So apparently for the last decade or so there has been this "Love Jihad" conspiracy theory going on in hindu radical circles in India, in which hindu girls were being targeted by muslim males for marriage in order to get them to convert to islam.
After different waves of relevance in the last decade, with the recent rise of Modi's BJP (Hindu nationalists) and a few court cases that were brought in the last few years it has now produced a controversial law by an Indian regional government (Uttar Pradesh, India's most populated state) ruled by the BJP (with a few others soon to follow it) that intends to put obstacles to inter-faith marriages.
According to this new law, people converting for marriage now have to give advance notice to public authorities, that will investigate if the conversion is fraudulent. The burden of proof is on those who "facilitated" the conversion to show that it was not obtained through coercion. If this can't be proven, culprits can get up to 10 years in jail. It is up to the authorities to decide if the conversion is valid, as well as the marriage itself. This law has already produced now its first detainee (see news article below) and several ceremonies have been interupted by police.
So much for the "largest democracy in the world".
QuoteIndia Muslim man arrested under 'love jihad' law
Police in India's Uttar Pradesh state have arrested a Muslim man for allegedly trying to convert a Hindu woman to Islam.
He's the first to be arrested under a new anti-conversion law that targets "love jihad" - a term radical Hindu groups use to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
The law has prompted outrage, with critics calling it Islamophobic.
At least four other Indian states are drafting laws against "love jihad".
Police in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly district confirmed the arrest on Twitter on Wednesday.
The woman's father told BBC Hindi that he filed a complaint because the man "put pressure" on his daughter to convert and threatened her if she didn't. The woman was allegedly in a relationship with the man but got married to someone else earlier this year.
Police told BBC Hindi that the woman's family had filed a kidnapping case against the accused a year ago but the case was closed after she was found and denied the charge.
After his arrest on Wednesday, the man was sent to 14 days of judicial custody. He told reporters that he was innocent and had "no link with the woman".
The new law carries a jail term of up to 10 years and offences under it are non-bailable.
What is the 'love jihad' law?
In November, Uttar Pradesh became the first state to pass a law against "forced" or "fraudulent" religious conversions.
But it might not be the last as at least four other states - Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka and Assam - have said that they are planning to bring in laws against "love jihad". All five states are governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who have been accused of normalising anti-Muslim sentiment.
Critics have called it regressive and offensive, with many concerned that such laws will lead to misuse and harassment since "love jihad" has always been seen as a term used by fringe right-wing radical Hindu groups. It is not a term officially recognised by Indian law.
But it has dominated headlines in the last few months - in October, a popular jewellery brand withdrew an advertisement featuring an inter-faith couple after right-wing backlash accused them of promoting "love jihad".
And then in November, authorities accused Netflix of the same, pointing to a scene in the television series, A Suitable Boy, where a Hindu woman and a Muslim man share a kiss as the camera pans to the backdrop of a Hindu temple. Madhya Pradesh's Home Minister, Narottam Mishra, said it hurt "religious sentiments" and directed officials to look into legal action against the producer and director of the series.
Critics of the BJP say religious polarisation has increased since Prime Minister Narendra Modi first swept into power in 2014. Hindu-Muslim marriages have long attracted censure in India but the attachment of a deeper, sinister motive to them is a recent phenomenon.
Isn't India deserving of some international pressure/sanctions for the Hindu nationalist shit they're pulling?
Hindu nationalism has always seemed weird to me because Hindu teachings include the idea that the world as we perceive it is all just an illusion anyway. Only our atman (and Brahman, the ineffable Ultimate Reality of which our souls are composed) is real. Thus, a Hindu Nationalist is, in their own terms, acting in accordance with an illusion and ignoring reality. That's the way to turn away from release from the illusion.
Sounds like it is the culmination of two very bad societal trends in India. Hindu nationalism was already named. The other is their ingrained misogyny that has led to a gigantic gender imbalance due to abortions. That's why "others stealing wifes" conspiracy theories fall on fertile ground.
My Indian colleague talked about this the other day. He's really pissed about the direction in which the country is headed.
Of all the gods in all the faith, they had to worship Stupid.
