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A new vision of India that is 100% Hindu

No other living thriving faith sir. I leave it to the historians, sociologists and theologians to dissect those long dead, or practiced by much smaller numbers, academically.

I would be personally very grateful if you would indeed do so, starting as soon as convenient.

Why would you think numbers do not count? Ever person has his or her own belief. And in a democracy like ours, my belief is equal to yours, because you have one vote, and so do I, and so does a rickshaw walla or a bawarchi or a bai. We are the sum total of all these Indians sir. And the sum total of all these Indians decides what they want India to be, who they want India to be ruled by, and where they want India to go.

You have a long way to go, along with others, who may be described as the lumpenproletariat, who believe that legislation is best done by the brute force of numbers.

The premise is that India is the ancestral home of the Hindus and of Hinduism.

No, your premise was that there was no other before it, which was such an obvious fabrication. And your present shifting of your position is equally obnoxious.

To expand on it further, it is also the ancestral home of Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. All dharmic faiths, indigeneous to the soil, the the cultural and social and spiritual DNA of the land and its people.

Oscar Wilde once said, "A gentleman is one who knows how to play the accordion, but chooses not to." It would be delightful if you did not expand this, or any other argument, further, since there is really no doubt in my mind that it will not lead to an edifying discussion. I do not deal well with prejudices presented in the form of evolved thoughts.

Not so Islam or Christianity. They are not from this land. Their followers are.

Than which there can be no more specious, nor self-contradicting argument.

You presumed that I was calling non Hindus "honorary" Hindus. I never did. I corrected you with what I actually called them. That is what I was referring to. One is condescending, implying superiority of still active believer versus ancestral believer, now departed the flock. The other puts aside the belief system and stresses the equality of shared heritage and culture. The RSS and BJP's Hidutva of cultural nationalism.

I presumed nothing of the kind.

It it this kind of shallow playing to the gallery that makes me reluctant to continue any discussion conducted on these lines.

Nobody is stopping a Muslim or a Christian from saying or believing that they are apart from or different to us.

Except the brute force of a majority insisting that they are not, all the time.

Just as nobody should come in the way of us calling them our own.

If this were to be an intellectual position, rather than delivered through mobs, armed with the crudest weapons of intimidation, projected into the living places of minorities, enforced by acts of intermittent and unpunished savagery, it might be worth presenting. As it is, it the thin pig-skin covering a great deal of hot air.

You cannot be a liberal for one set, and a Talib for the other, sir.

I remain, Sir, a liberal at all times, to all sets. It appears that you read my posts with minute care, care to leave out anything that does not conform to your prejudice.

Sir the furore is in the media. Look around you.

Do we not get enough of the Indian media without further fatuous invitations to examine that sickening display further?

@Bang Galore

For the sake of the discussion, can you share some of the salient premises of the book please.

Ancient faiths always had a strong affinity for bloodlines and purity of lineage, unlike the comparatively newer faiths which sought to grow inorganically. Could possibly be a cyclical thing faiths go through and maybe Hinduism too in its younger days actively converted like Islam or Christianity. I know people always bring in the example of SE Asia when people say that Hindus do not convert. Who knows.

All I know is that Hindus are having a bit of a catharsis under the BJP right now. I do not see any violence. I do not see an bloodshed. So no sense in people getting their chuddies all twisted in knots over it.

Well done, Bang Galore. It appears that you have acolytes, and may be in imminent danger of re-discovering bloodlines, purity of lineage and whatever else Gobineau and Chamberlain propounded. Never thought to see you in this company, as the actress said to the Bishop.
 
Well done, Bang Galore. It appears that you have acolytes, and may be in imminent danger of re-discovering bloodlines, purity of lineage and whatever else Gobineau and Chamberlain propounded. Never thought to see you in this company, as the actress said to the Bishop.

:lol: That was the very reason I had never before referred to that book here. The author herself is very conscious of the fact that her work could be used by the "Hindu Nationalists" to argue their position, something she wrestled with before penning her work. Nuances never do very well here.
 
@Joe Shearer
@Bang Galore

Both of you are involved in some unproductive and Lame debate with no head and tail.
Any ways, Happy new Year! english wala .. :)

:lol: Happy new year to you too.

I kind of like being a Hindu Nationalist. In fact I could get used to it.

:lol: I do very well on that score, been called a Hindu bigot, a right winger, a secularist (sickularist?), anti-Hindu, Christian....me thinks that's pretty good.
 
:lol: I do very well on that score, been called a Hindu bigot, a right winger, a secularist (sickularist?), anti-Hindu, Christian....me thinks that's pretty good.

Let me see ....

Bigot - check

Rss type / sanghi - check

Racist - check

Brown neck (Indian equivalent of the US version) - check

There are others as well, but want to leave some for the new year ....

Wondering if Joe sir has checked his email yet, or is he typing another scathing reply to bust my chops further.
 
While I understand & share your feeling on increased state intervention in what should be a private affair, I have revised my position to some intervention being unavoidable especially in rural areas. Jehovah's Witness missionaries (they bothered my mother till she told them firmly that she didn't believe the world was coming to an end & would they please take their nonsense elsewhere...:lol:) in Bangalore & other metros may get some smirks (even those convinced to convert are no problem) but conversions in rural areas & the methods used (99% of conversions are coerced with the use of both direct & indirect allurements) have the potential for a serious law & order problem. Constitutional niceties don't much play a part there. (Case in point - the church deliberately asks its converts from the scheduled castes to lie about their religion on official documents in A.P. to continue to milk reservation benefits, true of other places too. A conflict is brewing both locally with other non-converted SC's as well as nationally with aggressive Hindu groups). A certain amount of state intervention may well be necessary. How that should take place needs to be debated. Head in the sand approach will simply not make this problem go away.

Well I slightly disagree on that point, most dalits have converted to CHristianity in AP. So there is not much tension b/w them.

But yes the converted Dalits have now come in conflict with OBC/BC groups & UC groups.

Infact the Brahmins/vaishyas(Vysya) & kshatriyas(Rajus) consolidated behind the BJP-TDP alliance to stop the Evangelist YSRCP from coming to power.
 
the RSS or whichever part of the Parivar is responsible for this egregious initiative, is doing things in a very clumsy way, leading to suspicion
This is very true. The fan fare and the hulla baloo raised over it was not needed. Conversions into Hinduism are done all the year round, and there was no need to make this one so special. The media management, the boastful remarks of setting goals, and worse making them public - was ridiculously naive or criminally ridiculous.

India was always Hindu
India always had (naturally) a native culture and mode of worship. The way of worship evolved over centuries...till it was clubbed together and called 'Hinduism'. Some texts and also other people from the Indian Renaissance call it the Sanatan Dharma or simply Dharma if you please.

For example, we are Shaivites, as most Kashmiri Hindus are. The Hindutva line is that of the primacy of the native over the foreign. I don't know the source of it, but perhaps this comes from RSS 's own idea of Swadeshi, a policy that it follows to this day - often being at odds with Modi's FDI proposals. :D So anyway, you can call us fire worshippers, or Shaivites - but in the end the collective identity has remained - 'Dharmic'. So this IMO is a more apt term - 'India was originally Dharmic or home to Indic religions'. I understand the the 'India is Hindu' may not necessarily mean to exclude those not following the Hindu faith, but it helps if we understand the context.
 
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