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Showing posts with the label politics

On Politics and Religion

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I had a long conversation today with a close friend of mine, who pointed out to me that my political opinions felt somewhat biased against Hinduism. He was referring to one of my posts where I speculated if the Nuh violence could have been instigated by Bajrang Dal for political reasons. He pointed out to me that even if the origin of the violence was political, it doesn't change the fact that the Muslim population in Nuh threw stones and are not free of blame. My friend pointed out to me that I had nowhere condemned that. I revisited my post and found out he was somewhat right.  Recently I have been writing against fanatic Hindu ideology. My reason for this  is simple: It is not the Hinduism (Santan Dharm or whatever you want to call it) that was taught to me growing up.  I was taught that we were the most inclusive of religions. I was taught to respect others' faith. I was taught that regardless of whatever name you call your God by (Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar - or Allah...

The Troll in Me

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Back in 2013, my uncle used to rant about how, if BJP comes to power, democracy would be in danger. He would cite the Gujrat riots of 2002 as an example - he would say that Narendra Modi got away with mass murder by being in power and he would do the same once he was in power at the center. I was twenty-three years old then and didn't understand my uncle's panic. BJP had been in power earlier as well, during Sri Atal Vihari Bajpayee ji's term as Prime Minister - things weren't that bad. People were not happy with them and voted them out in 2004 - so democracy was still there. So I laughed it off thinking my uncle was being paranoid. I believed that my country was made of sterner stuff - a party with a communal agenda could not possibly change the fact that this country was a land where various religions lived in harmony. Boy, was I wrong! BJP came to power in 2014. Soon, the media started pushing their agenda like anything. People started openly expressing anti-NonHindu...