Quote from: grumbler on December 04, 2020, 11:28:59 PM
Hindu nationalism has always seemed weird to me because Hindu teachings include the idea that the world as we perceive it is all just an illusion anyway. Only our atman (and Brahman, the ineffable Ultimate Reality of which our souls are composed) is real. Thus, a Hindu Nationalist is, in their own terms, acting in accordance with an illusion and ignoring reality. That's the way to turn away from release from the illusion.
Ignorance and stupidity always find a way.
Quote from: Zanza on December 05, 2020, 01:44:58 AM
Sounds like it is the culmination of two very bad societal trends in India. Hindu nationalism was already named. The other is their ingrained misogyny that has led to a gigantic gender imbalance due to abortions. That's why "others stealing wifes" conspiracy theories fall on fertile ground.
Yeah, it's a toxic mixture of Hindu nationalism/Islamophobia and institutional mysoginy. In the twitter thread where I found this topic they had posted a comic strip that basically summarized "Love Jihad" in two points, hating muslims and thinking of women as property.
The scary thing is that BJP's strangehold on power doesn't show any signs of abating. They rule the country with an overwhelming majority (in last year's elections they increased their parlamentary lead to 302 MPs out of 543), with barely any political oposition (INC, the other traditional big party of India and current opposition leaders, hold only 51 seats). This rise of Hindu nationalism is apparently bringing back to the public view many issues that were in the background for many years, with hostility to inter-faith marriages being one of them, and other issues such as arranged marriages and the caste system that were never fully abandoned. I mean, Modi himself is in a weird arranged marriage that almost nobody knows much about.
Here's another article from the Guardian on the topic after the controversy by the Netflix film mentioned in the previous article:
QuoteBBC's A Suitable Boy rankles 'love jihad' conspiracy theorists in India
BJP reaction to depiction of Hindu-Muslim romance follows recent rows over interfaith marriages
When the BBC's adaptation of Vikram's Seth's novel A Suitable Boy recently landed on Indian Netflix it did not take long for the fanfare to turn to controversy.
The series, it was claimed by politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), had "hurt religious sentiments" of Hindus by depicting the lead character, a Hindu girl called Lata, passionately kissing a Muslim boy against the backdrop of a temple.
The accusation over the series based on Seth's novel about love and politics in post-partition India was the latest in a debate that has exercised the country in the past few weeks after four states, all with BJP governments, said they would pass laws to make "love jihad" illegal – referring to forced conversion for the purposes of marriage.
This week, two senior officials at Netflix India were booked by police for "objectionable scenes" in A Suitable Boy. Gaurav Tiwari, a BJP youth wing leader, demanded Netflix remove the content and apologise for "encouraging love jihad", and called for a nationwide boycott of the streaming platform. A police investigation is under way.
The "love jihad" conspiracy theory claims that Muslim men are part of a plot to lure Hindu women into marriage to force their conversion to Islam. It was once a fringe notion among the Hindu right, but since the BJP came to power in 2014 it has entered the mainstream, feeding a culture of suspicion around interfaith couples.
At the heart of the debate lies a crucial concern: that there is no substantive evidence that the practice exists in India. In February, the government confirmed that the term "love jihad" was not defined under any existing laws and no cases had been reported to central agencies for investigation.
In Uttar Pradesh, of 14 recent cases investigated by police, eight were found to involve consenting couples and no convictions were made.
Interfaith marriage has remained rare and is often frowned upon in India. However, in the last few years couples in such marriages have spoken of facing unprecedented social, legal and familial persecution. They have reported intimidation and violence from extremist Hindu groups, who can target their homes, send threats over WhatsApp and publish their details on social media.
Asif Iqbal, the co-founder of Dhanak of Humanity, an organisation that assists interfaith couples, said: "Interfaith marriage has always been challenging in India but in recent years it has become very dangerous. Now we see families trying to intimidate their own children out of interfaith marriages by contacting a Hindu fanatic group who will create trouble and use violence."
Not all interfaith marriages involve religious conversion. The right to a secular marriage is enshrined in the 1954 Special Marriage Act but many in India are completely unaware that this law even exists.
