Thursday, June 18, 2009

What exactly is 'Hindu nationalist' about the BJP?

  • What exactly is 'Hindu nationalist' about the BJP?

  • http://www.diigo.com/06az2

    tags: no_tag

    • T V R Shenoy
    • You could lay the economic policies of the Congress and the BJP side by side, and 999 out of 1,000 would struggle to say which is which. A truly right-wing, meaning fiscally conservative, party might have considered opposing schemes like loan waivers or employment guarantee programmes. Did you ever hear the BJP oppose a populist scheme?
    • Again, how much did the BJP do to dismantle the 'licence-permit-quota Raj' when it was in power? I am not talking about the things that irk big business, just the strangling web of forms in triplicate that plagues the ordinary citizen. The answer is that the BJP did only as much, or as little, as the Congress itself -- or so goes the popular perception.
    • If it isn't 'right-wing' what exactly is 'Hindu nationalist' about the BJP these days? The party was identified with the Ayodhya issue, but how much did it actually do to erect a temple? Take that out of the equation, and what, specifically, is so 'Hindu' about the BJP's programmes?
    • Did anyone in the BJP even try to put together an environmental case against the Rama Sethu Project alongside one based purely on religious sentiment? (Or even one demonstrating that the project is a waste of money?)
    • Those are just two examples of ancient traditions being adapted for today, there could be others. But if the BJP is neither particularly 'right wing' nor draws on 'Hindu' tradition in formulating policies, why should anyone vote for it rather than the Congress? Come to that, what is there to keep even the BJP cadre motivated between one general election and the next?

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Vijayvaani.com Interfaith dialogue: in whose interest? - I

  • Vijayvaani.com

  • Interfaith dialogue: in whose interest? - I

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ayz

    tags: no_tag

    • B R Haran
    • Hindus have co-existed with other indigenous creeds (Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and others) without problems for ages, and the peace and harmony prevailing in this great Hindu land was affected only with the advent of Abrahamic faiths, mainly Islam and Christianity, which oppressed the Hindu majority in various ways.
    • Monotheistic religions have no space for non-believers (in Allah or Mohammed or Yahweh or Jesus).
    • Christianity introduced the concept of secularism in western society in order to end sectarian fratricide; as Hindus have no concept or tradition of such murderous sectarianism, secularism in India can at best be a quality of administration by the state.
    • India  lost huge territory when Pakistan was born, along with the current Bangladesh. Since then, the north-east has been Christianised; Kashmir is in trouble; so is Goa; 50% of Kerala is lost to minorities; large parts of Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have become Islamic; a large portion of Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu have become Christianised.
    • When things go beyond tolerance, the majority reacts spontaneously, as happened in Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka and Jammu (Amarnath). After such reactions, the Hindu majority reverts to its usual tolerant self, hoping that the minority with which conflict took place would also settle down, but the ‘Marxist-media-minority’ nexus plays ugly ‘victimhood’ games in the international arena, bringing disrepute to the country. 

    • The Catholic leadership always blames other denominations for “unethical” and “forced” conversions during these so-called interfaith dialogues, in order to convince leaders of other faiths to accept the dangerous concept of “ethical” conversions.
    • Dhimmitude resulted from Nehruvian secularism and impacted Hindus so much that they cannot see the monster standing gleefully before their eyes; they are still in deep slumber.

    • Some religious leaders are averse to identifying themselves and their ‘teachings’ as ‘Hindu;’ they are more interested in marketing their wares in a global market, than in spreading dharma among the masses in the remotest hamlets.

