Not so secular India

[Raja.Pakistani]

I care about my country, my people. Minding other nationalities is none of my concern.
If it does not affect you, I cant understand why are you losing so much heat discussing about it.

Really? If you care about your country then you should not mind if we discuss your country/peoples. I dont know why you mind if we discuss the secularism of India.. I thought world affairs section of this forum is there to discuss the affairs of other nations..i am calm and cool as always

 

[Developereo]

I have been saying from the beginning - that its your assumption based on your prejudices. Not my heartache.

Throwing random words around won't make your argument. Do you deny that the demand for historical "reclaiming" extends beyond just the Ran Mandir? It is a vague collection of 'core Hindu sites'. Who knows what 'core Hindu sites' means to different subgroups in the Hindutva movement? What are the assurances this 'core' will not keep expanding with time?

How about simply "Going to gulf" does not need much mony in omparison to going to Europe/US, going to gulf is linguistically easy because of knowledge of Hindi,Malayalam, going to gulf is more profitable for unskilled labour, going to gulf is easy because there are already neighbours or friends working there ?

Are you foolish enough to think that Indian Govt/Companies screens and sends only Muslims to Arab countries while sending Hindus to Europe ?

People are free to choose to go where they want to go, provided they have the money , passport and a valid visa with no cases pending against them in an Indian court of law.

Now you are making up statements out of thin air. When did I ever claim that Indian companies send 'only Muslims' to the Gulf? I said the proportion of Muslim workers is higher in teams destined for the Gulf than it is in teams destined for Europe or elsewhere. This is engineered by Indian companies specifically to present a certain image to Arab clients.

Your attempts at explanations using 'Hindi, Malyalam, relatives, etc.' are laughable. Since when is Hindi or Malyalam a native language in the Gulf? These factors are only relevant if there is already an NRI contingent present.

Once again, you come up with circular logic. This seems to be your speciality.

And what will the Arabs do after our image gets damaged ? Launch biological weapons filled with camel farts ? Please man..do justice to your ThinkTank status. Please.

Now you are getting desperate. If you can't refute a point, just say so. No need to go ballistic.

If you don't understand the importance of image management in business and diplomacy, feel free to ask a fellow Indian.

Atlast the light dawns on the head.

A smaall nitpick - It is not in Myanmar - it is West of Myanmar.Myanmar was the boundary.

BTW I had already explained the place of Gandhara in Mahabharatha - one of the epics of Hindu (ancient Indian) civilization.

You seem to have trouble distinguishing between mythology and history; a common trait amongst religious fundamentalists.

Why 'modern-day' India comes into this picture ? Ah, the classical Pakistani propaganda that anything west of Modern day Indian border was not a part of Bharat..The burning desire (need) to disassociate from the Indian civilization. I understand.As without that assumption the TNT falls apart.

all the areas of modern day Pakistan,India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan were collectively Bharat and any culture anywhere in these areas are automatically a subset of the wider ancient Bharat civilization.

Again, you have trouble with logic. I already explained the circular logic in your claims.

You define 'Bharat' to be the area practising 'Bharati' culture. And you define 'Bharati' culture to be the culture of such regions.

I am still waiting to hear from you exactly which Bharati empire encompassed the IVC in its heydey from 2900 - 1600 BCE.

Yes and you need to check it first. It has clearly proved that there is no record of targeted discrimination or religious profiling that is going on that prevents Muslims from improving.

This one is going in circles. The Sachar commission report is there and its findings accepted by the Indian establishment. Detractors will continue to disbelieve anything that contradicts their agenda.

 

[Developereo]

As I previously noted, your experience with Islam (a final and absolutist faith) has made you believe that other religions are also like that.

That is not the case.

Unlike Islam (or for matter Christianity, Judaism) Hinduism does NOT have the concept of absolutism - in other words that it is the only true path. It emphasizes that it is just one of the paths to Nirvana.

So as you can see, tolerence/respect to other faith is a core concept of Hinduism - history over the centuries bears testimony to that - and that is why Hindus can speak of religion and secularism in the same sentence without contradicting themselves and how 'Hindutva' forces cant attack secularism as Hindutva itself prescribes 'secularism'.

