or the common dining area.
2. When have we ever called up friends or relatives to ask if its ok to come. If its relatives we usually drop in unannounced. If its frnds we call up n say we are coming over to make sure he/she is home but not to ask if its ok for him/her if we visit. We call up on late evenings/weekends to ask about work even when the bloke are out with family or frnds. This is all acceptable in our culture. But it is totally unacceptable with the europeans.
So u see there are huge huge huge differences between diff cultures and if u observe the castes/sects each one has huge differences in practices. I am no fan of discrimination on basis of colour race skin caste et al. I agree that these should be abolished, but to say that they are to blame or orthodox thinkin families are to blame when one considers himself/herself to be part of a country where the constitution ensures that there is freedom n rights given to every citizen then it is wrong.
What are u afraid of if u want an intercaste marriage? Ur family is against it u aren’t, so what? its upto u to decide which aspect of ur life gains more importance or if u say that u wanna give them equal importance, then its upto u to manage the diff aspects of life.
Its bloody immature to say u r doing/not doing something cos of family/peer/social pressure. This is like sayin i flunked an exam cos my friend forced me to flunk it or like sayin i didnt do my job cos the office peon said that it was against his interests!
I m sayin it again, im not for the caste system or for religious fanaticism but wat u r doing is also typical indian, blaming corrupt officials n politicians is outdated fashion. Apparently the latest trend in our Country is blaming religion/social dogmas for all personal problems!
GROW UP DUDE! dont give a ” college kid” like me the oppurtunity to call u immature. Its kinda embarassing for me at least, dunno about you. Oh yeah, It is also bloody annoying and embarassing for me wen elders grown ups n doctors keep ranting about the religion n caste n watever issues like they were no part of it!
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Prajwala,
Odo time alli odbeku mari. Ee tara godda harte hoddu time waste maadbeda :)
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For those who wrote about the tolerance of Islam, one just has to look at Kashmir. The Hindus and Buddhists let the Muslims come in and prictise their religion. Kashmir was the last area to be penetrated by Isalm–it was an area of refuge for Hindus after the Muslim conquests. Look at it now. The original inhabitants the Pandits have been kicked out of their centuries of habitat and the area has become 100% MUslim. Please show me a muslim country where minority rights are rescpeted and a country that has created a democracy before you start pointing your finger at Hindus. I just have to look at the state of Hindus in Kashmir to understand Isalm and how tolerant it is and it should be a lesson to all HIndus. As to people of one caste preferring to marry their own kind why do you have problems with that? Jews in American marry their own, that does not cause anyone to have problems. As long as people do not harm other, they are free to marry who they please.
As for the Isalmic legacy in India, it was not becasue the Muslims were so generous that India reamains majority HIndus, it was becasue people refused to convert and when they did they reconverted back to HInduism.
I suggest everyone read this man:Adapted from The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam by Dr. Serge Trifkovic, before you start forming your opinions by the liberal press. I often wonder who funds most of the press in India. I have nothing against Muslims, but I dislike the liberal hacks who are constantly whitewashing Indian history and blaming HIndus for everything. Could it be that there are problems wherever there is Isalm and not just India? Why is that? Perhaps Muslims should look at thier own culture before they point at HIndus.
The fundamental leftist and anti-American claim about our ongoing conflict with political Islam is this: whatever has happened or does happen, it’s our fault. We provoked them into it by being dirty Yankee imperialists and by unkindly refusing to allow them to destroy Israel. But two things make crystal clear that this is not so:
1. The political arm of Islam has been waging terroristic holy war on the rest of the world for centuries.
2. It has waged this war against civilizations that have nothing to do with the West, let alone America.
This is why the case of Moslem aggression against India proves so much. Let’s look at the historical record.
India prior to the Moslem invasions was one of the world’s great civilizations. Tenth century Hindustan matched its contemporaries in the East and the West in the realms of philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. Indian mathematicians discovered the number zero (not to mention other things, like algebra, that were later transmitted to a Moslem world which mistaken has received credit for them.) Medieval India, before the Moslem invasion, was a richly imaginative culture, one of the half-dozen most advanced civilizations of all time. Its sculptures were vigorous and sensual, its architecture ornate and spellbinding. And these were indigenous achievements and not, as in the case of many of the more celebrated high-points of Moslem culture, relics of pre-Moslem civilizations that Moslems had overrun.