In Uttar Pradesh police visit the parents of couples who register for an interfaith secular marriage, and have been reported trying to intimidate them into halting proceedings. District registrars regularly refuse to register interfaith marriages, and under the law 30-day notices of marriages are sent to the parents of couples, as well as posted on public noticeboards and in national newspapers. This can pose an extra dilemma for interfaith couples who do not have consent from their parents.
Akanksha Sharma, 31, a Hindu, spoke of the difficulties and trauma she faced in trying to marry Mohammad Abdul Suaib, 34, a Muslim, in 2015, against the will of their families. After escaping from her family, who had taken her prisoner, the couple had to move cities and jobs in order to find a registrar.
"Many people, including members of my family, were telling me that I was a victim of love jihad and were expecting my husband would force me to become a non-vegetarian or convert me forcibly," said Sharma. "It has been five years and still people call or message me to see if I have been forced to convert and if the jihad has happened. It is a myth, there is no jihad in love."
Critics say the move to target marriages between Hindus and Muslims under the law is part of an attempt to further the BJP's Hindu nationalist agenda.
The Rajasthan chief minister, Ashok Gehlot, from the opposition Congress party, accused the BJP of manufacturing the idea of love jihad to "divide the nation and disturb communal harmony".
TS Singh Deo, another Congress minister, said love jihad was "an exhaustingly bigoted term coined by BJP", adding: "The hatred and intolerance has crept so deeply that they are now brazenly planning laws against consensual interfaith marriages."
The BJP's general secretary, Arun Singh, said: "Love jihad is a serious problem ... many mothers and sisters have suffered its bad consequences. This is a state matter and state governments should enact law against it."
The rightwing firebrand chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has sought to portray the issue as a key concern. On Wednesday the state drafted a law outlawing conversion for the purposes of marriage, though it did not refer specifically to love jihad.
The chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka have all declared they would follow Adityanath's example. The state of Himachal Pradesh enacted strict laws against forced conversion last year. "This love jihad has been there for some time and it is a social evil," said Basavaraj Bommai, Karnataka's home minister.
However, judges in the Prayagraj high court in Uttar Pradesh this week said the law had no place interfering in marriage choices, and condemned a previous 2014 court ruling that ruled it "unacceptable" to change religion for the purpose of marriage.
"The right to live with a person of his or her choice, irrespective of religion professed by them, is intrinsic to right to life and personal liberty," said Justice Pankaj Naqvi and Justice Vivek Agarwal.
I think there are similar beliefs in the US and Europe. Muslim radicals are marrying ugly western women to get into the US and Europe.
Quote from: The Larch on December 05, 2020, 08:14:25 AM
The scary thing is that BJP's strangehold on power doesn't show any signs of abating. They rule the country with an overwhelming majority (in last year's elections they increased their parlamentary lead to 302 MPs out of 543), with barely any political oposition (INC, the other traditional big party of India and current opposition leaders, hold only 51 seats). This rise of Hindu nationalism is apparently bringing back to the public view many issues that were in the background for many years, with hostility to inter-faith marriages being one of them, and other issues such as arranged marriages and the caste system that were never fully abandoned. I mean, Modi himself is in a weird arranged marriage that almost nobody knows much about.
I mean until Modi was PM he wasn't welcome in most Western countries because of his role in the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat while he was premier. It is very alarming.
India is still a democracy and it will hopefully get out of the current BJP Hindu nationalist politics. It's one of the countries I think is, like the US or Israel, could go down an Erdogan style route which I really hope doesn't happen. I don't know enough to comment but I suspect that it would probably help if the Gandhi dynasty stepped back from the INC.
And there have always been complex politics around people trying to convert Hindus - the largest recent anti-Christian violence was in Orissa for a similar reason and movements for dalits/untouchables to convert to Buddhism have had similar allegations (though not the "love jihad" angle).
And I think in Uttar Pradesh the Chief Minister is a real Hindutva radical - I think he's had issues with the BJP and RSS (!:blink:) being too moderate in the past. Of course we probably said similar things about Modi back when he was just in Gujarat :(
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 08:52:21 AM
I think there are similar beliefs in the US and Europe. Muslim radicals are marrying ugly western women to get into the US and Europe.
There definitely are - although in Europe (and maybe the US) I think the far-right angle is more about "demographic replacement" rather than interfaith marriages plus conversion.
