The Talibanisation of Indian society

A lot of Indians, especially the "educated" Hindus with comfortable incomes and access to the internet, are deluding themselves into imagining that they are defending India and Hindu culture. They have fully and thoroughly succumbed to the right wing, fascist ideology. I heard somewhere, that fascism, even of the kind practised by Hitler, cannot be successful, unless there is a big majority that believes similarly.

If you look at the comments section of the Yahoo! news stories, you can see how polarized American society is, today. "Liberal" is an ugly word, and there is a mad support for right wing ideology. Right wing ideology needs an enemy. If you don't have one, then you need to find one or create one. One easy way to create an enemy is by gathering a mob and provoke someone with different beliefs....

Let me make one thing clear here : Having looked at the history of several religions, I have come to believe that Hinduism is far better than Christianity or Islam or Judaism. But the beauty of Hinduism, as I understand it, is in enabling an individual to choose his or her own path. Hinduism is NOT monolithic, there is no one God, there is no one book, and no one set of beliefs...Depending on one's nature, and frame of mind at any given time, one can choose a path of devotion, a path of enquiry, or simply choose to live a righteous life, guided by intelligence. In fact, one could choose not to believe in any God, and just by living righteously, he can still be a good Hindu. In fact, he doesn't even have to be called a Hindu, in order to go to heaven or to be born again in a better situation. None of these things matter - to the one who understands Hinduism as I do.

And, besides, India is way too huge and diverse. There are so many customs and traditions in different parts of India, that are collectively bracketed as Hinduism. When a Hindu goes to a temple or prays to God, he just prays - he doesn't even remember that he is a Hindu. So, I wouldn't want some psycho to define what Hinduism is or what Hindus should do. In fact, I don't want to be bracketed with the bigots.

If someone has a problem with religious conversions and the missionaries (frankly, I cannot stand the missionaries whose sole agenda is to convert the 'natives'), then try to look within: why are some "Hindus" converting to another religion? The single biggest factor is the caste-based hierarchy and discrimination. Because, almost always, it's the people from the lower castes and the untouchables who convert to another religion. Why the hell should they accept your bullshit about who came from which part of god? Throw away the caste system and declare that all Hindus are one - and show that you mean what you say - and then see what happens to the religious conversions. In fact, when you take away the negatives from Hindu society, you WILL see reverse conversions - obviously the missionaries would be worried about it, but at least, you will have a chance to expose their hypcrisy objectively and without any violence.

I want nothing to do with the Talibans of Hindu society.

I was provoked into writing this after reading an article in the Indian express, written by Kuldip Nayar, and the sickening comments from so many right wing psychos who haven't a clue about what Hinduism stands for !