Day in and day out the “angry Hindus” charge the power structure in India with the allegation that the Muslim community is being appeased and the government is eager to go out of its way to please Muslims. Since currently it is not possible to blame Muslims for oppressing Hindus, the attack is launched against the government for minoritism. The anger of these Hindus is directed at both the perceived appeaser and perceived appeased. The disregard for truth is extraordinary indeed.
That an Indian Muslim should be left free to live his life in accordance with his religious beliefs and customs, strikes these “angry Hindus” as an act of appeasement, a concession. But the “angry Hindu” is not angry at similar protection given to ethnic Hindu groups by letting many Hindus not accept the provisions of the Hindu Code. They erroneously blame the Muslims for having more than one wife while the government data base shows that due to large scale polygamy among tribal Hindus, as a whole, more Hindus are being found practicing polygamy than Muslims. They attack the government for the Shah Bano legislation but completely ignore the 1976 amendment of the Special Marriage Act that allows Hindu men special privileges of inheritance under the Hindu United Family Act, that are not allowed under the secular Indian Succession Act. A gender bias may exist in the Muslim Personal Law, but so do the separate Personal laws of the Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists contain biases favoring men over women.
They are angry at Muslims because Article 30 of the Indian Constitution allows rights to minorities to establish their own schools; but they overlook the fact that the Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and the institutions of Marwari Hindus are benefitting similarly from the same Article 30. The “angry Hindu” is angry at the Indian government for the ban on Salman Rushdie’s book “Satanic Verses”, but ignores the fact that Dr Ambedkar’s book, “Riddles of Rama and Krishna”, Aubrey Menon’s book “ Rama Retold”, and Sytanley Wolport’s book, “Nine Hours to Rama’ have also been similarly proscribed by the Indian government.
The “angry Hindu’ is angry at Muslims because a sizeable number of Hindus had to move away from Kashmir due to the large scale violence there; but he ignores the fact that similarly a large number of Muslims had to leave for good many villages in some districts in Gujarat, Bihar and Assam. They had to leave for good areas in cities in Gujarat (Surat, Ahmedabad, Naroda-Patia, Baroda, the Panchmahal district), Bihar (Bhagalpur, Jamshedpur), Maharashtra (Bhivandi, Malegaon), Assam (Berapat, Nellie). These are the villages and cities where they had lived for generations, but had to migrate from due to horrendous and non-stop anti-Muslim violence there. In many cities across India even well educated Muslims were forced to leave their houses in mixed population areas and move to Muslim majority localities just to survive. Despite many promises the government failed to help them go back to their homes.
The “angry Hindu” is angry that Article 370 of the Indian Constitution limits rights of ownership of property in Kashmir to Kashmiris – most of whom are Muslims. But he ignores the fact that similiarly Article 371A provides similar protection to residents of mostly Hindu population in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.
The “angry Hindu” is angry because the Indian state does not formally embrace the concept of Hindu Rashtra, even though for all practical purposes it practices most elements of that policy. All government, private and other public events in India begin with prayers from Hindu religious scriptures. All national institutions and awards are named after names from Hindu mythology and religious scriptures. The media and other cultural organs constantly borrow from the Hindu religious mythology into their public programs without batting an eyelash.
He is angry whenever any Muslim, no matter how loyal, meritorious or diluted-Muslim is elevated to a position of dignity in India. The “angry Hindu” does not want to even give a hearing to the Muslim community on their most genuine and well documented grievances, eg the Sachar Commission report that details the across the board severe impoverishment and backwardness of the Muslim community.
If the “angry Hindu” ever does an objective study of the ground realities he will realize that he has nothing to be angry about. In fact he has every reason to be happy to find that in practice the Indian state has moved very far from the secular state that was promulgated at Independence in 1947. He should be happy at the near monopoly that he has in the socio-economic life of India, in employment in the burgeoning private and multinational corporations, the government undertakings, the political parties, the better higher education institutions and the society at large. It is time for the “angry Hindu” to realize that he is being misled and used by the opportunistic right wing politicians. He should cool his misplaced anger at the Indian Muslims and find ways to reduce the heightened tensions in the nation that is hurting India’s well-being at a critical time.
Photo: Haridwar
Iconoclast
Just refer to the underlying message of some of the posts on this site itself to refer to a sick mindset.
Blunt
That’s cool. A… just convert into Islam and get all the Respect. No need to waste time in school…..and wait till they tell you about Hot women in Heaven. Just wondering what’s in it for the 72….what did they have to do?
