Divides in Indian Society.

[The-king]

It becomes clear and clearer that divides in Indian society widens up day by day, now intellectuals and artists also divided on intolerance issue, A big part of Indian society specially Hindus adopting Hinduvta views while some shows neutral and the other major group supports secularism. I am not forecasting but it is imminent a single violent incident turns into a civil war which consume millions of lives. Politician specially Modi is playing very dangerous game for political gains and the results will be devastating for union of India.

 

[The-king]

@WAJsal @Joe Shearer @Spectre
Gents i would like to discuss subject here

 

[nForce]

It becomes clear and clearer that divides in Indian society widens up day by day, now intellectuals and artists also divided on intolerance issue, A big part of Indian society specially Hindus adopting Hinduvta views while some shows neutral and the other major group supports secularism. I am not forecasting but it is imminent a single violent incident turns into a civil war which consume millions of lives. Politician specially Modi is playing very dangerous game for political gains and the results will be devastating for union of India.

1. How does it become clearer and clearer?
2. What, according to you does secularism mean, in the context of India ?
3. So far as the Hindus, the majority of Indian population are concerned, what is the change that you see ? Is it becoming more like Pakistan, for example ?

 

[The-king]

1- Writers and Intellectuals returning their awards
2- Bollywood splits on intolerance issue
3- Political parties divided on secularism and Hinduvta
4- Rise of RSS and ideology
5- Growing intolerance and state sided the extreme views of the majority

1. India has 175 million Muslims, more than the entire populations of Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia combined. Khattar's comment was essentially a threat: If you want to continue living here, be like most Hindus and stop eating beef. His remarks also suggest an unspoken validation for vigilante thugs, emboldened to threaten Muslims.

2. Shah was referring to the ongoing elections in Bihar. While he was obviously casting the BJP as the party of Hindus (80% of India's population), he was also painting opponents of the BJP as not only pro-Muslim, but also pro-Pakistan. In essence, he was calling into question the patriotism of 175 million Indian Muslims.

3. In an editorial in The Indian Express, Vijay points out the need for tolerance. He condemns lynching a person based on mere "suspicion" of consuming beef, but in so doing seems to leave open the question of how to respond to a known beef-eater.

It seems barely a day goes by without a BJP politician putting a foot in his mouth with statements that inflame an already volatile debate.

The real mystery is why the face of the BJP -- Prime Minister Modi -- has been aloof. He has yet to condemn such statements from his colleagues, and has only occasionally mentioned the need for Indians to be tolerant. Almost every night on India's TV channels anchors and pundits call for their usually vocal Prime Minister to say and do more on the issue. No luck so far.
Is India becoming intolerant? (Opinion) - CNN.com

A week of worrying about rising intolerance in India

As Indians worry about the rise of intolerance, powerful images like this one are affecting the debate.

It shows an Indian activist, Sudheendra Kulkarni. He was violently doused in ink in anattack by a stridently right-wing Hindu party. They were upset with him inviting over a former minister from India's traditional enemy, Pakistan. His name was used 36,000 times on Twitter.

Slick phrases can also affect the terms of an online debate. No less a literary figure than the writer Salman Rushdie pushed one this week. "Here come the Modi Toadies," he tweeted - railing against the most extreme online supporters of the Indian prime minister, who he said were abusing him after he joined in a protest by writers against the intolerance of Hindu right-wingers. Thousands then repeated the phrase.

These viral flashpoints were part of a conversation that convulsed much of India this week, both online and off. At the centre of it were more than 40 writers who returned a prominent literary prize to protest against rising intolerance. They are frustrated with the way the violent murder of an atheist writer, who had criticised Hindu belief, was handled. They're also upset with the banning of beef in some states and the murder of a Muslim man falsely accused of having beef in his fridge.

Behind it all is a disturbing question: is India becoming more openly, and indeed violently, intolerant - especially towards the Muslim minority, towards atheists and indeed anyone else that the Hindu right takes issue with?

The Indian internet debates intolerance
Monday 12 Oct: A striking photo of Sudheendra Kulkarni doused in ink drives his name into a worldwide top trend on Twitter.

Tuesday 13 Oct: Salman Rushdie tweets to support writers returning literary prizes, and says "thuggish" people, the "Modi Toadies", later abused him for it.

Thursday 15 Oct: Another prominent writer, Amitav Ghosh, trends on Twitter for criticising Narendra Modi's government for "tacitly" enabling violent attacks with its "failure" to act.

Later in the day, after Modi's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley criticises writers giving up their awards, the hashtag "rioters question writers" trends with over 17,000 tweets. The trend was started by someone whose profile says they work for the opposition Indian National Congress.

Friday 16 Oct: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, from Modi's BJP party, trends on Twitter in India after saying Muslims living in India should give up eating beef.