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Vijayvaani.com Sanjivini and the Lankan Raj Vaidya

  • Vijayvaani.com

  • Sanjivini and the Lankan Raj Vaidya

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ayy

    tags: no_tag

    • Sandhya Jain
    • Sri Lanka’s Sinhala people, we should remember, are our own Oriyas who migrated to the island a few centuries before the Tamil Hindus.
    • To return to the BJP, it is amazing how every ideologue (sic) affiliated to Advani is recommending distancing from Hindutva as a remedy for revival, when all over Asia and Latin America, there is a move to protect the native faiths and cultures from the predatory designs of the free traders and their colonizing creed.
    • Sri Lanka’s Second Republican Constitution of 1978 accords Buddhism the “foremost place,” vide Article 9, and commits the government to protect and foster the religion. Moreover, Article 9.4 requires that inhabitants of Sri Lanka “professing Buddhism are bound to bring up their children in the same;” and Article 9.5 prohibits the conversion of “a Buddhist into other forms of worship or to spread other forms of worship among the Buddhists.”

    • This is best epitomized by smug PIOs, especially those with inter-racial (inter-religious) marriages, telling us that Hindu dharma has become “global” (whatever that means), and that PIOs have a right to set the Indian national agenda – to serve the needs of white post-colonial corporate rulers.

    • In India alone we pass resolutions which officially and legally promote an irreligious and unspiritual creed called secularism. Secularism is an administrative quality; it cannot be the soul of this nation. The soul of this nation is religious and spiritual. We call upon our government and other important religious bodies to recognize this truth and affirm their commitment to protect the soul of this nation.”
    • Of course the Sri Lanka Buddhist clergy is wise after 500 years of suffering under Portuguese, Dutch, British and even American evangelists, and knows that there is NO such thing as ethical conversion!

    • This is a term coined by Vatican to allow vainglorious Hindu Indian neo-Vedantins to permit conversions, as these gurus are blinded by first class air tickets and limousines at the other end; luxurious ashrams or hotels abroad with adoring (sic) foreign bhaktas; and above all, the faux importance of engaging in religious diplomacy with high-ranking leaders of the Vatican and World Council of Churches, oblivious of the fact that they are only making a public spectacle of themselves with their shoddy disregard for the Dharma they are supposed to protect.
    • The proposed anti-conversion bill is reported to moot fines up to Lankan Rs. 500,000/- and up to seven years in prison for trying to convert a citizen from one religion to another by using “force, fraud or allurement.” Stringent punitive action is proposed for those convicted of converting women or children.
    • t should demand legislation to ensure that children of inter-religious marriages in India be raised as Hindus.
    • If little Lanka can throw Norway out of the peace talks because a bomb exploded in a Lankan mission in Oslo, why can’t New Delhi throw out American, British and other western busy-bodies who recommend negotiations with Pakistan after every jihadi outrage?
    • Too much of Indian arms purchases seem to be dictated by retired defence officers doubling up as arms middlemen for western armaments firms – a sure recipe for disaster.

    • The author is Editor,       www.vijayvaani.com

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Vijayvaani.com Inculturation: Crime and cunningness of Catholic Church

  • Vijayvaani.com

  • Inculturation: Crime and cunningness of Catholic Church

  • http://www.diigo.com/06aym

    tags: no_tag

    • Cardinal Oswald Gracias was one of the brains behind the designing, printing and releasing of the “Indian Bible” which contained hundreds of sacred verses usurped from Hindu texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Bhagwat Gita.

    • Yet the very same Cardinal Oswald Gracias stoutly denied any knowledge about this Indian Bible at the press conference held immediately after the interfaith dialogue on 12 June 2009 in Mumbai. So much for Catholic honesty!
    • Even during the interfaith dialogue, the Cardinal and other Catholic leaders, including the representative of the Vatican, denied the ‘inculturation’ charges against them and put the blame on other denominations of Christianity.
    • Melmaruvathur Adhi Parasakthi Temple is situated on the Chennai-Trichy National Highway (NH45), in a place called ‘Melmaruvathur,’ approximately 95 kms from Chennai.
    • the Church converted a considerable section of the local people and again started construction activities on the hillock. After the completion of the stairway, tar road and the prayer house, the Church erected the huge ‘Crucified Jesus’ statue on the top and the statue of “Mazhai Malai Maathaa” (Mother Mary) inside the prayer house.
    • “Until 1977, the Shiva temple with a Ganesha murti (Uchchi Pillayar) was also there though in a dilapidated condition, and people used to visit it regularly. As the priest found it very difficult to go up and down twice a day due to absence of a proper pathway, he brought the deity down and placed it at the basement. During the year 1977, anti-social elements at the behest of vested interests, hung a dead body at the entrance. The issue became a police case after which the people stopped visiting. After years of prolonging the police closed the case ten years back saying it was a suicide. The officials have not given us permission either to place the Trishul or Vel near the neem tree or to write “Om Nama shivaya” or even to dig a borewell for want of water. But the same officials have allowed the Church to construct everything illegally. We are finding it difficult to construct even a stairway to the Shiva Temple, which has been there for ages.”
    • Hindu Munnani activists under the leadership of Parameswaran conducted an awareness campaign followed by another protest demonstration on 14 June 2009.

