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. 😀 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