On Sun, 2007-05-20 at 20:21 +0530, shiv sastry wrote: > It's just that Martha Nussbaum > has been shielded from this fact and believes that "right wing Hindus" > are > somehow peculiar and different and do not want to live with others in > peace > and harmony. How are right wing RSS/BJP Hindus different from the > description > of "normal" Hindus that I have made?
i didn't see anywhere in the article anything which could give you the impression that the author thinks the noisy worship of stones, snakes, phallic symbols is in any way fanatical. what the author states or implies is fanatical appears to be: - (state-supported or other) violence against members of another religion - destruction of a mosque - an imagined unitary history of india and hinduism, sought to be imposed on all indians without regard to freedom, democracy, the rule of law, or "critical thinking" (e.g. rewriting textbooks with myths instead of facts). these are certainly things that are furthered by the "right wing Hindus" although they may be passively shared in many respects by a large number of other Hindus. to the extent that the majority of hindus avoid "critical thinking", and could thus be seen to be criticised by the author, the author implies that such lack of critical thinking is also present elsewhere among non-hindus, e.g. in the para excerpted below. while she doesn't mention specifically the lack of critical thinking present in large populations of other religions, readers are presumably aware of the creationism movement in the US, there is no implication by the author that it is a problem something specific to hindus. now if you not only noisily worship stones, phallic symbols etc, but also support violence against those who do not, and want to rewrite textbooks to include myths, then you could feel offended by the article. but in that case i can't say the article should not have been posted to this list. -rishab --- What we see in Gujarat is not a simplistic, comforting thesis, but something more disturbing: the fact that in a thriving democracy, many individuals are unable to live with others who are different, on terms of mutual respect and amity. They seek total domination as the only road to security and pride. That is a phenomenon well known in democracies around the world, and it has nothing to do with an alleged Muslim monolith, and, really, very little to do with religion as such. This case, then, informs us that we must look within, asking whether in our own society similar forces are at work, and, if so, how we may counteract them. Beyond that general insight, my study of the riots has suggested four very specific lessons. ---