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Vijayvaani.com Perivaar: stop converting Hindus; stop USCIRF

  • Vijayvaani.com

  • Perivaar: stop converting Hindus; stop USCIRF

  • http://www.diigo.com/06aye

    tags: no_tag

    • The meeting was closed door, but informed sources said it was high voltage and shut the door on future dialogue unless all church denominations agree to eschew conversions.
    • Secularism is an administrative quality; it cannot be the soul of this nation. The soul of this nation is religious and spiritual.
    • The Church in India must stop forthwith the use of Hindu religious words, phrases and symbols

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The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Congress’s stealth Stalinism

  • The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Congress’s stealth Stalinism

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ay7

    tags: no_tag

    • Government’s recent proposal to impose censorship on online news portals, Websites and blogs smacks of fear and insecurity similar. It reminds us of the dark days of the Emergency
    • About three weeks ago, the Government released a draft proposal that seeks to censor online news portals, websites and blogs for a wide variety of security and national interest reasons. Part of an amendment to the Information Technology Act, the proposal doesn’t stipulate any prior hearing for the said websites and blogs.
    • The proposal empowers every State and Central Government to decide whether a particular news item, blog, article or advertisement is deemed offensive.
    • The host of the ‘offending’ website who doesn’t comply with the Government’s ban order is liable to be imprisoned for seven years.
    • It will create an Orwellian scenario with these bureaucrats acting as ‘Online Thought Police’.
    • In plain words: Stealth Stalinism.
    • But what is more shocking is that this has largely gone unnoticed. The secular media that behaved like the Congress’s handmaid during the recent election has largely paid lip service, if not completely ignored, this latest threat to the basic right of citizens in a democracy.
    • all right-thinking Indians need to disseminate this proposal more extensively and highlight the potential havoc that it could wreak.

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IntelliBriefs: QUOTE OF THE DAY: Kanwal Sibal on Indo-US Relations

  • IntelliBriefs: QUOTE OF THE DAY: Kanwal Sibal on Indo-US Relations

    tags: no_tag

    • Kanwal Sibal

      India faces strategic threats principally from two countries-Pakistan and China, with both collaborating to confront and contain India.
    • Our strategic partnership with the US would not have much meaning if its policies aggravate our problems, instead of alleviating them.
    • It is also ironical that the country that persists in selling arms to Pakistan wants to be India's choice defense partner, selling us the same arms!
    • With our other strategic adversary, the talk of a US-China diarchy, at least financial to begin with, says all

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Attack on students domestic issue of Australia: Tharoor - India - The Times of India


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The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Lazy babus hold up India’s march

  • The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Lazy babus hold up India’s march

