Hindu fundamentalists are killing freethinkers in India

Well, a story in the New York Times, "India's Attack on Free Speech," makes me feel better about religious craziness in the United States.

We have lots of fanatic Christian fundamentalists in this country. But we also have the First Amendment and a healthy respect for free speech. Our Christian nationalists don't kill anti-religion bloggers. (Good news for me!)

In India, though, people are being killed for speaking their faithless minds.

I'd thought that India was making progress on becoming a liberal democracy akin to ours ("liberal" means something different in this context from the usual liberal/conservative distinction). But apparently not. 

Here's how the story starts off:

London — IN today’s India, secular liberals face a challenge: how to stay alive.

In August, 77-year-old scholar M. M. Kalburgi, an outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, was gunned down on his own doorstep. In February, the communist leader Govind Pansare was killed near Mumbai. And in 2013, the activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered for campaigning against religious superstitions.

These killings should be seen as the canary in the coal mine: Secular voices are being censored and others will follow.

While there have always been episodic attacks on free speech in India, this time feels different. The harassment is front-page news, but the government refuses to acknowledge it. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence is being interpreted by many people as tacit approval, given that the attacks have gained momentum since he took office in 2014 and are linked to Hindutva groups whose far-right ideology he shares.

Earlier this month, a leader of the Sri Ram Sene, a Hindu extremist group with a history of violence including raiding pubs and beating women they find inside, ratcheted up the tensions. He warned that writers who insulted Hindu gods were in danger of having their tongues sliced off. For those who don’t support the ultimate goal of these extremists — a Hindu nation — Mr. Modi’s silence is ominous.

What gives, India?

You have a history of religious acrimony, but also a history of religious accommodation. Maybe I've been wrong about this, but I've viewed India as a place where all sorts of spiritual beliefs, including having none at all,  were accepted.

So it was disturbing to read this:

This is a turning point for India, a country that has taken pride in being a liberal democracy and that often adopts a high-minded tone when neighbors fall short of the same standards.

...Like the murdered bloggers, the Indian victims held liberal views but were not famous or powerful. Mr. Kalburgi had publicly expressed skepticism toward idol worship in Hinduism, but he didn’t pose a threat to anyone.

While the authorities are pursuing the culprits on a case-by-case basis, the overarching attack on free speech has not been addressed. The threats and killings have created an atmosphere of self-censorship and fear.

...The goal of transforming India from a secular state to a Hindu nation, which seems to be behind the murders, is abetted not just by the silence of politicians, but also by the Hindu nationalist policies of the ruling B.J.P.

...It’s also not surprising that Hindu fundamentalists would feel empowered in the shadow of a Hindu nationalist government. Still, few expected that freedom of speech would become a contestable commodity and that some who exercised it would lose their lives.

...It’s hard to accept what is happening in India. It is easier to ignore or dismiss the attacks and the threats as a liberal persecution complex or a phase that will last only as long as the B.J.P. is in power. But the country is undergoing a tectonic shift that will have long-term repercussions.

The attacks in India should not be seen as a problem limited to secular writers or liberal thinkers. They should be recognized as an attack on the heart of what constitutes a democracy — and that concerns everyone who values the idea of India as it was conceived and as it is beloved, rather than an India imagined through the eyes of religious zealots.

Indians must protest these attacks and demand accountability from people in power. We must call for all voices to be protected, before we lose our own.

Comments

[Richard van Pelt]

Might want to look at what happened during the Partition when the sub-continent was partitioned between India and Pakistan.

I had always thought Buddhists were the only faith committed to non-violence and respect for others, but have been proven wrong there.

I'm starting to conclude that we must have two genes: one for irrationality and a second for killing others whose irrational beliefs are not the same as ours.

[An Indian (who’d very much prefer to stay anonymous, thank you very much)]

India today is overrun by a horde of ignorant and bigoted barbarians who have no clue about this ancient land’s vast heritage of spiritual thought, of philosophy, and of rationality. All they know, all that they are able to comprehend, is a bit of what is bandied around as “religion” (“religion” in a narrow sense that is more Semitic than truly Indian, if only these would-be traditionalists had the wits to recognize it); the rest of our vast heritage is wholly beyond them. And paradoxically, it is this very heritage (that they cannot begin to properly understand) that they are now hell-bent on cynically appropriating (and redefining in rigid and crassly intolerant terms that are wholly alien to the genius of our land).

We are an old land, an ancient people. We have endured much, and yet we have survived: in fact not just survived, we have managed to come out with our soul intact. Literally a whole millennium of slavery, shameful enough in political and military terms though that memory is, has still not broken our back (or our heart). We have survived so much, and I have no doubt at all that we will survive these yahoos as well. They cannot possibly be more than a very temporary blip, not even a particularly significant footnote, in the long-term progression of thought and spirit and consciousness in India.

But in the short term, who knows? It may well get worse, in fact a whole lot worse, before it gets better.

[777]

You are right
and on security too

No doubt your IP is safe @ Brian
but for other services , please use TORPROJECT.ORG

ps
at least India is still 90% vegetarian and good for the climate
Thank You
ps2
Being in the "no-say" area
Brian What is your stance on the Fukushima radiation
affecting the west coast ?

[Deepak Kamat]

Hi Brian...

HIndus are tolerant...

However hindus are receiving bad press because the Indian media is controlled by the four Ms -- muslims missionaries marxissts and market fanatics..

I disagree with this post.

India suffers from Islamic terrorism, cunning christian missionaries, left fanatics and aggressive market fanatics.. Hindus are in fact victims.

[An anonymous Indian]

HIndus are tolerant...

However hindus are receiving bad press because the Indian media is controlled by the four Ms -- muslims missionaries marxissts and market fanatics..

...

India suffers from Islamic terrorism, cunning christian missionaries, left fanatics and aggressive market fanatics.. Hindus are in fact victims.

===

Bullshit, Deepak Kamat (with all due respect!).

First, not all HIndus are tolerant. Some of them are, and some of them aren't. Perhaps you're saying that more of Hindus are tolerant, in percentage terms, than, say, Muslims. That is quite possible, in fact I myself would probably agree with you on that, but in this case it is not particularly relevant to what is being discussed here. It is the minority of intolerant (and ignorant) Hindus who, under the misguided umbralla of "Hindutva", are giving the rest of us a bad name.

And Hindus are receiving what you describe as "bad press" because they're doing stuff (a small ignorant minority of them) that fully warrant that bad press.

True, India does suffer from Islamic terrorism, but that is not what this particular discussion is about.

Deepak Kamath, I empathise as much as you with the image of India that is projected at large. LIke you I bristle at being lumped with a small minority of ignorant barbarians in our midst, and like you I hurt when the fair name of our country and our culture is maligned.

But the way around that is not to shoot the messenger. We can only make things worse if we try to defend the indefensible. Let us clearly call out the ignorant and violent minority in our midst (who seem to be getting more and more apparently mainstream these days), and work towards ridding our land of the blight that these yahoos are.

...

Incidentally, all apologists of the current regime almost invariably begin their defence of the indefensible by invoking the alleged tolerance of India and Indians. While that tolerance is a historical fact, that is not what is being discussed when we speak of intolerance. That fact that the Buddha was tolerant and peace-loving does not in any way excuse the intolerance and violence of the ignorant fools who have managed to come to positions of influence at this time (very temporarily, one fervently hopes).

This repeated invocation of the alleged tolerance of Hindus and Indians is, even if that tolerance is fact, no more than either wilful obfuscation by those who attempt to defend the indefensible, or else it represents a remarkable breakdown of simple logical thinking on the part of said defenders of the indefensible.

[Prakashi Rai]

It is a fact that Hindus are receiving bad press... Tolerwant HIndus are projected as killers by the paid media.

[Spencer Tepper]

The nightfall of nationalism and fundamentalism is blanketing the globe, and we are in the twilight of freedom.

In India individuals may be gunned down for expressing unpopular views.

In America children are gunned down by the dozens for being at school.

Dozens of concert goers are gunned down for going to a concert.

What concerns me is looking at India through colonial eyes, that proudly hold themselves superior.

That is the frame of mind that leads to a lot of other killings by secret soldiers murdering outspoken civilians who oppose a tyrant paid by American oil interests to rig "free" elections. All in the name of democracy.

That's been going on for over 100 years.

The pick of which evil to decry is often redirection away from the evil at home we feel powerless to influence and must live in denial of.

[Spencer Tepper]

And where you see fundamentalism and nationalism rise you see both terrorism and tyranny rise with it.

The basis is fear. Fear, unresolved, leads to over reaction.

Lust, greed, avarice leads to boldness and violation. And where basic laws honoring the rights of all citizens are not upheld fear flourishes, vigilantes gain a foothold, terrorism ensues as its angry twin, and tyranny finds fertile soil.

Kill this at the roots. Live in peace, and overcome fear within yourself with the deeper principle of love that lives within each of us.

A calm police officer is a more effective detective.

A calm cabinet minister is the best leader.

A thoughtful protester speaks for humanity.