...That's exactly what irks most of your critics in this Forum.... they all want you to TALK UP Hinduism and toe the lines of Hindutva personalities (Hindutva = Political Hinduism) like Sub Swamy.
Alas.. you all hate political Hinduism, as I hate political Islam.
Dear Y, you make a fantastic point. K made some comparisons between India and China on economic matters, and the jingoistic gang saw it as putting India down and were out to get him with their steely knives. India belongs to all of us, not just those Dharma Shashtra thumpers. They don't own the right to define what it is to love India and what it is not. One of the reasons for K leaving is the aftermath of that exchange.
Muslims are a beleaguered minority all across India. They are our brethren and we all are our brother's and sister's keepers. There are some extremists among them, no doubt, but there are extremists among the Hindus as well -- the recent revelations about the bombing of Samjota Express is a case in point, and who can forget the gruesome murder of the Australian missionaries in Orissa by the Bajrang Dal.
The Muslim zealots kept Rushdie out of India, and the Hindu zealots, a whole lot of them, threw M.F. Hussain out of India, and I daresay there are many in this forum as well who support that.
The case Swamy makes for some mythical age when varna ruled supreme for the benefit of the society is what Brahmnical supremacy is all about. Even in their imagined perfect society personified by Rama Rajya, a Shudra had to be mercilessly beheaded for the only crime of seeking Vedic knowledge, and Swamy pines for such a society and criticizing that makes you prejudiced to the rim.
Dirt poor Muslims and dirt poor Dalits have more in common with dirt poor Devars or Vanniyars or Brahmins. I have been to such Brahmin houses, living in abject poverty. These dirt poor people, whether Muslim or Devar or Vanniayar or Brahmin, they are exploited by their own kind, Muslim, Devar, Vaniyar and Brahmin, who are rich. I am personally familiar with one such rich Brahmin family from whose family arose a great revered Jeeyar!!
As James Carville famously declared, "it is the economy stupid". Varna/jAti system, and religion, keeps the poor separated and ignorant, so that the rich and powerful can keep the poor at each others throats allowing the rich to continue to expropriate their labor. Swamy, for all his spunk to go after selected political elite, which I do admire, in the final analysis, is no more than a nostalgic Varna/Hindutva apologist, yearning to return to this feudal system of exploitation.
The politics of division practiced by the likes of Swamy and his Hindutva cohorts, is not good for India.
All said and done, there is no need for any of us to waste another word on Swamy because of the fact his political influence is between zero and nil.
might I say innum varum
Cheers!
