Author: Koenraad Elst
Publisher: Voice of India
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 222
ISBN/UPC (if available): 97889385485022
Description
This book is a collection of articles about secularism and its relationship with religious communalism. In Christian Europe, secularism used to be a way of curtailing the intrusive power of the Churches. In India, however, “secularism” has acquired a wholly different meaning.
Ever since the term was propagated by Jawaharlal Nehru, being an Indian secularist does not require you to reject theocracy and the intrusion of religion into politics. On the contrary, every obscurantist in India swears by “secularism”.
The word’s effective meaning has shifted to a concern quite unknown to its European coiners. Viz. the struggle against Hinduism. In political practice, as also in the editorial policies of the dominant media, secularists patronize all enemies of Hinduism: Islam the Christian Churches, the Communists and Naxalites, the anti-Hindu voices among Sikhs, Jains and neo-Buddhists, as well as mindless consumerism and every other trend that promotes Hindu cultural self-forgetfulness.
The Secularist-Islamist alliance is one of the Wonders of the World and requires ever new exercises in hypocrisy on the part of the former, sometimes descending into grotesque buffoonery.
It is a different matter that the hollow and crassly superficial ideology of Nehruvian Secularism is secure in its power position because of the absence of credible Challengers. With a political opposition claiming to be “positive secularists” and “genuine secularists”, India’s official “Pseudo-Secularism” has no one to fear.
In public discourse, Nehruvian Secularism today is mainly a form of snobbery that confers a cheap moral superiority on self-hating Hindus to Mark them off as enlightened sophisticates against the cramped and backward Hindu “Fundamentalists”. It relieves them, in the comfort of their positions of privilege, of the duty to look into the causes of Hindu discontent.
It is hoped nonetheless that once in a while a sincere attempt to discuss matters can penetrate their wall of self-righteousness, and that this book will promote dialogue between the Nehruvian Secularists and the rest of us.
Contents
Chap. I : US THINKER GIVES UNTHINKING SUPPORT TO ANTI-INDIA DEMANDS : A REPLY TO ROBERT HATHAWAY :
1. Terror in Kashmir
2. Sovereignty
3. America and the Muslim World
4. War Against Terrorism
5. Impact of Gujarat Riots
6. Cut the Money Supply
Chap. II : "INDIAN Secularism IS SYSTEMATICALLY DISHONEST" :
1. Waves
2. The Gujarat Riots
3. Hindutva and the Minorities
4. My Role in all this
5. Secularism
6. Islam and Conversion
7. Hindus and Muslims
8. Here's what's going on
Chap. III : THE SAFFRON WAVE
Chap. IV : THE STRUGGLE FOR INDIA'S Soul : A REPLY TO MINI KAMDAR :
1. "Hindu Fascism"
2. Inequality, Racism and Islam
3. The Perennial Aryans
4. Hate, the Concept
5. The Hindutva Programme
6. The Godhra Carnage
7. A Pre-planned Butchery?
8. Adivasi Participation
9. Rape and Rumours
10. Gandhi
11. A Gilt from Heaven
12. Pakistan
13. The Textbook Controversy
14. Targeted Killings
15. Things to do for Western Governments
16. Conclusion
Chap. V : LEARNING FROM MAHATMA GANDHI'S MISTAKES :
1. Gandhiji's Mistakes
2. Problems with Pacifism
3. Robust Pacifism
Chap. VI : Religious CLEASING OF HINDUS :
1. A Brief Overview of the Problem :
i. Afghanistan
ii. Kashmir
iii. Partition
iv. The Bangladesh War
v. Small-scale Cleansing Throughout India
vi. Cleansing of Hindus by Christians
vii. Cleansing of Hindus by Buddhists
viii. Hindu-cleansing in Africa
ix. Hindu-cleansing in Europe?
2. Why does Nobody know or Care about the Plight of the Hindus? :
i. Distortion of the Terms Underlying the Information
ii. History Denial
iii. False Reporting
iv. Riot Vultures
v. Foreign Complicity
3. Conclusion
Chap. VII : WHAT IF RAJIV Gandhi HADN'T UNLOCKED THE BABRI Masjid IN 1986?
Chap. VIII : NO Hindu JUSTIFICATION FOR Islamic ICONOCLASM
Chap. IX : WAHI : THE Supernatural BASIS OF ISLAM :
1. The Modern view of the Quranic Trance
2. Mohammed's Reaction to the Quranic Trance
3. The Yogic View of Mohammed's Trance
4. Cultural Relativism comes to the Defence of Mohammed's Wahi
5. Herman Somers' Diagnosis of Mohammed
6. Further Symptoms
7. The Physical Basis of a Mental Problem
8. Dealing with a Mistaken Religion
Chap. X : LET'S COMBAT COMMUNALISM :
1. Am I a Sangh Parivar Apologist?
2. My Critique of Islam
3. What is Hindutva?
4. Choice of Sources
5. The Murder of Swami Shraddhananda
6. Hedgewar's and Golwalkar's Record
7. Bjp Secularism
8. Eaton's Book Banned?
9. The Demolition
10. Conclusion
Chap. XI : DHIMMITUDE IN EURABIA :
1. "Don't take Liberties with Freedom"
2. How to Criticize the Prophet
3. Banning the Quran?
4. Whirlwind Ayaan
5. A Former Jihadist Dies : Anwar Shaikh, 1928-2006
Chap. XII : THE CASE OF M.F. HUSAIN :
1. Protests
2. "It's Normal for Goddesses to be Naked"
3. "Nudity is Normal in Modern Art"
4. "Husain is a Muslim"
5. My View
Chap. XIII : A HINDUTVA READER :
1. Presumed Prehistory of the Book
2. "Hindu Nationalism"
3. What's Still Missing