Moslem invaders began entering India in the early 8th century, on the orders of Hajjaj, the governor of what is now Iraq. (Sound familiar?) Starting in 712 the raiders, commanded by Muhammad Qasim, demolished temples, shattered sculptures, plundered palaces, killed vast numbers of men — it took three whole days to slaughter the inhabitants of the city of Debal — and carried off their women and children to slavery, some of it sexual. After the initial wave of violence, however, Qasim tried to establish law and order in the newly-conquered lands, and to that end he even allowed a degree of religious tolerance. but upon hearing of such humane practices, his superior Hajjaj, objected:
“It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Koran [47.4]: “0 True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads.” The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all will consider you a weak-minded man.”
In a subsequent communication, Hajjaj reiterated that all able-bodied men were to be killed, and that their underage sons and daughters were to be imprisoned and retained as hostages. Qasim obeyed, and on his arrival at the town of Brahminabad massacred between 6,000 and 16,000 men.
The significance of these events lies not just in the horrible numbers involved, but in the fact that the perpetrators of these massacres were not military thugs disobeying the ethical teachings of their religion, as the European crusaders in the Holy Land were, but were actually doing precisely what their religion taught. (And one may note that Christianity has grown up and no longer preaches crusades. Islam has not. As has been well-documented, jihad has been preached from the official centers of Islam, not just the lunatic fringe.)
Qasim’s early exploits were continued in the early eleventh century, when Mahmud of Ghazni, “passed through India like a whirlwind, destroying, pillaging, and massacring,” zealously following the Koranic injunction to kill idolaters, whom he had vowed to chastise every year of his life.
In the course of seventeen invasions, in the words of Alberuni, the scholar brought by Mahmud to India,
“Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion toward all Moslems.”
Does one wonder why? To this day, the citizens of Bombay and New Delhi, Calcutta and Bangalore, live in fear of a politically-unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan that unlike India (but like every other Moslem country) has not managed to maintain democracy since independence.
Mathura, holy city of the god Krishna, was the next victim:
“In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted.” The Sultan [Mahmud] was of the opinion that 200 years would have been required to build it. The idols included “five of red gold, each five yards high,” with eyes formed of priceless jewels. “The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled with the ground.”
In the aftermath of the invasion, in the ancient cities of Varanasi, Mathura, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi, and Dwarka, not one temple survived whole and intact. This is the equivalent of an army marching into Paris and Rome, Florence and Oxford, and razing their architectural treasures to the ground. It is an act beyond nihilism; it is outright negativism, a hatred of what is cultured and civilized.
In his book The Story of Civilization, famous historian Will Durant lamented the results of what he termed “probably the bloodiest story in history.” He called it “a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.”
Moslem invaders “broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan,” displaying, as an Indian commentator put it, the resentment of the less developed warriors who felt intimidated in the encounter with “a more refined culture.” The Moslem Sultans built mosques at the sites of torn down temples, and many Hindus were sold into slavery. As far as they were concerned, Hindus were kafirs, heathens, par excellence. They, and to a lesser extent the peaceful Buddhists, were, unlike Christians and Jews, not “of the book” but at the receiving end of Muhammad’s injunction against pagans: “Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them.” (Not that being “of the book” has much helped Jewish and Christian victims of other Moslem aggressions, but that’s another article.)
The mountainous northwestern approaches to India are to this day called the Hindu Kush, “the Slaughter of the Hindu,” a reminder of the days when Hindu slaves from Indian subcontinent died in harsh Afghan mountains while being transported to Moslem courts of Central Asia. The slaughter in Somnath, the site of a celebrated Hindu temple, where 50,000 Hindus were slain on Mahmud’s orders, set the tone for centuries.
The gentle Buddhists were the next to be subjected to mass slaughter in 1193, when Muhammad Khilji also burned their famous library. By the end of the 12th century, following the Moslem conquest of their stronghold in Bihar, they were no longer a significant presence in India. The survivors retreated into Nepal and Tibet, or escaped to the south of the Subcontinent. The remnants of their culture lingered on even as far west as Turkestan. Left to the tender mercies of Moslem conquerors and their heirs they were systematically destroyed, sometimes—as was the case with the four giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan in March 2001—up to the present day.
That cultivated disposition and developed sensibility can go hand in hand with bigotry and cruelty is evidenced by the example of Firuz Shah, who became the ruler of northern India in 1351. This educated yet tyrannical Moslem ruler of northern India once surprised a village where a Hindu religious festival was celebrated, and ordered all present to be slain. He proudly related that, upon completing the slaughter, he destroyed the temples and in their place built mosques.