You are just confused.

Nice speech.

Only problem is your other statements, and the Hindutva philosophy, directly contradicts the sentiments above.

You are neither tolerant nor respectful towards other faiths. You openly claim that Islam is "alien" to the subcontinent. You want Muslims to respect Hinduism, but you will not return the same respect to their faith.

According to you philosophy, you will never accept some Indian citizens as true Indians because you fundamentally reject their faith. This is the essence of the Hindutva philosophy, and the absolute antithesis of secularism.

You can play word games all day long, but you can't hide the fundamental incompatibility between secularism and Hindutva ideology.

 

[KS]

Throwing random words around won't make your argument. Do you deny that the demand for historical "reclaiming" extends beyond just the Ran Mandir? It is a vague collection of 'core Hindu sites'. Who knows what 'core Hindu sites' means to different subgroups in the Hindutva movement? What are the assurances this 'core' will not keep expanding with time?

Inferences - prejudices - Duh !

Now you are making up statements out of thin air. When did I ever claim that Indian companies send 'only Muslims' to the Gulf? I said the proportion of Muslim workers is higher in teams destined for the Gulf than it is in teams destined for Europe or elsewhere. This is engineered by Indian companies specifically to present a certain image to Arab clients.

Pray tell me then what this means ?

the Indian diaspora in the Gulf is specifically tailored to give a false impression to Arab clients.

Who is tailoring whom ?

And what is basis of your conclusion ? Remember "correlation does not imply causation".

Your attempts at explanations using 'Hindi, Malyalam, relatives, etc.' are laughable. Since when is Hindi or Malyalam a native language in the Gulf? These factors are only relevant if there is already an NRI contingent present.

If you have been to the Gulf you would know what I am talking about. With Hindi you coul get anywhere in the Gulf and with Malayalam in Dubai. And more Muslims go there because already many of their relatives/neighbors/friends are there

Again, you have trouble with logic. I already explained the circular logic in your claims.

I don't take pains to refute downright stupid statements. My specialty.

You define 'Bharat' to be the area practising 'Bharati' culture. And you define 'Bharati' culture to be the culture of such regions.

I am still waiting to hear from you exactly which Bharati empire encompassed the IVC in its heydey from 2900 - 1600 BCE.

No I define Bharat as the vast land within the confines of Himalayas, Hindukush,Myanmar and Indian Ocean.

Now comin to the question of what empire, I still don't understand why you emphasize on that - I have made it clear that any culture within the confines of ancient Bharat will be considered a Bharaati civilization. It cannot be more simple than that.

This one is going in circles. The Sachar commission report is there and its findings accepted by the Indian establishment. Detractors will continue to disbelieve anything that contradicts their agenda.

And it has already been proved that its commissioning, its 'findings' and its 'acceptance' were all one big political tamasha and how in reality no such targeted discrimination or religious profiling occurs. You are basing your argument on assuming that the 'findings' of the Sachar Committe are true. I'm disputing that.

 

[cyphercide]

I really do have the premonition that Hindu nationalism will be on it's rise as India progresses in the future.I don't have much to recount as I've lived the most of my life inside naval bases and hence immunized by religious fault lines .Yet I was left with a bitter taste with relation to religion from a precocious age.

When I was still in school,I enrolled myself in a Sunday school for the sake of my majority of friends being Christian(being an International School).The first few days were great,English breakfast and Bible studies,all that jazz..never whiffed of anything wrong

After a few days the kindly sisters started distributing booklets that stated why Christianity was the only true religion.That was alright too as my family was very liberal on what I wanted to follow.I started reciting from the holy book to my Brahmin family and even stuffed a picture of Christ in between our Pooja room.

Then the Sunday school started to distribute booklets on why Hinduism is regarded as satanism according to Christianity and proceeded to "debunk"(I use the term loosely as no religion is valid in the eyes of science)my religion as primitive and false.I felt isolated and betrayed by the charade and stopped attending altogether.

When I got through into college,there was this Mosque nearby that always used to host an "expert" of some sort.We used to get out of class to catch a smoke where we would always hear him sarcastically lecture on loud speakers how Hindus had thousand gods and were devil worshipers.

