hindutva
Experiments in Internet Dialogue
I've recently been engaged in a conversation on Hinduism in Sepia Mutiny with people whose political views I generally disagree with. Your feedback welcome. Starts here:
on August 29, 2009 11:59 AM · Direct link
#149 So as a Hindu
#151 As an American-born Hindu
Action Alert: Stop India's Favourite Fascist From Getting Award From FDI Magazine
Received as forward:
Reclaiming Hinduism?
2009, August 19 - 8:00am — dr anonymousOver the years, I have spent many hours in many different spaces talking to people who I would describe as people who come from a Hindu right orientation (whether vitriolic and violent or whether a tacit support for the first group). This is an imprecise description that I'd like to improve on because it doesn't help to reify or demonise "Hindutva" because it plays into the mode of conversation they use and is cruel to the person involved, who may or may not subscribe to all the things you think they subscribe to. So, in point of fact, I have made many errors as w
A verdict that’s more or less national
Which brings us to another trend that many people claim to have noticed: a move away from extremism and a vote for moderation.
Certainly, there is a lot of evidence to support this view. The BJP’s mascot in this election, Narendra Modi, proved to be an over-hyped humbug. In most places where he campaigned, the BJP candidate lost. In those areas where he was not allowed to speak (Bihar for instance), the BJP won. And far from sweeping Modi’s Gujarat, the BJP actually suffered a slight drop in its vote share.
Ad Nauseum: Sonal Shah Appointed to Obama Administration Post
Our favorite Clintonian Desi, Sonal Shah, has been appointed to a subcabinet level post in the Obama Administration as I had suggested she might be to those who had argued it didn't matter that she was on Obama's transition team even though she has well documented ties to American arms of Hindu right groups in India that she hasn't fully explained beyond offering basic statements that she doesn't like violence or communalism. Among unanswered questions:
Behind the violence in Gujarat, Gaza and Iraq is the banality of democracy
When last week in Ha'aretz the Israeli historian Tom Segev judged Israeli "apathy" towards the massacre in Gaza as "chilling and shameful", he brought on deja vu among Indians. In 2002 the Hindu nationalist government of Gujarat supervised the killing of more than two thousand Muslims. The state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, who green-lighted the mass murder, seemed a monstrous figure to many Indians; they then watched aghast as the citizens of Gujarat - better-educated and more prosperous than most Indians - re-elected Modi by a landslide after the pogrom.
Soldiers of Saffron, Sonal Shah and Secularism
EPW article on diasporic Hindutva
In our haste to reject the “soldiers of saffron” who live and work outside India, there is a risk that we may be engaging in a politics of personal destruction with tremendous pain for the individuals concerned. There is a fine line between rejection of hate and exploitation of youthful ignorance and folly. If we cross that line we will become
vulnerable to charges of McCarthyism.
