Writing in The Boston Globe, H.D.S. Greenway examines the “Rising threat of Hindu extremism.” Here’s a bit:
Many Indians believed that the BJP’s secular allies in the ruling coalition would not accept such a hardliner as Advani as Vajpayee’s heir, but they have been proved wrong. And while it seemed that Vajpayee was willing to downplay ”Hindutva,” a concept of exclusive Hindu identity dear to the party’s heart, Advani can be expected to emphasize it.
Like their Muslim extremist counterparts, Hindu nationalists seek to expel Western secularism from their midst, persecuting non-Hindus, trashing hotels that celebrate Valentine’s Day or Christmas, and demanding that cities with Islamic names, such as Allahabad, be changed. Other religions – and there are more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan – are considered offshoots of a basic Hindu entity that should submit to Hindutva. Hindu nationalists rant that Hindi should be the national language, even though millions of Indians speak other native languages.
The crowning moment of Advani’s brand of Hindutva came exactly 10 years ago when an ancient mosque believed to have been built on a Hindu site was torn down by a howling Hindu mob egged on by BJP leaders including Advani. Militants shouting ”Hindustan is for the Hindus” and ”Death to Muslims” rioted, and more than 1,000 people were slaughtered, most of them Muslims.
[…] When India brought forth its bomb to become a nuclear power, Hindu nationalists talked of it as a Hindu bomb, and they spoke of building a Hindu temple on the desert test site. Many quoted the lines from the Hindu epic, the Bhagavad Gita, that Robert Oppenheimer uttered in Alamogordo at the dawn of the atomic age: ‘I have become Death/ The destroyer of worlds.’
India will not be a safer or a more secular place if Advani comes to rule.
Fan-subcontinentally-tastic… As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.
A friend of mine in the office, Kiran, traces this back to Muslim exceptions in Indian law for things like marriage and inheritance. He feels that these exceptions have given ammunition to the current Hindu extremists.
To him, the cat is out of the bag and the emphasis is no longer on public secularism and has quickly moved to intense competition amongst different religious interest groups.
Advani has apparently now distanced himself from the issue publically by calling this the saddest moment of his life. Kiran doesn’t buy it and says that he is only distancing himself from it for coalition politics and the fact that the temple/mosque debate hurts the party at almost all state level elections.
Kiran’s all fired up now on this and demands that I give a <a href=”http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_10891,00300001.htm”>link</a> to this Hindustan Times editorial on Advani that he thought was perfect.
This is nothing new. Suman and I have both nattered on this on and off since last February or so. If Pakland’s goofy, and Bangla’s goofy, why would what lies between them not be goofy? Suman’s probably right that India will eventually break up into its component parts—it’s usually been that way throughout its history.
I admit to not paying enough attention to this. At least now I know where Pakistan is—a step up from 10 months ago.