The Mogul emperor Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of Moslems in India: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1542-1605), when he ordered that about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus be slain on February 24, 1568, after the battle for Chitod. But Akbar’s acceptance of other religions and toleration of their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Moslems, and his interest in other faiths were not a reflection of his Moslem spirit of tolerance. Quite the contrary, they indicated a propensity for free-thinking in the realm of religion that finally led him to complete apostasy. Its high points were the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of religious doctrine, his promulgation of a new creed, and his adoption of Hindu and Zoroastrian festivals and practices. This is a pattern one sees again and again in Moslem history, down to the present day: whenever one finds a reasonable, enlightened, tolerant Moslem, upon closer examination this turns out to be someone who started out as a Moslem but then progressively wandered away from the orthodox faith. That is to say: the best Moslems are generally the least Moslem (a pattern which does not seem to be the case with other religions.)
Things were back to normal under Shah Jahan (1593-1666), the fifth Mogul Emperor and a grandson of Akbar the Great. Most Westerners remember him as the builder of the Taj Mahal and have no idea that he was a cruel warmonger who initiated forty-eight military campaigns against non-Moslems in less than thirty years. Taking his cue from his Ottoman co-religionists, on coming to the throne in 1628 he killed all his male relations except one who escaped to Persia. Shah Jahan had 5,000 concubines in his harem, but nevertheless indulged in incestuous sex with his daughters Chamani and Jahanara. During his reign in Benares alone 76 Hindu temples were destroyed, as well as Christian churches at Agra and Lahore. At the end of the siege of Hugh, a Portuguese enclave near Calcutta, that lasted three months, he had ten thousand inhabitants “blown up with powder, drowned in water or burnt by fire.” Four thousand were taken captive to Agra where they were offered Islam or death. Most refused and were killed, except for the younger women, who went into harems.
These massacres perpetrated by Moslems in India are unparalleled in history. In sheer numbers, they are bigger than the Jewish Holocaust, the Soviet Terror, the Japanese massacres of the Chinese during WWII, Mao’s devastations of the Chinese peasantry, the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, or any of the other famous crimes against humanity of the 20th Century. But sadly, they are almost unknown outside India.
There are several reasons for this. In the days when they ruled India, the British, pursuing a policy of divide-and-rule, whitewashed the record of the Moslems so that they could set them up as a counterbalance to the more numerous Hindus. During the struggle for independence, Gandhi and Nehru downplayed historic Moslem atrocities so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Moslem unity against the British. (Naturally, this façade dissolved immediately after independence and several million people were killed in the religious violence attendant on splitting British India into India and Pakistan.) After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by ideology, suppressed the truth about the Moslem record because it did not fit into the Marxist theory of history. Nowadays, the Indian equivalent of political correctness downplays Moslem misdeeds because Moslems are an “oppressed minority” in majority-Hindu India. And Indian leftist intellectuals always blame India first and hate their own Hindu civilization, just their equivalents at Berkeley blame America and the West.
Unlike Germany, which has apologized to its Jewish and Eastern European victims, and Japan, which has at least behaved itself since WWII, and even America, which has gone into paroxysms of guilt over what it did to the infinitely smaller numbers of Red Indians, the Moslem aggressors against India and their successors have not even stopped trying to finish the job they started. To this day, militant Islam sees India as “unfinished business” and it remains high on the agenda of oil-rich Moslem countries such as Saudi Arabia, which are spending millions every year trying to convert Hindus to Islam.
One may take some small satisfaction in the fact that they find it rather slow going.
Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. This article was adapted for Front Page Magazine by Robert Locke.
Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles.
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Prajwal:
The example I quoted about marriages was to make a point that cities are not free from casteism, not by a long shot. And you respond talking about marriages and love and guts and balls and all the stuff that an immature and idealistic kid would say at such a time. I will not bother replying to each point you have tried to make because the discussion is not about intercaste love marriages. Just tell me, what exactly are you trying to say – is the caste system a good thing, or a bad thing? If it is bad, is is responsible for a substantial number of the country’s ills, or is it not? (I said substantial, not all ills).
Just two simple questions.
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And Prajwal, Refer to your comments on Chandrayaan and my response. I do think you need to do at least some slight research before posting. Otherwise it reinforces your ‘juvenile/immature’ image.
