The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #75063   Message #1388757
Posted By: CarolC
26-Jan-05 - 12:22 AM
Thread Name: Obit: More Muslim intolerance?
Subject: RE: Obit: More Muslim intolerence?
It's true that I have been reading up on the subject of India and of Hindus and "terrorism" in India. And what I'm finding astonishes me. It shouldn't, I suppose, since I've seen the same thing with one or two other countries, but what I am seeing is that the line of reasoning you are using, Ooh-Aah2, is very much in keeping with the official version of events that is promoted by the government of India and some Hindu organizations. But there are many, many conflicting narratives of which you seem to be entirely unaware. One of which does, indeed, involve "terrorist" acts committed by Hindus during the struggle for independence from Britain.

But some of the other problems I've been encountering while trying to research the validity (or lack of validity) of your arguments, is that even terms like "Hindu" and "India", are exceedingly difficult to pin down, and the history of conflicts between different factions is equally so. For instance, one version of events I have encountered holds that the Aryans invaded India from the north and brutally repressed the Buddhists. And other sources (by far the majority) hold that the term "Hindu", in historical terms is completely meaningless because India had many, many different indigenous spiritual/religious sects, and that "Hindu" originally only referred to anyone who lived in India, or more particularly, on one side of the Indus River.

From what I have been able to gather, all of the different indigenous religions in India (plus whatever religions the Aryans brought to India with them) are grouped under the umbrella term "Hindu", while religions that traveled to India from elsewhere are called by the names they had before arriving in India.

In more recent history, the term Hindu has been defined by the government of India, but it only categorizes what can be legally considered "Hindu" in the present historical sense. It doesn't really address what was done by whom and when in the historical sense.

So to try to suggest that there is a particular tendency among Hindus (historically speaking) as compared to any other religions is very misleading, and just not true.

The other bit of misinformation you have is the idea that "Hindus" did not participate in "terrorist" acts during the struggle for independence. Again, that is the official government line, but people who were involved in revolutionary movements are saying otherwise. Interestingly, there are very few references to which religion the various participants belonged to. They just called themselves "Indians". I have had to do further research to get any idea about their religion, and also to try to deduce their religion from their names. But the idea that the people who were not Muslims (and who would be considered "Hindus" by the current legal definition) did not commit "terrorist" acts is incorrect, although the people themselves are pretty adamant that they consider what they were doing not to be "terrorist activities", but rather "revolutionary activities". Still, people got killed and buildings and other infrastructure were destroyed.