XPost: soc.culture.indian, alt.fan.jai-maharaj, alt.religion.hindu   
   XPost: alt.politics, talk.politics.misc   
   From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com   
      
   In article   
   <331ecd4d-8ccb-4157-9563-3319d0feb61e@googlegroups.com>,   
   fanabba  posted:   
   >   
   > Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:   
   >   
   > > Forwarded post from S. V.   
   > >   
   > > Hindu activism outside the Sangh   
   > >   
   > > By Koenraad Elst   
   > > Tuesday, August 16, 2011   
   > >   
   > > "An RSS man", that is how the Indian media and the   
   > > Western South Asia scholars label anyone known as or   
   > > suspected of standing up for Hindu interests. In fact,   
   > > there have always been Hindu activists outside the RSS   
   > > Sangh, working as individuals or in smaller   
   > > organizations. Today, the modernization of Indian society   
   > > and especially the spread of the internet has facilitated   
   > > the mushroom growth of new forms and networks of Hindu   
   > > activism.   
   > >   
   > > Most supposed experts refuse to see the existence of   
   > > Hindu activism outside the Sangh and instead reduce any   
   > > Hindu sign of life to "Hindutva" (thus incidentally   
   > > flattering the Sangh). One reason is purely political: in   
   > > the struggle against Hindu activism as a whole, it is   
   > > simply more useful to extend all prevalent criticism of   
   > > the Sangh, e.g. that it murdered Mahatma Gandhi or   
   > > committed "genocide" in Gujarat 2002, to any and every   
   > > form of Hindu resistance. It implies that if you hear a   
   > > Hindu complain about, say, Christian missionary   
   > > demonization of Hinduism, you must stop him for he is   
   > > about to commit murder if not genocide. In the Indian   
   > > media, this kind of innuendo is frequent enough.   
   > >   
   > > The main reason, however, seems to be that India-watchers   
   > > have settled for a conspiratorial explanation of the   
   > > existence of Hindu activism. In their construction, you   
   > > first have the Sangh, or its historic core, then you get   
   > > Sangh propaganda, and as a result of this, you get a   
   > > belief among large numbers of Hindus that they are   
   > > suffering various injustices, historical and   
   > > contemporary. This is the dominant paradigm in Hindutva   
   > > studies: a Hindutva conspiracy has created for itself a   
   > > large constituency by means of mendacious propaganda.   
   > >   
   > > The existence of multiple independent sources of Hindu   
   > > activism makes this Hindutva conspiracy theory harder to   
   > > sustain. It becomes more likely that they had   
   > > independently noticed a really existing state of affairs,   
   > > which then aroused their indignation.   
   > >   
   > > For example, in numerous media and academic accounts, the   
   > > Ayodhya controversy is introduced with the explanation:   
   > > "Hindu nationalists claim that the Babri mosque had been   
   > > built in forcible replacement of a Hindu temple", or   
   > > something to that effect. While the Hindu nationalists do   
   > > indeed assert as much, the formulation falsely insinuates   
   > > that this "claim" is of the Hindu nationalists' making.   
   > > In fact, that "claim" has been made in all the historic   
   > > sources that speak out on the matter: Muslim, Hindu and   
   > > European. Before the controversy became politically   
   > > important in the 1980s, it was accepted by all competent   
   > > authorities, e.g. the 1989 edition of the Encyclopaedia   
   > > Britannica. So, the temple vandalization scenario was not   
   > > a piece of propaganda deliberately floated to plant false   
   > > consciousness in the minds of the Hindu masses. It had   
   > > very solid historic credentials, and consequently,   
   > > divergent people with no mutual organizational connection   
   > > or common ideological allegiance could independently act   
   > > upon it.   
   > >   
   > > For another example, the "Hindutva claim" that the Indian   
   > > state imposes some and tolerates other injustices against   
   > > the Hindus, can simply be verified. Thus, when I asked   
   > > Hindu activists of any stripe in the 1990s what motivated   
   > > them, practically everyone of them would mention the   
   > > constitutional exception for the non-Hindu majority state   
   > > of Jammu & Kashmir (and likewise Nagaland and Mizoram)   
   > > and the related expulsion of the near-total Hindu   
   > > community from Kashmir in 1990. Well, has this expulsion   
   > > taken place or not? From most Western studies of Hindu   
   > > nationalism, you wouldn't learn about it, and yet, the   
   > > answer is that it really has. Moreover, no Indian or   
   > > Kashmiri government has seriously attempted to resettle   
   > > the expelled Hindus in their homeland. One need not be   
   > > duped by a Hindutva conspiracy to notice this fact as   
   > > well as the injustice of this fact. Consequently, non-   
   > > Sangh Hindus as well as Sanghis have spoken out against   
   > > this injustice. If the Sangh had not existed, Hindus   
   > > would still speak out against this injustice.   
   > >   
   > > When the Pope came to India in 1999, the Indian media   
   > > loudly denounced as "Hindutva paranoia" the assertion   
   > > that the Church was out to destroy the Indian religions   
   > > by converting their adherents to Christianity. But of   
   > > course it is official Church doctrine that only   
   > > Christians are saved and that out of charity, all Pagans   
   > > must be converted. Having gone through the Catholic   
   > > school system myself, that is what I learned from the   
   > > horse's mouth. And when the Pope finally opened his mouth   
   > > in Delhi, he said in so many words that the Church was in   
   > > Asia in order to "reap a rich harvest of faith", modern   
   > > Church parlance for the harvesting of Pagan souls. He   
   > > merely restated a generally known fact, one from which   
   > > any Hindu could draw his own conclusions without anyhow   
   > > being compromised with "Hindutva paranoia".   
   > >   
   > > For yet another example, the "Hindutva claim" that the   
   > > absence of a Common Civil Code amounts to "pseudo-   
   > > secularism", or indeed to a simple absence of secularism   
   > > in the Personal Law dimension of the Indian state, would   
   > > have to be acknowledged as more than just a Hindutva   
   > > claim. It is something that Hindus of all kinds including   
   > > those hostile to the Sangh, and people of all   
   > > denominations, can see. Indeed, were it not for the   
   > > widespread assumption that anything coming from the RSS-   
   > > BJP must be "Hindu fundamentalist" or "Hindu fascist",   
   > > all international observers would readily concede this   
   > > point. By definition, a secular state is one that has   
   > > laws applying to its citizens regardless of their   
   > > religion. The usual insistence that "Hindu nationalists   
   > > want to abolish secularism" and its implication that the   
   > > Indian state is indeed secular, cannot stand scrutiny on   
   > > this score. But admitting this much would upset the   
   > > entire conceptual framework of Hindutva studies.   
   > >   
   > > Anyone desiring to uphold the dominant construction of   
   > > Hindu nationalism, viz. the Hindutva conspiracy paradigm,   
   > > logically has an interest in denying or minimizing the   
   > > existence of independent non-Sangh Hindu activism. But   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)