Here is some inspirational video of what happened to some dudes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUYQwCW5ShQ
I appreciate the moderator for having his sense of humor for including my post, but Blunt has made my day….dude..you rock…. Monday blues have totally gone….I’m trying to imagine applying his no-reservation policy to our very own Narendra Modi – among the most (in)famous OBC chief ministers we have. Let us have secularism in our country and also remove reservations – and solve some major prickly issues, then Narendra Modi will immidiately convert to Islam/Christianity to get SOCIAL EQUALITY Taliban style – those Hindutva -vadies are very uncool folks with a very poor sense of fashion..come on……… Afterall getting to party in Heaven seems far more attractive concept than attaining “Nirvana/peace”……no more VHP monkey business on Valentines Day and we can have our birthday cakes in peace (as long as we forget how we are turning older)…
I’m looking for some “Blunt” observations on how you plan to take over the world..PS: you a Pal of our Old friend GM?…he seems to have been upset at something. No hard feelings my friend…in this age of internet anonymity one does not know if one is playing a prank or actually being serious. But I will settle for the former – I suspect some cool dude with plenty of time cooking up bizarre Islamist plots just to see the reaction of people,
Milind Kher,
Bang on! Need more sane voices like yours. Please stick around.
Sudie,
We (me included) frequently make the mistake of jumping to far-out conclusions about the mindset of someone because of the way their comments sound. I think we’re all a little quick to judge.
Sridhar & Sudie,
While most of what Blunt has claimed is far-out fantasy, he is right about Ambedkar considering converting to Islam along with his followers. He ALSO considered converting to Sikhism. He was essentially fed-up of the caste system & was evaluating options to help people break away from all that oppression. He eventually chose Buddhism for whatever reasons.
What blunt has said is partly corroborated by certain passages in Gauri Viswanathan’s book. Not presenting any links as enough info (& mins-info) abounds on the internet on this.
Sudie,
Many thanks for the Youtube link! LMAO! But you are provoking Mr.Blunt to be more Blunt!
Blunt:
> Reservations given to SC/ST/OBC (non-muslim), are a price to keep them under the umbrella as “Hindus”… i.e. to keep them away from converting to Islam / Christianity.
Indeed. It was a wily Brahmin who fought for this treacherous scheme in our constituent assembly. The cunning Hindu politicians kept the scheme going only to swell the numbers of Hindus in the country.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Hindus protecting their Dharma in their country, though.
1conoclast
Islam has great percepts as a religion especially about equality. If Ambedkar wanted to convert, it would have been his choice. But his brilliance and contribution to India is his contribution and nothing to do with his faith. We will go by what he chose to do – that was becoming a Buddhist. No one has anything to say about Islam, its a great religion founded on great principles. Problem is with some of its followers who do not think and others who justify personal perversions in the name of Islam.
India can become truly secular only once we totally stop thinking in terms of caste, color and creed.
All great nations have come up because of the intense patriotism of its citizens. India needs to take a leaf out of their book.
It is upto each one of us to work towards this.
It is not the fault of non muslims that they think this way, they know what they have been told by the media, manipulated history and politicians,and people who know represent the muslims & the Islam in a wrong way, It is our own fault that we dont tell them the truth, tell them about islam, Blogs like these will make them angry and in anger they wont understand anything. It is the fault of us muslims specially in India, we know nothing about our religion, 2 out of 50 Indian muslims dont know about their own religion but when asked questions they will answer as if they are the experts, First thing is to tell them the truth and correctly.
Hindus and other non-muslim brothers let me first tell you that hindu is not a religion, Hindu is a geographical term referring to people living in Hindustan so geographically we are all hindu, The religion hinduism is actually Sanatan Ved,for those who disagree please check wikipedia.
The problem is that ,when anything wrong is commited by a muslim, the media screams,”MUSLIMS,MUSLIMS” but not when it is any non-muslim,
HITLER was a christian but we dont say Christians killed millions of Jews, we say Hitler did, but when Osama kills people then we hear , ISLAMIC TERRORIST, why this double standard.
No muslim ever praises OSAMA or any other terrorist, but we hear even Literate Hindus praising RSS and its activities and even praising what they did in Gujrat, that what makes us angry and upset, we are INDIANS and we love our country then why does this happens.
Please dont judge islam from what you hear on Tv, They are there to earn profit not to give us the truth.
Before you pass judgement try to find out the truth, dont be prejudiced, Our fighting like this will only help the corrupt politicians to reap profit.
To know about islam you can tune in to Peace Tv, available free all over, where you get all answers with proof or you can ask at answersforislam.blogspot.com
Sam., I understand where you are coming from. People have got a distorted view of Islam after they have seen the way the Muslims live the religion.
