5 ms·

none of these are reputable publications. and fall flat on the face of accusers that fail to shine the mirror on to their own faces. India coexists and celebra

none of these are reputable publications. and fall flat on the face of accusers that fail to shine the mirror on to their own faces. India coexists and celebrates harmony with all faiths within its borders.

littlestymaar 3y ago
I don't really share the GP's opinion that this ought to be in the article, but his description is nonetheless unfortunately accurate: the rise of Hindu supremacism is indeed very concerning, and saying that “India coexists and celebrates harmony with all faiths within its borders” is oblivious at best. You can find descriptions of the things GP said in pretty much any reputable foreign newspaper with international coverage. See for instance the Guardian about the hindu temple being built on too of the ruins of a destroyed mosque: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurates-hindu-temple-on-site-of-razed-mosque-in-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurat...
- unmole 3y ago
  Because decades long legal battles are the hallmarks of Facist regimes?
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    Fascism is both the totalitarian end state and the motion towards it (Italy in 1920-21, Germany 1931-32). Obviously India isn't a fascist regime but the trend is still very concerning.
    - unmole 3y ago
      Fascism is an ideology. While the BJP has strong ethnonationalist tendencies, it is no way facist. Statist authoritarianism and larger than life political personas have been very much the default in India since independence.
      - g-b-r 3y ago
        Fascism is not an ideology, strictly speaking it was just Mussolini's political movement. Other authoritarian movements or regimes that came after it either called themselves or were called fascist. Largely speaking it's often used to refer to any authoritarian/totalitarian regime or political movement, especially right-wing ones.
- subtra3t 3y ago
  India is a big enough country that no one statement can truly apply to all of it, but the media blows such concerns out of proportion. Yes, the rise of Hindu supremacism does exist and is a very real thing we have to grapple with. But in my experience it doesn't apply to most of India. Most people don't partake in or support communal riots, they are perfectly fine being acquainted with members of different faiths. In a country as big as India, some incidents are bound to happen. That is a terribe way to phrase it but I can't think up of anything better. I am not trying to be a BJP apologist, but you simply can't point to such incidents and try to say that India is becoming a fascist country. Sorry, the first sentence of the last paragraph is a truly bad way to describe my feelings on the matter. I was thinking of removing it because it is such a terrible take (if you isolate it from the rest of the comment) but I am trying to illustrate how in a country as massive as India the likelihood of some types of events occuring is much higher. India has many problems, and I believe Hindutva to be one of them. I just don't think it is as big of an issue as the media sometimes makes it out to be, and that it is harmful to focus on it when there are far more pressing issues at hand (some of which relate to members of the ruling party). Note: Upon reading through my comment I realized that some people might come to the conclusion that I happen to live in a region with few interfaith fights (that feels like a crude way to describe them). That is not the case, just a couple days back a mob was responsible for some disturbing events at Mira road in the same city I live in. However, I believe such events to be the exception rather than the norm. I am not trying to justify any such events in any way whatsoever.
- ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - badpun 3y ago
    > Which means every mosque or church that was built on top of a demolished temple stands as a monument to colonization and conquest of a people and a festering wound on the face of the nation. Not neccessarily, most nations in Europe converted to Christianity by their own accord, and not by colonization or conquest.
    - ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago
      From Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World: > When modern histories describe this period, this time when all the old religions died away and Christianity finally became pre-eminent, they tend to call it the “triumph of Christianity.” It is worth remembering, however, the original Roman meaning of the word “triumph.” A true Roman triumph wasn’t merely about the victory of the winner. It was about the total and utter subjugation of the loser. In a true Roman triumph the losing side was paraded through the capital while the winning side looked on at an enemy whose soldiers had been slain, whose possessions had been despoiled and whose leaders had been humiliated. > A triumph was not merely a “victory.” It was an annihilation. > ... > For before it preserved, the Church destroyed. In a spasm of destruction never seen before—and one that appalled many non-Christians watching it—during the fourth and fifth centuries, the Christian Church demolished, vandalized and melted down a simply staggering quantity of art. Classical statues were knocked from their plinths, defaced, defiled and torn limb from limb. Temples were razed to their foundations and mutilated. A temple widely considered to be the most magnificent in the entire empire was leveled. Many of the Parthenon sculptures were attacked, faces were mutilated, hands and limbs were hacked off, and gods were decapitated. Some of the finest statues on the whole building were almost certainly smashed off then ground into rubble that was then used to build churches. Books—which were often stored in temples —suffered terribly. The remains of the greatest library in the ancient world, a library that had once held perhaps 700,000 volumes, were destroyed in this way by Christians. It was over a millennium before any other library would even come close to its holdings. Works by censured philosophers were forbidden and bonfires blazed across the empire as outlawed books went up in flames.