Take a break – I recommend Zugspitze (2962 m), only 1.5 days trek from Garmisch Partenkirchen (take the A 95 from Munchen).
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@ bari olu
this is pastime…can i help it if i type a lil too fast for my own good?
;)
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Ms Larissa
You surely harbour a big grouse on us muslims, I dont blame you with all the wrong facts fed to the masses. I agree with you there have been name sake muslim kings who have indulged in the massacre of native Indians. But the figures which you have implied seem far fetched. And Im not a historian.
I for one feel that partition of India was totally uncalled for. And as you rightly pointed out it, it probably served the English better. The pain it caused will only be diluted as this generation is replaced with the next. Kashmir is one issue which was left as a back burner to ensure that the hate politics continues. The historical aspect of the partition are very well known to all.
So lets not blame each other for the same. What Im concerned is, whether there is a way forward for us Indians to live peacefully or whether the old baggage is part and parcel of life.
As far as Islam is concerned, La Ikraha fid Deen(No compulsion in relegion), is the basis of Islam. The out of context verse quoted by you, will serve no purpose. The true meaning will be known by studying the translation and commentery of those verses. I suggest you read to find out rather than me trying to convince you otherwise.
I repeat there is no fun in increase of head count of any relegion. I think it only dilutes the commandments. We as muslims feel very sad when we see other muslims bowing their heads in front of graves. This is strictly prohibited in Islam.But this we all see is practised in great numbers as a relegious act of great virtue. This was just an example which i shared which will negate any adverse feelings you harbour against Islam.
I feel we should channelize our energies to create a better tomorrow. I as a muslim am least concerned whether you are a Hindu, a Christian, a Jew or a Budhist. My only concern as a good and practicing muslim is whether you have received the message of the Almighty ( Holy Quran). This is not for the sake of converting you to a Muslim. This is only for ensuring that my obligation as a Muslim is fulfilled, and Im not blamed for not sharing the message to my brothers and sisters, on the day of Judgement.
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Maybe if India were to adopt a two child policy something can be done before it is too late. But Islam does not allow for birth control does it? Neither does Christiansity. India might have a serious problem, it it does not stop people breeding like locusts and as they approach 2 billion. Which group in India has the highest birth rate? It already has too many people. This is the real problem of India. But the press never likes to dwell on real concerns does it?
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Anonymous Guy,
“And they were. So you think all Naxalites are bad people? Nothing good should be said about them? What do you think pushed them to be Naxalites?”
Even Osama Bin Laden can give you 100 reasons why he became a terrorist and he can justify all the killings for which he is responsible. If you say there are good Naxalites then shall I say there are good Bajrangis? Then will you accept there violence? If you have read ‘satyadarshini’ published and distributed by new life church, there are enough things in there which will provoke any average Hindu. So going by your logic, if something pushed people to Naxalism, I will say something pushed Bajrang Dal to act the way they did. Will you accept it?
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*their violence.
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Shyoddha,
Quiz time:
————
What do you think Uniform Civil Code will do?
Is a need of the hour. And should also include ways to dismantle the caste system from our society. Religion and caste should eventually be personal things not part of public life.
What do you think discarding article 370 will do?
Practically not much, but in principle the right thing to do.
What do you think COMPLETELY stopping so called NGO-foreign fund flow into India will do?
Bullshit. NGOs do a lot of good work which the government and private organizations refuse to do or are incapable of doing. Indian sources by themself does not have the money to either support or provide NGOs with expertise. There is no way the work done by say the Gates foundation can be done from within India. We tried that for years and failed. Completely stopping this is BS and will probably only profit people who want disease, illiteracy etc. to continue as is. Basically to maintain status quo.
What do you think BANNING of screaming five times a day, 365 days year, WITH A MICROPHONE will do?
Should be banned as soon as possible. Includes all sorts of aggressive and public nuisance displays – Muslim, Christian or Hindu. Festivals and public celebrations which happen once in a way are not a problem, provided they are done within some guidelines of noise pollution and public nuisance. Innovative ways can be thought up on these issues.
What do you think throwing all the padres who are molesting nuns behind bars will do?
Moronic question. Sadhu, padre or maulvi, the law of the land has to take its course. This seems to be a rhetorical question seems to be from a repressed mind :)
If by molest you mean consentual sex excluding buggery or extra marital affairs, I am all for it again sadhu, padre or Maulvi.
What do you think BANNING nunhood (yes, all those sisters) before twenty one will do?