But online (especially Twitter) there's a lot of cross-pollination of European far-right, American Islamophobes and Indian nationalists is strange to see. The main thing the far-right around the world agree on is hostility to Muslims.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 05, 2020, 09:28:21 AMIndia is still a democracy and it will hopefully get out of the current BJP Hindu nationalist politics. It's one of the countries I think is, like the US or Israel, could go down an Erdogan style route which I really hope doesn't happen.
IIRC in Israel they had a similar controversy to this "Love Jihad" thing, in which they accused young Palestinians about hiding being muslim in order to hook up with jewish girls. An angle of the LJ conspiracy theory is that muslim men would hid being muslim (to the point of using fake names) to their prospective brides until they were about to get married, when they'd then force conversion upon their brides to be, so this "conversion by deceit" angle is not unique to India.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 05, 2020, 09:31:11 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 08:52:21 AM
I think there are similar beliefs in the US and Europe. Muslim radicals are marrying ugly western women to get into the US and Europe.
There definitely are - although in Europe (and maybe the US) I think the far-right angle is more about "demographic replacement" rather than interfaith marriages plus conversion.
But online (especially Twitter) there's a lot of cross-pollination of European far-right, American Islamophobes and Indian nationalists is strange to see. The main thing the far-right around the world agree on is hostility to Muslims.
I guess that makes a lot of sense as they have become the most suitable/convenient "local enemy" in many countries across the world. Not only they have probably taken over as THE visible local "not us" minority from Jews/whatever other local flavour there was, their numbers have grown in the living/anecdotal memory of a lot of people, and 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.
Quote from: grumbler on December 04, 2020, 11:28:59 PM
Hindu nationalism has always seemed weird to me because Hindu teachings include the idea that the world as we perceive it is all just an illusion anyway. Only our atman (and Brahman, the ineffable Ultimate Reality of which our souls are composed) is real. Thus, a Hindu Nationalist is, in their own terms, acting in accordance with an illusion and ignoring reality. That's the way to turn away from release from the illusion.
These are people who had a complicated caste system... People who are low born or born in the wrong caste or born with the wrong race are people who were wicked in a previous life.
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.
Quote from: Malthus on December 05, 2020, 02:57:14 PM
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?
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?
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 03:53:20 PM
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.
Quote from: Malthus on December 05, 2020, 02:57:14 PM
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."
Quote from: The Brain on December 05, 2020, 03:54:50 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 03:53:20 PM
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!
Quote from: Tamas on December 05, 2020, 01:31:46 PM
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.
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?
Quote from: Valmy on December 06, 2020, 03:35:05 AM
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
Quote from: Valmy on December 06, 2020, 03:35:05 AM
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.
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:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtYqzV9VEAAkEeT?format=jpg&name=small)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtY1WDTUUAEX4kP?format=jpg&name=small)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtZKvPAVkAADFT9?format=jpg&name=small)
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".
That last one is really stretching the definition of celebrity.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on February 04, 2021, 11:41:48 PM
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).
Dramatic sunflower beard on the first pic!
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 03:53:20 PM
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).
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.
Quote from: Jacob on February 05, 2021, 07:15:24 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 05, 2020, 03:53:20 PM
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).
Well the Lay of Rig describes each group as physically different. Of course the lay of Rig is incomplete and we have no idea what it said in full or what if it existed in the pagan world at all. What I'm describing is something extremely common in Indo-European paganism. That a group of people are special because of their ancestry (typically because of descent from a God) and because they are special conquering other people is okay.
"Why is that guy the king?"
"Because he descended from Odin. It is his right."
"Why do we conquer the guys over there?"
"Because we are descended from Geat. It is our right"
There is no real moral aspect of it. They don't consider themselves better people for doing, that's not how their religion worked. But it does give reason why they can murder and steal without any sort of ritual impurity. Now pretty much nothing exists of Norse religious practices, but this is is baked into Indo-European paganism from the very beginning.
Hinduism is about the most diverse religion in existence. You can find variants that are practically indistinguishable from Christianity, for instance, barring some name changes.
