On Thu September 7 2006 7:32 pm, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > I have to ask you this, Shiv: Are you certain you are not projecting > your biases on an unwitting demography? Who defined "Hindu" for you > so that "Hindu dominated India" makes sense? Is that definition > shared by the rest of the country?
All opinions are biases. You could ask me what I think is the answer to my own question - and I will post my take at some later time. I am not trying to project my bias on you but am trying to figure out the manner in which my bias (if any) differs from anyone else's bias. It's such a minor point really. Some joker on the BBC says something - so what's the big deal? The big deal to me is that the statement has a bias. The statement says that India is Hindu dominated and as you have guessed - it leaves it to the listener to figure out what that might mean. Why would the announcer want to say "Hindu dominated India" rather than "India"? Surely there must be some meaning in there? Do you suppose the people who wrote the script of the news item "Pakistan and India have been to war three times over the status of Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority state in Hindu dominated India" were wrestling with questions like "What is Hindu" and "What does domination mean"? I doubt it. I am sure the scriptwriters had one meaning in mind - and that was the meaning they thought they were conveying. The India that fights with Pakistan is not just India, but it is Hindu dominated India. They were not splitting hairs about whether a Jain feels Hindu or not. They have no such confusion. To them the answer to the question "How would you characterize India?" is simply "A Hindu dominated nation" Is that what it is then? What is your view? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you see any unfairness in it at all? If so why? shiv