I dont see what this will accomplish. Actually I have no opinion on this one since I dont know how people become nuns.
What do you think BANNING of using TAX PAYER money to fund religious institutions (i.e. madrassas AKA terrorist camps) will do?
Tax payer money should not be used for religious institutions. Especially in a country like India. Whether it is for madrassa, mutt, temple or church. Not even tax breaks. But that is my personal opinion. On the other hand there is good work which religious institutions (but usually for people of their own religion or caste) do which our inefficient systems do not do. I dont see how that can be offset by BANNING. BANNING it might only mean more tax money eaten up by our government machinery.
What do you think BANNING building white walls indicriminately all over India will do?
Again wtf.
What do you think arresting Arabs who show up in Hyderabad to ’seed’ will do?
If they break any laws, sure they have to be arrested. Any foreigner who comes here to bugger young boys or rape children have to be arrested. But if our law and order machinery (and our own mindset towards laws) was so efficient, in parts of North India that way you will have to arrest a large number of people for the child marriages/infanticides/election frauds and a whole host of things etc.
larissa,
‘Caste is already dead in cities anyway and is already dying out due to urbanization’
You claim to have read a lot about history, but know nothing much about the present – otherwise you wouldnt have made that comment. Where do you live? What is your caste? :)
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Ok Shyoddha,
Now that I have answered your questions based on my personal opinions, (most questions for some reason struck me as trivial and asked for some kind of rhetorical effect).
Answer mine:
“Removing the caste system by any and every means will make India stronger. It has to be done as at the highest priority as it is the cause of many of our economic and social problems. Agree or disagree?”
I dont care which historical figure would agree with this point or not.What do you say based on your personal experiences – not what you have heard or read? I am interested to know.
And please dont answer this question with a set of questions or trivia about Islam or Christian or Hindu practices – I am not interested in answering those. Blind and unchanging rituals in the name of any religion are stupid and irritate me as much as they do any sane person. You should pretty much know my views on such matters by now.
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Palahalli,
My 2 paise on your question to Vinay. Maybe not practical starting points but at least food for thought.
A starting point to the solution of the caste system would be to make it illegal and very unprofitable to practice it at any level. Of course this requires a great deal of thought etc. – but then isn’t that the work of our parliamentarians and judges and intelligentsia?
For example reservations and banning discrimination of scheduled castes was one of the things thought up in our constitution. This solution seems to have proved to be as bad as the problem itself. Of course nothing is written in stone, bad laws have to be amended based on the need and time. The constitution written years ago has to be rewritten if need be.
At a day to day level, it has to be taught in schools and colleges that the caste system is not a good thing, just like any other civics lesson. And that our religions can survive and be stronger without it. Obviously this will be in conflict with what is taught at homes, but at least the young will know that there are other ways for the future. And things could get better over time. In any case – the debate should be put up and be made known – what we are losing in terms of efficiency due to the system of caste.
Practically in whichever institutions there is a great deal of casteism involved, these should be broken up by action (backed up by thought).
Added to it, it is upto the religious organizations and private groups to offset what is lost in caste with other mechanisms. For example religious groups which are based on castes will have to reorganize themselves on broader lines – this would be in direct conflict with their current power and control. It is for them to introspect and realize that the overall good for their religion is in the long run better than power and prestige for their own caste etc. But this is not a difficult task – generally religious organizations are much more efficient and agile compared to bureaucracies. And if they thought about it – the power more monolithic groups will have over fragmented ones which tussle with each other should be to their advantage.
There are probably many other ways to start off. But like with other things in our country, some set of incidents have to break the existing vicious cycle. Now India is too large and populous (and too democratic?) for a once in a century reformer to cause a big change at one shot. And we don’t have a common cause like Independence anymore (or do we?). Maybe the negative trends we see today with poverty, corruption etc. will trigger this off – after what is Naxalism but the lowest castes fighting violently against others? Who knows. But these things don’t seem to have much effect on most of us if history is any judge.