Hindi-speaking Hindus do definitely have an ethnic component to Hinduism; they don't distinguish much for themselves between being Hindu religiously, ethnically, or linguistically (though they do acknowledge that one can be religiously Hindu without being ethnically Hindu - after all, most Hindus don't speak Hindi).
Hindu nationalism, as I noted before, seems a weird concept, given that one of the core tenets of classic Hinduism is that the reality we 'know" is but an illusion. It is a religion about self-advancement, not group advancement, because anyone (or even everyone) in your group may just be part of the illusion.
Quote from: Razgovory on February 05, 2021, 08:00:34 PM
Well the Lay of Rig describes each group as physically different. Of course the lay of Rig is incomplete and we have no idea what it said in full or what if it existed in the pagan world at all. What I'm describing is something extremely common in Indo-European paganism. That a group of people are special because of their ancestry (typically because of descent from a God) and because they are special conquering other people is okay.
Yeah, it describes each social group as physically different (and consistent with the results of diet, labour, and general standard of life) but that is internal facing not external. It's an explanation that your social status as thrall, free peasant, magnate, or king has a divine explanation. And, in fact, the status of magnate (and king, who tends to rise out the upper layers of the magnate class) is often associated with control of sacred sites, godi-hood, and presiding over prestigious sacred rites.
But the step from "our rulers are descended from/ have a special bond with the gods so it is natural that they rule" to "and therefore we have a right to conquer and destroy" is quite big, IMO. Especially because the Norse never had a particular need to justify raiding and pillaging. The driving force seems to have been that kings' and magnates' social status depended on the ability to distribute largesse through feasts and gifts. If they could gain the wealth to do so via trade and taxation of trade in their territory, great; if not raiding does just fine (and in fact, I blieve the periods of intense Norse raiding corresponds to the periods where warfare stopped the silk trade via Russia into the Baltic sea and beyond creating a shortage of silver income for the magnates and kings).
For those who are interested, here's a translation of the Lay of Rig: https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/rig.html and here's the wikipedia summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADgs%C3%BEula
Quote"Why is that guy the king?"
"Because he descended from Odin. It is his right."
I don't think we have any evidence that Norse rulers right to rule was due to divine descent. Rather, the right to rule was determined by who could maintain the largest and most skilled group of warriors and use them with cunning and skill, and that was settled in battle. Odin was thought to determine the winner when kings clashed, and he was notedly capricious. That is a theme that recurs again and again. When shields clash, men die and kings are laid low. Odin may determine the winner, but nowhere is it suggested he does so due to ties of kinship.
Quote"Why do we conquer the guys over there?"
"Because we are descended from Geat. It is our right"
I'm not scholar, but I've spent a lot of time reading about the Norse and vikings and your assertion here is the first time I've ever come across the notion that any Norse justified conquest due to divine descent.
Once the Norse started coalescing into (Christian) Kingdoms there was an impetus for the kings to follow the prevailing fashion and "discover" prestigious descent of various kinds to shore up their authority, and naturally the hagiographers grabbed whatever was at hand (see f. ex. Saxo Grammaticus tying various Norse gods to different Southern European presitigious lineages). But I don't believe we have any evidence that raiding or conquering heathen Norse referred to any kind of divine justification.
Norse overseas settlements were established by right of conquest and/ or through negotiation with the neighbours. The Great Heathen Invasion of England was justified by the alleged murder of the father of the invasion leaders - Ragnar Lodbrok was allegedly thrown into a pit of snakes by the King of Northumbria (though the historicity of that is unclear). Within Scandinavia itself it was almost always rival dynastic claims and personal or family feuds that are given as reason for wars; such and such a pair of brothers couldn't agree on splitting their inheritance, this person claimed a right to rule through such and such connection to a previous ruler, and so on.
QuoteThere is no real moral aspect of it. They don't consider themselves better people for doing, that's not how their religion worked. But it does give reason why they can murder and steal without any sort of ritual impurity. Now pretty much nothing exists of Norse religious practices, but this is is baked into Indo-European paganism from the very beginning.
Agreed that there was no real moral aspect to it. But "divine descent justifies murder and theft without incurring ritual impurity" sounds to me like neat macro theory projected onto specific contexts without any concrete evidence for that specific context.
