Orissa: A Gujarat in the making

#83 anOrdinaryHindu

Namaste to you too ! I am in 100% agreement with your sentiments. I only object when I see prejudice against hindus and hindu traditions masquerade as balanced criticism. We see it in Angana writings and in some of the respondents on this list.

I am happy to say that hindus are immense critics of their own tradition. I disagree with folks like gujjubania who claim that an unreasonable critic is an agent of the ``enemy``. That is wrong. An unreasonable critic is just that: unreasonable. We should call that out and move on. There is no need to see conspiracy where non exists.

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gujjubania:
`` I dont know if this is hard for you to believe - but EVERY non-Dalit boy or girl in India appearing for the engineering and medical entrance exams wishes that .``
This might be true. I have heard of upper caste people getting fraudulent certificates to prove that they belong to the disadvantaged groups. There are also white Americans who would like to be treated as blacks to benefit from the American affirmative action program. But how many of them would liked to have been born blacks. The same is true of the upper caste hindus in India. The fact that a creamy layer of the lower castes has developed, thanks to the positive discrimination in their favour, does not take away from the fact that a baby born as a dalit is likely to face much greater hardship than an upper caste baby.

`` But atleast where I come from , there are no problems. ``
If you are a proud Indian as you claim, you should be concerned about areas other than that where you come from. And I dont believe that there Gujarat is a heaven on earth!

re: #3 by who else but Gujjubania

``# Thank God for Nathuram Godse and RSS - Gandhi was planning to go on another of his fasts-unto-death , unless the newly independent India gifted Pakistan 33% of its treasury.

( By the way , we Gujjus excommunicated that Gandhi character long time back)``
Imagine your own mother and sister getting killed or worse still raped in front of you by a mob. Imagine your dear ones getting clubbed to death. If any of this come to pass (and i pray it does not), you will have more appreciation for Gandhi and his ideals. Gandhi is not for morons like you.
I have said in my last article that RSS is not bad if it espouses violence. You need to realise one thing guy. Those 120 million muslims are in India to stay. Do you want them to stay like brothers or do you want them to be your bitter enemies. The choice is with you and your ilk.
Sridhar

rsridhar

Please read all of my posts sir.

Thank you.

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re: How times have changed!
One needs to understand how this thing called ``Hindutva`` is gaining so much ascendance in India. I wish the author had thrown some light on that rather than just criticising BJP/Sangh parivar. 50 years ago, when Gandhiji was assasinated, RSS and its associates (Hindu Sabha etc) had to run for cover. India`s peaceful legacy is largely due to Gandhiji. If India is able to progress today, much of it is due to Gandhiji`s tireless dedication towards communal peace.
Gandhi was much revered then and even my generation has a lot of respect for him. It is perhaps sign of times that a sh!t head like Gujjubania from the state of Gujarat is able to insult Gandhi and get away with it. India calls Gandhi ``the father of nation``. Much of the world respect him for his ideals of peace and non-violence. Perhaps, Gujjubania trashes his own father the way he is trashing Gandhi. After all, home is where you get to practice what you learn.
The bigger question would be: why this transformation? It has a lot to do with character moulding. People like Gujjubania are told money is everything and rest is all non-sense and they believe in it. It is pretty scary. A nation with money but without a soul. A nation without a character. That is the way i see India heading.
Sridhar

#72 by pmishra2

Namaskar.

I agree entirely. The marvel of Hinduism is that it is not afraid of the truth. The path of Hinduism embraces its reformers. Its most celebrated thinkers are those that point in the direction of the true God. From Ram Mohun Roy to Gandhi to reformist Hindu Sects (Lingayats, Art of Living, Chinmayanda Foundation), Hinduism continues to produce great men and women whose message is a beacon of light not only to Hindus but to the anyone on earth wiling to listen.

Yet Hinduism tells us that the task of God on earth is never complete. There is no final message, no final prophet, no final solution. We human beings have no divine excuse to shirk our responsbility to think and to act to the best of our individual abilities.

Despite Ram Monun Roy, Gandhi, and many others (May They Rest in Eternal Peace), many Hindus continues to suffer from the burden of caste. That is our common challenge-yours and mine. Wouldn`t you say it is also our moral responsbility as the inheritors of the most ancient and glorious religious tradition alive today?

re:#39 by gujjubania
I have one question for this guy. What will happen to all that economic development (real and potential) that he has listed in his post if there is communal war in every state of India between hindus and muslims? That is what will happen if experiments of Gujarat are replicated all over India.
Sridhar

re:#54 by Ras
Ras,
Angana Chatterjee is not being honest. There is a reason for ``hindutva`` gaining ground in India. What it does to India, only time will tell. If Indians are able to moderate it and keep VHP, and other extremists at bay, it won`t be so bad. But the trend of ``hindutva`` has much to do with resurgence of Indian middle class as a powerful economic entity and its disillusionment with the policies of appeasment by former rulers. Angana has not gone into the genesis of the problem. To solve a problem, one needs to know why it happened in the first place. Like a true commie, she is just content with criticising BJP and Sangh Parivar. This article has nothing much to commend.
Sridhar

#57 nazarhayatkhan
``But an extremist religious fringe is present in all religions.``

vhp/b-dal etc are very much political groups and not religious. e.g., all or most religious rites (mariage, funeral etc.) has no connection to vhp/rss. neither are Tirupati priests or Banares pandas getting VHP seminary certificates. hindu religion, and its practice is still open competition, without any strong franchise operation. for example, when a new housing colony (or kutcha settlement) is built, someone puts up a temple, tends to be a local trust with bequests in the name of dead ancestors etc which funds the upkeep etc.
No major shrines in India have any vhp etc presence (their is a lot of politics and money involved, so incumbents wont allow it). no hindus believe that if they follow vhp, they will become better hindus and attain nirvana. so, i would call them a socio-political fringe group and not a religious fringe group. the naga sadhus will be more of a religious fringe.