On the other hand, in all probability, things will go on as they are and it is best to just align ourselves so that things are to our best personal advantage, and that of our family, and subcaste and caste and religion…
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Prajwala,
Bhale. I appreciate your typing speed. But aadru i strongly suggest you to stop commenting here till you become mature and get some clarity. Sumne eno taleharte maatadtya, yaargoo arta aagolla, aamle ellar hatra ugskotya. Yaak beku ninge ee ustvaari?? :)
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Edited comments
You cannot erase caste in a way. The government’s job is to ensure that people are not discriminated because of caste in the public sphere. That is the only thing it can and should do. I have seen some very anti-Hindu sentiments from Christians and Muslims. Has anyone noticed that all the comments from Muslims have to do with the fact that they are telling me that I have not read thier Quaran and thier religion is the only religion for mankind? Deos the logic sound familiar? How much of Hinduism do these people understand? Perhaps it is the agresssve proselytizing religions that are at fault. Maybe these people need a course on world religions and need to read some of thier own Muslim historians who have written amply on India. We know of Isalm in India through them, so there is no need for Hindus to lie or exaggerate.
I think self-hating Hindus are likely to blame the recent events in Assam on Hindus as well. Hindus have no sense of their history, nor do they want to learn after being enslaved for 1000 years, the leftist liberal press (I would not be surprised it some of it is even funded by Saudi dollars) brainwashes them and is always anti-Hindu, and soon they will watch as the illegals from Bangladesh multiply and claim Assam as their own. Is it a wonder that HIndus are feeling somehow cheated in their country? I see with India going in the current direction it is going with no efforts to control population growth, it will soon approach a population density as great as BAngladesh, for Muslims will never practice birth control. It is all very depressing. As for having a gripe on Muslims, I think I have seen enough cases of native people kicked out of thier homes in Kashmir–by the way, these people had been living there even before there was such a thing as Isalm. I mean why are Muslims not ever called upon to question themselves and realize that thier religion is incompatible with civilization anywhere in the world? You see the same complaints agianst them in England, in Sweden and in other non Islamic countries –how they are not contributing to the local culture and do not assimilate and cause trouble. Now it seems that Hindus must also apologize to illegal Bangledeshis becasue they have greater “rights” of course; it is not their fault that the natives in Assam resent them because they came in illegally, they have far “greater” rights because the government might get some votes from these people and so their rights are more important. That is how Indian politics works. Nowhere in the world, may I add, would such things be tolerated. That is why India is going down the tubes–because of unchecked population growth that will eventually undo any progress that is made. Has anyone not thought of why India is not a Bangladesh or Pakistan quite yet? Why do Hindus not get credit? Why do Muslims live in India but no Hindu would live in Pakistan or Bangladesh ? Why does the press never ask these questions. Because it would be politically incorrect to do so. And have you seen any Muslims in Pakistan or Bangladesh fighting for the rights of HIndu minorities? They will get killed if they do. When one goes to countries like Dubai–one sees how Arabs treat people from the Indian subcontinent, especially thier own MUSLIM brothers—-My Iranian friend who lives there told me that these people are not conseidered people there–-
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I think we are all heading towards a common thought…
ARMY RULE
Will that serve the purpose, or will we still be left grumbling.
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‘My only concern as a good and practicing muslim is whether you have received the message of the Almighty ( Holy Quran). This is not for the sake of converting you to a Muslim. This is only for ensuring that my obligation as a Muslim is fulfilled, and Im not blamed for not sharing the message to my brothers and sisters, on the day of Judgement.’
You can be assured I have read your Koran and the New Testament as well as the Old–it did not inspire me at all—just as all the Eastern religions like Hindusim and Buddhism do not inspire you.
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Anyway, it is foolish to blame caste for all of India’s ills—although caste still causes a lot of problems. The government can just make sure people’s right are not violated–and they do not face discrimination on the job, at work or at school. I fail to see what more it can do. The biggest gift someone can do for India is to educate the poor and teach them not to have too many babies–for it is the law of nature that the fittest survives, whether we like this or not. How is it a right to have ten children when you cannot take care of them? But as long as the media focuses on caste and what not, things in India will never improve. Face it, with the population unckecked India will soon have 2 billion+ people and all will suffer whatever caste or religion you belong to.
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wtf,
Bajrangi and naxalites are equal when they both indulge in terrorism! Every group is made of humans with grievances real or imagined. But only certain bajrangis or naxalites or osamas indulge in random (but planned) violence in response.
Accept their violence? True to your name – wtf?
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Prajwal, bari olu,
naavella sumne yen-yeno reel bidthaidhre, neev ibbru thumba maja thagollthaiddhara? Irli irli :)
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‘anaamadheya’ does not get it.
Go ahead, mark me as ‘Strongly Agree’ for your question.
(You did not even had the decency to understand the questions I posed. They are asked for the effect. But that is expected of you. Try sit in a corner and think for few seconds before running around blabering ‘caste’, ‘caste’.)