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ar8

    tags: Governance

    • The Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy
    • has ranked India’s “suffocating bureaucracy”, as the least-efficient. The survey says that working with Indian civil servants is a “slow and painful” process and that these bureaucrats are a power centre in their own right, both at the national and the State levels, and extremely resistant to reforms that affect them or the way they go about their duties.
    • sample survey conducted in Karnataka found that in 65 per cent of the civil cases, the Government was a litigant, sometimes on both sides, and so Government litigation “crowds out the private citizen from the court system”.
    • The Prime Minister, on the same occasion, also confirmed that the Karnataka survey found much of the Government litigation to be in the form of appeals, and that 95 per cent of such appeals fail. He observed, “In a way, they are appeals that shouldn’t have been made in the first place.”
    • many instances where the judges found that citizens were compelled to litigate because of the “utter indifference” of the Government, where the latter pursued litigation on “frivolous” grounds as a “matter of prestige” with an attitude of “vengeance” or “callousness bordering on vendetta”, displaying “arrogance and a superiority complex”.
    • the colonial mindset that set the bureaucracy apart from, and above, ordinary citizens, still survives.
    • The problem is that our laws are so over-protective of the accused that we seem to have reached a dead end.
    • There is also the strange practice of the Government using inefficient and dull bureaucrats as its advisers after their retirement. Actually there are far too many people in Government with practically no work to do.

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Sanatan Sanstha: Jayanti (Birthday) of 'Dharmaveer Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj'

  • Sanatan Sanstha: Jayanti (Birthday) of 'Dharmaveer Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj'

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ay6

    tags: no_tag

    • Sambhaji lost his mother Sai bai at the age of 2. After her death, his paternal grandmother Jijabai looked after him.
    • He was a scholar of Sanskrit and eight other languages.
    • In 1666, he was married to Yesu bai, and later the couple had a son – Shahu
    • On June 6th, 1674 at the time of coronation of Shivaji Maharaj, he was declared as the prince of the Sovereign Maratha Kingdom.
    • He led and won his first war in Ramnagar at the age of 16.
    • He headed the full strength Mughal army, which at the time was perhaps, the largest land army in the world. Sambhaji led the Maratha fight against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. It was to be the final war in both men's lives, and would last all of 27 years.
    • It was a disproportionate battle in all senses. Aurangzeb's army was at least 8 to 9 times larger than Sambhaji's. His whole empire was around 15 times bigger than Sambhaji's. However Sambhaji led the fight valiantly and did not let Aurangzeb win even a single major victory.
    • In a meticulously planned operation, Ganoji Shirke ( Brother of Sambhaji’s wife Yesubai) and Aurangzeb's commander, Mukarrab Khan attacked Sangameshwar when Sambhaji was about to leave the town. A small ambush followed and Sambhaji was captured by Mughal troops on 1 Feb, 1689.
    • Aurangzeb ordered him and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death. Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were brutally tortured for over a fortnight. The torture involved plucking out their eyes and tongue and pulling out their nails. The later part involved removing their skin.
    • On March 11, 1689, Sambhaji was finally killed, reportedly by tearing him apart from the front and back with 'Wagh Nakhe (Tiger claws, a kind of weapon), and was beheaded with an axe. This grievous death was given to him at Vadhu on the banks of Bhima river, near Pune.
    • After every torture, Aurangzeb would ask him if he had had enough and wanted to convert – but the courageous king kept refusing. By doing so he earned the title of Dharmaveer (Protector of the Religion) by which he is known to this day.
    • However, Sambhaji's torture and heroic death unleashed an unprecedented unity and heroic spirit among the Marathas. Aurangzeb continued his grim war against the Marathas for another 18 years but could not subjugate the Maratha state.
    • There is some dispute among historians about Sambhaji's ability as a ruler. These disputes came mainly from British & Mughal historians like Khafikhan & Grand Duff. These historians have portrayed him as ineffective and alcoholic.

    • Powada on 'Dharmaveer Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj' by Shahir Yogesh