Thereafter, 2 things have happened:
1 > Non Muslims have not made sufficient effort to find out about the genuine teachings of Islam.
2 > Muslims have not made a genuine effort to correct the wrong impressions.
When you talk about educated Hindus praising the RSS, you need to know that only educated Hindus praise the RSS!
Never mind, I promise you that I will do all I can to present the true (benevolent and tolerant) face of Islam.
Mr. Kher, may I know as to why non-muslims should go the extra distance to understand Islam ??
Inspite of living for 1000 years with Hindus, it is the Indian muslims who are unaware of Indic doctrines and need to develop tolerance and respect for the local faiths.
If anything, we (Indian muslims as well as non-muslims) must all move away from religion (which in most cases is patently false) and expend that energy in furthering science.
And to Sam, please watch the great “erudite” Zaki Naik’s views on Osama….and then spread the canard that NO muslim supports Osama. And please follow some Pak news and you will find how Osama is portrayed as the new “Saladdin” .
It never hurts to go the extra mile. By definition, you don’t “HAVE TO” because then it would not be considered the extra mile.
If you say that Indian Muslims have not understood or assimilated the Indian culture, I would respectfully point out that this could be true of the rabid or ghettoized lot. It does not apply to the likes of people like, say, Amjad Ali Khan or Nafisa Ali.
Sir, I have heard Zakir Naik’s view on Osama and others and thats why I recommend his name.He doesnt labels him a terrorist but he doesnt labels him a hero or anything, He say that it should be proved, which is true, everything should be proved, just because America or Britain says that someone is terrorist we should not blindly believe and another thing he says is that every if something is happening then it is result of something, if someone is willing to kill himself to kill others i dont think it is for Heaven as is publicized,if anyone has seen their people killed in cold blood, their mothers and sisters raped and their relative tortured then there has to be a backlash.
America said that Iraq had chemical weapon and secret weapon of mass destruction and The Great America, acting like a God is helping the world by Killing Saddam, no problem but even when Saddam is captured and convicted and hanged, the american army is still there killing Iraqi citizens,and stealing oil, and what about the so called weapon none of which was found.In fact the Iraqis are more suffering now than under Saddam’s rule.
And regarding how Osama is potrayed in Pakistan and Afghanistan is the result of what people living there know and what we here know nothing about, Beside Islam clearly say that “killing of innocent is never and under no circumstances justified or allowed”
and to Mr Madan, I dont ask you to go extra mile to know islam but all i ask you before passing judgement on islam is to know the truth, just dont be prejudiced.
and please answer me one thing , when Hitler Killed more than 6 million jews no church in the whole world condemned it but still we dont hear that Christians killed the Jews, but when any muslim kills somebody why do we hear MUSLIMS,MUSLIMS,ISLAM,ISLAM isnt this double standard?
I am not saying that blame the Christians,I am not against any religion and i respect all the religion equally because Islam asks me to but all we ask is same respect.
Sam,
Hitler did not kill the Jews in the name of CHRISTIANITY. However, often Muslim terrorists kill people in the name of ISLAM.
Islamic terrorism is surely a misnomer. Islam has never sanctioned terrorism. However, if people who show surface allegiance to Islam carry out acts of terrorism, non Muslims who are unaware of genuine Islamic teachings will attribute it to Islam.
The Muslim Ummah has the same right to dignity and respect as other communities. However, it has to at the same time back itself up with substantial education, so that it can present coherent arguments.
To all of you _——–Who are blaming and claiming and to others who are counter claiming and counter blaming nothing will come out of this. This will lead you nowhere_— this blame game will not end in your lifetime. You cannot think as humans ?_–but Such a situation is not possible here unless people will change their basic thinking. We have to come to terms on rational thinking that violence, religious bigotry, false national pride and racial supremacy is nothing more than delusions of past. If you will overcome these prejudices than there is chance that we can live together and work together but issues in vote politics have to be changed from mirages to reality, Will power politics allow this?
Just go today and see medal tally of china in Olympics and compare them with yours. China became a country after yours. Just look for the reasons why they are progressing in all spheres You know why they left their past behind_——Here instead of working hard _– people go to astrologers, dervishes and fortune seekers _—— Here MILK COMING FROM RIVER becomes breaking news and in progressive nations they will say lime was found in the river, which is a normal geographical phenomena_—— just give a thought to what i am saying.
Sam,
I’m tired of this stupid (lack of) logic.