If you are going to banish so called ‘caste’ system, you need first provide an equal footing ALL people. In today’s Bharat, it is already skewed. You do not even understand why Uniform Civil Code is important. You do not even understand why mohammadens need to be stopped building white walls in nook and corner of India and occupying thousands of acres for burying their innumerable dead and wasting more precious land. You even do not understand why children should not be forced to become nuns. You do not even understand why NGOs need to be stopped. Are you telling me there is not enough resource within India to deal with the social and health issues? Ha! India is not poor, Indians are. You get ‘free’ money from outside, you will pay in some way. Outside money will not come without some or the other ‘interest’.
Just chanting ‘remove caste system’, ‘remove caste system’ will not do anything. Do you even realize GOI itself made sure that this is entrenched into the society by the quota system? Who do you think will come on the street and beat the crap out of people such as you who try to ‘remove caste system’ prescribed by GOI? Do you think the BCs, SCs, STs, OBCs and DMKwallas will fall in line and get rid of quota as soon as we somehow declare ‘no caste system’?
Bharat has been under attack and has lost and still losing geographically, demographically and culturally. But pointing that is considered ‘extremist’ view. Instead, everyone rallies behind safe and popular issues such as ‘caste system’; it has been the ‘wild card’ that is used from decades and will be used to beat the Indians down in the future also. Nothing better expected of these people!
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AK – Observations;
First off, there has been too much theory already. I’m not a liberal dreamer. Let us test your suggestions on practicality.
Your first point speaks of “practicing” Caste. What exactly do you mean by this?
1. Birth to death rituals? – Ban these?
2. Arranged marraiges vs Love marraiges – Ban arranged marraiges?
3. Hereditary professions? – Make it illegal? Son/daughter MUST NOT follow father/mother?
4. Ban Caste associations?
etc etc
Moreover, why should Hindus allow “parliamentarians and judges and intelligentsia” to rule them any more? Have these rogues not failed them time and again? Let them rule themselves for a change!
You say reservations have failed? Dalits don’t think so. You claim to speak on their behalf. How will you convince Dalits themselves? And how has “banning discrimination” failed Dalits? How?
The one time there was even mention and some action toward reworking our constitution, was hysterically opposed by our professional liberals. These fellows don’t want to think about it. Not even when Secular governments are ruling. Ever wondered why?
Coming to your second point, do you think schools today are teaching “love for Castes”? How are you assuming homes are different? On the one hand you speak of “teaching” kids Caste is bad and on the other, you speak of “putting up a debate”?? Are you completely unaware that kids today grow up to be against their own culture and generally, country? Provided it has something to do with whatever is the current international fad?? Of course this is a rule! Exceptions are those that are saved at home.
And what are you saying in your third point? “Backed up by thought?” What is meant by “great deal of Casteism”? Are there degrees?
In your fourth point, you seem to be saying that Caste associations and groups are maintained against the tide. Ie, these are maintained even though they may not be functioning well to their “stakeholders” benefit. I think this is most fallacious. There are Dalit groups that will not allow an “Upper” Caste fellow amongst them. They feel they will surely be distracted from their cause. They will lose focus. Then you have Mayawati’s BSP that has started taking in Brahmins. She feels her organization will only be stronger with this induction. The OBCs are disparate Castes who act together in order to safeguard their interests. There are positives and negatives against each example. But folks will do things they perceive as positive, for themselves. So, man is not inclined toward suicide, generally. Even Hindus.
And then, by speaking of “monolithic” power, are you not asking the Hindus to do what you would accuse them of doing otherwise? Do you not have liberals accusing the Sangh of trying to “make” Hinduism monolithic under Rama?? Or would you have another God instead? I say you support the Sangh!
You show yourself a true blue liberal dreamer in your second last point. What do you think will be triggered off by existing ills in our society? A revolution? Lead by Naxal killers? Supported by Maoist murderers? The Brahmin Prachanda maybe? Naxalites are low Caste fighters? I suggest you read Chandrabhan Prasad…a former Naxalite!
May I add, a liberal is the first to surrender democracy to a demanding thug.
Last point. You liberals have ruled this country and Hindus without let or hindrance for over 50 years now. This is YOUR REPORT CARD.
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Larissa
There is no New and Old testament in Holy Quran. It is just one manuscript.There have been many translations with commentaries, in different languages. Probably you are referring to those as testaments.