      देश धरम पर मिटने वाला।
      शेर शिवा का छावा था।।
      महापराक्रमी परम प्रतापी।
      एक ही शंभू राजा था।।
      तेज:पुंज तेजस्वी आँखें।
      निकल गयीं पर झुका नहीं।।
      दृष्टि गयी पण राष्ट्रोन्नति का।
      दिव्य स्वप्न तो मिटा नहीं।।
      दोनो पैर कटे शंभू के।
      ध्येय मार्ग से हटा नहीं।।
      हाथ कटे तो क्या हुआ?।
      सत्कर्म कभी छुटा नहीं।।
      जिव्हा कटी, खून बहाया।
      धरम का सौदा किया नहीं।।
      शिवाजी का बेटा था वह।
      गलत राह पर चला नहीं।।
      वर्ष तीन सौ बीत गये अब।
      शंभू के बलिदान को।।
      कौन जीता, कौन हारा।
      पूछ लो संसार को।।
      कोटि कोटि कंठो में तेरा।
      आज जयजयकार है।।
      अमर शंभू तू अमर हो गया।
      तेरी जयजयकार है।।
      मातृभूमि के चरण कमलपर।
      जीवन पुष्प चढाया था।।
      है दुजा दुनिया में कोई।
      जैसा शंभू राजा था?।।
      - शाहीर योगेश


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A lateral mover from left to right

  • A lateral mover from left to right

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ay1

    tags: no_tag

    • As yet, it's hard to fathom his thinking. His sympathies are said to lie neither with the multi-system operators, nor cable operators nor broadcasters. "I am the government. If you don't do what you promise to do, we have ways of making you do it," he is reported to have told a representative of Murdoch.
    • "I have for instance, read Sudheendraji's article today. It is not favourable to us, but I liked what he wrote. It was provocative," Advani said. For Kulkarni, this was a second beginning.
    • It was, therefore, no surprise to anyone when he was made director (communications and research) in the PMO. Because Vajpayee was strict about not allowing bureaucrats to attend party meetings, Kulkarni found himself uniquely placed to represent the party's views in the PMO and take the PMO to the party.

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Red flags to saffron scarves - what next for Sudheendra Kulkarni

  • Red flags to saffron scarves - what next for Sudheendra Kulkarni

  • http://www.diigo.com/06ay0

    tags: no_tag

    • CPI-M members say Kulkarni began as an activist of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the CPI-M student wing, before joining the party.

      While in the CPI-M, Kulkarni even visited Moscow, when it was capital of the former Soviet Union.

    • A founder-member of Journalists Against Communalism, Kulkarni and his former friends, journalist Javed Anand and peace activist Teesta Setalvad, used to put up anti-RSS and pro-secularism posters in Mumbai. Kulkarni then worked for The Sunday Observer in Mumbai.
    • In 2005, he accompanied Advani on the latter’s first visit to Pakistan where he called Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the country’s founder, a secularist -comments that angered the party and the RSS no end.
    • “But I don’t think he was driven by the BJP’s hardline ideology and would not mind re-inventing himself. He could well join the Congress.”

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Change New Delhi to ‘Dilli’ before 2010 Games: minister

  • Change New Delhi to ‘Dilli’ before 2010 Games: minister

    tags: no_tag

    • So feels Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister M.S. Gill, who wants the name of the Indian capital changed to Dilli,
    • “We have already changed Madras to Chennai, Trivandrum to Thiruvananthapuram, Bombay to Mumbai and Bangalore to Bengaluru - for the names give a local touch and feeling,” he said.

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BRICs and G-2

  • BRICs and G-2

  • http://www.diigo.com/06axw

    tags: no_tag

    • When you are on top of a heap, you get a better perspective than when you are at its bottom. That is what probably separates China and India at this week’s talk-fest in Yekaterinburg.
    • The idea of ‘Group of Two’ — America and China — jointly managing the world has steadily gained ground since Barack Obama took charge of Washington.
    • It is China’s ability to threaten mutually assured financial destruction that makes the Anglo-Saxons nervous. It is no secret that only the Chinese have the clout to negotiate with the Americans on global financial system.
    • As China becomes stronger than Russia, Moscow will necessarily have to rethink its ties to Beijing and Washington.
    • It is not for nothing that Russia’s national symbol is an eagle with two heads — one looking east and the other looking west.
    • Delhi faces similar challenges with Beijing today. These include the stalled boundary talks, deepening distrust on Tibet, and the gathering sense of mutual geopolitical encirclement.
    • If India sweeps these difficult bilateral issues under the carpet and indulges in soaring multilateral rhetoric with China, Beijing will administer a painful reality check sooner than later.

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