For many Indian liberals, the answer is yes and the fact that it's happening under Narendra Modi, with his Hindu nationalist background, proves a point they've been making for years.
Their argument is that Modi, who ran Gujarat state in 2002 when many people lost their lives in religious violence, is a divisive figure. But such accusations seem to have not, thus far, swayed mass public opinion: Modi and the BJP swept the polls last year.

Online too, Modi and the BJP have a huge and loyal following who argue that he is a unifying figure. The idea that Modi's India is a more intolerant place than what went before simply didn't stick for ages - so why is it going so viral just now?

Part of it is the sense of a changed moment. "Events in our country have led the liberal folk to question the government, put them on the spot, in a way that they couldn't have over the past year and a half," says well-known online liberal Akkar Patel, who works for Amnesty International but spoke to us in a personal capacity. "They've used the moment quite well."

The recent violent acts certainly give liberals the ammunition they need to get a conversation about intolerance trending. "When it comes to be that a man is killed after the government starts to ban cow slaughter, I think that gives us a moment to use against the people who are trying to divide the country using faith. And I think the web has given people a tool for people to reach out," says Patel.

Modi's supporters give these arguments short shrift. They deny that intolerance is rising, or that incidents such as the murder over beef are a sign of things changing. "The incident is very unfortunate, shocking," says GVL Narasimha Rao, national spokesperson for the BJP. "But it is an isolated incident."
He sees the narrative that has been trending this week - that intolerance is rising under Modi - as a false and manipulated one. "It's a part of a sinister conspiracy, and it's not happening for the first time in this country," he says.

He points out that there were several outbreaks of religious violence during the last, Congress-led, government too, and that many of the recent events have happened in states not run by the BJP.

Despite the fact that many of the writers - like Salman Rushdie with his one million Twitter followers - are apolitical, he says that in fact online activists from opposition parties are driving this week's trends. It's true that Congress and other party activists are tweeting furiously. "They cannot digest the fact that a leader like Narendra Modi who comes from a very unprivileged background... has challenged the might of the Nehru Gandhi dynasty," he argues.

So who is right?

Well, there certainly wasn't a shortage of religious intolerance before Modi was elected - for example, 82 people died in religious riots in 2013. On the other hand, a national newspaper reported recently that, according to central government data, there were 287 incidents of "communal violence" in the first five months of this year, when Modi's BJP party was in power. In the same period last year, there were 232 incidents.

Image copyrightAFP
Image captionSudheendra Kulkarni was later treated in hospital to remove the ink
It's hard to be definitive about the issue of tolerance. Indian politics - especially those around communal tension - are complicated. Sudheendra Kulkarni, whose face was doused in ink for talking to a Pakistani, was attacked by members of the Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu group in Modi's ruling coalition. But he himself used to be a member of Modi's own party - the BJP.

Still, the spreading of that image, of the names of writers renouncing their prizes, and phrases like "Modi Toadies" imply that in the ephemeral world of social media at least, the debate about intolerance is now very real - and very serious.

Reporting by Aditi Mallya
A week of worrying about rising intolerance in India - BBC News

 

[WAJsal]

@WAJsal @Joe Shearer @Spectre
Gents i would like to discuss subject here

I know your intentions are good and wish not to troll, i also know the fate of this thread. Unfortunately, some Indian members cannot take a little criticism.
On topic: the problem lies with government giving these extremist a free hand. Ghulam Ali is openly threatened, his concert is cancelled and the government is sitting ducks; supports them, to be honest. BJP ministers saying what not to Sharukh Khan. Dozen other examples too. Such activity is also not pleasant to see.

2. Shah was referring to the ongoing elections in Bihar. While he was obviously casting the BJP as the party of Hindus (80% of India's population), he was also painting opponents of the BJP as not only pro-Muslim, but also pro-Pakistan. In essence, he was calling into question the patriotism of 175 million Indian Muslims.

This will only create more problems, rather than solving it.
My Thoughts

 

[The-king]

I am returning my award because I’m ashamed of what’s happening in India
Arundhati Roy
Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of the work we do, I would like to add the National award for Best Screenplay that I won in 1989 to the growing pile of returned awards. Also, I want to make it clear that I am not returning this award because I am “shocked” by what is being called the “growing intolerance” being fostered by the present government. First of all, “intolerance” is the wrong word to use for the lynching, shooting, burning and mass murder of fellow human beings. Second, we had plenty of advance notice of what lay in store for us — so I cannot claim to be shocked by what has happened after this government was enthusiastically voted into office with an overwhelming majority. Third, these horrific murders are only a symptom of a deeper malaise. Life is hell for the living too. Whole populations — millions of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians — are being forced to live in terror, unsure of when and from where the assault will come.
Today, we live in a country in which, when the thugs and apparatchiks of the new order talk of “illegal slaughter”, they mean the imaginary cow that was killed — not the real man who was murdered. When they talk of taking “evidence for forensic examination” from the scene of the crime, they mean the food in the fridge, not thebody of the lynched man. We say we have “progressed”, but when Dalits are butchered and their children burned alive, which writer today can freely say, like Babasaheb Ambedkar once did, that “to the untouchables, Hinduism is a veritable chamber of horrors”, without getting attacked, lynched, shot or jailed? Which writer can write what Saadat Hasan Manto wrote in his Letters to Uncle Sam? It doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree with what is being said. If we do not have the right to speak freely, we will turn into a society that suffers from intellectual malnutrition, a nation of fools. Across the subcontinent it has become a race to the bottom — one that the New India has enthusiastically joined. Here too now, censorship has been outsourced to the mob.
I am very pleased to have found (from somewhere way back in my past) a National award that I can return, because it allows me to be a part of a political movement initiated by writers, film-makers and academics in this country who have risen up against a kind of ideological viciousness and an assault on our collective IQ that will tear us apart and bury us very deep if we do not stand up to it now. I believe what artists and intellectuals are doing right now is unprecedented, and does not have a historical parallel. It is politics by other means. I am so proud to be part of it. And so ashamed of what is going on in this country today.

