"Love Jihad", the conspiracy theory sweeping India

[The Brain]

One thing that has to be kept in mind when studying religions is that the believers described by a particular label often vary as much in what they actually believe as those not described by that label.

This is particularly something to be kept in mind when discussing the religions of people who are less familiar - for example, Hindus, Taoists and Buddhists. In the West, there is a tendency to judge these religions but the high intellectual and philosophical traditions that have been popularized by Western thinkers highly influenced by these things - which gives us a perhaps excessively intellectual view of what most actual believers in these religions actually believe.

I went through a bit of disappointment of this sort - I was very interested in Taoist philosophy, only to discover that most actual believers in Taoism are hardly distinguishable from any other believers in Chinese folk religion. Similarly, most actual Buddhist believers you are actually likely to meet in China worship a religion not all that dissimilar to any other, focused on rituals. It has little to do with Buddhist philosophy.

Are you telling me that not all Asatru people are kooks?

[Razgovory]

I don't know much about Hinduism.  Does it have an ethnocentric element similar to Judiasm or the Norse Lay of Rig?  We are a special people and for that reason we can enslave or destroy other peoples?

[The Brain]

I don't know much about Hinduism.  Does it have an ethnocentric element similar to Judiasm or the Norse Lay of Rig?  We are a special people and for that reason we can enslave or destroy other peoples?

Believe it or not but the term "ethnic Hindu" has been bandied about. Makes as much sense to me as ethnic Albertan, but YMMV.

[grumbler]

One thing that has to be kept in mind when studying religions is that the believers described by a particular label often vary as much in what they actually believe as those not described by that label.

This is a truism.  There are, however, some elements of religions that are pretty much a necessary part of the religion, like believing in Jesus for Christians, and believing in Brahman for Hindus.

Hinduism is more diverse than any other religion because it has no founder's words, has no centralized priesthood, and it insistences on people finding truth for themselves.  When studying Hinduism, one thing that has to be kept in mind, though, is that pretty much every Hindu would agree with the statement that "We are not human beings having a spiritual moment, we are spiritual beings having a human moment."

[grumbler]

I don't know much about Hinduism.  Does it have an ethnocentric element similar to Judiasm or the Norse Lay of Rig?  We are a special people and for that reason we can enslave or destroy other peoples?

Believe it or not but the term "ethnic Hindu" has been bandied about. Makes as much sense to me as ethnic Albertan, but YMMV.

Hindus see themselves as a religion, a people, a culture, and (to some degree) a language.  Lots of variations within the definitions, though.  They don't expect much in the way of conversions (you'll generally wait until the next incarnation if you become wise enough) but don't reject conversions, either.  To be a Hindu, you pretty much just say that you are a Hindu - though don't expect to get on the BJP ballot that way!

[Valmy]

the radical Islamists do present a sort of (real or imaginary depends on the location I guess) threat that you cannot link to other minorities with that level of convenience.

Yes it does make it complicated.

And for India in particular you have Pakistan, with all of its issues with Islam playing kind of weird role, right next door exasperating the whole thing. Both countries seem to adopting pretty bad version of their main religion as a form of nationalism, which of course feeds on each other.

[Valmy]

So we were just talking about Modi and it seems a strike involving 200 million people is being staged opposing his policies? Anybody else hear anything about that?

[celedhring]

So we were just talking about Modi and it seems a strike involving 200 million people is being staged opposing his policies? Anybody else hear anything about that?

The only thing I can find is a massive strike against agricultural reform.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/world/asia/india-farmers-protest-pollution-coronavirus.html

[garbon]

So we were just talking about Modi and it seems a strike involving 200 million people is being staged opposing his policies? Anybody else hear anything about that?

It looks like those have happened multiple times this year alone.

[The Larch]

I'm recycling this thread for general highlighting of Hindu natonalist shithousery.

So, after the farmer protests taking place in India, a number of western celebrities tweeted in support of the farmers. What do Hindu radicals do after that? Why, burn pictures of these celebrities, of course:







Those are Greta Thunberg, Rihanna and Meena Harris (Kamala Harris' niece).

Twitter comment I saw: "Aaah, western privilege, if they were Indian women they'd try to burn them in person, rather than in effigy".

[Eddie Teach]

That last one is really stretching the definition of celebrity.

[The Larch]

That last one is really stretching the definition of celebrity.

Being partially Indian, I guess the whole family's profile is quite high over there.

In any case she's a minor celebrity in her own right (she's a best selling author of children's books).

[Duque de Bragança]

Dramatic sunflower beard on the first pic!

[Jacob]

I don't know much about Hinduism.  Does it have an ethnocentric element similar to Judiasm or the Norse Lay of Rig?  We are a special people and for that reason we can enslave or destroy other peoples?

I don't think the Norse Lay of Rig has any element of "we are special people and for that reason we can enslave or destroy other peoples." It's all about a divine explanation for social classes, IMO, but has basically nothing about justifying raiding, enslaving, or destruction on the grounds of one people being divinely ordained to do so. That is, again IMO, something that white nationalists are bringing to the table by means of the Christian cultural baggage.

The Norse, of course, raided and killed and destroyed but I'm not aware of any evidence that suggests that they thought that was divinely ordained or that they were somehow a better people because of it. That was a Christian contribution (in addition to the sanctity of life and opposition to slavery and other much more benign things) - heathen Norse and Saxons raided, traded with, and intermarried with heathen slavs along the Baltic coast. It was only once they'd converted to Christianity that the Scandinavians and Germans started destroying due to perceived divine mandates (i.e. the Baltic crusades).

[Malthus]

Hinduism has a historical/mythological explanation for an earlier invasion of India by the ancient Vedic aryans (the term that got Hitler excited!). Judaism has a similar historical explanation, in Genesis, for the invasion of Canaan. 

I don't think in either case the history is actually used as a religious excuse to go around enslaving others in the modern era, or asserting they are inherently superior, like the Nazi version of "aryans". I don't know much about modern Hinduism, but certainly in Judaism it isn't used in this way - the much-misunderstood "chosen people" thing refers to the fact that Jews believe they are "chosen" to have a load of additional religious duties compared to others, so as to set a good example - but this expressly does not make them better than others. Indeed, unlike many other religions, according to Judaism non-Jews who obey a basic set of moral laws (the "Noahide Laws") are just as righteous as the most observant Jew.