Last Rites in Kashmir or a New Journey?

A positive outcome for me here has been a better appreciation of the role of the caste system. As Hindus (incrementally) reject the tradition of caste, we may underestimate the residual power and the reach of its effect and legacy. Then we are likely to see Islam as the source of all evil, and all mutual ill will.

Thanks, HP, for making the argument convincingly (although I will take a pass on commenting on your comments regarding some other noble men and women of Chowk :))

slan # 218

In a real democracy, minorities will invariably make a smaller impact, unless they establish effective alliances with other groups.

Yet, democracy with reasonable safeguards is the best system for minorities, far better than any known alternative.

France does not even recognize Hinduism as a `religion!` Still Hindus are much much better off in France than in any non democratic country. French Hindus need to make a case to other French people, but it would be inappropriate for them to expect to always make a difference equal to other French groups.

Hindus are a majority in India. They can`t be a majority everywhere. In the global perspective, no one religious community can carry the biggest weight, or be the majority, in all countries. Neither should it expect to do so because that won`t be fair to other religious communities.

#215 by slan on June 12, 2005 12:26pm PT


Thanks ,can I now asume that you whole heartedly support the Muslim Personal law.


Indian commies are as Indian as they come...doesn`t mean a majority of Indians have to support their ideology, or it`s imposition on others....same thing with hindu bs like banning cow slaughter...just cause a particular group is an insider, it doesn`t give them any additional right...

slan#215

I do not see any incompatibility between Muslim Personal Law and loyalty to a nation state. The demand for change has more to do with its incompatibility with the fundamental right of all citizens to be treated equally, especially with respect to gender equality.

Re: # 217
This is where the problem arises,minorities cannot defend their societieal rights as they canot make a difference to the elections.They get marginalised in their own country. Unlike the french muslims they are in they are not outsiders as you rightly agreed.

slan#213

Yes. Every country has the right to enforce its laws on its residents. If non-muslims don`t like those laws, they should not go there. However, if non-muslims are treated in a certain way in those countries in the name of Islamic laws, it can affect the image of muslims in general.

slan:

The Indian concept of secularism is not the same as French. Frankly, I cannot think of any community in India which can be considered ``outsider``. France made a rule about the dress code when it found that people were going outside the bounds deemed acceptable by the society. But once it made a rule, it had to apply it equally to all. To give an example in the Canadian context, if Ontario does not allow sharia arbitration boards, it would also have to disallow similar boards currently operating for orthodox jews.

dionysus:
You are right. I should have used nation-state in that post about Rushdie, instead of nation. [These are not well thought out dissertations, just random, spontaneous thoughts at chowk. Any inconsistencies are not intentional and I`ll acknowledge them when they are pointed out, like I just did].

Re: # 214
`Frankly, I cannot think of any community in India which can be considered ``outsider``

Thanks ,can I now asume that you whole heartedly support the Muslim Personal law.

#206 HP and #192 kaalchakra, exactly.choot and achoot has a lot to do with it. This was what I was gearing up to write in my next post :-) . I have seen this in Prem Chand`s writings that Muslims were labelled as ``maleechchas`` , meaning the dirty ones.
One big reason for this maybe that most of the converts may have been from lower castes.But this is just my guess.
One other thing that has contemporary relevance is eating habits.There are still many Hindus in the Hindi heartland that are vegetarian and at least 90% of the non vegetarians are not beef eaters. This is another reason why people from higher castes would have a certain feeling of distaste towards Muslims (who are religiously non vegetarian).
I would think these two factors, casteism and dietary habits are the biggest reasons for the distaste for muslims.
There are other political factors as well, but these are not homogenous and differ from place to place and their effects are not as strong as the other two I have listed above. I will make an attempt to list them.
1. Even very moderate and liberal Hindus believe that the so called secular press and parties gives them a raw deal .So there is an unwariness of muslims by extension. I dont want to get into the details because it is a very polemic topic, but this has an effect.
2. There is a feeling that madarsas have some sort of religious fundamentalism which is disruptive to nationalism going on inside.The reason for this is VHP/RSS/BJP propoganda on one hand and the lack of emphasis of on religious and cultural education by the state on the other hand. Also, there have been reports of firearms being uncovered from some of the madarsas , and the Hindu right has been quick to pounce on that. I completely understand the point of madarsas tht they are required for teaching of religion. My personal take on this is that in a state with such a large cultural and religious history, proper emphasis should be given to study of all religions by the state. This would take away the advantage from the religious leaders too. But again this is a digression.
3. Concerning the lower caste hindus and converts to christianity , the christian missions have been proactive to reach out to the lower caste Hindus which the Muslims have failed to do. So, the lower rate of conversion to islam. This point though is not directly connected with the distrust or distaste of Muslims but that of the less dim view of Christians than Muslims.
4. Then there are local factors.In Bombay, there was a report by Manu Joseph, it is very difficult to rent a house if you are a Muslim without any reference. This had to do with the Bombay Bomb Blasts, as far as I can remember.

Now coming to HPs specific points-
Socially anything outside of Hindu faith is dirty
Hindus dont have a dim view of Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains.It has to do with faith , certainly. These religions do share a lot with Hinduism.But it is not partisan or nazi in nature.As I already mentioned , this is only with respect to specific elements of the Islamic faith.
Jay and Sadna’s comment clearly reflect age old hard core Hindu bias against anything Muslim
I dont want to comment on the ``age old hard core Hindu bias`` since this is not something concrete, but I have seen Sadna`s fights with Harimau when she was opposing Hindu right and it was as every bit as rabid as it has been with you.

