I got asked this question today:
Ram, thinking aloud about obsession of Hindutva and religious hatred. What is your view?
Most of the vegetables that we eat are not native to India like potato, Capsicum, Tomato etc.
Many of the trees around us are not native to India like Gulmohar and others.
Many people doing good in US are not native Americans but Asians.
Almost no native is left in Australia.
World is continuously on the boil with everything changing.
We did not decide which religion that we should be born into.
In this temporary world why some are obsessed with hating the Muslims or the Muslim rulers? Everyone has a right to live.
Domination is the instinct of a human.
How to control some behaviour is to be devised by the intellect rather than obsession and hatred.
What do you think ?
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My view has always been that we as children are born into a race, in a country and into a religion. Animals of various species, whom we humans "Label as Wild Animals" can live in harmony in a forest but not us intelligent human beings.
Born a Hindu, studied in a catholic school with a tonne of muslim friends and living in a white dominated country. What do I believe in 2021?
That all Religions are man made humbug using a pyramid power structure to control the I'll informed masses.
My Parents got married and I was Born.
My Parents were Telugu speaking Indians. So I too automatically was a Telugu by Birth.
I was born in Andamans and lived there the first 10 years of my life that meant I was automatically a Kala Pani by Birth. (Kala Pani meant the Black Waters surrounding an Island that housed Hardened Criminals and Political prisoners and here was no escaping the Black Waters to Freedom).
My Parents happened to be Hindus, so I too was a Hindu by Birth automatically.
At age 10, I came to Madras and was a fish out of water as it was the land of the Tamils and I was not a Tamilian. Soon I realised though a Hindu I was a lower caste Hindu and not an upper caste Brahmin by Birth.
Good fortune directed me to a Catholic school run by Jesuit Priests and this meant I was not trampled upon and stomped and put down by Upper caste Brahmins in a Hindu School.
All my cousins ended up studying in Madras Corporation schools meant for the poor & low caste people of in all religions.
As a family we believed that Hindusim is a way of life and not a religion and each and every Hindu God represented an aspect of Human life like Saraswathi represented Knowledge, Laxmi represented wealth, Ganesha represented prosperity, Vishnu as the Protector of Life and Shiva was in charge of taking the life away.
Virtually every street had a Ganesha shrine and majority of Tamilians worshipped Amman (or Parvathi like Durga in Bengal) and major temples were Shiva temples like the Kabali and not Vishnu temples.
History tells us that Ram and Krishna are vishnu avatars of North India whose influence on south India was through North Indian Brahmins who migrated south to propagate the Hindu Religion.
Every time a family member had chicken pox, small pox or jaundice etc as there was no guaranteed treatment, a promise was made to go to the Mari Amman temple and make Pongal or other offerings like sacrificing a chicken or a goat.
Growing up in India you accept things without asking question for fear of being reprimanded.
Life was akin to drifting in a small boat in a huge ocean. More like Grin and Bear it Situation.
I, to this day cannot comprehend the TRINITY governing Christianity "The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" Today my christian friend tell me This is what the Catholic believe. Protestants do not believe in Mary nor do they believe in the Ten Commandments which was not written by God, but Man.
If the Caste system amongst Hindus in India is mind boggling, the number of Christian Groups globally suggests it is more about Grabbing Power and Money.
In Sydney today we have exclusive churches for Koreans, Philipinos, Malaysians, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, the Greeks, the Russians and the list is endless and you have the Jesuits, Mormons, Jehova witnesses, Pentecost, Hill song..........
Just one Jesus yet so many break away sub groups suggests this has nothing to do with Jesus or God but a business model. To prove my point. A Young man who did his degree in marketing has suddenly turned into a pastor and has his own Church, with his own followers...
My home in Andaman's was opposite a Mosque and we as kids played in the Mosque. I have always had Muslim Friends at school college and now in Sydney. Amazing lot of friends Jamaal Buhari, Md Sultan, Asmath Basha, Zakariah Sait, Samads and the Hamids all Tamil, Malayalee & Urudu speaking Muslims. Religion has never come between us in 45 years.
Having said that whilst all muslims will Condemn the West for everything, I have not heard one Muslim condemn acts of Islamic terrorism.Not because they Condone terrorism but perhaps fear of Fatwas taken out against them by the Mullahs of the region
It is unfortunate that this is not the case especially North Indian Sates of UP & MP with Upper Caste Hindus hating the Muslims and vice versa, something I cannot fathom being a low caste meat eating Hindu.
Going to the Gurudwara with my Sardar Uncle in Port Blair is still etched in my mind. Going around the altar singing Satya Naam Satya Naam Satyanaam Ji Vaya Guru Vaya Guru Vaya Guruji
As an individual I still say Our Father who art in heaven as a prayer along with my prayers to Lord Venkateswara and Satya Sai Baba.
God is Not out there but within each one of us.
God to me is my inner voice
To me
Love is God
Truth is God
My Inner Voice I call Conscience is My God Guiding every move I make in Life.
I can happily worship in a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple, a Church, a Gurudwara or a Mosque. I can do this because I am worshipping the same God always irrespective of the venue
Every time I come across a Blind Hindu Bakth and we argue about different faiths, I ask the question:
Do you believe in Reincarnation ?
The answer is a Loud Yes
I then ask what if in your next life you are Born a Muslim ?
Eerie silence as They never thought of that, even though they blindly believe in Reincarnation.
The very thought of being Beef Eating Muslim in their next life silences them altogether
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Comments received from a Muslim friend
Not helped by the very Exclusive 'My God or No God" attitude of the Muslims. Especially the modern radicalism of the Wahhabi belief systems that has spread so much poison around the world including India.
