hpk.co.in - religion

Conversion in India

hpk — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:24:27 +0000

There is a great debate happening on "Rare Book Society of India" group on facebook. Some one has come up with a book detailing how western powers are financing identity politics in the garb of humanitarian work for dalits and Dravidian folks in India. All this to undermine India's growing clout using human rights violations and cast / identity issues. Debate goes into conversion etc...

Some things I said on a FB group debate:

I do not believe Indian dalit is a radicalized, strong, united, and of ambiguous identity group. Its not even strong enough to protect its members getting raped, killed, humiliated on a daily basis. Even when in power, say in UP, dalit members of our society have not shown signs of "making them pay of historic injustices" type of behavior or conduct. So by clubbing them with terrorist movements be it Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai (i.e. christian) and not to mention Maoists, we are doing more harm then good. It will add another section of our society to our righteous list of enemies.

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By the way, why so serious about conversion? Why should it be a state concern? Or any bodies concern? For centuries, esp. after the formal advent of the clergy in 1857 a christian bartania sarkar rule us but it couldn't make a major dent to our hindu population, I am muddled with numbers, but the number of Christians converted or other wise, were not big enough to warrant any political concessions or accommodations. Then why so serious? Even the Moughal's couldn't convert (supposing they were trying to)much of India. So now when we have a "secular" government and these evil conversion forces are working with a big handicap of not having governmental patronage. Why so serious?

And why does a Hindu become our brother only when s/he decides to convert? Why not before? Why don't we kill Muslims, burn churches in advance? After all we all know who-where-what of these gullible Hindu brathern, the once who have a propensity to convert. Had it not been for political gains, gingoism, and bigotry we wouldn't even care about the dalits and the Dravidian.

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?@Rare Book Society of India: A linguistic correction: We've got into the habit of talking about our social suppression / oppression of dalits and associates in past tense! Not true. It still continuous.

Also, when India was created in 1947, the prevalent option in the world was that India will disintegrate into pieces and return to 16th century scene with 560+ parts. Ever since, every decade has donned with the promise of breaking India into pieces due this threat or that. Unfortunately the idea of India has become bigger then the Indian. India is fine, people are F*****! Amen. :D This politics of fear and grievance is tiresome.

And oh by the way, which I understand the violent resistance to the seminal book (on this group), but why such aggressive peddling of the same? I've decided to give it a go. :)

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This came afte some one quote a list of so called rogue organizations and individual who are working on the evil plot to destablize India by promoting conversion and identity politics in Dalits and Dravidians:

Wish such deep sympathies for the poor / innocent tribal is shown before they convert. Done any one here know how many tribes we have, what are their customs, what do they do for a living, will we marry in their clan, what is their per capita income, what is their approximate population, what are their problems, what is their language, what is the condition of women, do they have safety from the elements, is their natural environment safe, do they have good schooling etc. etc... any one can lament quoting generalities. Had 10000 adivasies converted to Hinduism (we simply assume they are Hindus) would we have talked about it? Has any one here gone out and given a damn's worth of effort for the welfare of these dear ones?

Why such pain at seeing people convert? If all the dalit and adivasi population converts to say Muslims or Christians whats the problem? Won't they still be Indians. Or are we afraid that then they'll demand their rights? Or are we just jingoistically afraid of Muslims and by extension too many Christians? Or is the Hindu majority afraid of loosing its majority?

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More later.

Debate in question: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150174385916675&set=a.212955701... (login required for full debate)
The book in question: http://www.breakingindia.com

Religion a divisive force

hpk — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:03:51 +0000

This is taken from a post I wrote on Facebook group debate:

Religion is / has been a divisive force. Always was and will forever be. Our founding fore fathers recognized this and tried to keep it out of polity (eg. the constitution). They firmly believed (at least most of them) that religion is a weapon of mass destruction and partition amply showed this. It is again wake up call to all of us who soft peddle religion saying religion is a great but its usage by some is the problem. Na!

Lets wake up and realize / acknowledge ill-effects of religion are not external but deeply internal to it. Its a wake up call for us to make ills of religion a main stream public discourse. Have you noticed how there are no, not even one, main stream platforms to focus on the ills of religion? No government sanctions such studies let alone encourage these discussions! We've left this subject to fringe groups and radicals for too long. This needs to change. Frank public debate will lead to a more congenial environment where we can actually ask people to keep their religion to themselves. Imagine people who are incapable of following unambiguous clearly enunciated traffic rules are expected to practice religion in a non-partisan, moral, honest way, while understanding and avoiding all its ills at the same time. Not gonna happen. Hasn't happened anywhere yet in history (I've been hard at it to find even one instance).

