The limits to Hindu tolerance: the story of 2007
Well, alas, Rediff never bothered to post this even though I sent it to them at the end of 2007, and reminded them several times.
The limits to Hindu tolerance: The story of 2007
Rajeev Srinivasan on how the UPA is out of touch with young India
There is a second reason for why there is a sea-change in the political scenario: the public’s recognition of endemic betrayal of Hindus by the Congress and the Left. There are plenty of other damning reasons why the current the UPA dispensation has proved itself in 2007 to be the very worst government this country has ever seen; I shall list some of them, but then let it pass, for I wish to concentrate on the assault on Hindus:
raging inflation. The official figures are a magical 3%, but the price of essential goods like vegetables (remember the famous ‘onion crisis’ that the media moaned about?) has gone up by about 20-40%. Real inflation if probably 10+%.
rampant fascism and oppression. The Communist allies of the UPA have been on the warpath, raping, killing and cremating in unmarked graves hundreds of people in Nandigram. The UPA is unable to protect the famous ‘aam admi’
virtual loss of sovereignty. One third of the country’s districts are wracked by violent Communist terrorism, and the UPA is playing footsie with this non-State actor surely funded by the Chinese
loss of buffer State Nepal. Though the good offices of various vested interests, Nepal has been swallowed up by a violent Communist theocracy, and become a safe haven for Mohammedan and Christian terrorist targeting India
attempt to make India a vassal of the US. The so-called nuclear deal with the US, in its current form, relegates India forever to second-class status in matters nuclear, and rolls back its deterrent capability
surrender to terrorism. In an apparent attempt to shield its bigwigs from possible Mohammedan terrorist attacks, the Congress has virtually declared an amnesty. Repealing POTA, refusing to obey the Supreme Court ruling regarding hanging Afzal Guru – the signal to terrorists is: you can do anything in India and get away with it. The UPA will support you
pork-barrel policies. The much-ballyhooed rural employment guarantee program, it turns out, is accomplishing exactly what it was meant to do: transfer money from the State to party cadres and middlemen. Hardly anything is reaching the poor. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/7005985.stm The least corrupt in this scheme, as the BBC notes, are BJP-ruled Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh! Obviously – fewer UPA middlemen in action there.
Moving back to the main theme, the assault on Hinduism is malign, motivated, and massive. Just a few instances from 2007 show how widespread this is, and how much the UPA Government, and its members and allies, disrespect the majority religion and shower State resources on Mohammedanism and Christianity:
UPA member DMK’s Karunanidhi calls Rama myth and a drunkard, and proceeds with the destruction of heritage site Rama Setu in the Gulf of Mannar
UPA ally Communist Buddadeb says Rama is a myth
When Malaysian Hindus accuse the Mohammedan government there of religious bigotry and oppression, the UPA Government shows practically no interest. It justifies this by saying this is an internal matter for Malaysia. Then why did the UPA open its big mouth and condemn the Danish cartoon of Mohammed some time ago? That was an internal matter for Denmark, and not any business of an allegedly ‘secular’ government
The Andhra Pradesh government, headed by an evangelical Christian, plans a virtual takeover of Tirupati. Thwarted, Samuel Reddy provides large grants for church-building, and provides subsidies for Christian pilgrimage to West Asia
Manmohan Singh says that “Mohammedans have first priority in access to India’s resources”. This is unconstitutional and unfair: all Indian citizens are equal before the State
Manmohan Singh says that he spent “sleepless nights” when one Mohammed Haneef, brother of suicide bomber Khaleef, was accused of being a terrorist. Why doesn’t this kind-heartedness extend to Gujarati expatriate Jayaprakash Dhanak of Orange County, California, and his daughter Karishma, brutally murdered and torched by one Murtaza, who was caught with a one-way ticket to Bangladesh (exactly like Haneef had a one-way ticket to India)? http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/31nri.htm
State patronage, including awards to the painter M F Husain, who has portrayed Hindu deities in a highly derogatory manner. The Kerala government, run by UPA allies the Communists, persists despite a High Court stay: http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/14/stories/2007091460170400.htm . Similarly, another ‘artist’, one Chandra Mohan, is allowed to insult Hindu deities. The Indian Penal Code section 295 (a) apparently does not apply to Hindus:
Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of 2[citizens of India], 3[by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 4[three years], or with fine, or with both.]