One thing I have noticed about Muslims today - around the world - is that they want everyone to tolerate their own religious intolerances.
So we have Hindutva which is a very Abrahamic interpretation of Hinduism which sucks out all the rich diversity of all the beliefs that shelter under the umbrella of Sanathana Dharma.
The hate is bad enough. But also the cultural impoverishment of trying to force all Santhanis into one model of Hinduism which is practised by only one subset of Hindus.
Devdutt Patnaik writes eloquently about this and I have shared his essay on my Facebook page.
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The South Indian position
#Ramachandra Aluri is Associate Editor of the mass-circulated Mathruboomi Daily & outstanding literary figure in Malayalam.
He is a devout Malayali Hindu.
Every Hindu should attentively read & digest what he writes:
Certain ignorant fundamentalists now in power should understand this before targeting Malayalees for their defiance against myths of akhand bharat and the beliefs of north.
We Hindus of Kerala don't worship cows as mothers. You will rather find bulls in Shiva temples here as stars.
For us Sabarimala and Guruvayoor means a lot more than Haridwar or Ayodhya. Our major festivals are Onam and Vishu, not Diwali or Navaratri. We don't celebrate holi , bhai dooj, karwa chauth or rakhi. Christmas and Eid are pretty much part of our lives.
Some ardent religious Keralites are vegetarians and a few others by choice. Most of us eat beef, chicken, mutton, duck and all sort of other meats. Fish is essentially a part of Kerala cuisine.
Just because, some Northies worship beef, don't expect us to give up beef. Buffalo meat is not banned anywhere in India.
So it was a planned plot in Delhi and well executed by some Hindu Sena to hurt Keralite defiance.
Malayalam is our mother tongue and so we are Malayalies. Neither Hindi nor Hindutva means anything to us.
Islam and Christianity grew here peacefully and those who believe in those religions are a part of our multi-cultural society. In Kerala you will find churches, temples and mosques standing tall close to each other in peace and some of them are thousands of years old.
Keep the sobbing stories of Mughals and other invasions of the North to yourselves. The oldest mosque in India built in 629 AD is right here in Kerala at Kodungallur.```
We had trade relations with Jews, Arabs, Chinese and many South East Asian kingdoms for over two thousand years (i.e. during B.C.).
We defeated the Dutch in Kolachal.
Travancore and Kochi were not part of British India.They were pretty much independent princely states. Travancore had its own elected people's assembly here in Trivandrum before Indian independence.
RSS and other regressive forces should know that we won't bow before your Hindutva agenda, we joined the Indian Union, which is a Secular Federal Republic, and will never be a part of any Hindurashtra".
A Proud Hindu
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You are right mate.
India was NEVER one nation.
The British artificially united it and made it an entity.
Three races (Aryan, Dravidian and Mongolian), twenty languages, umpteen castes. Rampant bigotry, hatred, racism.
Bollywood spews racism against South Indians in almost every movie produced there.
Indians are the most colour conscious and racist people ever.
They want to stuff Hindi down in non-Hindi areas, and deny the self-determination of millions of people like Tamils, Telugus, Kannadigas, Keralites, Bengalis etc.
There are nations in this world with just a million people.
And 85 million Tamils or 100 Million Telugus do not have their own nation, but have to play second fiddle to the damn Hindi wallahs.
Forget ever becoming a superpower. India has to be broken up into at least 15 nations, so these smaller units can develop and prosper.
I pray that this happens in my lifetime.
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I'm not pretending to know anything about Indian politics, but it seems world leaders are getting more adept at creating an "Us vs Them" mentality
Everyone wants to be on a 'team' or a 'side', almost like a need for belonging, rather than looking at the damage caused by 'hating' non-teamates. primary school mentality
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I have received this most amazing response that resonates with what I wrote.:- It was always so about India.
What has changed now ?
India or the subcontinent region was always diverse. Cuisines changed every 100 kms.Languages changed every 300 kms. So did climate which changed the local attire too. Cultural Habits changed seamlessly too as you traverse India. Indian Culture was always diverse.
In a Nutshell "India exists but doesn’t really exist". If you understand what it means.
In Other words India exists on a Map but not in the hearts of Indians. For this to happen Indian needs a Common enemy and I am Hoping Covid is the Common enemy for man kind to Unite not just all Indians but all Human beings. Perhaps this is Gods way of Uniting Religions too or wiping out all religions. Imagine a world sans Religion, where no blood is shed in the name God. Think about it Animals do not have any Religion or Religious Dogmas and can live in Harmony. Wish we intelligent humans can learn from wild beasts
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On Majority:
A Tam Bram, who is an RSS Member and a Modi Bhakt argued that 85% of Indians are Hindus, so what is wrong with a Hindustan for Hindus, plus BJP has unprecedented Majority in the Parliament and a Mandate to create a Hindu Nation. From my Point of View the people of India did not Elect BJP or Modi because they were popular but "REJECTED A CORRUPT CONGRESS RULE" In all democracies a non performing Govt get tossed out by the people.
Then the Tamil Nadu election results came and he was a very unhappy man as DMK won and BJP was not to be seen anywhere. His argument was People of Tamil Nadu are all stupid
I thought to myself Tam Brams in Tamil Nadu are at best 3% of the Population of which hardly 50% could be RSS Supporters. Is 97% in TN a Majority by any chance and do they have the right to elect the party they choose. AIDMK is just another Branch of DMK that was politically aligned to BJP as DMK was aligned with Congress. RSS Belongs in UP and will never have roots in Tamil Nadu or Kerala ever
This is the world I want to live in:
