@padamchen logged in into an Indian defence forum, told that he was a Parsi, was warmly welcomed by "Hindu nationalists". Despite humble responses, he kept on making it unnecessarily Hindu vs Parsis and was banned way later.
'The World's Best Minority': Parsis and Hindutva's ethnic nationalism in India
Jesse Buck
This putrid article by this uneducated author itself is a load ignorant and unknown rant. Indeed before writing such useless loads, he needs to learn that Hindu nationalism is not a religious or ethnic nationalism. At the time this term was coined, "Hindu" was synonym for "Indian" eventually all Indian religions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and Indian atheism. Indian National Congress and other Gandhian allies who were in favour of peaceful protests were labeled as "Indian nationalists" while actual "Indian nationalists" were called "Hindu" nationalists because they didn't like a foreign term "Indian".
en.m.wikipedia.org
There is an assumption that nationalist movements which are constituted by an ethnic majority are hostile towards all minorities, so how does one account for such a movement's affection for one minority and hostility for another?
Hindu nationalism is not an ethnic movement. What matters is caste based discrimination but racism based upon ethnicity or color etc. is seen as stupid in even India's remotest villages.
In this paper I explore this question using the case study of a Hindu nationalist movement in India called Hindutva which simultaneously expresses hostility towards Muslims and affection for another minority known as the Parsis.
Hindu nationalists also have very very high affinity with Jews and are even indifferent to Sikhs, Jains and Budhhists. Hindus, Jains and Sikhs often worship in, donate large amounts of money and organise bhandaras and langars in each others' temples and Gurudwaras. They marrying among each others' communities is common (my bhabhi is Sikh and my sister is married to a Jain businessman). I'm not a special case. This is a usual landscape of any average "Hindu mohalla", the social fabric among Indian religions which doesn't need a certificate from Freedom House, Democracy Index or any western think tank to prove its tolerance. I myself go to a Gurudwara every morning.
During 1984 anti Sikh riots when Indian "liberals" were on rampage to burn Sikhs alive throughout Punjab, "Hindu nationalist" politicians and RSS cadres hid Sikhs in their homes, resorts and branches and many were even killed in these attempts. Even after the Republic Day incident, these are BJP leaders themselves and not Congressis campaigning,
"Don't hate Sikhs. They are one of us and those rioting in turban garb are from " that community"".
Even Muslims today would have been enjoying same status as Parsis and Jews if 1920s riots and Malabar massacre wouldn't have happened, Indian Muslim leaders would have been focused on India's independence in WW1 and not Turkey's khalifa, if India was not partitioned. They would even could have better image after independence yet if they didn't act stupid like Pakistani Muslims and pretend to be Arabs and Turks and supporting foreign countries instead of their own for the sake of "Islamic brotherhood". Muslims often win elections in Hindu majority areas but vice versa isn't true. Muslims live in ghettos and concentrated areas while other communities live mixed up.
They still can turn their image if they start to bother more about accepting and getting accepted in India's social fabric, coming out of ghettos and make houses near other communities, teaching same secular values which any urban family does.
My own parents taught me to be secular, my Muslim friends turned me critical of them.
I argue in societies that imagine themselves as plural there is a type of nationalist thought premised upon the existence of both exemplary and threatening minorities.
In plural societies from US to India, they accuse majority of intimidating them.
In pro "homogeneous" societies like Russia, China and old Japan, racial and religious minorities were and still are systemically killed. They rather justify it with a stupid argument, "it is difficult to maintain a diverse society, so majoru dominance has to be maintained" and same experts writing "is India an illiberal democracy" rather portray this Nazi style racist bullshit as a progressive thought.
Hindutva is highly influential in India. It is comprised of a section of largely upper caste Hindus and is distinct from the religion of Hinduism (Jaffrelot 1993).
Upper caste majority is an 80s and 90s thing. BJP has 20 crore members, more than half of them, majority of BJP leaders belong to lower castes.
Upper caste was voter of Indian National Congress while lower castes in India voted for other left parties. BJP brought politics on Hindu cause which took away voters from both groups and made BJP a dominant party.
Railway minister Piyush Goyal and Home Minister Amit Shah are Vaishya (Baniya), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is a Kshatriya, Late Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj was a Brahmin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an OBC (Backward Caste), President Ramnath Kovind is a scheduled caste (lowest among India's all backward castes).
The combo is sufficient to reflect whether BJP is an upper-caste party or a pan-Hindu party.
Buddhism is currently seen as the middle stepping stone to Islam (or to an extent Christianity).
Budhhism is a peaceful cult version of liberal atheistic sects of Hinduism.
Islam and Christianity are directly opposite radical cults which regard anyone who don't believe in them as sinners.
Interestingly, only they as minorities or majorities have problem in India as well as rest of world, not any other community.
Savarkar's hostility to Muslims was inversely matched by his affection for Parsis
Case also lied with other RSS leaders like Golwalker, Deendayal Upadhyay.
"A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose."
Altogether, India is indeed a liberal democracy where right wing was about cultural nationalism and facilitated reforms in economics too. They weren't conservative, themselves pushed anti religious laws, they came in 90s and built India's industrial base what actually built India's economy in 21st century. Even in past, not government but these organisations public funded and created "institutions" of India which liberals love to boast about (it's a fact that government denied funds). Their only problem is Muslims because of stigma of partition. No amount of defamation is going to play them down. India isn't a western country and left right political thingo is irrelevant here.
Mine is the present day street view of the bhim sena boudh dalit converts and their numbers being eaten into by proselytizing faiths, under the radar of the Hindu watch.
That isn't Budhhism, that is a pathetic confused cartoon religion without an iota of Gauthama and gets thrown away and ridiculed by real Buddhists a lot.
www.news18.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
www.business-standard.com