Last time religion was put to scrutiny was way back when. Akbar I think was the one who called this maha assembly of religious and non-religious people to debate on it. Even Ramayana has questioned the whole religion thing in the form of the risi (as usual I forget the name) who confronted Rama after his triumphant return. Even our scriptures have built in agnostic clauses then why are we so closed to scrutiny?

Link to FB debate: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150174385916675&set=a.212955701...

Ayodhya Title Suite Judgement (Sep 30, 2010)

hpk — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:38:29 +0000

I think I represent a large majority of people when I say - Don't give a fuck!

I hope justice happens. And these self appointed representatives of Hindu faith are shown their place. Going to HyperCity to do some grocery shopping. Media has made sure that the roads are fee of traffic today. :)

One last time - Don't give a fuck!

What I do care about is the outcome of criminal cases lodged against the likes of Advani and gang. Hope that judgement comes soon. Amen.

Why are we Hindu

hpk — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:22:06 +0000

So the other day i was wondering what is a Hindu? Until recently people of the Indian sub continent were Vaishnavites, Shivaites, Shuktos etc... etc... but not Hindu. Every one had their own religion and we happy enough. The idea of having millions of gods and goddesses was so right back then.

But some where down the line we clubbed ourselves or were clubbed by some one else into a unified religion call Hinduism. Weather it was done to facilitate census by the British or by the Indian's them selves for political gains, or both is not very clear. What is clear is that this miss-appropriation or usurping of the religions of the past into a unified religion has resulted in a less tolerant and assimilative society. A culture of many religions could have diluted the fanatic zeal with witch we practice (or protect) Hinduism today.

My biggest problem with Hinduism is that its supposed to be a way of life. What does that mean? Other religions are not a way of life? Hinduism has create a huge number of un-necessary contradictions in our society which are often reflected in riots and pogroms. If Hinduism is an absence of any specific teaching/preaching/practice/etc... then how do we justify hindu crowds rioting, raping, gaping etc... in the name of protecting the Hindu thing - the hindu culture etc? Further, Hinduism has centralized the religious power to a few fanatics. Had we retained the diversity of, lets say, hindu religions the power of religion fanatics would have been diluted, more people would have had retained their historic identity and we would have been more tolerant lot.

I belive, when we say were are a tolerent society we actually refer to the non-hinduism dominated past, where the absense of one big shot religion made us tolerant to other, new and old faiths to live under one roof. The consolidation of religions has not been a good thing, except of course for the few religious/political zealots. Imagine, Hinduism tried to appropriate religions like Sikhism as a part of itself! Good thing the Sikhs protested. Alas, not every religion/sect could do the same.

I do not want to be called a Hindu, as I do not practice any of the religious templates that are available under shop Hinduism, but hinduism has not left any space for people like me to be anything other wise. If Hinduism is not a religion then why am I forced to identify myself as so. Hope we loosen up and get rid of this Hinduism thing. I am tired of filling in my religion as Hindu can we please have more options?

I just hope we realize this, and try to live in peace.

Rights or privileges?

hpk — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:15:54 +0000

As George Carlin once said, "we don't have rights, we have privileges'.

So I was reading this: http://www.anhadin.net/article89.html and realized that muslims face the harshest end of the stick which is being inflicted on all of us. None of us have rights anymore. We may delude ourselves that there is god, law, constitution etc. but non of it would protect us if we call Bombay, Mumbai. Or is it the other way round?

And the irony is, extreme ends of the society still manage to enjoy some rights due to insignificance or influence. Its the majority of us who are not part of some mob, religious righteousness mob, cultural mob, political mod, cast mob, etc mob, who are short charged and taken for a ride every day. We are loosing rights every day. Our right to speech is only till the point people don't notice us. Today if, some goonda party comes and beats me up for calling Bombay, Mumbai (or is it the other way round?), I have no where to go and no police or politician will protect me from the goonda's.

If a builder grabs my land, like in the film, Khosla ka Ghosla, we have no chance of getting it back. If I want to change my religion, I have no one to help me from the so called counsellors who will come to re-convert me. I can not call a city by which ever name I please, I can not hope to protect my loved ones when the other community decides to cleans the society. Justice, equality and liberty are at the mercy of the local goondas, police and politicians. This almost makes me embrace the UP culture, of "connection". Nothing moves without connections in Uttar Pradesh. It is so ingrained in the UP society that even to get your bi-cycle repaired one would as a friend if s/he know some one in the repair shop. How ever thats a pathetic way of living, it fosters corruption, division, bigotry and all such.

We have no rights, we never had and hopefully we never will.

The sooner we realize this the better. Amen.