Granted,I am a non believer and don't give a flying rat's behind on what people sermonize but I will need to add that it hurts that someone solely targets my beliefs .Why does everyone feel the need to trample over our beliefs to prove their own as superior?Are the compulsions in the pursuit to convert/proselyte that strong that you become unbearable yourself?

Now imagine a simple minded Hindu in the mix;He feels cornered and boxed into a place where supposedly he is free to call his shots.He would naturally feel the need to retaliate...not that I am trying to defend anyone,just trying to add in the viewpoint.

 

[KS]

Nice speech.

It is the truth.

Only problem is your other statements, and the Hindutva philosophy, directly contradicts the sentiments above.

They do not.

You are neither tolerant nor respectful towards other faiths. You openly claim that Islam is "alien" to the subcontinent. You want Muslims to respect Hinduism, but you will not return the same respect to their faith.

I said 'alien', but never 'inferior'.

As I said your prejudices are clouding your thinking ability.

According to you philosophy, you will never accept some Indian citizens as true Indians because you fundamentally reject their faith. This is the essence of the Hindutva philosophy, and the absolute antithesis of secularism.

Again your hate is blinkering you.

I had always maintained Islam is alien to SC, but he Muslims themselves were not.

And respect to the local culture is something that is expected basically all over the world. We Indians are not exception to that. You talk of that as if its a crime

You can play word games all day long, but you can't hide the fundamental incompatibility between secularism and Hindutva ideology.

Truth seems word games to you because you cant/not able to fundamentally reconcile between the outwardly 'self-contradictory' notions of religion and secularism. I empathize with you. But you gotto understand that for us, both of those terms are not self-contradictory and can co-exist with each other - as has been the case for millenia.

 

[Roybot]

Now you are making up statements out of thin air. When did I ever claim that Indian companies send 'only Muslims' to the Gulf? I said the proportion of Muslim workers is higher in teams destined for the Gulf than it is in teams destined for Europe or elsewhere. This is engineered by Indian companies specifically to present a certain image to Arab clients.

the Indian diaspora in the Gulf is specifically tailored to give a false impression to Arab clients.

Do you have any thing to back these preposterous claim of yours?

Whats next, overwhelming numbers of Punjabi and Sikhs in Canada is tailored by Indian companies too? People help relatives/friends to secure a job. And the chain continues. You are reading too much into this.

 

[harshad]

You define 'Bharat' to be the area practising 'Bharati' culture. And you define 'Bharati' culture to be the culture of such regions.

I am still waiting to hear from you exactly which Bharati empire encompassed the IVC in its heydey from 2900 - 1600 BCE.

there is no such thing as bharat culture,bharat is referred to the land controled by king bharata
i dont know which "bharati" empire encompassed the IVC in the heydey but surely it wasent islamic or abrahamic religion as the worshiped idols and phalic object which is referred in hinduism as shiva

 

[Developereo]

Inferences - prejudices - Duh !

The important thing is the acknowledgement that there is this vague and opportunistic concept of 'core Hindu sites' that need to be "reclaimed",

I don't care what words you throw around.

Pray tell me then what this means ?

Who is tailoring whom ?

And what is basis of your conclusion ? Remember "correlation does not imply causation".

Because I have personal experience of this behavior from Indian companies. Twice!

- the first time, we had an Indian outsourcer who sent us Christmas gifts. They were small elephant mantlepieces, which we thought were cute, until someone told the boss that these were actually Hindu religious symbols. The Indians had sent us their religious symbols to put on our desks. The boss, a devout Christian, was furious. So the next couple of reps the outsourcing company sent us just happened to be Christian!

- the second case was again an Indian outsourcer. Three of their ten or so workers at our site were Christian. One time, maybe by mistake, they mentioned that they were the only Christians in the company out of a couple hundred plus people.

No I define Bharat as the vast land within the confines of Himalayas, Hindukush,Myanmar and Indian Ocean.

Based on what? mythology? occasional empires that lasted fleeting moments in the span of history?

Now comin to the question of what empire, I still don't understand why you emphasize on that

Either you accept that the IVC was "alien" to Hinduism, or you need to prove that the IVC was part of a "Bharati" empire. Not the lands of the IVC centuries later, but the actual, thriving IVC during its heydey.

