Author: Edna Fernandes
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 332
ISBN/UPC (if available): 067005870X
Description
Home to all the major religions, India is also, inevitably, host to virtually every type of religious fanatic.
No other nation has witnessed as much proselytization or heard as many war cries in the name of God as has India. Hindus have fought Muslims, Christians have sought to convert animists, Sikhs have armed themselves against Muslims, and Muslims have declared jihad on the kind of Hindu that took delight in the demolition of the Babri mosque. Here in India, writes journalist Edna Fernandes, there is evidence that every religion can be hijacked by the forces of fundamentalism.
Fernandes travels to the country’s recent and past theatres of fundamentalism-from Kashmir to Gujarat, Punjab to Goa-to meet the generals and foot soldiers of communal wars, and lets their rage and rhetoric speak for them. The Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid calls upon his co-religionists to form militant squads to combat persecution by Hindus. In Nagaland-as in Kashmir-what was once a political insurgency is now a holy war, and armed Baptists demand a separate homeland for Christ.
Twenty years after the storming of the Golden Temple and the anti-Sikh riots, an Akali leader in Amritsar cannot forgive, and speaks of continuing the fight for Sikh honour-Sometimes through the pen. Sometimes down the barrel of a gun. And in shakhas across India, Hindu hardliners ready themselves for the final solution: ethnic cleansing.
There are as many stories of prejudice and violence in these pages as there are of insecurity and despair. But they are told by an investigative writer who has readied herself to hear out all with understanding, tolerance and even humour. Examining India’s contemporary history of rabble-rousing and worse, Fernandes has written an important book about the compulsions and consequences of bigotry.
REVIEWS
The cancer of religious bigotry and intolerance has afflicted all communities-Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. This is vividly brought out in Edna Fernandes’s powerful book. Holy Warriors is as fair and objective an assessment of the perils that lie ahead for India as any that I have ever read. It is a must for all of those who wish this country to prosper as a secular democracy.
-Khushwant Singh
EDNA FERNANDES is a British journalist of Indian origin who was born in Nairobi and grew up in London. She has worked for some of the world’s premier news organizations including AP-Dow Jones and Reuters in London and the Financial Times in New Delhi. Her articles have been reproduced in the Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune. She divides her time between London and Delhi.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I: SOLDIERS OF ISLAM
The Mussalmans of Old Delhi
Audience with the Imam
Kashmir: Paradise Lost
Refugee
Messengers of God
PART II: THE CRUSADERS
Inquisition and Exposition
Fish Fry and Fundamentalism
Last Tango in Goa
The God Squads
Headhunters and Missionaries
Nagaland for Christ
Blood, Tears and Oil
PART III: LAND OF THE PURE
Land of the Pure
The Militant Messiah
The Unforgiven
The Disappeared
The Face of Judgement
PART 4: SAFFRON WARRIORS
The Godfather
Gujarat-The Ghost of Partition
Men in Khaki: Goosestepping into the Sunrise
Turbulent Priests
Lost Temple of Ram
Weapon of Mass Distraction: BJP baBe on the Election Trail
Saffron Revolt