The continued takeover of Hindu temples by the State, and the ripping off of their funds. For instance, the Sabarimala shrine has been wracked by misconduct, mostly because it is under the control of the Communist government of Kerala. Note that not a single Mohammedan or Christian religious shrine is even audited, much less controlled, by the Government. Now there is a proposal to take over the great Sri Padmanabha Temple in Trivandrum as well http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=5228 . What about taking over the St. Joseph’s Cathedral or the Juma Masjid?
Continued support for evangelism activity and turning a blind eye to Christian religious violence. For instance, the Government brought out a two-rupee coin with a Christian cross on it replacing the official “Satyameva Jayate”. In Orissa, an 83-old swami is attacked by Christians intent on killing him http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071228/jsp/nation/story_8715577.jsp , just like they murdered Bineshwar Brahma and Shanti Tripura http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/899422.stm
In other words, there appears to be an all-out attack on Hinduism, with the intention of finishing it off once and for all. Slowly but surely, Hindus are beginning to realize that the UPA is not the custodian of their culture and civilization, but are actively colluding in relentless attacks by Christians, Mohammedans, and Communists.
Hindus are merely asking for equal treatment with those of competing ideologies, but the State persists in imposing apartheid on them, relegating them to second-class status. The Modi victory is a sign that this is now stretching the limits of Hindu tolerance.
The Gujarat vote – which is essentially a referendum on the UPA – shows a generational shift. The Old Guard in the BJP have tolerated the Nehruvian Stalinist prescription of what India is all about – a dhimmi and terminally corrupt State, full of paeans to “the new temples of India” viz. the hydro-electric dams, destroying the civilization’s most precious heritage, most bothered about the views and prejudices of urban middle class voters, and more particularly about the affection of that tiny but loud minority of innumerate and frankly inconsequential JNU-types who dominate the media. It is a reflection of 20th-century mores, a throwback to the time when India was a non-entity. Today, India counts: it is viewed universally as an emerging, re-developing, superpower.
Narendra Modi is refreshingly free of these shackles. He doesn’t care to appease through dhimmitude, and has shown that a strict and disciplined State can fight corruption and terrorism and provide development. In particular, I was delighted to note that he did not bother to give interviews to his prime tormentors in the media. These are people whose self-important gravitas suggests that they believe they actually invent the news – and in fact they do, by putting words into people’s mouths – rather than merely reporting it.
In many ways, Narendra Modi reflects the new, young Indian, who has grown up to believe that he is as good as anyone on the planet. The tired old formulas of socialism, Stalinism, and pseudo-secularism do not appeal to these people. Therefore, they are dangerous as far as the Indian establishment and media are concerned, because they don’t give a rat’s ass for their traditional, meaningless but high-sounding nostrums.
It was about them that I wrote five years ago in ‘Fear of Engineering’ http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/01rajeev.htm because it was overseas engineers of Indian origin who first began asserting themselves, once they had realized they were capable of being world leaders in their chosen fields. They had realized that white people were not giants, and that the US, the United Nations, Harvard and other hitherto admired entities were not altogether the legends we thought they were.
With self-esteem comes a concern for culture and civilization. These newly-empowered, world-beating Indians are proud of being Hindus. Not in the sense of disrespecting other paths – that has never been part of the Hindu way, although it can be logically argued that the Hindu faith is superior to most others – but in benign and tolerant ways. This Hindu reaction should be the end of the dinosaurs of the Congress, unless they move with the times.
1450 words, 29th December 2007