Postscript: For the record, I turned down the Sahitya Akademi award in 2005 when the Congress was in power. So please spare me that old Congress-versus-BJP debate. It has gone way beyond all that. Thanks.
I am returning my award because I’m ashamed of what’s happening in India | Arundhati Roy | Comment is free | The Guardian

 

[khakhi_chaddi]

Keep dreaming & India will march ahead.

 

[nair]

Well Yes there is a divide in India...... But if i remember properly we used to have such divides always....... There is a reason we say "Unity in diversity"...... We have faced such situation before, and have resolved it always........

Fall of the union??? Lol.............

 

[Kashmiri Pandit]

Human society has been divided since time immemorial .
Hindus were never United under one . Muslims have never been United under one . Christians have never been united under one .
Heck !!! Human race has never been united under one .

I hope Aliens will give us that chance , Alien Invasion will be the day when humans for real be united under one .

 

[The-king]

I know your intentions are good and wish not to troll, i also know the fate of this thread. Unfortunately, some Indian members cannot take a little criticism.
On topic: the problem lies with government giving these extremist a free hand. Ghulam Ali is openly threatened, his concert is cancelled and the government is sitting ducks; supports them, to be honest. BJP ministers saying what not to Sharukh Khan. Dozen other examples too. Such activity is also not pleasant to see.

This will only create more problems, rather than solving it.
My Thoughts

Yes it is true we can't digest criticism a sad fact for both India and Pakistan but at least we can discuss some issues mutually on forum.
Your view are quite accurate there are big divides in Indian society and in fact it is not a good sign for Pakistan if some thing bad happen to Muslims in India hate wave will soon reach on our lands.

Regards,

 

[Stag112]

They say INK IS MORE POWERFUL THAN GUNPOWDER!

Alas, as always Pakistanis misinterpreted it. While silencing their own INK with GUNPOWDER, they think ShivSena throwing INK makes them terrorists, and terrorists are in reality charity workers...

Or some thing like that, its all too confusing...

Anyway this is a circle-jerk thread. Don't want to get my hands dirty (no pun intended)!

 

[The-king]

Well Yes there is a divide in India...... But if i remember properly we used to have such divides always....... There is a reason we say "Unity in diversity"...... We have faced such situation before, and have resolved it always........

Fall of the union??? Lol.............

I really respect your views but i have freedom to express mine and would like to share it with you. Mr Nair yes i am agrees with you divides always there and somehow you people managed to survive till this day but it is not the guarantee that every time you succeed, situation is quite different right now two extreme are confronting each other one is in absolute power the other one never be in true power and state of India never a party before.

Regards,

 

[nForce]

They say INK IS MORE POWERFUL THAN GUNPOWDER!

Alas, as always Pakistanis misinterpreted it.

to add to that, they underestimated both the ink and the gunpowder at right points of time.

 

[GURU DUTT]

It becomes clear and clearer that divides in Indian society widens up day by day, now intellectuals and artists also divided on intolerance issue, A big part of Indian society specially Hindus adopting Hinduvta views while some shows neutral and the other major group supports secularism. I am not forecasting but it is imminent a single violent incident turns into a civil war which consume millions of lives. Politician specially Modi is playing very dangerous game for political gains and the results will be devastating for union of India.

so instead of correcting the intolrence , corruption and pverty and lack of law and order and failing state of all arms of society and govermnet in pakistan hub bul watan pakistanies are more concerned about the growing divide in indian society and happy about it .... no wonder pakistan is in such a state

 

[The-king]

They say INK IS MORE POWERFUL THAN GUNPOWDER!

Alas, as always Pakistanis misinterpreted it. While silencing their own INK with GUNPOWDER, they think ShivSena throwing INK makes them terrorists, and terrorists are in reality charity workers...

Or some thing like that, its all too confusing...

Anyway this is a circle-jerk thread. Don't want to get my hands dirty (no pun intended)!

Kid i prefer not to answer trolls but would like to advise you kindly read history of riots and genocides in India you will come to know the meaning and identity of the terrorists

Regards,