Now I may have missed something - like I said I'm no scholar. I'd be happy to hear more about what's driving your theory. But based on what I've read and my understanding there's little to support the conclusion that theories of divine descent or special lineages justified conquest among the Norse.
I don't mean to come across as argumentative here - this is just one of my areas of interest, so I enjoy discussing it.
FWIW I've never heard anything about Vikings thinking themselves a chosen people for plunder or conquest in the sense under discussion. And I've never heard anything about them being big on ethnic or religious purity.
Yeah, this is a macro thing. The whole point of claiming a divine ancestor is to claim you are special. For a whole group to claim a divine ancestor makes their religion ethnocentric.
Quote from: Razgovory on February 06, 2021, 08:50:35 AM
Yeah, this is a macro thing. The whole point of claiming a divine ancestor is to claim you are special. For a whole group to claim a divine ancestor makes their religion ethnocentric.
Disagree. It can be, but it is not always the case, and there are other reasons to claiming divine ancestry.
Yeah, same.
On a purely practical level if your culture values lineage and ancestry - those are important factors - so you have lists of who is whose ancestor, won't you inevitably get to a point where it's either a God or a mythical figure?
You can say basically anything about Hinduism and it will be true someplace.
Quote from: Jacob on February 06, 2021, 11:19:08 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on February 06, 2021, 08:50:35 AM
Yeah, this is a macro thing. The whole point of claiming a divine ancestor is to claim you are special. For a whole group to claim a divine ancestor makes their religion ethnocentric.
Disagree. It can be, but it is not always the case, and there are other reasons to claiming divine ancestry.
You would claim a divine ancestor to seem less special?
Quote from: Razgovory on February 06, 2021, 09:11:26 PM
You would claim a divine ancestor to seem less special?
"Claims of specialness" doesn't really enter into it, rather it's an explanation for why people are grouped the way they are.
"We are all descended from the legendary hero Razgovory who descended from such-and-such a god. That is why we live in Razland and speak Razzian. Razgovory had a twin, Grumbler, which is why Razzian and Grumblish seem like related language, and why Grumbleria's traditional territories are next to Razland. The people across the sea claim to be descended from a different god we've never heard of, which is why we can't make heads or tails of the Garbonin language and why Garbonite customs seem so weird to us."
Garbonites are known for their distinctive lifelike statues.
More illiberal shenanigans from India stemming from the farmers' protests.
QuoteIndia: activist arrested over protest 'toolkit' shared by Greta Thunberg
Disha Ravi charged with sedition, accused editing document on how to support India's farmers that was tweeted by Swedish climate activist
Indian police have charged a 22-year-old climate activist with sedition over accusations she edited and circulated a document tweeted by climate activist Greta Thunberg relating to India's ongoing farmer protests.
Swedish climate activist Thunberg tweeted her backing this month for the farmers, who have been demonstrating since December against agricultural reforms they say will harm their livelihood but benefit large corporations. She shared a document which she said was a toolkit to create and spread awareness about the farmers' complaints.
The toolkit caught the attention of the Delhi police who began a criminal investigation, claiming the document was evidence of a conspiracy "to wage economic, social, cultural and regional war against India."
On Saturday, police conducted a raid on the Bangalore home of Disha Ravi, 22, an environmentalist who co-founded the Bangalore branch of Friday's for Future, a global movement for social justice begun by Thunberg.
Ravi was flown to Delhi and remanded in the custody of Delhi police, over allegations she was a "key conspirator" in the toolkit tweeted by Thunberg. Delhi police said she had started a WhatsApp group and "collaborated to make the Toolkit Doc ... to spread disaffection with the Indian state" and had then directly shared it with Thunberg.
The 22-year-old, who works in a vegan restaurant, has now been charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy.
At a court on Sunday Ravi broke down in tears and said she had only edited two lines of the toolkit file. Police alleged in their statement they had technical evidence that Ravi's role in editing the toolkit was "many times more than the 2 lines editing that she claims". The court remanded Ravi to five days in police custody after police requested time to "unearth her connections with the Sikhs for Justice".
Indian environmental groups condemned Ravi's arrest, describing it as a "witch hunt" on "fabricated charges" and 10 groups demanded her release.
