Orissa: A Gujarat in the making

Angana,

My earnest thanks to you for this article. I did learn something from it. How NOT to put one`s case.

With foes like you, Hindutwawadies do not really need any more friends.

I am getting inkling why Modi won big time.

Nachiket

Revealing and worse than I could imagine sitting here across the Indian fence! Amazingly,the majority in India seem to support this. BJP is succesively in power since 1998. What does this imply? A fire smouldering within and hence the monotonous whine of Pakistan bashing. Efcourse it shifts the focus to Pakistan. Terrefic negative nation-building.

Revealing and worse than I could imagine sitting here across the Indian fence! Amazingly,the majority in India seem to support this. BJP is succesively in power since 1998. What does this imply? A fire smouldering within and hence the monotonous whine of Pakistan bashing. Efcourse it shifts the focus to Pakistan. Tereffic negative nation-building.

Mohar11,

There is alot of wisdom and food for thought in this paragraph of your post:

~~India allowed all that. Missionaries could convert, muslims can have sharia. We thought that was OK - because they are just minorities. Well - now what have you - a bunch hotheads call themselves VHP and want to dabble with the same cr@p that chrstians and muslims do. They too want to convert. They too want to have their own madrassa. They too want to indulge in agressive exclusive ideologies. ~~

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Saminashah

~~When I read the responses of these apologists/``capitalists`` to Roy and co., I know that Roy and Co. must be doing something right. ~~

I am an unreconstructed capitalist and a believer in free market policies, including the engagement and integration of India with the global economy and global capital in all its manifestations; this forms the consensus of economic thought in India across the political sepctrum today. But I am not an apologist for the policies of extremist right-wing hindutvaism. In fact, they are inimical to true capitalism and wealth creation, which requires plurality, tolerance, stability of institutions and equality of opportunity.

I am capable of understanding this, several other intearctors have declared their understanding of this too. It seems to be an understanding you are unable to make, bracketing together in a crude manner capitalists with apologists for the policies of right wing political parties.

Make that mental leap.

Thanks Chowk for posting this article.

Angana Chatterji has not been the only writer/journalist who has addressed the growing right wing fascism in India. There is quite a bit of scholarship and reportage documenting these strains of fundamentalisms in India and the US. What I find so amusing and revealing are the apologies/justifications for this ideology and the misbegotten belief that no one, least of all progressives should dare to call India`s current govt and citizens on it.

I suppose this is what passes for democracy to some of our Indians on Chowk....

When I read the responses of these apologists/``capitalists`` to Roy and co., I know that Roy and Co. must be doing something right.

Angana Jee

``Intent on constructing the `ideal` woman who decries the `loose morals` of feminism, the sangh seeks to train Hindu women to confront the `undesirable` sexual behaviour ``endemic`` to Muslims and Christians. Such training endorses `masculanisation` of the Hindu male looking to protect the fictively threatened Hindu woman. ``

Religious Extremists in all religions agree on one point - woman is evil and woman needs to be controlled. All have a compulsive fear of a free woman.

Good insight into the fanatic fringe in India. Thanks.

#17 mohar11

You got it 100% right. I am so sick of these third rate fundamentalists: marxists, hindus, islamists, sikhs, christians. They are all enemies of civil society and progress. Each believes only in their own ``truth`` and hates the ``other``. Each believes that they have a monopoly on violence and ``just cause``. Together they wish to destroy our country.

Great Sayings of Angana Chatterji who is a professor at the ``California Institute of Integral Studies``. Enuff said.

(1)
``Indians in America cannot base their aspirations for India’s future on the absurdly unsustainable development modelled by the United States``

http://www.intindian.com/issues/011.01/pol_chatterji.php

(2)
``Leslie Kean: thousands have died in India and Kashmir in recent months.. now w Dr. Angana Chatterji, native of India, and Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.. Professor Chatterji: many people displaced.. perhaps a UN trusteeship for ten years.``

http://www.flashpoints.net/index-2002-10-01.html

Search on google. You will find dozens of links to extreme left-wing organizations, environmental extremism, all of the pie in the sky fluff. In the end it adds up to a big fat zero. Perhaps she needs to be institutionalized for the next 10 years??

Man - this is ridiculous! Right when I thought India has finally found its moorings, dragged itself out of all sorts of trappings that hinders its growth - we see the spectacle of moronic communalists and knuckle-head commies out there in the streets shouting for their respective useless ideologies.

I thought we have grown beyond all this - I thought we have finally found our mojo - which is - money and growth and economy and standard of life. I thought - after 50 years of faltering - we finally know what to do and where to go.

Am I mistaken? Who are these people - Angana chatterji, Pravin Togadia, Arudhati Roy, Ashok Singhal? Why are they crawling out of their respective dark neithers where they belong? These people are creating distractions, they are a huge impediment in India`s march to meet the destiny.

Man - I love the way the chinese commies(completely a different breed from indian commies) handle this nonsense. They don`t give no sh!t for no religion. They bamboozled even the innocent-looking Falun Gongs - because they know that once this sh!t starts - there is no stopping. They control christian prosletyzing with an ironhand as much as they hit the mullahs in xinjinag or wherever. They don`t want no distraction from what they want to achieve. They don`t give no sh!t about the ``reedom of religion``and all that bull.

India allowed all that. Missionaries could convert, muslims can have sharia. We thought that was OK - because they are just minorities. Well - now what have you - a bunch hotheads call themselves VHP and want to dabble with the same cr@p that chrstians and muslims do. They too want to convert. They too want to have their own madrassa. They too want to indulge in agressive exclusive ideologies.

So now what have you - when the chinese are flying to space - we have a Ayodhya crisis at hand to tackle with.

This is what happens when you get carried away with too much of righteous-ness. Any and all groups and individuals dabbling with exclusive ideologies should have been stopped - nipped right in the bud. Instead of that - our great leaders - passed bills to pander to mullahs (shah bano case) and then opened the gates of god-forsaken mosque that supposed to be birthplace of some goddamn god ( irony!! ).

And now - we all have to listen to this stupid commie singing same old song. Predictably another bunch lunatics are singing their own songs to drown her out. In the melee everybody looses focus. The hard working folks who are leading India forward are distracted, confused and stymied.

#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.

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

#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.

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

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.