Dear, DM, .I forgot to mention in my previous posts that the ban includes crosses,so the newcomers rights arent the only one in discussion.Wearing skull caps or a veil/cross is not in direct violation of national intrest.Would they not qualify as reasonable?If French govern ment can see providing morning after pills in schools as reasonable .The ban on kripans for school children can be argued on the basis of it being a weapon which might be misused by children as they are unable to judge at their age.
Also in a country like India which community would qualify as newcommer?

Roamair:

I have answered that question several times on chowk. Central Asians were outside invaders. They themselves never thought of belonging to Hind. But they were, of course, different from the British or the Greek invaders earlier, in that many of them decided to settle here and make it their home. To me and to almost everyone else, Ashok was not an outsider to India. It has nothing to do with religion; he was not a Hindu and indeed actively converted people to his religion both inside and outside India. Frankly, I have never heard anyone describing Ashok as an external invasion. But you are free to rewrite history to suit your agenda.

Dost-mittar #201: ``answer is easy. For me, the loyalty is to a nation state, first and foremost;``

This is true. In today`s world, generally people`s loyalties are to nation-states. That point is taken. But I believe this discussion is at a deeper level than that. It actually discusses the orientation of nation-states, and what is the basis of which nation-states should be formed...........

So coming back to my original question: Let`s set aside nation-state:

Do you think the historical loyalties (if not the present-day ones) of an individual should be based on a civilizational criteria or a religious one.........i.e. should historical invaders be called Muslim invaders and Hindu invaders and then a decision should be made on whether they were invading or fighting a civil war. Or should they be called Central Asian invaders and Bihari invaders and then the decision on civil war and invasion be made........Should the Muslim in Taxila consider Ghaznavi and Ashoka, both to be invaders of his land. Or should he consider Ghaznavi a civil-war fighter and Ashoka an invader. Should a Hindu sitting in Taxila, consider Ghaznavi an invader, and Ashoka a civil war fighter. Or should he do vice-versa.........

Or should he be like me, and consider both invaders, regardless of religion........Or should he be like you and not give a clear answer, even after being asked again and again :)........

Re: # 208 Romair ``Or should he be like you and not give a clear answer, even after being asked again and again :).``

That`s classic dost-mittar. Shifty, evasive and two-faced. A while back an Indian Muslim (vertex, I think) expressed the opinion that India did not exist as a nation before 1947. Dost mittar angrily retorted that only Pakistanis believed that, practically accusing him of being a Pakistani (classic Hindu big0t tactic in India) . But today dost-mittar himself says that India wasn`t a nation before 1947! LOL!

slan#205:

I should have added a qualifier ``reasonable`` in my earlier post. One should make a distinction between the established communal rights in a society and people demanding new rights. In my opinion, newcomers to a country or a society (unless they come as conquerors) have an implicit, if not explicit, contract with the host society. They have come to the society because they respect the societal norms as they exist, without expecting them to change the societal norms to suit their particular norms. I also believe that societies like Canada are heading for trouble because they have let it be known that they expect the society to change to the needs of the newcomers more than the other way round. In Canada itself, Quebec has taken a position more akin to France than that of English Canada - namely that individual rights must be balanced against societal rights. Thus, Quebec schools have banned a sikh boy from carrying a kirpan in the school and has passed a unanimous resolution against the use of sharia courts. English Canada has a different attitude. On this issue, I am with the Quebec/France approach for the long-term harmony of the nation state. But I am perhaps in a minority among liberals.

Re: # 207
`In my opinion, newcomers to a country or a society (unless they come as conquerors) have an implicit, if not explicit, contract with the host society. They have come to the society because they respect the societal norms as they exist, without expecting them to change the societal norms to suit their particular norms.`

That means ,you also firmly believe that nonmuslims working in the middle east should respect the local socitieal rules of covering their heads, or displaying clearly during prayer times that they are nonmuslims to avoid being disciplined by the religious police.They should not consider this as an infringement of their rights.

#192 by kaalchakra

“In driving this logical machine, in addition to some of the factors mentioned in # 191, we must include the very Hindu concepts of chhoot and achhoot, and our traditional readiness to give religious coloring to hierarchical social organization.”

I think ``chhoot and achhoot`` probably is the core of the issue here.

Culturally and under social influences, the common perception of separation along with untouchability, forces Hindus to remain isolated from any other community socially, even within India. Though Muslims have lived in India for centuries and mostly are of Hindu origin, still, once they switched their religion, they were also placed outside of the strictly Hindu social circles. Muslims and Hindus in India have always lived as two parallel communities instead of just two religions.

The concept of Hindu Pani and Muslim Pani or serving food in leaves was not British.

Muslims or people of other faiths or even Dalit or untouchables were not allowed to use the same Silverware or the tableware used by Hindus.

Though lots of it must have changed now, but the historical influences just don’t go away in one or two generations.

I think more than Muslim doing, chhoot and achhoot is the reason of the “dim-view” of Muslims in India. Socially anything outside of Hindu faith is dirty (Najis). Some on this web site clearly show historical cultural influences. They already have a “Dim view” of Muslims and by extension their religion Islam, and don’t feel any qualms when they attack religion because of the political differences they have with Muslims or Pakistani. This is not confined to Muslims or Islam alone now. Christian and Christianity has also become a target of this Dim-view.

Rahul brought AlpehNull, Arjun and others in to this debate. IMO, only Arjun has clearly defined separation of religion from politics, but AlpehNull actively hates Muslims and Islam. You will never see his posts against Hinduism or even against Christianity on this forum. They are always against Islam or Muslims.

Jay and Sadna’s comment clearly reflect age old hard core Hindu bias against anything Muslim. They have been brought up to have a ``dim-view`` of Muslims or anything related to Muslims and that includes Pakistan too.