Regarding the caste debate: the upper caste were told that due to their good karma they have achieved the exalted status of an upper caste birth. so lot of the yoursters felt good. however, they are discovering much to their astonishment that it is a meaningless pride. this definately causes much frustration.. their elders definately benefited from the specific biradari status in getting jobs etc (just look at old parsee banks, co-op banks for example). so in a generation or two, the lusture of an upper-caste birth will be lost. parents arranging marriages is a major problem in keeping some of the casteism alive... its time indian youngsters fully participated in darwinism and participated in the struggle of finding their mates. this will definately improve the gene-pool (more moral perhpaps?)

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re: this article
This article has the stamp of a ``commie`` stamped all over it. Why does the stupid author not talk about West Bengal. Its only claim to fame today is Mother Teresa. But the stupid author of this stupid article will not talk about problems closer home. She is worried about VHP and BJP when the bigger worry is what the Maoist rebels are upto in Nepal and now more recently in Bihar. BJP has enabled India to forge good economic growth though the process of liberalisation was itself started by Congress under Narasimha Rao.
Not even one sentence in this stupid article tells me that VHP/BJP is doing anything undesirable or that is doing India any harm. I am aware of the ``hindutva`` philosophy as espoused by Modi and his followers but is there any evidence that the same will happen in Orissa? I would like to reiterate here that India is secular mainly because it is ``hindu``. Becoming more ``hindu`` in India is not necessarily bad. Clashes will occur if that process is resisted by unfair means.

``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.``
What is so wrong about the above passage? What is wrong with doing charitable work? Or converting people? Christain missionaries have been doing the same for more than a century now. ``Sangh parivar is targetting...`` - what the hell does that mean? What is wrong with targetting?
``Grassroots democracy threatens upper-caste Hindu dominance and contradicts elite aspirations.``
This is Bull. I am no admirer of RSS but i cannot tolerate falsehood. RSS shakas try to bring all under one fold ``the hindutva fold``. For them, caste does not exist. I see not clash unless the Dalits, muslims see this gesture of RSS as against their interest. I have read stories of how RSS volunteers would invite muslims to send their children to RSS schools but muslim parents would turn it down for fear of indoctrination.

And then, there are these pearls scattered across the article like ``dog-poop``:

``There are 391 Shishu Mandir schools with 111,000 students in the state, preparing for future leadership. Training camps in Bhadrak and Berhampur aim at Adivasi youth. ``

``The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, an RSS inspired student body, functions in 299 colleges with 20,000 members. The Rashtriya Sevika Samiti, the RSS
women`s wing, has 80 centres. The Durga Vahini, with centres for women`s training and empowerment, has 7,000 outfits in 117 sites in Orissa. ``

``Development and education are key vehicles through which conscription into Hindu extremism is taking place. After the cyclone of 1999, relief work undertaken in a sectarian manner by RSS organizations granted the sangh a foothold through which to strengthen enrolment. Today, the Utkal Bipannya Sahayata Samiti works on disaster mitigation with facilities in 32 villages. The Dhayantari Shasthya Pratisthan manages four hospitals and six mobile centres. ``
Unless i am totally blind, i see this author grudgingly accept that some developmental activity has been going on. The purpose may not be to her liking but development is happening. The question to ask is : what the hell was Orissa doing under the secular ``Congres rule`` for so many years. Why is it still poor?

``Responding to Bal Thackeray`s call, over 100 young men and women signed up to fight `Islamic terrorism`. The Shiv Sena appealed to every Hindu family in the state to contribute to its cadre.``
Good. Someone is waking up to the menace of Islamic Terrorism, which BTW is a reality. All other allegations of this author belongs to fiction. Sure, there are problems here and there. Sure, after years of so called ``pseudo-secular`` rule of Congress, middle class India is saying ``we have had enough`` and are reasserting their identities. BJP and Sangh parivar`s popularity stems from this fact.
There is a lot more nonsense in this article. I am not a supporter of BJP or ``hindutva`` as espoused by Modi and his group. By i see nothing wrong in a religious group (a majority at that) reasserting itself and correcting a real or perceived threat from other communities. I would only protest if any of this is done violently.
Finally, i have come to the conclusion, after reading this article, that the Bengali brain is truly rotting. It does not see communism as a problem. When the whole communist world (including the founder of that philosophy, Russia) has been shedding that philosophy, West Bengal clings on to this stupidity. Let the author of this article talk about that instead.
Sridhar

re:#2 by PunjabiZulu
``India is fvcked``
No, only you are. In your brain department.
Sridhar

#48 gujjubania - people are dying the most gruesome deaths simply because of the religion they were born into - and you are hiding behind mere technicalities. Pls reread #42 again - the last part was meant for people like you.