BJP secured 100 million votes in last parlimentary elections.It had parlimentary members from Kanyakumari to jammu and from mumbai to tiripura.It ruled India and 15 Indian states and was main opposition party in the remaining states.It gained support only because the people endorsed its ideologies.
Facts, Priya, facts. When one quotes statistics, one needs to be as accurate as possible. BJP wasn't the main opposition party in the remaining states - off the top of my head, it def was not the main opposition party in Kerala where it has not won a single MP seat till date.
Regardless, if getting votes makes things right, the Indian masses must really like pseudo-secularism! Otherwise why would Congress rule now? (Disclaimer: I am not commenting on whether one party is better than the other, just questioning the logic applied)
By whatever name you call it,BJP is a national force with literally around 50% of population on its side and the remaining 50% with the other side.Our country now is divided on 2 ideologies Left and right.
This is not unique to India.Even in USA the country is divided on two poles-right and left.Right wing rules USA now.In next election left wing republicans will come to power.
Democrats accused republicans of being nazis,backward,anti- science,dogmatic,fascist,anti-muslim,anti-human,murderers,war mongers..everything BJP is being accused of.
Still republicans won the election.
when people accept an ideology everything else become meaningless.50% support BJP,50% oppose it.This 50% support came in the past 10 years.Its only growing.It can be stopped if their genuine demands are fulfilled.If not the support base will only grow.To call a party that represents half the indian population and 10% of worlds population as fundamentalists and backward is...it boils down to your word against 50% of the population.
The majority hindu is feeling unsecure in his own country.This resulted in the growth of BJP.If this isnt addressed BJP will continue to grow.
Dear Priya Welcome back But Sattiyiliruppathu thane agapayil varum....We havent forgotton Premadasa and all those dasas have we I shouldnt but all the allegations surrounding the Mutt lately included
For reasons already stated, I am def not going into deep arguments about religions and violence on this bboard. Instead, I just plan to question some 'facts' and 'analogies' that are being quoted throughout the list. What one deduces from facts is up to one's logical faculties and I don't propose to go into that at all.
"when people accept an ideology everything else become meaningless" - What exactly is "everything else"? Gross generalization with no substance. The Nazi party was actually "democratically" elected and most of the German population went on peacefully with their lives during the Holocaust. Doesn't make "anything else"(whatever that means) meaningless.
"To call a party that represents half the indian population and 10% of worlds population as fundamentalists and backward is...it boils down to your word against 50% of the population." - - Forgets the % of the population who did not vote for the party. - Forgets the whole group of people who did not vote at all. - Assumes that whatever % who voted for the party voted because of reasons quoted by author. - Does not take into consideration any regional alliances which are such huge players in India nowadays. - Assumes that someone called 50% of India backward. - If as the author implies, most or all of the Islamic world supports fundamentalism, by her own arugument, "as people have accepted the ideology, everything else is meaningless". Its her word against the entire Islamic/Christian world!
"Anyway I wonder whether such movies are character assasination or not.In USA 4000 pastors were punished so far for child molestation.Not a single movie or photograph or satire came out criticizing this,in the cradle of democracy."
Really? Have you ever watched Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show'? Do you remember watching Jay Leno during the Boston church allegations? Have you read Christopher Hitchens on 'The Slate' anytime? What about NY Times editorials? Unless you live South of the Mason-Dixon line and watch only Fox news and listen to Rush Limbaugh, I do not see how you could have missed all the media criticism hurled at priests at the height of the scandal.
I am with you when you imply that the mainstream US media is more or less a sellout but lets please give them credit when its due.
As to the first question, I apologize. Slight misunderstanding on my part. I thought you were talking about right and wrong and their relationship to success and failure. I realise now you were just talking abt success and failure regardless of how many people are killed or affected. I have no issues with your argument then.
Ofcourse, I do not agree(I cannot see how anyone could) that just because an idea is successful(for certain definitions of the word success), the criticisms against it can be called meaningless but then again, thats your view. Cool.
The only remaining factual issue I have with your response is the statement that "Nazism benefited germans" - you seem to forget that Germany happened to have as its citizens thousands of Jews, gypsies and other peoples who happened to be killed in the Holocaust. But then, I forget you look only at the "collective benefit" regardless of the costs!
As to the second question, you seem to have missed the point. Most analysts agree with your view that BJP is definitely successful with the rich and the upper classes/castes - in fact, that is what a lot of people even have against the BJP. You seem to forget that no one called any BJP supporters backward. Then again, lets please not make statements like 'BJP will win 90% of the NRI vote' when we have no reasonable evidence to prove it. As you very well know(being a stat student), talking to friends, relatives and acquaintances across the country is not a reasonable sample space to assume anything. Note: I am not trying to say that they won't win, but just that you and I do not have enough info to chumma make tall statements like that.
Well, now that I read your mail again, more inconsistencies seem to crop up.