- I have made it clear that any culture within the confines of ancient Bharat will be considered a Bharaati civilization. It cannot be more simple than that.

Except that there was no consistent entity called "ancient Bharat". All you have is a circular definition based on mythology, or encompassing vast reaches of land that were united sporadically and fleetingly at best. Some Indian empires also went as far as Cambodia. Will you now claim that Cambodia is part of ancient Bharat?

And it has already been proved that its commissioning, its 'findings' and its 'acceptance' were all one big political tamasha and how in reality no such targeted discrimination or religious profiling occurs. You are basing your argument on assuming that the 'findings' of the Sachar Committe are true. I'm disputing that.

Sure, the nasty secularists are just making up tamashas against the poor, innocent Hindutva, government reports and all...

 

[Developereo]

Do you have any thing to back these preposterous claim of yours?

Whats next, overwhelming numbers of Punjabi and Sikhs in Canada is tailored by Indian companies too? People help relatives/friends to secure a job. And the chain continues. You are reading too much into this.

Already adressed in previous post. We are not talking about independent migrants, but workers sent by outsourcing companies. I have seen this happen with Indian Christians in the US, and the disproportionate number of Indian Muslims to Gulf v/s Europe/US is consistent with that behavior of presenting an image tailored to a particular customer.

I said 'alien', but never 'inferior'.

Here's the dictionary definition of "alien": unlike one's own; strange; not belonging to one.

If Islam is "alien" to India, then it does "not belong" in India.

And you have already stated that Islam and India are "opposite poles".

As I said your prejudices are clouding your thinking ability.

Again your hate is blinkering you.

I had always maintained Islam is alien to SC, but he Muslims themselves were not.

This attack of verbal diarrhea is understandable since you have been caught out on your own words. You have stated that Islam is alien and incompatible with India, but Hinduism is central to it.

You want the government to "reclaim" Hindu sites from these "alien" religions, i.e. make decisions based on favoring one religion over another, which is utterly incompatible with secularism.

And respect to the local culture is something that is expected basically all over the world. We Indians are not exception to that. You talk of that as if its a crime :confused

Nobody has ever disputed the need for minorities to respect the majority culture. The issue here is whether the majority accords the same respect to the minorities.

there is no such thing as bharat culture,bharat is referred to the land controled by king bharata
i dont know which "bharati" empire encompassed the IVC in the heydey but surely it wasent islamic or abrahamic religion as the worshiped idols and phalic object which is referred in hinduism as shiva

The Hindutva claim is that all "alien" influences must be purged from India. If you cannot show that the IVC was part of a Bharati empire extant at the time, then any IVC influence on Hinduism was an "alien" influence and must be purged accordingly.

The other option, of course, is that Hinduism has nothing to do with the IVC.

 

[KS]

The important thing is the acknowledgement that there is this vague and opportunistic concept of 'core Hindu sites' that need to be "reclaimed",

I don't care what words you throw around.

Did I ever say that there is no attempt at 'reclaiming' ?

My argument is that it is kept to a bare minimum of our holiest sites while you claim that they are an ever-expanding list.

See this is the problem. You dont even know what you are arguing. Take a break.

Because I have personal experience of this behavior from Indian companies. Twice!

- the first time, we had an Indian outsourcer who sent us Christmas gifts. They were small elephant mantlepieces, which we thought were cute, until someone told the boss that these were actually Hindu religious symbols. The Indians had sent us their religious symbols to put on our desks. The boss, a devout Christian, was furious. So the next couple of reps the outsourcing company sent us just happened to be Christian!

Oh such a big fricking deal ! Many Hindus I know of have Mother Mary in their homes. See this is the difference in tolerance that I'm speaking about.

BTW this only underscores the tolerance and the willingness to make one at ease of the Indians so that cultural mistakes like these dont happen and workplace environment doesnt get spoiled due to silly issues.

the second case was again an Indian outsourcer. Three of their ten or so workers at our site were Christian. One time, maybe by mistake, they mentioned that they were the only Christians in the company out of a couple hundred plus people.

