- Who defined a list of 'Indian values'? When were they defined? What are those?
- Who made Shivsena, VHP, Bhajrang Dal and people like Mutalik the caretakers of Indian culture?
- According to me, culture adapts and evolves - it is something that is dynamic, alive and grows. So when the above mentioned groups claim about something to be outside of Indian culture, when did they decide that there were going to be no more additions or evolutions to the list of Indian values? Was it Indus Valley, Vedic times, 1st century BCE, 800 CE, 1600 CE, after the advent of Europeans, after Independence from Britain, 1990, 2000 or 2009 that the saffron brigades decided to stop our culture from growing? What is that date after which our culture stopped evolving and adapting with times?
- Who has asked any of the saffron brigade to meddle any of the affairs of the society?
- Why can't they take up projects like fixing roads and building schools & hospitals?
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Questions Bothering Me!
In the context of a few self proclaimed 'moral-police' groups in my country, India, I have always had a few unanswered questions:
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3 comments:
A few comments I think might help us find answers....
1. Some of the organisations mentioned above were created when there was great need to address the concerns of certain sections of society (not to be read as HINDUS since Muslim League had a similar background).
2. These organisations earned the backing from the people when the self-proclaimed secularists took people for granted. The sentiments of people remain unaddressed when, the riots of Godhra are talked about but not about the train burning, the maoists/missionaries are not questioned but the Khandamal riots makes headlines in France, pamphlets from those ungodly missionaries are not considered for enquiry against church attakers.
3. Mutalik and his men are charged of various crimes but no paper runs the story of them helping the tribal and displaced and providing them of employment opportunities in the remote villages of coastal Karnataka.
I'm not the supporter of church attacks or those pub incidents or the riots involving innocents, nor am I a castist or member of any of those organisations. I prefer to eradicate the column "Religion/Caste" from all the application forms and implement the uniform civil code bringing true oneness!
Let's be fair and question all those organisations which fall under similar category across spectrum. Shivsena, VHP, Bhajrang Dal and SRS don't deserve the scrutiny just because they have the letters H, I, N, D and U in their names and they happen to believe the religion of the majority in India. After all, 'Moral-policing' was coined by the media for them!
Mahidhar:
That is a well written post but would have served well as an independent article elsewhere. Although the content here is debatable I am not going to address them here.
If you carefully re-read my post you would see that, in this particular instance I am not(how ever tempted I am) addressing the issue of scrutinizing the mentioned organizations, their principles or their credibility with respect to their activities. So the issue of Mutalik doing social service is of no relevance in this context, but his so called attempt to protect the Indian culture by abusing girls in the pub is of direct relevance.
The question that has been raised in my post is simple: Who defines the boundaries of the Indian culture? Who is to guard them if ever there is such a need? Does our culture evolve or not? Am I free to choose my own culture?
So kindly stick to the context in the posts.
Some of the answers lie in basic human nature.It is human nature to organize and attach themselves to like-minded individuals to form groups.(In this case,the parties you mentioned).
When any particular group becomes a sizable force,it tries to influence other groups.Human history is all about one group trying to control or influence other group.(In this case,imposing "their" values and ideologies on others).
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