Beleive me when I say, I appreciate and respect any God fearing person be it from any relegion(East or West) as long as he is a philanthrophist.
With regards to Islam, it is a very simple and practical relegion with a 3 point formula
Belief on the following
1.Tauheed -There is only one God
2. Risaalat -And Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him) is the
Messenger Of God
3. Aakhirat-There is a Day of Judgement, wherein each individual will be held responsible for his actions in this world.
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Anonymous Guy,
Please throw some light on what Naxalites are doing other than killing people from Chinese made weapons.
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@Anonymous guy
Naavu maja maadtha iddivi antha bejar maadko bedi swami, neeu namjothe bandu maja maadi!
Hegidru illi barediddannu odidavarige artha agollanthe!
@Bari Olu
Uddagi baradre odalikke taLame illade arthaaagalla antha maathaDtheeri. Chikkadaagi baredare ninageke beku idella antha bareetheeri athwa apartha maaDkonDu tamde artha berasi eno bareyuvanthavaroo untu, enu maDalikke aguvudilla, neevu heliddu nijane, Illi eno heluvudara badalu, tiLuvaLike iruvantaha jana beryuvantaha jaagadalli bareyuvudu eshTo bhale.
Haagu maathmaathigoo immature, dont write until u become mature annovarige swalpa tamma sthithiyannu gamanisalu heLa balle aadre adara upayogavoo illa!
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@ vinay
I think this is not the place, but i did read ur post about the chandrayan mission n i replied to it too. i realised ur stats were n have put the official stats from the ISRO website in my reply
u can check it n then confirm from the ISRO website.
I ll say it again here, if a spacecraft could go to outer space and come back in just 500 kgs of fuel for 810 kg payload, i d go into space n come back every couple of months!
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It is a good thing the Hindu lunatic fringe will remain that. Especially the lunatic fringe who dont want to give up their ‘upper castes’ tags.
Go ahead, keep defending the caste system – and see things fall apart more in front of your own eyes.
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>>Illi eno heluvudara badalu, tiLuvaLike iruvantaha jana beryuvantaha jaagadalli bareyuvudu eshTo bhale.
Prajwala,
Appa bhoopa. Kalachko matte. Naavella pedda shikaamanigalu. Bere jaaga hudukko ninna pravachana haagu ninna vedanegallana todkolokke. :) Be a sport adyaake olle ‘L’ tara aadtya?? :)
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Mr. kingkhan,
“Belief on the following
1.Tauheed -There is only one God”
That has become the root cause of all the problems in the world …
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Karihaida
I can’t understand what’s wrong in beleiving there is One God.
The precision with which each and every aspect of our Universe functions, the rising of the sun, the setting of sun on the stipulated time, the rotations & revolutions of the earth, the rainfall, the ozone layer, you name it. All these invokes us to beleive that there is a Creator of this whole system. It cannot run just like that.
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Kingkhan – The issue is with the belief that THAT one God is Allah and none else.
When you write “Tauheed -There is only one God”, you are not being, shall we say, precise. You must always say, “Tauheed -There is only Allah”, for you to be a Muslim. Correct?
AK – What’s up? I’m sure you can take a little heat before sulking off like that. I’m sorry you think I support Casteism and you feel you want to destroy it, but you haven’t backed up your argument at all.
How can a “lunatic fringe” obstruct “progressives” like yourself when this fringe is just that…a fringe? Tsk tsk….
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Those who today are deriding a whole community of people as “Hindu lunatic fringe” will repent. Mark my words. The label itself so utterly meaningless, it betrays the low IQ level of whoever coined it.
It is YOU who are fast becoming a ‘fringe’; you, who are assuming that silent majority of Hindus are just sheeps and will fall in line with the false and selective secular agenda.
You may be right.
But if I were you, I would be worried. Because, you might just be wrong!
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There should be reservations based on economics–I am sure the upper castes who are poor also suffer as a result of affirmative action. IF you were very sick and you had a choice to go to a doctor for whom it was double hard to get into university because his caste did not fall under reservations category although he was a poor man from the village, or go to a doctor who got in through reservation to perform your surgery, which would you choose for yourself? This is why reservations does not work. In America one sees it all the time–people want to avoid doctors who they (think?) got in through affirmative action. I think these people would be respected if they got in on merit. Moreover, the solution is not affirmative action but quality free education–but the government is more interested in gaining votes that it does not want to work towards this and want to get votes through reservations instead of focusing on free quality education.
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