Hitler killed the jews under the ‘final solution’ defined under the ideology of nazism. nazism is an abusive word today. he did not say that he was killing the jews in the name of protecting / furthering christianity nor did he use quotes form the religion to justify what he did. yes he was a christian and some religious powers supported him, but his enemies were christian too. hence we do not blame christianity for holocaust (but do blame them for witch hunting, inquisitions etc as the perpetrators used religion to commit those crimes). this is so simple and reasonable that a reasonable person will understand but not a person suffering from victim mentality.
as to zakir naik, he talks BS not logic. he does plays on words and makes supremacist statements and gullible ppl buy it. (why can’t hindus build temples in saudi but saudi money can build mosques in india – his answer – “because muslims KNOW their deen is right. they let others teach them what others are good at – like science but when it comes to religion, they KNOW.” and then thousands of ppl in mumbai clap like zombies!!! this is no logic, its a claim of superiority – he’s saying islam is superior to hinduism – peace TV – yeah my foot!)
as to osama – he says to the questioner – have u met osama? have u spoken to him and found out if he’s done it? dude – has zakir naik met Jabreel (gabriel) and spoken to jabreel and found out the truth abt islam? its just play of worlds and mental gymnastics.
so sam, don’t watch peace TV, stop worrying abt hitler and worry abt how more muslims can get higher education and better jobs and a secular mindset. don’t know abt afterlife (neither do u BTW) but will surely benefit here!
Well said Triple! Dr.Zakir Naik is an inexhaustible source of comic relief!
He surely is the answer to the question # Who Shrunk The Muslim Intelligentsia?
Recently, I had been to the prize distribution ceremony of an organization that had conducted an essay competition titled ” A Secular Rethink”. I was greatly disappointed because like most TV channels it tried to be politically correct. The prize winning essays tried to create a false sense of optimism and had no idea of what the problems are. A cursory glance at the comments typed here is enough to indicate that the gulf between Hindus and Muslims is widening and hopes of reconciliation are diminishing. I completely agree with the likes of Sudie, Arun, Mahesh and I also know that by doing so I risk being denounced as a Muslim bashing RSS suporter. Like many of our celebrities and TV anchors, I can prefer to sit on the fence by saying something like this ” We must spread peace and love… we must not get caught in the conspiracies of fundamentalists etc. “” but by doing so, I will be acting against my conscience.
Some time back, I had been for a GD at TISS and the topic for discussion was “Is terrorism due to economic reasons”. It was a topic best avoided, given the purpose we there for but nobody listened to me. Anyways, there were people making outrageous statements like ” Even a thief is terrorist and a husband who harrases his wife is a terrorist”. There was a Kashmiri pandit alongside me and I hoped he would speak something sensible. But speaking something “sensible” entailed the risk of losing out in the GD. The point here is that fencesitting is a fashionable and convenient thing to do, but THAT IS NOT THE TRUTH.
Many of the points made above by supposedly ” Angry Hindus” should convince any sane person with no vested interests. Since they have failed to convince those for whom it was meant, we must look for other means or try some fundamentally different method.
Let people not argue over which religion is superior – that is a matter best left to God.
Let each one try to follow their own religion to the best of their ability without hurting others and without imposing their will on others. We are all in this world to help each other, not sit in judgment on each other.
I dont think that Zakir Naik or anybody else for that matter ever said that Islam or any other religion is superior to other, as for the Saudi, its their country, you must have heard in News that in China many mosques were destroyed just because they didnt publicize olympics so we cant tell others what to do in their country and i think that we have a quite big country with quite big population and pretty big problems to think about.
As for Osama you must know that he along with Saddam were the creation of America , a frankenstien monster that turned against them. Our problem is that we are too lazy and too busy to find the truth or even think about it, be it regarding anything. We just listen and believe whatever suites us the best.
The gulf between Hindus and Muslims is surely widening and hopes of reconciliation are diminishing but we are to blame for that coz we believe when a minister comes and says that muslims are a threat to the hindus and when the same minister come to a muslim locality he says that hindus are trying to supress muslims we again belive him, we dont even give it a second thought.
And i referred Dr.Zakir Naik’s Name to those who wants to know about islam not to those who want to know his personal view on others thing, he is also a mere human being and he may have different views on different thing but as far as i know , regarding islam he speak very correctly referring The Quran and other books. If you want to know anything about islam you can ask me on answersforislam.blogspot.com. As for superiority of any religion it shouldnt be asked as it will only lead to mudslinging which should be avoived primarily.
And the most important thing to remember , Politics and religion never go side by side.