littlestymaar 3y ago

I don't really share the GP's opinion that this ought to be in the article, but his description is nonetheless unfortunately accurate: the rise of Hindu supremacism is indeed very concerning, and saying that “India coexists and celebrates harmony with all faiths within its borders” is oblivious at best. You can find descriptions of the things GP said in pretty much any reputable foreign newspaper with international coverage. See for instance the Guardian about the hindu temple being built on too of the ruins of a destroyed mosque: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurates-hindu-temple-on-site-of-razed-mosque-in-india https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurat...

unmole 3y ago
Because decades long legal battles are the hallmarks of Facist regimes?
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Fascism is both the totalitarian end state and the motion towards it (Italy in 1920-21, Germany 1931-32). Obviously India isn't a fascist regime but the trend is still very concerning.
  - unmole 3y ago
    Fascism is an ideology. While the BJP has strong ethnonationalist tendencies, it is no way facist. Statist authoritarianism and larger than life political personas have been very much the default in India since independence.
    - g-b-r 3y ago
      Fascism is not an ideology, strictly speaking it was just Mussolini's political movement. Other authoritarian movements or regimes that came after it either called themselves or were called fascist. Largely speaking it's often used to refer to any authoritarian/totalitarian regime or political movement, especially right-wing ones.
subtra3t 3y ago
India is a big enough country that no one statement can truly apply to all of it, but the media blows such concerns out of proportion. Yes, the rise of Hindu supremacism does exist and is a very real thing we have to grapple with. But in my experience it doesn't apply to most of India. Most people don't partake in or support communal riots, they are perfectly fine being acquainted with members of different faiths. In a country as big as India, some incidents are bound to happen. That is a terribe way to phrase it but I can't think up of anything better. I am not trying to be a BJP apologist, but you simply can't point to such incidents and try to say that India is becoming a fascist country. Sorry, the first sentence of the last paragraph is a truly bad way to describe my feelings on the matter. I was thinking of removing it because it is such a terrible take (if you isolate it from the rest of the comment) but I am trying to illustrate how in a country as massive as India the likelihood of some types of events occuring is much higher. India has many problems, and I believe Hindutva to be one of them. I just don't think it is as big of an issue as the media sometimes makes it out to be, and that it is harmful to focus on it when there are far more pressing issues at hand (some of which relate to members of the ruling party). Note: Upon reading through my comment I realized that some people might come to the conclusion that I happen to live in a region with few interfaith fights (that feels like a crude way to describe them). That is not the case, just a couple days back a mob was responsible for some disturbing events at Mira road in the same city I live in. However, I believe such events to be the exception rather than the norm. I am not trying to justify any such events in any way whatsoever.
ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago
[flagged]
- badpun 3y ago
  > Which means every mosque or church that was built on top of a demolished temple stands as a monument to colonization and conquest of a people and a festering wound on the face of the nation. Not neccessarily, most nations in Europe converted to Christianity by their own accord, and not by colonization or conquest.
  - ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago
    From Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World: > When modern histories describe this period, this time when all the old religions died away and Christianity finally became pre-eminent, they tend to call it the “triumph of Christianity.” It is worth remembering, however, the original Roman meaning of the word “triumph.” A true Roman triumph wasn’t merely about the victory of the winner. It was about the total and utter subjugation of the loser. In a true Roman triumph the losing side was paraded through the capital while the winning side looked on at an enemy whose soldiers had been slain, whose possessions had been despoiled and whose leaders had been humiliated. > A triumph was not merely a “victory.” It was an annihilation. > ... > For before it preserved, the Church destroyed. In a spasm of destruction never seen before—and one that appalled many non-Christians watching it—during the fourth and fifth centuries, the Christian Church demolished, vandalized and melted down a simply staggering quantity of art. Classical statues were knocked from their plinths, defaced, defiled and torn limb from limb. Temples were razed to their foundations and mutilated. A temple widely considered to be the most magnificent in the entire empire was leveled. Many of the Parthenon sculptures were attacked, faces were mutilated, hands and limbs were hacked off, and gods were decapitated. Some of the finest statues on the whole building were almost certainly smashed off then ground into rubble that was then used to build churches. Books—which were often stored in temples —suffered terribly. The remains of the greatest library in the ancient world, a library that had once held perhaps 700,000 volumes, were destroyed in this way by Christians. It was over a millennium before any other library would even come close to its holdings. Works by censured philosophers were forbidden and bonfires blazed across the empire as outlawed books went up in flames.