"Delhi police's actions are all the more sinister because Disha was taken to Delhi with no disclosure about her whereabouts, not even to her parents, an action that can be termed extrajudicial abduction," read a statement by the Coalition for Environmental Justice in India.
Delhi chief minister Arwind Kejriwal, who has backed the farmers' protests, called Ravi's arrest "an unprecedented attack on Democracy. Supporting our farmers is not a crime."
Further raids are being carried out by police as they are looking for two more suspects. Earlier this month, police said the campaign material was aimed at waging a cultural war against the government and creating divisions among various groups in Indian society.
On 5 February crowds in Delhi burned effigies of Thunberg after she tweeted support for India's protesting farmers. Photos of Thunberg and pop singer Rihanna were set alight and banners were held aloft warning that "international interference" in Indian affairs would not be tolerated.
Thunberg became embroiled in allegations of an international criminal conspiracy against India after she tweeted a "toolkit" for people who wanted to show support for the farmers. The document included campaigning tips such as suggested hashtags and advice on how to sign petitions.
Though not named in the police case that was filed then, or in Sunday's arrest, Thunberg's tweet was said to have brought the Delhi police's attention to the existence of the toolkit. Leaders in the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) said the toolkit was "evidence of international plans for attacks against India".
The farmer protests have been mainly peaceful. However on 26 January, thousands of farmers overwhelmed police and stormed into the historic Red Fort complex in Delhi after tearing down barricades and driving tractors through roadblocks.
India's foreign ministry hit out this month at "sensationalist social media hashtags and comments" by celebrities following posts from Thunberg and Rihanna.
When the farmers protests started the Economist seemed to indicate that reforming the system created in a totally different environment in the 60s in itself was a pretty good idea, but that the government went about it in the worst possible way, no consultation or forewarning, just dumping drastically new laws and regulations on the farmers almost overnight.
So I understand the upheaval especially in light of subsequent government actions to suppress it, but I just have too many bad memories of farmers wreaking havoc to protect subsidies freedom to be in 100% support of them.
Quote from: Tamas on February 15, 2021, 05:38:16 AM
When the farmers protests started the Economist seemed to indicate that reforming the system created in a totally different environment in the 60s in itself was a pretty good idea, but that the government went about it in the worst possible way, no consultation or forewarning, just dumping drastically new laws and regulations on the farmers almost overnight.
So I understand the upheaval especially in light of subsequent government actions to suppress it, but I just have too many bad memories of farmers wreaking havoc to protect subsidies freedom to be in 100% support of them.
Thing is, even nowadays, agriculture employs something like half of the entire Indian workforce, it's something that literally affects hundreds of millions of people. It's not a semi-forgotten part of the economy like in the west.
Quote from: The Larch on February 15, 2021, 05:43:07 AM
Quote from: Tamas on February 15, 2021, 05:38:16 AM
When the farmers protests started the Economist seemed to indicate that reforming the system created in a totally different environment in the 60s in itself was a pretty good idea, but that the government went about it in the worst possible way, no consultation or forewarning, just dumping drastically new laws and regulations on the farmers almost overnight.
So I understand the upheaval especially in light of subsequent government actions to suppress it, but I just have too many bad memories of farmers wreaking havoc to protect subsidies freedom to be in 100% support of them.
Thing is, even nowadays, agriculture employs something like half of the entire Indian workforce, it's something that literally affects hundreds of millions of people. It's not a semi-forgotten part of the economy like in the west.
Fair point.
India's existing system (the one being modified) was designed to keep people on the land and slow the growth of urban slums. It created the very conditions that politicians now deplore, with artificial high prices and massive subsidies. It's not affordable, but the conditions it created were quite deliberate, and it can't just be turned off because its inconvenient for politicians that want to shift spending to benefit the rich people who own the politicians.
There's no easy solution, but there have to be better ones.
The Green Revolution was impressive but short-sighted because it locked in policies that could not possibly stay relevant in changing conditions. India has too many farmers because it chose to keep people in farming.
Yeah when you pull away the economic foundation for a large section of the population, you're going to see some social instability as a result.
Maybe the theory is a Thatcher-like "pull of the bandage quick and get it over with"....