Orissa: A Gujarat in the making

Ms. Chatterjee:
As far as the concluding para of your article,
``India, a land of 1.2 billion, a profusion of peoples, is bound to the promise of a different destiny. In the flux between yesterday and tomorrow, dreams and desires, inequities and intimacies collide to infuse the hybridity that is India. Her survival is contingent upon the Hindu majority`s commitment to an inclusive, plural, secular democracy. The idea of a Hindu state in India is filled with discontent, held together by force. It must never come to pass.``

Amen to that!

...but could you please provide a succinct summary for the rest of your article. A quick scan of the artilce shows that:
-there is widespread poverty in Orissa which needs to be addressed. What is your proposal to address it? I dont think you can ask the Orissa govt. to do it. I believe it is bankrupt.
-dalits, adivasis, tribals are oppressed and their identities are being threatened. How do you propose that they should be empowered? How can their identities be preserved? Are they more likely to be preserved by their becoming Muslim or Christian, which you seem to view sympathetically?
-You mention that the sangh parivaar has set up various organizations, such as the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Yasodha Sadan, and Odisha International Centre. Could you please let us know what are the stated and real aims of these organizations and what are theydoing to accomplish them? If they are inciting the upper caste hindus to prevent these dalits from entering their temples, they should certainly be condemned; if they are trying to force the tribals/adviasis to reject their native idenitities, they should also be condemned but then so should be anyone else trying to convert them into the so-called enlightened religions. But if they are doing any welfare and educational work and sneaking in their religious ideology along with it, they are no better or worse than other missionaries doing the same. In that case, I would say more power to them. We rightly praise christian missionaries for bringing literacy and basic development to the downtrodden, why should we deny it someone else doing the same while selling their version of sanke oil.

India is fvcked

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A different perspective.

Ciao

Ref PunjabiZulu #2

[India is fvcked]

Your fondest wish maybe, but it ain`t coming true.

Is this the same Angana Chatterji who circulated that absolutely and completely false and malicious e-mail about Gujarat? If it is, no wonder her arguments lack substance and logic. The Hindutva brigade have a lot to answer for but if it`s Angana Chatterji doing the attacking you can trash whatever she says - that unfortunate e-mail of hers has exposed the veracity of her claims. She needs to get away from the cosy little place in California or wherever and see what things are like in India before she pontificates. Angana, may I suggest that you do a bit of independent research? Personally I feel that there`s no-one more anti-Hindu than the so-called Hindus who go about attacking Muslims and Christians, but people like this writer are absolutely pernicious because whatever they say is based on lies, half-truths and motivated propaganda.

The author writes [In Orissa, the sangh parivar is targeting Christians, Adivasis, Muslims, Dalits and other marginalised peoples. The network divides its energies between charitable, political and recruitment work. It aims at men, women and youth through religious and popular institutions. The sangh has set up various trusts in Orissa to enable fund raising, such as the Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Yasodha Sadan, and Odisha International Centre.]

Anything wrong with this? Or is charitable and missionary work the private preserve of Christians just as forcible conversion is the exclusive preserve of Muslims?

Re #3 by gujjubania

All citizens of india, and specially the poor pay very high portion of their income in taxes (sales etc). Income tax is not the only tax. So muslims contributing less to the treasury is rhetoric. If the muslim is a salaried person (like any religion) he pays income tax..no choice. If the muslim is a bussinessman (like any other religion) he tries his/her best not to pay anything to the govt, including electricity charges...mr gujju just check with the bussiness folks in your extenced family for more details.

Also, their is enough Govt. spending on stuff like Kumb Mela. A typical PWD Ex. Engg makes a couple of crore during the bandobast. However, the diff is, all this spending is local, and does not fill coffers of S. Arabia, as is due to Haj Subsidies.

#3 by gujjubania on November 4, 2003 7:34am PT

``Mullahs in India get a monthly government salary - never heard of any hindu pandits getting anything from the Indian government. Muslims are given extensive Haj subsidies - which exceed the amount spent by the GOI on all the IITs per year. Hindu pilgrims never get any assistance from the GOI.``


This in justification of the massacre in Gujarat? Why doesn`t BJP repeal these subsidies and salaries? or are they hoping for the muslim vote bank???

Harimau

I am Indian.

I agree with your point about the hypocrisy of criticising Hindus for missionary work whilst Christian and Muslim organisations prosletyse freely. Either criticise all such activity or not at all, do not pick and choose.

Nevertheless we must be aware that the longer we allow neo-fascist foot soldiers and groups to entrench themselves into the structure of our body politic, the more trouble we will be in. The extremist parties are unhinged. Whoever wants India to progress cannot support such an ideology nor the thuggish extremism and aggression they engage in. Moderation, tolerance and plurality are the things that will power India forward.

It is time to take note of what is happening.

Ms. Angana Chatterjee is a well known marxist extremist who has never condemmed left-wing violence and murder. We should all be aware that violence from left-wing murderers, whether the recent attack on Chandrababu Naidu (democratically elected CM of AP) or random killings in West Bengal and Bihar remains the largest source of violence in India.

She is also a shameless hypocrite: as an NRI she is happy to live in the USA but has often condemned ``India and Indians should not follow the USA``. Just like Arundhati Roy (a dollar millionaire) who has condemmed ordinary indians for taking call center and other ``menial jobs``, similarly this elitist and status-loving intellectual is happy to be paid in dollars so that she can advance her personal interests but would deny her countrymen similar status.

I would characterize her exactly at the same level as gujjubania: one is shameless hindu bigot, the other is a shameless marxist bigot. Both are extremists. No difference at all.

Angana Ji:
Nice article, appropriately researched and supported with data.

#12 - Angana Chatterjee is not the topic of discussion here. Labelling her an extremist/marxist does not change reality. These things need to be discussed and resorting to personal attacks does not help.

But Arundhat Roy donated her award to various organizations and did not keep anything for herself.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/01/23/stories/2003012303541200.htm

She says, ``It was not easy for her to decide what to do with the prize money (Rs. 1.15 crores after tax deduction), she said. Over a period of several days and discussions, she drew a list of 50 remarkable people`s movements, publications, educational institutions, theatre groups and individuals who are engaged in the struggle of making India a real democracy instead of just a notional one. ``Each in its own way is working to challenge the entrenched power structure of the society in which we live.``

Broaden your horizons....

MB

#14 ixno

Dear Mr. Hypocrite,

Do you or do you not support the right of Christians and Muslims to aggressively proselitise and convert people to their respective religions?


Please answer: YES or NO. If Yes, what is the difference between them and the activities this person describes. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Finally, similar to anti-semitism, there is also an attitude called hindu-phobia. This involves mindless hatred of hindu traditions and approaches. It is completely exemplified by the following sentence:

[quote]
Hindu ascendancy is assisted by the degree to which the authority of religion and the enabling cultural and gender hierarchies are enshrined deep within the popular psyche of the nation. This dominance assumes that to restrict religion to the private realm would deny India its historical `consciousness
[end-quote]

This makes it clear that the core issue is mindless and total hatred for hindu traditions. It should not be allowed to permeate the nation because it is necessarity unfair and perhaps even evil!!

Every other tradition is OK; others may freely and agrressively proselitise but not hindus. If hindus organize themselves aggressively, in a manner that is in fact a simple copy of aggressive christianity and islam, then it must be very wrong and fascism.

What kind of nonsense masquerading as logic is this? Only hypocrites and the completely deluded would accept this kind of blather.