It was quite amusing to the Man from Madras Musings when he began receiving or should he say was bombarded, by messages sharply criticizing the recent happenings in the United States of America. When we are ourselves such a divided society, how are we qualified to comment on what is happening in a faraway land? Is our house any better? Sadly, it is not.
It is very easy to sit in the comfort of our homes and pass judgement over what is happening elsewhere. This is of the same type as one variety of Non Resident Indian, whose only job, safe in the confines of his/her home in some foreign land, is to post remedies on all ills of the country of origin. And it is often the same kind that posts the most poisonous messages preaching religious and caste-based hatred. The ones locally based are no different – here again much of the posts on social media depict hatred of one kind or the other. For instance, the sharp spikes of the COVID outbreak in Chennai city are still being blamed on one community’s religious meet. These are also the same people who still fail understand what is it that makes a migrant labourer want to go home. In their view, these people came here on their own volition and therefore need no support to get back.
MMM realizes that by bringing this up he is pleasing none – the right will brand him derisively as someone superficially concerned about racist issues- and also accuse him of being pacifist. Their one solution is to be rid of all minorities, who in their opinion if allowed to exist, will one day become majority and dictate terms. That this has not happened in several centuries does not get into the thick skulls of these people.
The left wing too is not likely to be happy with MMM bringing this up. After all, MMM is a typical instance of a western-educated, upper class, upper caste person. It suits him to pretend to be supportive and so he does so. Moreover, is not his very concern or pretence of it an instance of his upper-class patriarchal attitude? Who needs MMM and his kind?
And so the argument goes on. In this situation where MMM is not going to please anyone, all he can say is that rather than going on about what is happening in the US and self-righteously express solidarity, it is best we sort out what is happening in our backyard, learn to tolerate and coexist and perhaps strive towards an understanding that ELM – Every Life Matters. Once we practice that, we can get on with passing judgement on what is happening elsewhere.
Very nice and thought provoking Sriram. Agree with you. Let us get our house in order.
Sir, you are much more knowledgeable than me, and I respect you very much (as I hope is implicit in the following comment), but I request you to let me humbly present some counterpoints:
1. Didn’t many seculars start the trend of blaming one community by playing up random leaders’ cow dung/gomUtra comments in reputed western media as if that was India’s policy? Sauce, goose, gander…
2. The effect of the said community’s meet, unlike the cow dung statements, was statistically demonstrable, though fraction of positive cases, though exaggeration of the same can be questioned. There were attacks on medical personnel and sheltering those who lied on visa illegally. Some, not all, seculars defended them. While even RSS issued statements to not blame one community – is there a secular who spoke against playing up Hindu superstitions?
Actually I don’t believe that you want Hindus to be discriminated against; but because Hindus are in majority, the well-meaning people among seculars, lke y ou, tend to approach each issue from the “Hindus are doing fine, but [community] are pAvam” angle, which the not consciously intended consequence that a softer stance or clinical pronouncements are taken/made in one case and stinging indictments in the other. It is your compassion that makes you do so, but I hope you will consider it when I say that my feeling of humiliation and hurt on my people being more sternly rebuked simply because of our faith is genuine.
BTW, I am not talking about you here, b ut not all of those who want to “set our house in order before advising US” are actually thinking of setting *their* house in order – they are “global citizens” who distinguish themselves from the majority of their less privileged fellow Indians – it is these latters’ house that some of them are [claiming to be] seeking to set in order, not their own.
Sorry for the long comment. Thank you in case you choose not to moderate it out.
Well said Sriram! But sadly one man’s truth is another man’s racism! And the Twain shall never agree.
You are right , of course! We cannot forget the 2000 year-old admonition: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”. But I am worried that for saying this, you might get grouped with the noisy bunch of pseudo-liberal seculars. I pray that that doesn’t happen…
No, no – don’t say ELM! 😮
Although I can guess that your intention to say that was not quite the same as the American far right’s ALM, it is only going anger the left-wing further as saying ALM or ELM takes the attention from the emphasis placed on the hurdles faced by the oppressed on a daily basis.
This is further to what is said above – “Their one solution is to be rid of all minorities, who in their opinion if allowed to exist, will one day become majority and dictate terms. That this has not happened in several centuries does not get into the thick skulls of these people.”
First of all, Hindus in general are the most tolerant people and open to accepting other religions and cultures. This has been established and proven many times over in history. To this day, it continues amongst the majority of the Hindus, though there are always small elements in the periphery, rabble rousers and the paranoid. Even today, the average Hindu will respect and live peacefully with other religious denominations, provided they reciprocate the same and not translate it into a weakness that is exploited through induced or deceitful religious conversions, continued belittling of and attacks on Hindus with copious foreign resources – monetary, missionary, military, media, mind space and narrative etc. Further, being a citizen of a country will also necessitate allegiance to the laws of the country, the Constitution and Flag of the Country, without letting religion or religious allegiance coming in the way or getting the upper hand or the Nation being pushed to the background when it comes to a religion.
Minorities are most welcome to live in India and practice their faith as equal citizens but the issue is only when the line is crossed and there are ample reasons to learn from history that even being in the majority, the Hindus can suffer intolerable suffering in their own country and hence, if we are not cognizant of what happened to India in history, we will be condemned to repeat it. Further, if one segment of population is growing at a geometric progression due to high organic growth and through rapid religious conversions, when the historically inhabitant population is growing at a slow arithmetic progression, simple math will tell you that the time will come when the present majority becomes a minority – not immediate but in course of time. Another way a majority of today can become minority of tomorrow is by forced, brutal reduction or annihilation and this has happened in India.
This nobility of the tolerant and accepting Hindu has sadly also been the his bane and many times contributed to his downfall as the written, documented and proven history will indicate. Hence, one ought to be aghast at the writing by a Historian who says ” dictate terms. That has not happened in several centuries”. Even a casual reading of history will reveal that the statement is not true. Read this for starters :
https://socialissuesindia.wordpress.com/1000-years-of-islamic-jihad-in-india/
” The Hindu population in India decreased by 80 million during 1000 – 1525 AD. It is an unparalleled annihilation of humanity in the world history” – K S Lal, Professor & Historian
“Francois Gautier, in his book Rewriting Indian History (1996): “The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
Will Durant argued in his 1935 book The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage (page 459): “The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD millions of Hindus were converted “by Sword of Islam.”
Dr. Koenraad Elst writes in his book Negation in India: “The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter.
Dr Ambedkar wrote: “There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans”
The purpose or motive of writing here is not to propagate any religious ill-will but to be very aware of history read accurately and where this has brought India to. This is also to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, through realization in a civil and conscious way, without getting into annihilation or harming anyone and this is envisaged in Hindu Dharma.
I hope the day will come when Hindus will no more be burdened with the guilt of others. English word ‘secularism’ imported by Leftist intellectuals and imposed upon Hindus is a strange comedy. It’s like asking sun to throw light! If at all ‘secularism’ is relevant in India, it’s only for Muslims and Christians. The concept was devised to counter their theocratic tendencies.
Read: The Absurdity of ‘Indian Secularism’ (https://socialissuesindia.wordpress.com/why-indian-secularism-is-so-distorted/)