Causation doesnt imply correlation.
And who knows even your company could have 'requested' the Indian outsourcer to send 'Christian' workers.

Two basic things are wrong in your logic:

1) Basing your conclusion on two isolated incidents.
2) Super-imposing your conclusion basedon this incident to the situation in Gulf.

FAIL.

Based on what? mythology? occasional empires that lasted fleeting moments in the span of history?

Either you accept that the IVC was "alien" to Hinduism, or you need to prove that the IVC was part of a "Bharati" empire. Not the lands of the IVC centuries later, but the actual, thriving IVC during its heydey.

Except that there was no consistent entity called "ancient Bharat". All you have is a circular definition based on mythology, or encompassing vast reaches of land that were united sporadically and fleetingly at best. Some Indian empires also went as far as Cambodia. Will you now claim that Cambodia is part of ancient Bharat?

Duh ! Its not upto Pakkistanis to decide what was Bharat and what was not.


QUOTE=Developereo;2289125]Sure, the nasty secularists are just making up tamashas against the poor, innocent Hindutva, government reports and all...

Those people are not secularists. They are the real 'communalists'.

 

[Roybot]

Already adressed in previous post. We are not talking about independent migrants, but workers sent by outsourcing companies. I have seen this happen with Indian Christians in the US, and the disproportionate number of Indian Muslims to Gulf v/s Europe/US is consistent with that behavior of presenting an image tailored to a particular customer.

Are you telling me that this is something which is only done by Indian companies? And what has this got to do with secularism anyways?

I have been asked to deal with clients from sub continent, specifically because I have Indian background. Ditto with my workmates who have Chinese, Korean, South African and Indonesian backgrounds.

Why do you think people are asked about the languages they speak in job interviews or when they are filling out job applications?

 

[Developereo]

Are you telling me that this is something which is only done by Indian companies?

Maybe all companies do it, I don't know. But the discussion here was about Indians.

And what has this got to do with secularism anyways?

The matter came up in your guys' link trying to refute the Sachar commission report.

I have been asked to deal with clients from sub continent, specifically because I have Indian background. Ditto with my workmates who have Chinese, Korean, South African and Indonesian backgrounds.

Why do you think people are asked about the languages they speak in job interviews or when they are filling out job applications?

Exactly. So you agree that companies try to put forward candidates that will "form a bridge" with the client. That was my point also.

 

[Roybot]

Maybe all companies do it, I don't know. But the discussion here was about Indians.

Exactly. So you agree that companies try to put forward candidates that will "form a bridge" with the client. That was my point also.

Am surprised that you have never noticed this trend. Of course companies handpick staff based on culture/language/nationality/ religion to deal with respective clients. Not just companies even countries do it. Do you think that American ambassador to China being of Chinese origin or Australia's ambassador to India being of Indian origin is a mere coincidence?

The matter came up in your guys' link trying to refute the Sachar commission report.

You know most of the Indian migrants in the Gulf countries are either laborers or do some other menial jobs. How many Indian companies you think are operating in Gulf states? Hardly any.

Semiskilled/unskilled workers still account for about 70% of the Indian migrants; while white-collar workers are in the neighbourhood of 20% and professionals (doctors, engineers, architects, bankers and charted acccountants) have a 10% share of the total.

Indian businesses in the Gulf deliberately put forward this image of Muslims being proportionally integrated in mainstream Indian society, even though Sachar gave the lie to this nonsense. The Indian companies skew the number of Muslims only in work groups destined for the Gulf. There is no similar representation of Muslims in Indian diaspora in Europe, the Americas or elsewhere. In other words, the Indian diaspora in the Gulf is specifically tailored to give a false impression to Arab clients.

So your above claim is baseless and illogical.

 

[harshad]

The Hindutva claim is that all "alien" influences must be purged from India. If you cannot show that the IVC was part of a Bharati empire extant at the time, then any IVC influence on Hinduism was an "alien" influence and must be purged accordingly.

The other option, of course, is that Hinduism has nothing to do with the IVC.

can you prove to us that IVC was not a part of "bharati empire extent" mind you that the aryan invasion theory is not much credible according to the historians