Skimmed through in 30 seconds (Mensa member), so may not have got all
nuances, but can we also have a thread branching into Test cricket and the
abomination that is IPL in particular and T-20 in general?
On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 9:05 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
Because it's been too long since we've had a good flamewar.
Because this made me grin.
Because Aadisht (along with most of the list) has been too silent of late.
Udhay
http://www.aadisht.net/blog/2014/01/31/why-hindutva-is-like-dog-breeding/
Why Hindutva is Like Dog Breeding
I have had an insight. Admittedly it was one of those insights which you
get at 1 am when you can't sleep because you had the last cappuccino of
the day a little too late in the day; but despite the circumstances in
which it arose, I think it is a valuable insight. And it is basically
this: the two extreme views of what Hinduism actually is correspond
exactly to the two extreme views dog lovers have about how you should go
about getting a dog as a pet.
Explaining the analogy means I will have to first provide context.
For many years, I was mystified by the fact that Hindutvawadis could
hold these two beliefs simultaneously:
Hinduism is really awesome
Hinduism is under grave, horrible threat and must be preserved at
all costs from any combination of:
Sickular Media
CONgis
Love Jihad
Vatican Missionaries
The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty
Ramachandra Guha
Twitter Secret Santa
These simultaneous beliefs would manifest into calls for legal and
illegal action against anybody who criticised or denigrated Hinduism in
any way, no matter their actual intent.
I, and other likeminded people would be bewildered and say things like
If Hinduism is so great, surely it can withstand these very minor
criticisms. In fact, it was really polite people like Salil Tripathi
who would say such things. I used to say much more outrageous things
like Boss if Hinduism is this vulnerable to criticism, why are you even
bothering with something so weak? Start practicing a more robust
religion like Islam or Thor-worship or some such. Persisting with
Hinduism can only lead to tears and misery as you watch it collapse
around you.
It was not until this month that I realised that this argument was
totally pointless because it assumes that we were thinking of Hinduism
in the same way. We weren't. I was thinking of Hinduism in the way that
Gautam John and Anoopa Anand think of Indian Pi Dogs. They were thinking
of Hinduism in the way that pug owners regard their pugs1 (or actually,
any purebreed dog, but pugs are fashionable these days, so the analogy
becomes clearer - and actually more forceful, as we'll see later on). In
fact, considering how loaded the terms Hindutvawadi and liberal have
become these days, using the terms Pug view of Hinduism and Pi View of
Hinduism might actually be more enlightening in the general discourse2.
More so if you consider that Hindutvawadi could refer to actual
behaviour or actions, while Pug View and Pi View very clearly refer to
mindsets.
If you are Good Guy Gautam, or somebody similar, then resilience,
health, and being robust are necessary conditions of being awesome. You
think pi dogs make great pets and companions because they're healthy,
active, and friendly. A wide genetic stock, you feel, allows for a
pleasing variety of very resilient specimens. Extending the analogy to
religion, what you like most about Hinduism are the practices or beliefs
that are easy to live with and carry on, and its ability to absorb
influences from other religions if they're good ideas.
But if you're on the other extreme, you're not bothered about health and
resilience at all. What you're concerned about is pure breeding, even if
the result of this breeding creates an animal that is so strangely
shaped that more than two out of every three of its kind have diseases
that are directly traceable to its weird shape. The strange, disease
prone, almost nonviable form of the pug (which, along with the modern
bulldog, exemplifies selective breeding run amok) is a feature, not a
bug, because it makes the pug look so cute and distinctive.
Extending this to religion, the weirdest parts of Hinduism, that make it
so difficult and cumbersome to practice, and which also seem so totally
pointless to the disinterested observer, are precisely what the devoted
but threatened promoter of Hinduism thinks are the whole point. It is
irrelevant that fasting for your husbands' good health, letting your own
or other peoples' gotra or caste influence your decisions, practicing a
sattvik diet, or going through elaborate rituals to qualify as a proper
Hindu have not made them happier, more prosperous, or more productive
than the rest of the world that has happily gotten along without all
these. It is because it is difficult to maintain, easy to go wrong, and
serves