1. Something about how an ideology will be embraced by the people if it benefits them. How do you define benefit and how does a society measure collective benefit/harm? I am sure you are talking about 'perceived benefit' here. For example, the Bush tax cuts affected the poor in this country - it cut their welfare schemes by a large % this cutting long-term economic benefits. But still a large % of the people who will be affected by this still voted for him. Its a well known fact(you can look up any kind of election literature) that a good % of people in any election vote against their economic interests. If you are right about people always voting for things that benefit them, an idea called 'propaganda' will not exist in this world today. Perception is not reality!
2. You talk something abt a success ratio for Hindutva. The idea, might very well succeed but history has taught us time and time again that no ideology(however good or bad it may be) stays at the top or bottom forever. Its a cycle that all must go through.
3. You talk abt a 'high' ratio for the success of Hindutva. Again, the idea might very well succeed for a time but who gave you these 86, 14 type ratios? Where is the basis? Any factual proof or just from thin air? The more I read this, the more I get the feeling that this logic is similar to certain ratios that the 'people's communist republics' talked abt in the last century.
Dear All This probably will be the last mail I am writing on this subject I have better things to do that reason with people who are proud that the age old castisms coming back with a vengence and are really proud of it
Also the NRI's constitute of upper classes and bhramins.In every election the upper castes always support BJP.Jats,kurmis,thakurs all vote BJP.Bhramin vote will never move away from BJP.
Dear Priya in that one statement you have really shown that you do accept the varna dharma as it is practiced today and not as krishnaparamathma wanted it to be.....
Aryan Germans? I thought you thought there were no aryans?
People should learn lessons from the past...The holocuast happened because everybody was not bothered when the jews and gypsies were pesecuted....they were minorities so fellow germans didnt care europe didnt care...Churchill didnt till hitler started to bomb london America didnt care because it did not reach its shores...till pearl harbour....till winter hit europe and hitler made the same mistake as napolean...marching thru the alpine conditions towards moscow...
Had hitler been content with what he had the world would have been speaking german.....not that I admire the guy...If you read Leon Uris you ll bleed from your heart if you had one....read MILA18 or EXODUS
I had been to the Dachau concentration camp and thats not as bad as treblinka or aushwitz but it still made you sick when you saw the gas chambers....the pictures and the camps how could one human being do it to another human being?????the same applies to kashmir pundits and muslims the same applies to the gujarat victims the bombay victims and phoolan devi and the thakkurs....
Interestingly there was a Indian tricolour among the dedicated...because four british agents were gased there and one of them was Noor Inayat Khan....a proud indian who fought the germans and laid her life...
The Nazism became unpopular beacuse of hitlers ethnic cleansing.....like the minority cleansing you guys talk about...
I dont see much difference between the pakistani fanatics who wanted Tajmahal broken and taken to Pakistan and the present day fanatics who want to break structures...
I have been to Kashi and Mathura and it does hurt to see a kaabha in the middle of a shrine but rasing them down is not the answer....
No body has answered to my question.. about taking down the maratha and telugu additions to rajarajeswaram....If I was a true tamilian or may be even the tamil kaapu kazhgam wanted to do it whats stopping them....
As a true hindu I dont want the picture of a non believer above my sivan so lets bring the gopuram down.....
Is this the way forward???? Birmingham is the most godless society in birmingham.....but do you know what are the largest sites of religious activity...
The Big Mosque and the Balaji Temple....The balaji temple in birmingham i am told was the first one to be built on Govt funded land the locals objected to it the govt stood fast and said it had to look after its asian brits and hindu brits....
Thats secular as it were
We ll live in a land which will just be a graveyard.... Definitely there will be someone turning in his graveyard...
I wrote the below mail thinking that it will be my last mail on the subject but even after writing it one hour back, I could not send it as I was held up in a meeting. Before that Sri has said the same.Anyway, I think I have answered much of sri's point in the below mail. the mail might be disorganised and I apologies for that. Time constraint, what to do.
Re. the Balaji temple in Birmingham....it was not done at the cost of the local christians and thats what we too call secularism.
Forgot to write about the lIngam concept yesterday. Just to calrify, Sri, your concept about the lingam structure is also logical, but as far as I know, even the cylindrical part is called lingam and the aavudayar which symbolises female, is a part of the lingam is optional. Kasi viswanathar is a small semicircular structure without the aavudayar. So comparing it with male organ doenst make sense to me (atleast)
Whatever. Criticisms are the only reason any change takes place in any system and thats important to the improvement of that system. If we all sit and say that the ideology has succeeded, lets all keep quiet, nothing will ever come out of it. You yourself cited the right example - Periyar.
Yeah. Outlook's feedback writers all are NRIs, so all NRIs are anti- BJP. Great logic. Thanks for your input.
More factual issues:"Also BJP doesnt get vote in backward states.It gets votes in GOA,karnataka,delhi,mumbai,gujarat,maharashtra,punjab- hardly backward states" - I don't see how one can call these states forward and all else backward. Also, you would also want to check how many of them are actually ruled by the BJP.
Thanks for your thoughts Priya. But I am going to have end this conversation here as I believe we know exactly where each other stand. And the more I read caste-loaded statements, the more I think there's no common point for us to maintain a conversation. Thanks again and have a nice day!