Date: 7/15/2001
Is this Fundamentalism?
If you cannot argue using facts, attack the person or organization. In the words of Arun Shourie, "Tarnish every person, institution, period from which people may derive pride, confidence.
Ascribe tolerance, magnanimity to the intolerant. Portray the inclusive, open tradition as the one out to swallow others, and the exclusivist, totalitarian ideology as the ideology of broad-mindedness, of peace, tolerance. Denounce as 'communal' anyone who demands proof.
Blame victims for the consequences of the ideology of the oppressors. Suppress the role of comrades in aiding imperial rulers. Tarnish leaders, reformers who led the national movement. All the while control institutions, hog patronage, exercise power and have a good time..."
[Eminent Historians – Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud]
I guess calling us fundamentalists puts us in league with such people as Swami Vivekananda! Read his Complete Works wherein he castigates Muslim leadership and Missionaries, whose tactics have changed little in the last few centuries – conversions by hook or crook, the more the merrier!
INDIAN (Hindu) Discussion Lists on Internet have a valid agenda that is not aimed at rabble-rousing, but at educating people about facts. Our job is difficult because of the miasma of disinformation that abounds among the so-called “educated” and “broad-minded.”
Those who want to see reason, do so on presentation of facts. Those who do not, and are convinced that they alone are right, will become victims of their own hubris.
The sad fact is, talking about Muslim invasion automatically makes one a fundamentalist. Talk about the fact that Muslims are the most amenable group to fundamentalism and terrorism and you incur the wrath of these "do-gooders." There are great people who are/have been Muslims, Dr. Abdul Kalam, Shirdi Sai Baba, Kabir Das, to name a few. They do/did not preach communal harmony, they have lived it.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the majority of the Muslims in India, who are in the grip of Mullahs, and what a grip it is, whatever the root cause may be!
Ghauripalya, "the town of Ghauri," is a well-known area in Bangalore. How come, an invader who was pardoned many times by Prithviraj, and who came back to pluck his eyes out and behead him, is a source of inspiration for those who are "engaged in communal harmony?"
Why is there a hue and cry when Sarasawthi Vandana, which is a tribute to the River Goddess Saraswathi (and scientific evidence exists that Saraswathi was the largest Indian river of its time), the life-giving wonder of Vedic India, is offered in prayer?
Government of India is doing everything to protect the property of those who deserted India. Can we expect such reciprocation from the other side?
My grand uncle was a successful businessman with lots of property in Karachi. In 1947, he had been given up for dead, and finally landed in Mumbai as a stowaway on a Merchant Navy vessel, disguised as a Muslim, penniless.
Are his progeny going to be compensated by the generous Islamic Republic of Pakistan, ever?
Raise this question, and you become a fundamentalist. Accept the atrocity meekly, and you are broadminded!
We accept Muslim and British invasions exactly because we have been told the lie, again and again and again and then again, that Aryans were not the original inhabitants of India but were invaders who destroyed the indigenous populations. This technique is known as assertion by repetition as opposed to assertion by fact. Though concrete archaeological and geological evidence exists that Aryans did in fact originate in India, immature and motivated philological speculations have displaced scientific inquiry and the house of cards known as the "Aryan Invasion Theory" has been deeply imprinted into the Indian DNA.
QUOTE: “By the way, you were not one of the Buddhists driven out, or one of the people massacred by Tippu Sultan, so I don't see how you are taking it as a personal issue. Just because you are of the same religion doesn't mean it's your issue too.” UNQUOTE
On the same token, I could say to this person, who by admission is a Hindu, that he/she is not even a Muslim, and should not take up the issue! It is the opinion of this person that while an Indian Discussion Group on Internet or at home does not have the right to take up any issues he thinks we should not, he/she is free to purse to his/her heart’s content, any issue to the illogical limit, castigating us and casting aspersions on us.
The above statement also typifies the attitude, "What I do not know cannot hurt me" or "Vandals are burning my neighbour's house down, so it is not my issue."
It is exactly because the above said massacres took place based on the religious fundamentalism, and exactly because those victims were butchered for their benign beliefs, and exactly because the same attitudes persist even in this day and age, that their issue becomes our issue.
It is a question of choosing between silently accepting injustice (thus perpetuating it) and speaking out against it. It is a question of being propelled into action by one’s own conscience and not based on what is or is not written in a book or expressed by a religion! After all, Lokamanya Tilak was considered a fundamentalist by the British and banished to Kala Pani!
Those who can draw larger inferences from a series of seemingly unconnected individual incidents and act upon such are called visionaries. Those who miss the forest for the trees and claim that the entire rainforest is made up of three shrubs and a pond are only resisting the truth and impeding the path of progress, regardless of however they may label themselves and others. The tragedy of India is that the visionary whales of today have to convince the pond-frogs that there is such a thing as an ocean!
It is doubly unfortunate that those who are seeking scientific and unbiased inquiry are the ones being put on trial.
India could have been a British colony like Hong Kong and enjoyed a higher standard of living, all in slavery. "Give me liberty, or give me freedom" is not just about political liberty but as much about intellectual liberty. Modern day life has given everyone the tools to publish their opinion. But some of us, particularly those of us who think we are "broad-minded," think that our opinions are worth more than others' and try to shut up those we do not like, using labels, rather than facts. After all, who wants to be bothered with facts?
Communal harmony at terrible cost to one community and built on the pedestal of untruth is not worth having. Just take the Kashmiri Pandits as a living, breathing and by the way, dying example of such a perverted idea.
Communal harmony will certainly return to Kashmir when all the Pandits (and Sikhs and Buddhists and Shias) are exterminated silently!
Communal harmony is not the duty of Hindus alone. It is the duty of all Indians. And, communal harmony cannot be based on distortions of history, but the acceptance of facts.
rue and lasting communal harmony cannot be built on the foundations of forgetfulness or lies. It cannot be based on the weakness of Hindus but on their strength. It can be achieved only by Hindus forgiving the Muslims, and when Hinduism-baiting by Mullahs stops.
It can be achieved only by Hindus forgiving the Muslims, and Muslim leadership accepting the fact that atrocities based on religious fundamentalism took place in our history. It can be achieved only by Hindus forgiving the Muslims, and Muslim leadership disowning the acts of terror perpetuated by those who invaded India and put her people to sword in the name of religion.
And may we ask those who preach communal harmony, what steps have they taken to bring to book the perpetrators of the 1984 Sikh massacres, allegedly orchestrated by a “secular” party?
Or, is it that Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Hindus do not deserve any such justice?
We are fundamentalist, because we seek the truth.
We are fundamentalist because we want to put an end to the genocides that have punctuated the history of India with shameless regularity!
We are fundamentalist because we voice the opinions of those who would be persecuted otherwise for exercising a fundamental right!
We are fundamentalist because we strive for a united, peaceful, strong and democratic India, where the law of the land treats everyone equally, regardless of religion, gender or domicile!
We are fundamentalist because we dare to be politically incorrect!
-Bangarbale (July 13, 2001)
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